Biography

Within six months of The Wonder Stuff's farewell performance at the Phoenix Festival, shortly after leaving his job as a VJ on MTV Europe, Miles Hunt took his first steps in forming a new band.

In an interview in the NME, Hunt spoke about his work on MTV: "I really liked it. The one thing I learned pretty fast was what cunts most bands were. The only band I expected to be cunts were Oasis, and they weren't." He then told of the time he met with Paul Weller at an Oasis gig. "We were both very pissed. He was saying, 'You still doing that TV?' And I said, 'Yes'. And he said, 'TV is for wankers. Grow your hair and write some songs'. And I thought, 'I've already done that, Paul'. But he invited me to the studio when he was doing 'Stanley Road' and watching them made me realise how much I missed it."

Recruiting former Eat drummer Pete Howard and The Senseless Things' Morgan Nicholls on bass, the trio initially threw around a few musical ideas in London in December 1994. They kept in touch with each other and sent each other demo tapes without any thought of returning to a studio together until April 1995 when, after talking to long-time idol Paul Weller, Miles quit his job on MTV and began to concentrate on his new musical venture - Vent.

The name of the group was suggested by their manager Tank - former manager of Ned's Atomic Dustbin and brother of Martin Gilks. It was Tank who, under the name of Tankeelad, had designed the sleeves for 'If The Beatles Had Read Hunter', 'Greatest Hits - Finally Live' and 'Live In Manchester' as well as many of the Ned's releases.

It wasn't long though before the group attracted public attention. In the period between The Wonder Stuff splitting up and Vent forming, Miles marriage broke up and he had moved into a new house in Shropshire. After only a short time in his new residence, the local police force issued him with an official caution for noise pollution! He'd been playing some Vent demos in his garden "to see what they sounded like played at volume in the open air" and a few of his neighbours had complained.

Whilst watching some of the acts at 1995's Phoenix Festival, Miles met up with ex-Cult guitarist Billy Duffy who joined the group shortly after. A series of very low-key dates were played in Europe, followed by their first UK performance - at the 1995 Reading Festival although the first official debut for the group was actually several weeks prior in Vic Reeves' back garden when he hosted a mini-showbiz party and invited the group to be the evening's musical entertainment.

Prior to their Reading debut, BBC Radio 1FM's Evening Session programme broadcast four songs that the group had recorded a couple of weeks prior at the BBC's Maida Vale studios in London. The four tracks, 'Fits And Starts', 'Fixer', 'Night Out With a Foreign Fella' and 'Correctional' all bore Miles' unmistakable vocals but were backed by Howard's crashing drums and Nicholls' thumping basslines. Whether expected or not, Vent's sound bore no resemblance to anything the threesome had previously recorded with their other groups.

Miles also made an appearance on Mark Radcliffe's late night show on Radio 1FM when he gave an interview and performed an acoustic track called 'Give It Whole'.

Vent appeared on the Melody Maker stage at the festival on the August 28th. For fans who had been shocked when Miles had cut his trademark hair off prior to the final Phoenix performance, an even greater shock was now in store as he had gone even further and had his head almost shaved giving rise to a number of comments that he now resembled Ade Edmondson's "Eddie Hitler" character in BBC TV's Bottom comedy programme.

Like We Know Where You Live's appearance two nights previously, a sound performance was given but the critics were equally as harsh. Miles' views of the critics (and the crowds) reactions was that "audiences in the UK are far more aware of our past bands than the audiences we played to in Europe. As a result of which, people at Reading were 'checking us out' where as, out at the European festivals, the audiences just reacted to the music of a band they'd never heard of, which in all cases was really lively. Pete said it best when he said that at Reading it was too much like playing under the microscope. Let's just leave it at that, not one of my most memorable gigs."

Undeterred, the group went off to play a series of dates in America for which reviews were slightly more praising - though not much. However, on their return they announced details of their first full UK tour, supporting Irish rockers Therapy? along with hardcore group Understand who, coincidentally had supported We Know Where You Live on their July/August dates. However, the start of the tour had to be delayed by a couple of weeks when Therapy?'s lead singer, Andy Cairns, lost his voice. This turned out to be rather convenient though as Billy Duffy decided to leave the group.

To coincide with the tour, the NME ran an article on the split in which Miles commented that, "It was a pretty cool thing to play with him and we enjoyed it. But it changed what we were doing. It was more like a standard rock set up and that wasn't what we wanted to do. It didn't really suit him either." Regarding Vent in general, he compared it to like being "back on the school bus", saying that the feeling was comparable to the time when The Wonder Stuff were just starting up, adding "I worked with the same people for ten years and now I'm working with two new people, which is inspiring." When asked about Vent's recording plans: "Once you release something you become part of that game. We'll put off recording a record for as long as we possibly can." Melody Maker also reported the split with Duffy though they went on to contradict the NME story by saying that the group were in the process of looking for studio facilities and producers for recording sessions that would begin around the start of 1996, with a release looking likely for the Summer of '96.

In one of the first few issues of the short-lived music magazine Raw, Miles was interviewed about his plans for Vent. One of the questions referred to his contracted record label in which he confirmed that his services were still secured by the Polydor label. An unconfirmed story is that, upon hearing that The Wonder Stuff would be splitting up, an high-ranking Polydor executive took Miles out to dinner and asked him to continue working with the label should he decide to pursue a musical career again in the future.

In April, Vent undertook their first headlining UK tour. Stopping at only eight venues in almost as many days, the tour was all part of a bigger plan by Miles. His ideas for the future involved a couple of weeks touring, after which they would enter London's Abbey Road recording studios for eleven days with Shellac's Steve Albini at the production desk. They would then play a couple more dates before returning to the studios to put the finishing touches to their debut album which was pencilled in for a June/July release.

In an interview for NME, the same week that the tour began, Hunt spoke about their choice of producer - "Albini wouldn't have been my choice if I was still in The Wonder Stuff. But we wanted to move on and do something different, a lot more jarred, a lot more jagged. I also wanted to avoid the studio tricks that you learn over the years to tart up songs that aren't strong enough. You can put bits of tambourine on choruses to beef it up a bit but somebody like Albini ain't gonna let us do that." He also spoke about Vent in relation to The Wonder Stuff, "There are people coming along who would like to hear Wonder Stuff songs. But after 30 seconds I think it's pretty obvious that something like 'Size Of A Cow' isn't going to fit. I don't see The Wonder Stuff as a weight around my neck. I'm really proud of that stuff."

At the end of June, advertisements for the 1996 Reading Festival showed that Vent would again be appearing on the Sunday night. Shortly after, the group were forced to change their name following the threat of legal action from a group in America with the same name. This also led to the discovery of a group in Australia who were also called Vent.  To ease confusion (and avoid a legal battle), they renamed themselves Vent 414 - the suffix coming from a calculation of the ideal fighting weight of the combined three group members according to their individual heights.

At the same time, rumours circulated that the group would be playing a series of low-key dates at the end of July. Though venues at which the group were appearing at were able to confirm the date, no tickets were available for sale until a couple of weeks prior to the dates due to a delay in the promoter releasing details of the ticket prices.

Following an interview in the BoneIdle fanzine with Miles, a postscript was added shortly before the magazine went to press which announced that Vent 414's first single would be released on September 9th, with an album following shortly afterwards. Shortly after the fanzine was published, 'Fixer' appeared on a compilation CD issued to record stores by Polydor which showcased forthcoming releases.

On the night of Miles' 30th birthday, the group appeared on BBC Radio 1FM's Mark Radcliffe Show during which they played four songs - 'Laying Down With', 'Fixer', 'Life Before You' and 'Kissing The Mirror' - and spoke openly about various topics though Miles had a slight dig at The Wonder Stuff when, asked about the length of time it had taken Vent 414 to record their debut album, he replied "...it helped that we managed to write some songs this time." He also announced that the album would be released on September 23rd and said that he was also considering publishing a book of some of the "rantings" which he had written during his 'Henry Rollins period' of 1995.

Vent 414's appearance at the Reading Festival was again greeted with intense criticism by the music press though both articles in the NME and Melody Maker actually spent more of the time attacking Hunt rather than the music itself.  Interest from the national music press had considerably waned since the same period the year before where Vent received at least one mention per issue.  A possible reason for this may be the rumour that one of the UK's leading music tabloids offered the group the front cover if Miles would dish the dirt on the real goings-on and events of The Wonder Stuff's final few months.  Miles declined and that spelled the end of the the groups' acceptance and promotion by the national press.

Shortly before their performance on the Sunday afternoon, promotional CD's were distributed around the site promoting the For All The Right Reasons label, set up by Miles and Tank. Featuring '2113', a track off the eponymously titled Vent 414 album, the CD also featured tracks by some of the label's first signings, Shift, Chamberlain and Seaweed.

Shortly before the release of the single, Music Week ran an article on the group in which Miles spoke about the period when Billy Duffy was in the group. "As soon as he arrived, I stopped enjoying playing. It didn't feel like anything odd could happen anymore - being a three-piece band gives you that freedom. In the end we wanted to take the band in different directions. He was listening to Alice In Chains, I was listening to PIL's 'Metal Box' which said it all." He went on to talk about the decision to use Steve Albini as producer; "I loved the sound he got with Polly Harvey and Jesus Lizard and some of his own stuff with Shellac. I didn't think he'd be into us, particularly if he'd found out what I'd done before, but we sent him some stuff on eight-track." Upon hearing the recordings, Albini's first reaction was to doubt that the tracks were actually only demos as he thought that they already sounded great.

Also as part of the article, Lucian Grainge (Polydor's general manager and A&R director) - also the man who signed The Wonder Stuff to their publishing deal in 1986 - commented on the record company's reaction to the production decision. "We knew what we were likely to get and I'm very excited with it. Albini signs himself as recording engineer and there's a lot in that - he's caught them just as they are. "

Having already had a taste of success, Miles was now in a very different frame of mind to when he was in the Stuffies. "I know the record company wants big sales but that's their problem," he said in the Music Week article. "I don't expect to be knocking on the door of the Top 20 with any of this stuff and I couldn't give a fuck if I don't. I've had a number one single and that didn't make me happy. I hated the attention." "This is the best writing that I've ever done and it's no coincidence that it's come while I've had nothing to do with the music industry. I'd be happy if the album didn't come out until next year so we could carry on like this. The longer I can be left alone with my band, the better."

Reviews for the new single, delayed by a couple of weeks, were mixed. As the listening public's first real hearing of a Vent 414 track, many slated the harder edge to Miles' music and also Albini's production style - rather strange considering that this was one of the few songs on the LP he didn't produce!

In a move which Hunt had often criticised in the past, the single was released in a foldout CD sleeve and also in a limited run of blue vinyl foldout sleeve 7" singles. Surprisingly, after an initial mid-week chart placing in the high 60's, the single only reached 71 in the national UK singles charts although the group's - and Polydor's - reaction to the seemingly low position was one of calm. Polydor were apparently very happy that what they were considering to be the debut single by a new unpromoted group had reached such a high position.

Promotional posters and music press adverts for the single also gave details of Vent 414's largest UK tour to date. Stopping at seventeen venues in a twenty day span, the tour was designed to promote the group's debut album.

Like the single, the album's release was also delayed. A possible reason for this may have been a last-minute change to the track listing for both releases. Initial information from the US indicated that the single had been planned as a three track release, though that had changed to four by the time of its release. Likewise, the album was initially thought to contain fifteen tracks, and only fourteen appeared on the eventual release. To promote the album, a sampler CD was issued by Polydor in America which showed that the track missing from the eventual album track listing was 'Give It Whole', a solo acoustic number by Hunt which many regard as being one of his finest works to date.

However, there is no information on whether this also applied to the UK release, certainly the UK promo for the album does not feature the track.  With the high regard that many fans had for the track, many were puzzled as to why it was not included. Miles later admitted that they felt the group as a whole could do it even more justice and that it was highly likely the track would appear on their second album with full-group participation.

In January 1997, Morgan announced his departure from the group. It is believed that he was unhappy with the lack of promotion that both the group were getting from Polydor and also himself as the first two singles had both contained instrumental tracks by Morgan alone and were stated as being from a forthcoming vinyl release. That album has never yet been released and now seems unlikely to do so.

The official line was that "the group were on hold and that by the next time anyone heard from them, there would be personnel changes" but within a few weeks, Polydor had taken the decision to drop the group from their books which subsequently led to the closure of the For All The Right Reasons label. Undeterred, Miles bought a new guitarist into the group to bring in new ideas - Malc Treece.

After a couple of months of hard work, the group had recorded almost a dozen new songs of which Miles took a tape containing some of the tracks over the USA to play to prospective producers and record companies. On the group's internet mailing list, his brother Russ posted his reaction to the new tracks...

Despite the exciting prospect of the new tracks, Miles was unable to gather enough interest from US record labels and returned to the UK. Shortly after, Miles decided that the Vent 414 project should come to an end.  It was, and still is, Miles' view that "people's playing styles have a great effect on the finished songs... personalities involved are also very important when shaping up a band."  He felt that both Morgan and Pete provided enormous input into what had become Vent 414 and without Morgan's input the whole experience could never re-match their initial efforts.

Miles and Malc continued to work together...

In February 2000, as part of Miles Hunt's MP3 of the Month Club, 'More Than Us', one of the tracks included in Vent 414's second album demos was made available to the club's subscribers.  Also as part of the club, Miles released two other Vent 414 tracks - 'Satellites' plus the full band version of 'Give It Whole'.

In 2003, Miles gave 'Give It Whole' to his long-time drumming companion Andres Karu to work on.  Andres added drums, bass and some additional guitar to the track and Miles then made the track downloadable from his then-current website.