Stunning Hunt

Miles Hunt in acoustic guitar shock! Yes, it s true. The former Wonderstuff rabble-rouser is hitting the highroads and byroads of Ireland for a solo tour. How, pray tell, did this come about Miles, me lad?
The reason I wanted to come to Ireland is that I haven t been there in absolutely ages and I think we only did about four gigs there with The Wonderstuff, he says. We ve got a lot of people on our website over in Ireland, always hassling me to come over.
But how does his new acoustic persona compare with the heady days of The Wonderstuff?
Obviously it s really different, he admits. I really like small venues, and that was one of the reasons why I wanted to get out of The Wonderstuff. When I was touring with them for the last couple of years, it felt like we were doing a well-rehearsed performance, like a play or something, and the audience in those big venues became like one animal. You don t get the sense of the audience like you do in smaller venues, hecklers and all.
He confesses that his first acoustic UK shows were a bit nerve-wracking but I was really pleased with the reaction I got when people said that you don t miss the band because there s still the power and the energy there.
The boy Hunt hasn t been idle since the 1994 demise of The Stuffies, immediately taking up the position of presenter of 120 Minutes on MTV where he stayed for nine months, He then got another band together, Vent, who released one album in the UK before the bass player went off to join Delakota, which Miles admits was a bit disappointing for me. Miles then spent 1997 writing and demoing new material, and it was last year that he made his first foray back into the music industry.
A couple of friends of mine in New Jersey had set up an indie label and they wanted to promote a tour for me over there, which was a great offer.
He duly obliged and it seems his love affair with playing live was rekindled. I wonder, though, with the benefit of hindsight, how he looks back on the decade he spent with The Wonderstuff.
Before the acoustic tour, I hadn t got the greatest of memories of it, he confesses. By the end of it, I felt very disappointed with what we d created. It d become a big thing, appearing on Top Of The Pops and all that, and I d never been a big fan of that. I suddenly found myself doing all this stuff that I didn t want to do, and it really didn t seem that The Wonderstuff was a vehicle for songs, which is how it started. All of a sudden, it was this career thing, like running a business.
Really, I felt like I d failed with The Wonderstuff until I started doing these acoustic gigs, when I started to enjoy what I d written.
Surely, though, when he looks back on songs like Don t Let Me Down Gently , Radio Ass Kiss or Golden Green , he doesn t feel dismayed.
I never had a problem with the music, he stresses. I m one of those sorry fuckers that actually still sits around and listens to it. I like The Wonderstuff s music: they re my favourite band. It s my day-to-day thoughts on the band that were pretty dour.
Indeed, Miles still plays some of the Stuffies tracks live, knowing that s what a lot of the old fans will want to hear.
The gigs I m doing in Ireland, the main set will be more towards my new stuff, but I will put some old stuff in. I ll do an hour of that and then leave it open to the audience, and whatever they want, I ll try and play for them.
Acoustic guitar or not, there s no danger of Hunt being labelled a folkie.
Going out with an acoustic guitar will always give the impression of an aran jumper and a stool, he admits. In America, some venues would ask if I wanted a stool and I d go What for, unless you re going to put an ashtray and a beer on it? Even though they re acoustic gigs, they re pretty lively.
He has recorded a new album, mainly by himself but with a bit of help from his old muckers, axesmith Malcolm Bleece and Martin Bell, The Stuffies fiddler, who arranged strings on some of the tracks. The album will be released in America in April and should be on the shelves this side of the world sometime later in the summer.
A prolific writer, Hunt already has another album of acoustic songs written, and doesn t even rule out forming another band before the end of the year. Sounding optimistic, he seems a hell of a lot happier now than he was in the last days of The Wonderstuff, when he seemed tired and often bitter. He readily agrees:
Oh yeah. It was really liberating, getting dropped from Polydor. I was staying with a friend in New York and I d left the record company a number where they could get hold of me. They said that they didn t feel there was a place for my new songs on the label and it would benefit us if we went with another label. I just went, Fucking hell, am I free? , and the guy told me I sounded like the Birdman of Alcatraz.
Now, obviously, there s the frustration of being skint, but I live a kind of honest-to-goodness lifestyle now. I like living like that: I m not signed to anybody, I don t have a record company phoning me up. I m round at home, still writing, and I do all my recording at home.
Sometimes I could probably benefit from working with other people on the writing front, he admits. But on the whole it s how I want to live my life, going out and doing gigs when I feel like it and not being beholden to a company and having to do all the media bullshit they like. I find it very liberating. n
Miles Hunt is playing a series of shows around the country including Whelan s of Dublin on March 9. See the gig guide for further details.