Culture That Made Me: The Stunning's Steve Wall on Peggy Lee's Fever, Bob Dylan and more
Steve Wall: a Stunning selection of cultural influences
Born in London in 1963, Steve Wall grew up in Dublin and Ennistymon, Co Clare. In 1987, he co-founded The Stunning. In 1990, the bandâs debut album, , topped the Irish charts. A few years after The Stunning broke up his brother, Joe, and himself formed The Walls in 1998. He has several notable acting credits, including , Ridley Scottâs and Netflixâs series. The Stunning headline Macroom Music Festival, Saturday, 22 June. See: www.macroommusicfest.ie.
The Beatles had a huge effect on me when I discovered them aged about eight years old. I loved the energy from the performances â from the drums and the sound of the electric guitars. I loved Sgt. Pepperâs because it had lyrics written on the back so I would listen to it while reading through the lyrics. Probably the album that made the biggest mark on me was . The sound of 'Taxman' and those jagged electric guitars, with that stabbing intro, and the guitar solo is like a bag of cats.
My grandfather loved crooners. A lot of his generation loved a great voice. Singers were not so much judged on lyrical content, mostly singing covers of songs from Tin Pan Alley. That generation appreciated how somebody would take a song and do it a certain way. Take Brook Benton. He was a truck driver. Apparently he was a huge influence on Elvis, who also did a spell as a truck driver. They maintained that by singing along in the cab over a noisy truck, it made the voice much stronger. Brook Benton does my favourite version of 'Moon River.'
As a teenager I saw Michael Ciminoâs when it came out. I was in Tralee with the FCA, the army reserves. A bunch of us went to see it. We came out of the cinema and we were rattled. I donât know what we were expecting. Bizarrely the following day we were marching around the square, with the old Lee Enfield rifles. We were like young soldiers. It almost felt like I was part of that movie. The movie stayed with me for weeks. It was riveting.
Peggy Lee is another amazing singer. My mother loved Peggy Lee. She loved that Peggy Lee had perfect pitch. She was mentored by Frank Sinatra. These people studied the voice and technique.Â
When you hear, say, Peggy Lee singing 'Fever,' it's so sparse. The recordings from those times sound far superior than a lot of modern recordings because of the skill of the sound engineers and arrangers, not cluttering a song, leaving space. They were masters.
When myself and my brother Joe got our first Led Zeppelin record our minds were blown. We ended up getting them all, especially . That's the one that had 'Heartbreaker' and 'Whole Lotta Love.' Just the sound of the records, the power. I loved Jimmy Pageâs aggressive style of playing. He digs into the guitar. His solos are amazing. There was a lot of air guitar going on with tennis rackets and hurleys to the solos in Led Zeppelin songs.
Growing up, every teenage boy was obsessed with David Carradine in Kung Fu. It had everything in it. It was a western. It also had martial arts and Shaolin culture. It was around the time of Bruce Lee. Weâd been to see . The series was a must watch. You would cancel anything to see it.
The Clash was a band I got into because they became more than a punk band. The song writing was intelligent. Joe Strummer was constantly evolving, taking a political stance.Â
The lyrics were anti-Thatcherite. I enjoyed that they were part of âthe red wedgeâ with Paul Weller and other left-leaning artists in the UK. Even the way The Clash dressed. Black combats, the almost Gene Vincent look â caps with shirt sleeves rolled up to the shoulder, cigarettes, and high Doc Martens. They just looked cool.
When people talk about a front man, the default is some guy running around the stage like Mick Jagger, or Bono, who's trying to appeal to the little person down the back of the stadium. With front men or women, everything became exaggerated, with the ego ramp in big stadiums. I was put off by a lot of those antics â the fact that someone has to prance around, and everything is slowed down. It became a clichĂ©Â â skipping around the stage with the wind in your hair.Â
I like a cooler performer like Elvis, for example. OK, he did his karate kicks and his suits were amazing, but Elvis, as a front man, served the song.
Back in the late-1970s, when you only had one channel, RTĂ One, watching a TV series was a shared experience. You knew everybody else was watching it that night as well, and that you'd be talking about it in school on Monday. A great TV series from then was . There was friction. It wasn't all harmonious. It was edgy. I loved the character that Nick Nolte played. He was magnetic in it.
Bob Dylan is an incredible songwriter. Heâs able to do stream of consciousness. Heâs able to do real folk songs, about somebody or about an event, really well. Then he's able to do 60s songs like 'Tambourine Man' and 'Like a Rolling Stone.' A lot of his lyrics don't seem to make much sense, but they're so colourful and evocative. I envy his productivity. Dylan songs can be very long. He has this flow.
I love The Band, especially Levon Helmâs singing, and Robbie Robertsonâs songwriting. 'It Makes No Difference' is one of my favourite songs ever. It captures heartache; it's very poetic. I love 'The Weight.' I love 'The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down.' It encapsulates that feeling of the Deep South during the Civil War. Robbie Robertson was a superb songwriter.
I saw a version of Tom Murphyâs in the mid-80s in Galway. Godfrey Quigley played the father. Sean McGinley, among other regular Druid cast members, was in it. They put it on in a Jesuit school hall. The play captured a kind of violence I encountered growing up â young men that drink too much, too much testosterone. Going to dances in, say, Miltown Malbay in Clare, there would always be fights. Macho drinking, plucking up courage, and then fighting, it was ridiculous. Whistle in the Dark encapsulated that mindset, men utterly lacking in confidence and self-worth. It's an unbelievable play.
The first time I was ever aware of a performance, I was probably about 15 and I saw . James Dean was completely riveting. It was how he moved, his body language. He moved differently to other actors, a subtle kind of vulnerability. I loved his vibe.
