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Sunday Mercury
June 1995
A year ago, Malcolm
Treece performed with the Wonder Stuff in front
of 35,000 fans at the Phoenix Festival. Last
month he played to just 50 people in a
Birmingham pub - but he recognised nearly
everyone there!
For, immediately
after the Phoenix gig, the Midlands
chart-toppers split up.
Now three of them
- guitarist Malcolm, drummer Martin Gilks and
bass player Paul Clifford - have teamed up with
ex-Eat singer Ange Doolitle to form a new band,
the cryptically-titled WeKnowWhereYouLive. And
despite the potential soul-destroying fall from
grace, Malcolm says he enjoyed the recent gig at
the Jug Of Ale in Birmingham. "It was quite nice
really," he said. "There were not that many
people there but I knew most of them - they were
my friends!"
"It's good to
play these small venues again after performing
for so long in big arenas with the Wonder Stuff.
It's a lot more intimate, and I'm enjoying going
back to the beginning and starting all over
again with a new band."
The Wonder Stuff
were formed in Birmingham in 1986 and gained a
huge following, releasing four albums including
their last Construction For The Modern Idiot in
1993. After gaining a largely 'cult' status they
broke into the mainstream in 1991 with their hit
Size Of A Cow before topping the singles chart a
year later with Dizzy, which they recorded with
comic Vic Reeves.
But last year the
Wonder Stuff shocked fans by announcing they
were to split up and arranged a farewell gig
headlining the Phoenix Festival at Long Marston,
Stratford. "Playing Phoenix was very strange
because we had known for months that we were
going to split up so we had accepted it," said
Malcolm, aged 30. "As I was playing, it started
to dawn on me that it was probably the last time
I would play those songs. And when we came off
stage it just hit me. It was very emotional and
everyone was very tearful."
Malcolm, from
Kingswinford, has now put his past behind him
and is busy pluggng his new band
WeKnowWhereYouLive. "The title of the band comes
from our singer, Ange, who sometimes works as a
private detective and moves in circles where
people are always saying to each other 'We know
where you live, mate'. We don't want to be
involved in the current scene that includes
one-name bands like Blur, Suede and Oasis, so we
chose a longer name. Our music is more shambolic
than before and includes modern technologies
like sampling. This band is different from
everyone else right now, so we've got a
different name to single ourselves out."
WeKnowWhereYouLive return to their native
Midlands to finish their current British tour at
Dudley JB's on Friday June 16.
Zak Newland |
