What I Learned from Will Sergeant’s Bunnyman

I recently finished Bunnyman, the memoir of Will Sergeant, the guitarist who formed Echo and the Bunnymen. This is what I learned, (or was reminded of):

• Punk was a short-lived thing. The really interesting stuff was what came after.
• The kids who were into punk/post-punk ran the gauntlet every time they left the house. There was always some meat-head ready to challenge them for their look. It took bravery to follow their hearts.
• The seventies were a bleak time. No one had any money, everything was on a shoestring. But everyone was in the same situation, so it kind of balanced out.
• Creativity needs an infrastructure to build upon. The Bunnymen had an astonishing club to go to (Eric’s) that all-time great bands came to play, cafes to hang out in, indie record labels on their doorstep.
• This gave them a chance to access other levels of the infrastructure: the magazines, Sounds and the NME; John Peel and the BBC; Sire Records. The Bunnymen were good enough to be offered the opportunity, (many bands weren’t), but they might have found it a bit harder if that infrastructure wasn’t in place.
• Brian Eno talks about Scenius – where a given location at a given time elevates the work of the people who are there to encourage them to reach greater heights. The list of bands or musicians from Liverpool at that time is astonishing: Echo and the Bunnymen; The Teardrops Explodes; Bill Drummond and Dave Balfe, who went onto run the label that signed Blur); Holly Johnson and Paul Rutherford, who found fame in Frankie Goes to Hollywood; Ian Broudie; Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark; Jayne County, Pete Burns. Pretty astounding.
• The dole and art college/teacher training (along with crappy jobs) have been the bedrock of working class creativity these last 60 years. The great equalisers.
• There’s a thin line between competent and greatness. There were more accomplished guitarists than Will Sergeant, but so what – he was the perfect guitarist for the Bunnymen, who were a magnificent band. He needed a base competence, but beyond that, it was all to do with his own musical sensibility.
• One thing leads to another, but you don’t know what the another thing is until you do the one thing in the first place. Will went to a party above a pub, presuming it would be crap. He was early, and the only person he vaguely knew there was Ian McCulloch, who was usually late. They started nattering. One thing led to another, but he didn’t have a clue what circumstances had lined up for him until he got to the pub.
• Start with what you’ve got. If you haven’t got a drummer, use a drum machine.