The news that The Wonder Stuff are playing in the UAE this Thursday has been met with less fanfare than the recent visit of The Rolling Stones. Nonetheless, if you frequented the UK’s student indie circuit in the late 80s or early 90s, it’s fair to assume the chorus to Don’t Let Me Down, Gently is etched in your mind just as strongly as Get Off of My Cloud.
The band’s new double album, Oh No It’s... The Wonder Stuff, intriguingly offers one disc of original material and a second disc of covers of fellow British Midlands bands, and it’s been gathering great reviews.
“In the build-up to writing this album, we’d been doing 20th-anniversary gigs playing the whole of [the debut album] Eight Legged Groove Machine in 2008, through to Never Loved Elvis in 2011,” says the band’s frontman, Miles Hunt.
“I’d played loads of songs that hadn’t been in our sets for years and noticed the audience’s reaction. They really liked the up-tempo stuff, when you hit the chorus before a minute’s up. So when I was writing for the new album it was the first time in years I was writing with the audience in mind.”
Where does the cover disc come from? “I was chatting with Erica and Fuzz [the band’s violinist and drummer] one day about how a lot of acts from the Midlands don’t seem to get the recognition we think they deserve … You have bands like Slade, who sold millions and were the best live band the UK had in the mid-70s, but they’re remembered for a Christmas song.”
With another Midlands band caught in the midst of a full-scale feud – let’s call it UB40gate – it seemed remiss not to ask Hunt for his thoughts on the Campbell brothers’ rival pop-reggae factions, both appearing in Dubai this month: “Well, Duncan’s version’s country album was an odd decision,” he says. “But at least I know that none of the previous hundred or so members of The Wonder Stuff have the energy to start a splinter version, so I’m safe there.”
• The Wonder Stuff play at the Irish Village at 9pm tomorrow. Tickets cost Dh60, and are available at the door or from www.tixbox.com or www.timeoutickets.com
