Echo and the Bunnymen: 'Bono is not a pr**k, just a sound bloke'

As the veteran Liverpool band return to Ireland, they talk glory days, vinyl revivals and that spat with U2

Echo & The Bunnymen: Ian McCulloch and Will Sergeant. 

In recent decades we've had such spats as Kanye v Taylor Swift and Blur v Oasis, but back in the 1980s, it was U2 v Echo and the Bunnymen that briefly lit up the music press. Bunnymen singer Ian McCulloch – who brings his band to the Olympia in Dublin on Tuesday, February 9 – once referred to the Irish group's ouput as “music for plumbers and bricklayers”, among other insults.

But now, according to Bunnymen guitarist Will Sergeant, peace has broken out. Apparently, the new-found respect is partly down to encounters with Bono's son Elijah, who fronts emerging band Inhaler.

“We were trying to be ubercool,” admits Sergeant of those fractious days. “They got clothes bought for them because they didn’t have time, that was too old-school rock'n’roll to us. The other thing was they worked their socks off - they did 18 months in America and that’s how they cracked it; through perseverance.

“We were all killing each other after six weeks but they just kept going. In the '80s everyone was kind of enemies and trying to outdo each other, we’d be slagging off everyone off but it’s pathetic really when you look back on it. I’ve made my peace with U2 and Bono via his son Elijah. We've shared some crew and gigs with his band Inhaler. I saw Bono at one of the gigs and we had a chat, he was a nice fella… not a prick, just a sound bloke.”

 EARLY DAYS 

 It’s almost 45 years since Sergeant handed out copies of his first demos. Inspired by the atmospheric B-side to David Bowie’s 1977 album Low, they soon caught the attention of fellow-Liverpool musician Ian McCulloch and his schoolmate, bassist Les Pattinson. That trio were in turn joined by drummer Pete de Freitas prior to the release of their debut long-player Crocodiles in 1980, the first of five albums that would cement Echo and the Bunnymen as one of the most influential guitar bands of the era.

They would implode by the end of the decade amid a brouhaha of fighting exacerbated by booze and drugs problems within the band. The temporary departure of McCulloch in 1988 was followed a year later by the tragic death of De Freitas at the age of 27 in a motorcycle accident.

Bunnymen mythology has often been driven by the band’s enigmatic front-man, McCulloch, also known as 'Mac the Mouth'. Sergeant’s genius was playing to the song while taking on a vital role in creating the band’s sweeping soundscapes using his singular tone and style.

Beyond being one of the most respected guitarists of his generation, Sergeant is an acclaimed artist and has won plaudits for his memoir, Bunnyman, written largely in lockdown, and released last summer. “It’s amazing because I was rubbish at school,” he says.  “I was always interested in culture and artists and that all fed in, I’ve read the odd book. It started when the record label asked me to do the liner notes for the first four Bunnymen albums [re-released 180-gram vinyl editions] and I really enjoyed that. The shocking thing was that I could do it, I could be descriptive and make it interesting or amusing.”

 Channeling something of the alternative music and attitudes of the late '60s from the Velvet Underground to The Doors, Crocodiles helped set the tone for guitar music at the start of the 1980s. Tracks such as Villiers Terrace and Rescue remain Bunnymen staples.

Of the latter Sergeant suggests: “I was thinking of Television at the time, it’s a funny little shape which I started playing and it became Rescue with that great bass line. I loved The Doors, the others weren’t keen because they were punks, really anything from the old world was shunned. I played The Doors so much they started to like them.” 

Uncommon for the era, the band’s artwork was every bit as compelling as the music. “We didn’t like graphic things, everything had triangles, circles or squiggly lines in the 80s, we hated all that,” says Sergeant.

Brian Griffin’s outdoor photography gave continuity to the band’s run of four classic albums, but perhaps the most striking remains Crocodiles. “It was shot in the woods at Rickmansworth [north of Londonl the best thing about it looking back was seeing the wood with all these shafts of light coming through the trees on this freezing, misty night; it was like Close Encounters of the Third Kind.”

Echo & the Bunnymen: Crocodiles, and Songs to Learn & Sing.

 ARROGANCE OF YOUTH 

 Sergeant’s memoir - the first of three - offers a few surprises, pointing to Led Zeppelin as having a significant sway on the guitarist. “I can’t speak for Mac because he probably hates them but yeah there was a mystery about Led Zeppelin, they were above everything else. For me that mystery was part of the band, the sense of trying to keep the mystery going. It still goes on even though I’ve written a book.

“I met Robert Plant once, we were recording at Rockfield and Robert was living there at the time, he was mooching about while we were recording. I got him to sign my original copy of Led Zeppelin III, I remember he gave us a lift into Monmouth a couple of times in a Mercedes, he was a dead nice fella, I remember saying to him, ‘don’t worry Robert; Zeppelin will be back!’ This was the early '80s after they had split up, I cringe when I think back on it now, the arrogance of youth.”

 It was that arrogance that drove the early years, as Sergeant suggests there were benefits to not knowing what you’re doing. “That’s an advantage when you don’t know because people go down the beaten track. Later on you know how it all works but when you don’t, you just want to make it sound good to you.” 

 Just as rivals U2 were becoming the biggest band on earth the cracks were beginning to appear among the Bunnymen when recording their self-titled 1987 album. Before splitting they would record with The Doors keyboardist Ray Manzarek for versions of Bedbugs and Ballyhoo and People Are Strange. “Ray was brilliant, he had a real laid back LA hippy vibe, he also played live with us a couple of times.”

 The band’s dramatic sound was a good fit for film soundtracks of the era and helped build a cult following in America with tracks such as the stand-alone single Bring on the Dancing Horses featuring in Pretty In Pink. Their version of People Are Strange was vital in setting the tone for The Lost Boys a year later.

STILL ROCKING 

McCulloch and Sergeant are essentially the band now, with Les Pattinson leaving in 1998 after Evergreen, for many their best post-80s album. The guitarist has learned to live with a new dynamic. “I don’t have a lot to do with the work now. I’ve been ostracised from the writing process, my stuff just gets ignored. I’ve got used to it, I would have preferred it if we were all still together but it's never going to be like that again… the stuff I was involved in was the best.” 

 In another cinematic association, their 1984 single The Killing Moon was introduced to a new audience through cult favourite Donnie Darko back in 2001. The towering mythology around the track has increased with each passing year. 

“Yes, it has grown into something we never saw somehow. It’s brilliant and I love playing it, when recording I put autoharp on the choruses doing all these strange little studio techniques and some weird things happened like the intro, that was just something I did when tuning up. The producer David Lord had found it, bounced it across and timed it into the song, it just fitted and we thought it was great.” 

 In terms of influence McCulloch has cited both Bowie and Sinatra, where did Sergeant draw inspiration? “I was just trying to be like The Byrds” he laughs. “Mac’s got his take on it, I suppose there’s a bit of Sinatra in there… why not?” 

•  Echo & the Bunnymen play the Olympia Theatre on Tuesday, February 9. Songs to Learn & Sing is reissued on February 18