Page 103 - Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Coverage Book 2023-24

Will Sergeant of Echo & the Bunnymen at Anfield Stadium (Image: Getty)

RTISEMENT

“We used to turn things down if they were too cheesy or too mainstream,” he
tells the Daily Express, stressing how they would refuse to play a concert if

they deemed another band on the same bill “uncool”. “We were shooting
ourselves in the foot in a commercial sense,” he admits.

Sergeant is sitting at the back of a Victorian pub in Bloomsbury, central
London, sipping a long, cold glass of Diet Coke. Originally from Liverpool, but

now living in Lancashire, he is in the capital to promote his new, and second,
memoir Echoes.

In it, he explains his decision to eschew all things mainstream. “My idea of
success was creating cool, innovative, timeless music, not chart positions and

becoming a household name kind of deal,” he writes. “I wanted very much to
be given those most elusive of accolades: cool, underground or even hip.

“In my blinkered opinion, our band was not like the rest of the up-and-coming

crop of Liverpool post-punk bands, some of which seemed to be doing it for
fame or even money. This never entered my head.”