Interview by Lauren Foster

2016 sees 30th anniversary of The Wonder Stuff and release of their eighth studio album, 30 Goes Around The Sun. After a string of sell-out shows on their anniversary tour, the band reunite to showcase some special Christmas performances.

The Wonder Stuff released their eighth album, 30 Goes Around The Sun, earlier this year in celebration of their 30th anniversary. Can you tell us a little bit about it?
The band originated in Stourbridge, which is where we all met and did our early rehearsals. There was a studio called The Fridge on the north side of the ring road, and about half a mile in the other direction, which is where we used to rehearse, is a studio now called Mockingbird, where we recorded 30 Goes Around The Sun. So it basically took 30 years for the band to go half a mile in terms of where we did some of our best work. The producer who did the new album, Simon Efemey, was the guy who owned the original studio 30 years ago. He’s been our live sound engineer for most of those years. He’d never produced us before but had often said to me, ‘I don’t think you’ve made a record that represents what you are live’. He’d gone on to have a successful heavy metal and hard rock production career, so he produced the record.

You’re playing six special Christmas gigs, one of which is at the O2 Institute, with special guests Bentley Rhythm Ace and Fuzzbox. How did that come about?
We have a long history with Bentley Rhythm Ace because the bass player was the bass player in Pop Will Eat Itself, and The Wonder Stuff and Pop Will Eat Itself were kind of tied together. We came up right behind them. They did us a number of early favours - getting us gigs out of the area, giving us phone numbers of promoters and journalists - so we’ve got quite a long history with them. Fuzzbox are another Midlands band. Probably about a year before we had success with our first couple of singles, Fuzzbox enjoyed their moments in the sun. I’ve remained friends with them over the years, so it’s great to have them along.

What can your Birmingham audience expect from The Wonder Stuff during this special Christmas show? 
We’ve put out our new album this year. We’ll play for around 90 minutes, which is about 24 songs, and I wouldn’t think we’ll do more than four off the new album. Hopefully it’ll be a pleasingly balanced collection of songs from all of the other records. A mixture of everything.

Your uncle, Bill Hunt, was a keyboard player with ELO and Wizard, and your dad was a jazz drummer. With that in mind, did you always want to pursue a career in music, even from a young age?
I started off as a drummer under my dad’s tuition, but that didn’t last long as I had too much of an ego to sit at the back of the stage! So I gradually found my way to the microphone. But yeah, absolutely. I have a few memories of Wizard staying at our house when I was a kid. They’d all be fast asleep on the lounge floor while I was getting ready for school. I’d look at my mum and dad and they’d be polishing their shoes. Mum would be putting on her makeup, dad would be straightening his tie, and then there’d be these four or five hairy guys, fast asleep in the lounge, who looked like they had no intention of moving until at least midday! I think my life choice was made right there. Okay, what do I wanna do when I grow up? Be one of those guys or get up early in the morning to go and work for someone who doesn’t really appreciate me? So I went with the music and it’s served me well so far...

The Black Country had a fantastic music scene back in the 1980s and ’90s. How did growing up in Stourbridge have an influence on you and the band? 
I actually grew up in a village near the NEC in Birmingham, but when I left home at 18, which was for no other reason than me and my mates wanting to get a flat together so that we could drink all the time, I went to Stourbridge. I’d already spent a lot of time over there because I’d met Clint Mansell from Pop Will Eat Itself, and Adam Mole and all those guys who were in the band. There was an arts school in Stourbridge that had a live venue, and in the Black Country you were never far away from JDs in Dudley, which was a really on-the-map national touring venue for all the bands that I wanted to see, so it just seemed like the logical place for me to go. There was a bunch of like-minded musicians there. I had some musician friends over in Birmingham, but they didn’t seem like they were going to do anything with it. It was more about going into your garage and making a noise with your friends. When I met the guys from Pop Will Eat Itself, once they’d got themselves a collection of songs, it was like, ‘How do we get out of the Black Country? How do we get this on a national tour?’. They figured it out and then gave it all to us.

You’ve collaborated with numerous artists over the years. Is there anyone in particular you’d love to collaborate with but haven’t as yet?
Not really, no. There’s a wonderful Canadian band that we made some stuff with called Spirit Of The West, and we had the great pleasure of working with Kirsty MacColl and Vic Reeves. None of those things were planned. When we met Kirsty MacColl, both of us were a little drunk in the studio one evening, and she asked if she could come and listen to what we were doing. She liked one song and said, ‘I’ll sing on that one when we’re sober tomorrow, if you like’. And then with Vic Reeves, I met him at a party and he said, ‘I know what we should do, we should have a number one single together’. And we did! The guys who were in Spirit Of The West were touring over here, and I’d seen them when I was in Vancouver. I found out that they were playing a tiny little venue in South London, and that after the gig they had two or three days off. We were booked into a studio in Camden, so I just said, ‘Come and visit us’. So they did and that then turned into a recording session. So as you can see, nothing has ever been planned.

Obviously you still have your fans from the ’80s and early ’90s. Do you feel the band appeals to a new and perhaps younger market?
We do, and I choose to believe that it’s probably the sons and daughters of the original fans. Something like NME doesn’t pay any attention to us and serves a younger crowd. When I speak to younger people who’ve turned up, they say, ‘My dad used to play you all time’, which is lovely. We never imagined when we started out that somebody might be growing up with the soundtrack of The Wonder Stuff - it’s quite amazing, really.

And finally, what does the future hold for The Wonder Stuff?
We’re going to have a quieter year next year. This year, with it being the 30th anniversary, we’ve done as much as we could. We toured earlier in the year, are touring at the end of the year, we’ve done festivals all through the year and warm-up shows for those. I think we’ll be doing festivals next year too - we do enjoy that, and it’s nice to be asked and is hard to turn down. I’d like to think we’ll do a new record in 2018. Myself and Erica are planning to make just a duo record of our acoustic things next year. The two of us will tour but not the full band. I’ve also got two books that I’m writing. I’d like to publish both of those next year. Erica is a visual artist, she does oil paintings, so we stay busy. In fact, there’s always too much to do, but that’s great!

The Wonder Stuff play O2 Institute, Birmingham on Friday 23 December