upfront
ADE
EDMONDSON
Once known for his
role as punk rebel
Vyvyan Bastard, comic
and mandolin player
Ade Edmonson talks
to Heather Arnold
about his real
punk band lifestyle.
“
That’s when it started. That exact day. It was
like a blinding moment of revelation. It was as
if Moses had come down and said ‘You wanna
play that in a band!’”
Though he’s best known for his crucial involvement
in offbeat sitcoms The Young Ones and Bottom, from
the 80s and 90s respectively, in recent years Adrian
Edmondson has chosen to step back from comedy
and embark on a musical venture.
“I loved Bottom, I thought it was a hoot,” explains
Ade, “but we had enough of it. We worked for 28
years together, and I think that’s enough.
“I think I may be slightly ADHD. I get bored very very
quickly and just need to do something else.”
Leaving comedy behind him, Edmondson has gotten
involved in a variety of different project including
documentaries about Yorkshire, winning Celebrity
Masterchef and embarking on a whole new musical
career.
In 2008 Edmondson started the folk/punk fusion band
The Bad Shepherds after a drunken shopping trip.
“I was out with some same-sex chums,” says
Edmondson. “We always go down Denmark Street
which is a street in London with lots of, let’s say,
‘middle aged porn’. It’s a guitar shop and so we go in
and buy something inappropriate like a mandolin.
“That sort of changed my life really. I started playing
songs I knew on it, and it just sounded like something
that I could make a go of.”
The Bad Shepherds’ surprising sound takes classic
punk tracks and gives them a traditional folk
makeover. The unlikely combination doesn’t look good
on paper but fits perfectly when played.
“It makes sense. It does,” claims Ade. “You sound like
a wanker when you’re trying to explain it.”
BUZZ 16
Though the band formed five years ago, this peculiar
amalgamation of musical genres has been on Ade’s
mind since the 1970s.
“I was at university in Manchester in the 70s when punk
happened,” he states. “There was the students union
which had all of the punk bands on, and the only other
venue was an Irish pub with Irish session players in it.
“I was struck then that how kind of similar they were
in terms of spirit. They’re both about excitement. You
get to the stage when you sort of shift from a jig to a
rhythm. It’s like pressing an accelerator down on a
“That’s what
amazes me – I’m
56 years old and
I don’t feel stupid
singing any
of these songs.”
very fast car. It makes crowds go wild.
“That kind of excitement is the same sort of excitement
that you get in punk. And eventually, sitting there with
this drunkenly bought mandolin, I realised that the two
could actually go together.”
Alongside Ade is fiddle player Andy Dinan and
Britain’s top uillean pipe player Troy Donockley.
“[Troy] was playing his pipes in a metal band, and I
thought, ‘that is the man for this project!’. I found
his number, rang him up and had one of those
embarrassing conversations where you go ‘Hello, its
Ade Edmondson here, the bloke off the telly. I’ve had
an idea of doing punk songs on folk instruments.’”
With their third album Mud, Blood And Beer recently
released, the band have largely focused on folk reimaginations of punk songs.
“That’s the sort of history of folk music really,” explains
Edmondson. “Folk music is moving songs along. No one
really has new ideas, you just reinvent old ideas. It’s just
we’re reinventing without changing the lyrics.”
“Loads of these songs are so good,” he continues
“that’s what amazes me. I’m 56 years old and I don’t
feel stupid singing any of these songs. None of them
are teen songs. The main thing is that, yes, they were
written by a bunch of spotty 17-year-olds, but they
had a good vision for the world”.
Mud, Blood And Beer is the first The Bad Shepherds
album to include original work, with the two final
tracks being written by the band.
“A song just came along,” says Ade; “We couldn’t stop
ourselves from writing it, so we just started writing
songs, and now that we’ve started, we shall never stop.
“I don’t think there’ll be anything but our own songs
on the next album.”
Currently touring and hitting Cardiff later this
month, Ade and his fellow bandmates are looking
forward to another successful tour: “It’s the
schoolboy dream of getting in a van with a load of
instruments and doing one-night stands around the
country. Occasionally we just look at each other and
go ‘We’re in a band!’ And it’s still as exciting as that.”
The Bad Shepherds, The Globe,
Cardiff, Wed 27 Nov. Tickets: £18.50.
Info: www.globecardiffmusic.com