Interview: Echo & the Bunnymen [Part II]

by John Davidson
3 August 2006

[Continued from Part I]

What’s kept you and IAN MCCULLOCH’s [the lead singer of ECHO AND THE BUNNYMEN] relationship so successful over the years?

WILL SERGEANT: Oh, I don’t know. There was that big break in the middle, where for about eight years we didn’t do nothin’. He left the band to pursue a solo thing right as we got big over here in America. We sort of carried on, and got another bloke for a singer. It was sort of a weird thing to do, but we did it.

Do you look back on that and think, “That was a stupid move,” or do you wish that you would have begged him to stay in the band? Or was it just the right thing at the time?

WILL SERGEANT: The record itself is actually pretty good. I think we should have just changed the name of the band. But I don’t know; maybe if we’d done that, it wouldn’t have led to this reformation. And nobody sort of mentions it now; when we first got back together, everyone always asked about it. But not anymore. It was just a weird anomaly. And really, a lot of it was done out of spite. We’d done, like, ten years of hard graft to get where we’d gotten, and then he left. So, we were all pissed off. It was a “f*** you” move, really, and there was also backbiting at the record label because it was actually their idea for us to continue on with the name at the time. The label suggested it, but there was a bit of spite there as well.

And then when you reformed, was all this water under the dam?

WILL SERGEANT: Yeah. Ian doesn’t like mentioning it, though. I guess it’s a “no go” area. The bloke we had take Ian’s place was a really nice guy, as big a Bunnymen fan as anyone. We almost bullied him into doing it, really. We had a couple of good tours and made a reasonable record; it was just a weird thing that happened.

Since the core of Echo is you and Mac, how hard is it to work with a different rhythm section? Do they have an impact on writing songs, or is it just pretty much the two of you?

WILL SERGEANT: The producer, HUGH JONES, whose done some Bunnymen albums, really worked hard with the rhythm section to get it all together. I was there all the time too, but he really makes an impact. We just jam up the songs and then they’ll take over, really. We’ve just been doing this for so long, me and Mac, and there have been people coming and going the whole time. We’ve had about five bass players! (laughs) It’s gotten to the point where the only appropriate picture of the band is me and Mac. But we’ve all also got other things going; our bass player is in another band, and so is the drummer. When people think of this band, they think of us, I suppose.

What’s the writing process for the two of you, then?

WILL SERGEANT: I’ve got a little recording studio so I’m always doing little demos. I’ll make a CD and then give it to him, and he’ll decide what he likes and then we’ll work on them together. We mess with the vocals, the arrangements, everything. And he sort of does the same thing, brings in ideas for me. He’ll bring in things on cassette, just on an acoustic guitar or whatever, and maybe a melody like, “la-la-la” or with words. Then, I’ll take off on what he’s doing. It’s always worked this way, really. Sometimes, we’ll just sit in a room with two acoustic guitars and turn on cassette recorder and record anything. Sometimes things just come out of thin air. On this record, it’s been quite balanced between the two of us. Flowers was probably more in my favor, in terms of contribution, but _ What Are You Going to Do with Your Life?_ was probably more in his.

What are your expectations for the future at this point?

Keep making records, I suppose. I also do a lot of DJing. I did one last night in Houston, I’ve got one coming up in Austin, and one in New York. I have a night in Liverpool on Wednesdays, a really cool club called EBGB’s.

Do you do any producing, or do you always have another solo record in the back of your mind?

I’ve always got things I’m working on for myself, but I just haven’t had the time to complete anything. I’ve tried producing in the past, but I’m not really that interested into going into a studio with someone else. It would have to be with mates and stuff like that. I’ve done some stuff with a little local band called THE OPEN but never really gotten into producing as such. There’s nothing that I’m really into, and you have to be into it in order to want to do it. I’m a bit of a control freak, so having to deal with a lot of other people is hard when you want to be in control of everything.

Are you getting tired of touring life?

Well, you get tired of touring right as soon as you get on the bus! Playing live is the best thing about it. I don’t mind playing the old songs or whatever, feeding off of the crowd and everything, but the rest of it… you can forget it! I wish there was a teleport where you could be at home ten minutes before you went on, and you could just teleport to the stage. That would be perfect.

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