Adam Ant
Stuart Leslie Goddard, known professionally as Adam Ant, is an English musician, singer, songwriter, and actor. He gained popularity as the lead singer of new wave group Adam and the Ants and later as a solo artist, scoring 10 UK top ten hits from 1980 to 1983, including three UK No. 1 singles. He has also worked as an actor, appearing in many films and television episodes.
Ant began his musical career playing bass in the band Bazooka Joe. From 1977 to 1982 he performed with Adam and the Ants. Their debut album Dirk Wears White Sox reached number one on the UK Independent Albums Chart. Between recording and releasing his debut album as Adam and the Ants, he asked producer Malcolm McLaren to manage his band; McLaren instead took his backing band to form Bow Wow Wow. Ant regrouped with new members, including Marco Pirroni, to release his second album Kings of the Wild Frontier. It reached number one in the UK Album Chart, spawned three hit singles, became the UK number-one selling album in 1981, and won Best British Album at the 1982 BRIT Awards. He released his third and final album with the group, Prince Charming, which spawned two UK number-one singles "Stand and Deliver" and "Prince Charming".
In 1982, he began a solo career, retaining Marco Pirroni as co-songwriter. His first solo album was Friend or Foe, from which the debut single "Goody Two Shoes" reached number one in the UK and Australia in 1982, and became his first top 20 hit in the United States on the Billboard Hot 100. The album reached number five on the UK Albums Chart and number 16 on the US Billboard 200 album chart, becoming his most successful solo album. His next two solo albums Strip and Vive Le Rock were less commercially successful. Ant began to focus on an acting career, performing on stage and in film and television roles throughout the 1980s and 1990s. He released his fourth solo album Manners & Physique which was produced by André Cymone and featured a Minneapolis sound. Despite the US top 20 success of the single "Room at the Top", Ant was dropped from MCA Records, and his album Persuasion was shelved and never officially released. He signed with Capitol Records to release Wonderful. The single "Wonderful" became Ant's third US top 40 hit single.
Since 2010, Ant has continued his music career, recording and releasing a new album Adam Ant Is the Blueblack Hussar in Marrying the Gunner's Daughter, and completing nine full-length UK national tours, six US national tours, and two Australian tours. A further album, Bravest of the Brave, was recorded in 2014 and is still awaiting release.
Early life
Stuart Goddard was born in Marylebone, London, the only child of Leslie Alfred Goddard and Betty Kathleen Smith. His father had served in the Royal Air Force and worked as a chauffeur, and his mother was an embroiderer for Norman Hartnell. His home was two rooms in the De Walden buildings, St John's Wood. He recalls: "There was no luxury, but there was always food on the table." He is of partial Romani descent; his maternal grandfather, Walter Albany Smith, was Romanichal. This heritage became a basis for a theme in his later work: a concern for oppressed minorities.Goddard's parents divorced when he was seven years old and his mother supported him by working as a domestic cleaner, being briefly employed by Paul McCartney. Goddard's first school was Robinsfield Infants School, where he created a considerable stir by throwing a brick through the head-teacher's office window on two consecutive days. In the aftermath of this incident, Goddard was placed under the supervision of teacher Joanna Saloman, who encouraged him to develop his abilities in art and whom he later credited as the first person to show him he could be creative.
Goddard then attended Barrow Hill Junior School where he boxed and was a member of the cricket team. He passed the eleven plus exam to gain a place at St Marylebone Grammar School, an all-boys school, where he enjoyed history, played rugby, and became a school prefect. After passing six O levels and three A levels, in English, History and Art, Goddard attended Hornsey College of Art to study graphic design, and was a student of art historian Peter Webb for a time. He dropped out of Hornsey, short of completing his BA, to focus on a career in music.
Early musical career
The first band Goddard joined was Bazooka Joe, in which he played bass guitar. He has said that the idea of Adam Ant came to him after watching the Sex Pistols play their first gig opening for Bazooka Joe at Saint Martin's School of Art in 1975: "After seeing the Pistols, I wanted to do something different, be someone else, but couldn't work out what and .": 92, 94He renamed himself Adam Ant, choosing the name because "I really knew I wanted to be Adam, because Adam was the first man. Ant I chose because, if there's a nuclear explosion, the ants will survive." He formed his own band, the B-Sides, with Lester Square and Andy Warren.: 94 In 1977, together with drummer Paul Flanagan, they went on to form Adam and the Ants, with the inaugural band meeting held in the audience at a Siouxsie and the Banshees performance at The Roxy in London's Covent Garden.
Musical career
1977–1982: Adam and the Ants
Adam and the Ants began performing around London while Ant acted in Derek Jarman's film Jubilee in 1977. They were initially managed by Jordan from the SEX boutique on Kings Road. His debut as a recording artist was the song "Deutscher Girls", which featured on the film's soundtrack, along with "Plastic Surgery" which was performed in the film. In late 1979 they released their debut album Dirk Wears White Sox featuring Matthew Ashman on guitar, Andy Warren on bass and Dave Barbarossa on drums.Ant approached Malcolm McLaren to manage the band, who subsequently hired the rest of the Ants to form Bow Wow Wow fronted by Annabella Lwin. The second version of Adam and the Ants featured Marco Pirroni, Kevin Mooney, and two drummers, Terry Lee Miall and Chris Hughes, who used the name "Merrick". The band signed a deal with CBS Records and recorded Kings of the Wild Frontier during the summer of 1980. The album gained success in the United Kingdom, and the "Antmania" that ensued put the band at the forefront of the New Romantic movement. The single "Antmusic" went to No. 2 on the UK singles chart by December 1980. Following the departure of Mooney in February 1981, bassist Gary Tibbs, formerly of Roxy Music, joined the band.
In November 1981, Adam & the Ants released the album, Prince Charming, that featured two United Kingdom No. 1 singles – "Stand and Deliver" and the title track, "Prince Charming" – as well as the No. 3 UK hit "Ant Rap". In March 1982 the group disbanded.
1982–2001: Solo career
A few months after Adam and the Ants split, Ant launched his solo career and retained Pirroni as guitarist and co-songwriter. Merrick also briefly stayed as drummer and producer for the UK edition of the first solo hit single "Goody Two Shoes" – which made it to No. 1 in the UK – and demos for the upcoming Friend or Foe album, before moving on to other production work. The Friend or Foe album also produced another top ten single, "Friend or Foe", which reached No. 9 in September 1982.Ant recruited a new band for touring, consisting of new dual drummers Bogdan Wiczling and Barry Watts, plus guitarist Cha Burns, bassist Chris Constantinou and the former Q-Tips brass section of trumpeter Tony Hughes and twin saxophonists Stewart van Blandamer and Steve Farr. The new band made its debut at London's Astoria Theatre on 1 October 1982. A US tour began in New York on 8 November. On the 19th tour date on 20 February 1983 in Cleveland, Ohio, Ant suffered a knee injury onstage, forcing the postponement and/or cancellation of dates throughout February and March while he recuperated. Ant eventually returned to performing, appearing as a guest on the NBC special Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever, singing "Where Did Our Love Go" with Diana Ross. He resumed the US tour, completed on 18 May 1983 at the Bronco Bowl in Dallas, Texas.
During his recuperation from the knee injury, Ant worked with Pirroni on new material that formed the basis of Ant's second solo album, Strip. With promotion on the Strip album complete, Ant reduced his band to the quartet of himself, Pirroni, Wiczling and Constantinou. The latter two adopted the stage names Count Wiczling and Chris De Niro respectively and were upgraded from live backing musicians to being full-time band members, featured on record sleeves, logos and even in song lyrics. The LP Strip produced a top ten single, "Puss'n Boots", that reached No. 5 in the UK charts in October 1983. Ant formally unveiled his new four-piece band at the 1984 Montreux Pop Festival,
In July 1985, Ant secured a spot at the Live Aid concert – the first live performance of the "Ant/Marco/Wiczling/De Niro" band – but was asked to cut his set to one song, for which he chose his new single, the Vive Le Rock title track Ant later said he regretted playing the fundraiser, stating, "I was asked by Sir Bob to promote this concert. They had no idea they could sell it out. Then in Bob's book, he said, 'Adam was over the hill so I let him have one number.'... Doing that show was the biggest f**king mistake in the world. Knighthoods were made, Bono got it made, and it was a waste of f**king time. It was the end of rock 'n' roll."
A year after the hit single success of "Apollo 9", which reached No. 13 in September 1984, the parent album Vive Le Rock was released in September 1985, to mixed reviews. As part of the promotion, the band performed a live TV session for Channel 4 music show Bliss hosted by Muriel Gray. Several songs were recorded, although only two – "Miss Thing" from the new album and "Killer in the Home" from Kings of the Wild Frontier – were actually transmitted.
Ant paused his career in music at the end of 1985 to focus on his acting career. His Fort Lauderdale show was Ant's last full-length concert until February 1993. Indeed, between December 1982 and February 1995, Ant's only public live concerts outside North America were the four aforementioned UK/Spanish shows, Live Aid, a 1987 fanclub party performance, and a September 1994 EMI corporate event in Brighton. He severed ties with CBS in late 1986, following the release of the Hits audio/VHS compilation. In 1990, Ant returned with Manners & Physique, a collaboration with André Cymone, a solo artist and an early member of Prince's band. The album was another moderate success, and featured the single "Room at the Top", which was a Top 20 hit on both sides of the Atlantic. "Rough Stuff" became the second single for the United States and Germany as "Can't Set Rules About Love" charted in the United Kingdom.
In 1992, Nine Inch Nails released a cover of Adam & the Ants' "Physical " on their Broken EP, originally released on the Kings of the Wild Frontier LP." Subsequently in 1995, Adam Ant performed "Physical" live with Nine Inch Nails on their Self Destruct Tour for two nights in a row.
In 1995, Ant released the album, Wonderful. The title track was a successful single, as was a tour of the US in support of the album. While Ant and his group, which retained longtime guitarist Pirroni alongside Kris Dollimore, Bruce Whitkin, Dave Ruffy and Dave Barbarossa, played in smaller venues than they had played in the 1980s, the houses were often packed with enthusiastic fans. The tour was cut short due to Ant and Pirroni both contracting glandular fever. Ant also played three shows at Shepherd's Bush Empire in London and did a mini tour of Virgin Record Shops playing selected tunes from the album Wonderful and signing records. Adam and his band also played shows in Dublin, Glasgow, Middlesbrough and Stoke-on-Trent.
In 1996, Ant and Pirroni recorded two new songs, "Lamé" and "Inseminator", for the soundtrack to Ant's latest film Drop Dead Rock. Also around this time, they recorded a cover version of the T. Rex song "Dandy in the Underworld". The duo continued to demo other songs around this time, including such titles as "Tough Blokes", "Justine", "Picasso Meets Gary Cooper" and "Call Me Sausage". These new songs with Pirroni were for Ant's own new label Blend Records. Pirroni later referred to these recordings as the Blend Demos. They also guested with such bands as Dweeb and Rachel Stamp. In 2001, following the 11 September attacks, Ant recorded a charity single for New York firefighters; a double A-side of Neil Diamond's "America" with his own song "Big Trouble". In interviews from the time, Ant talked of numerous varied plans, including starting another new record label, reforming Adam and the Ants, and a star-studded benefit concert for a forest in Patagonia.