Page 104 - Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Coverage Book 2023-24

At the height of the Bunnymen’s success, Sergeant even tried to wriggle out of
performing on Top of the Pops – an opportunity most young bands would give
their eye teeth for. “I really didn’t want to do it,” he recalls. “When we went on,

it was like a circus – there was some geezer on stilts. It made us cringe. I was
thinking, ‘We’re not interested in your world. We’ve got enough fans anyway.’”

Although they were initially on the darker side of the post-punk genre, The

Bunnymen – Sergeant on lead guitar, McCulloch on vocals, Les Pattinson on
bass and Pete de Freitas on drums – nevertheless wrote and performed some

very catchy tunes.

At the time, the music press tried to stir up bitter rivalries between them and

their indie rock peers such as Irish band U2 and Scottish band Simple Minds –
in a similar way to the infamous Blur vs Oasis rivalry 15 years later.

But Sergeant admits the Bunnymen “went along with it willingly”, always keen
to stir up antagonism. “We were the worst protagonists. We used to call [other

bands] names in the press,” he adds, recalling how, once while touring
Australia, they randomly found themselves drinking in the same bar as Simple

Minds. Bizarrely, the two bands chose to ignore each other completely.

“It was a strange rivalry kind of thing. We sat at the bar not more than ten feet

away, without acknowledging each other.”

Another time, on London’s King’s Road, they happened to walk past Scottish
rock band The Jesus And Mary Chain. “We clocked them, and they clocked
us, and we just walked past each other, staring at the ground,” Sergeant

recalls. “I can’t explain it. It was like we were rival gangs or mortal enemies,
but we were just bands trying to out-cool each other. Pretty pathetic, really.”

Of all their 80s rock rivals, it was U2 who earned the most success, eventually

becoming the biggest rock band on the planet. Which begs the question: if the
Bunnymen had played the music industry game as cannily as Bono et al,

could they possibly have been as globally popular?