Barely a month goes by without my local Waterstone’s
displaying a new tome devoted to one of the cult bands of the 1980’s, be it The
Smiths, Joy Division or even Motley Crüe. Yet curiously not one major book
has yet been written chronicling the history of one of the most wilfully
mysterious, most avidly collected and most revered bands of that era, The
Sisters of Mercy.
The endless fascination of both TSOM fans and media alike
has been with a brief period of the band’s near forty year existence, between
the release of the Alice single in late 1982 and the acrimonious split in the
band in 1985, shortly after the release of debut album First and Last And
Always, often referred to as the cornerstone of gothic culture.
A couple of years ago, a fan commented on the Heartland TSOM
fan forum that he had wanted to answer questions on the band for his specialist
round on BBC TV’s Mastermind quiz programme, but had been prevented from doing
so because of the lack of any formal books published about the band. However,
this situation is finally now changing with the future publication of Mark
Andrews’ crowd-funded history of the band, and this memoir from guitarist Wayne
Hussey, whose career is always seen through the prism of the two years which he
spent in the band between the autumns of 1983 and 1985.
Salad Daze is the first of his two-part autobiography, and
charts the Mission frontman’s life from his birth and early years in Bristol through
to his departure from the Sisters of Mercy thirty-four years ago. The eagerly
anticipated book promised to lift the lid on Hussey’s time in the band, and given
his penchant for amusingly provocative yet self-deprecatory soundbites, it was
clearly going to be an unmissable read for all Sisters fans.
I have to confess to being disappointed on receiving my copy
and discovering that two hundred of the
three hundred and fifty pages dealt with his life before he joined TSOM, but I
expected that I would skip through these chapters at some pace in order to get
to the “real deal”.
However, this mood changed instantly as I began to read the
Prologue, an incredibly moving account of the circumstances of his mother’s
pregnancy and of his birth, which was both well-written and a coruscating exposé
of the moral double-standards of the late 1950’s. Indeed, rather than flicking
rapidly through them, I really savoured the early chapters, which would strike
a chord with anyone who grew up in the 1960’s and 1970’s, with its everyman
tales of family holidays, conflicting emotions and chance encounters with minor
celebrities from Specimen/Banshees guitarist Jon Klein to former Villa winger
Ray Graydon. Wryly observed and well-expressed, Hussey’s memoir is both
engaging and thought-provoking, and he is (retrospectively at least) generous
in his assessment and evaluation of those who played key roles in his formative
years. I can well imagine that even the resolutely non-goth Mrs L will enjoy
reading these early chapters when I pass the book to her.
So it’s over one hundred pages in before Wayne joins his
first really serious band (Ded Byrds) having moved to Liverpool, and each
subsequent band up to and including Dead or Alive is dealt with in impressive
detail, with Hussey’s memory untainted by the ravages of drugs and alcohol at
this point, as he stayed true to the teachings of his strict Mormon upbringing.
This means that we get an insight into the legendary Eric’s scene and the
development of Scouse luminaries such as Echo and the Bunnymen, Frankie Goes To
Hollywood and, erm, A Flock of Seagulls, plus the development of Planet X club
where Hussey used to DJ.
During his latter years in Liverpool and his time in Dead or
Alive in particular, the guitarist began to dabble in drugs, discovering the
joys of speed in particular, and his touring experiences thereafter become a
bit of a haze. Sadly, this is particularly the case during his stint in the
Sisters, and Hussey himself confesses that for some tours he remembers
virtually nothing! For others he has vivid memories of the sex and the drugs,
but sadly very little of the rock’n’roll, so what should be the most
fascinating chapters of the book become a tedious litany of whizz and groupie
reminiscences, which nonetheless reveal that Eldritch would not have had to use
much imagination in coming up with many of the lyrics for the songs on FALAA
(“nothing but the knife to live for”, “And I don’t care what you’re called,
tell me later if at all” etc).
However, Wayne is never shy of an opinion or an amusing
anecdote, and is particularly strong and surprisingly objective at analysing
the subtext of the group dynamic, stating that with hindsight the band’s
ultimate 1985 split(s) seemed almost inevitable from the moment he joined the
band, and providing a great deal of evidence to back up his assertion.
Although he acknowledges that it is difficult to reconstitute
with total accuracy events of almost thirty five years ago, Hussey presents his
recollections of the reasons and issues which finally saw him leaving Eldritch
and forming his own band with Craig Adams, accepting that the “real truth”
would emerge from an amalgam of the reminiscences of all four members, rather
than just his own “truth”. His account is however the only one published in
detail to date, and is sufficiently honest and candid to give a highly credible
breakdown and timeline for the band’s demise, which is incidentally largely
similar to the version (factual or otherwise) uncovered by “enthusiastic online
sleuthing by a fan”. In particular, his portrayal of the complex character and
behaviour of Andrew Eldritch is laudably even-handed given both the huge
frustration which this had caused him at the time, and the way in which he has
been subsequently viewed by a zealous faction of rabidly pro-Eldritch Sisters
fans (whom he describes as “a bigoted, sour bunch”) who continue to hold him
(Hussey) solely responsible for the 1985 break-up. Although proud of the fact
that (like Craig Adams) he refused to change his name to join the group (as Andrew,
Mark and Ben had done), it has to be said that Hussey like Eldritch becomes a
rock’n’roll caricature with his shades, hat and black clothing, enthusiastically
adopting the trademark lifestyle far removed from his previous and subsequent existence.
Even for the most obsessed TSOM fan, there are plenty of new
facts and anecdotes in Salad Daze about Hussey’s time in the group, from technical
details of the guitars he played through information about song-writing credits
to stories about the likes of Jez, Danny and Grape which some of them might wish
had remained private. And certain long-standing mysteries, such as why Eldritch
began wearing hats, the circumstances in which Marx and Hussey had a trial at
replacing Eldritch as vocalist and the origin of the phrase “Victims of
Circumstance” are elucidated en passant.
By turns entertaining, enlightening and though-provoking but
always disarmingly frank, Salad Daze is a great read despite some sloppy
editing which has failed to remove some basic errors, contradictions and
repetitions. But these are minor quibbles with what is a highly recommended publication,
which comes with its own WH curated Spotify and YouTube playlists and a variety
of editions including a deluxe package which contains previously unheard recordings from Wayne's early years in bands in Liverpool. Chapeau,
Wayne!
Salad Daze is out now, published by Omnibus Press, and is available online from The Mission's website.
