Bunnyman: A Memoir
Will Sergeant CONSTABLE
Indie-rock veteran revisits punk-era Liverpool and the birth of the Bunnymen.
Guitarist Will Sergeant’s engagingly downto-earth memoir chronicles an emotionally bumpy working-class childhood and music-crazed adolescence on the rural fringes of Liverpool, culminating in almost-overnight pop success with Echo And The Bunnymen. Painting a fondly nostalgic picture of 1960s and 70s Merseyside with its feathercuts, back-alley knee-tremblers and aggro-loving youth tribes, Sergeant favours deadpan humour over anguished soulsearching: a school toilet block is “literally built like a brick shithouse”, tasting a poached egg for the first time at a posh friend’s house is “akin to discovering the secret of fire”. Most of all, Bunnyman commemorates some lifechanging gigs: Roxy Music, Bowie, Slade’s Dave Hill and his “medieval simpleton” haircut, then the seminal Eric’s club scene that helped launch postpunk legends including Joy Division, the Human League and the Bunnymen themselves.