Miles Hunt & Erica Nockalls (of The Wonder Stuff)

Miles Hunt:

Miles Hunt, Malcolm Treece, Martin Gilks and Rob ‘The Bass Thing’ Jones formed The Wonder Stuff in March 1986 and released their first album, ‘The Eight Legged Groove Machine’ two years later. Aside from writing scores of articles about the album and the band as a whole, it was the arrogant, self-confidence manner of vocalist/guitarist Miles Hunt who also attracted the media with his sneering lyrics and instant put-downs to anyone who rose up against him on stage.

The Bass Thing left at the end of 1989 and new bassist Paul Clifford was brought into the fold, alongside multi-instrumentalist Martin ‘Fiddly’ Bell. It was their 1991 album ‘Never Loved Elvis’ that they are probably best remembered for by the general public, spawning the infamous pop song ‘The Size Of A Cow’ reaching Number 4 in the UK singles charts – their highest charting single in their own right. The following year, the group teamed up with the brilliant Vic Reeves on his track ‘Dizzy’ which rocketed them to the ‘dizzy’ heights of Number 1 for two weeks – swatting U2’s ‘The Fly’ in the process.

Despite being massively successful in the UK, selling out concert venues across the country and even organising their own festival at Walsall FC’s Bescot Stadium, the group split up in 1994 bowing out at the Phoenix Festival less than a year after the release of their fourth album, ‘Construction For The Modern Idiot’.

After a brief VJ stint on MTV Europe, Miles Hunt went on to form Vent 414 with Pete Howard and Morgan Nicholls whilst the other members of the group joined Eat’s former frontman Ange Dolittle in We Know Where You Live. Both groups released a couple of singles, with Vent 414 also releasing one album for Polydor. After We Know Where You Live split towards the end of 1996, Malc joined Vent 414 briefly, contributing to a handful of tracks that were destined for the groups 2nd album that sadly never came to fruition. Vent 414 split in the Summer of 1997.

In 1998, the idea was suggested to Miles that he combine a holiday in America alongside performing a handful of live acoustic shows along the way. As a result, Miles’ solo career took off, performing 20 dates spanning a two month period for which he was also joined by Malc Treece. With the benefit of an outstanding song writing ability, Miles was never short of new material to include on the tour and his first solo album for GIG Records, ‘Miles Across America’ was released in a limited edition run of just 1000 copies to promote the tour.

Since then, Miles has continued to release his own work in addition to performing a number of live dates each year mixing solo tracks alongside Vent 414 and Wonder Stuff material with the occasion cover version thrown in for good measure.

Following numerous offers, Miles, Malc, Martin Gilks and Martin Bell agreed to undertake a five-night residency at The Forum in London in December 2000 which confirmed they still commanded a loyal following. They were joined onstage by Stuart Quinnell on bass. Over the course of the next three years, the group performed a handful of live dates and festival appearances before a much-publicised split ensued in 2004.

The release of new album ‘Escape From Rubbish Island’ in 2004 – their first in eleven years – found founder members Miles Hunt and Malcolm Treece joined by Mark McCarthy (bass, Radical Dance Faction) and Andres Karu (drums, Love In Reverse). They were later joined by Erica Nockalls on violin in 2005. As the group approached their 20th Anniversary (March 2006), their highly acclaimed studio album ‘Suspended By Stars’ was released – arguably their best release to date.

Miles also released a new solo live album, ‘Interloper’ in November 2006 followed by possibly his best solo work to date on the outstanding ‘Not An Exit’ album (also featuring Erica and Andres) which was released in April 2007.

Erica Nockalss:

After 4 years of intense musical training under the violin virtuoso, Ken Aiso, I graduated with honours from The Birmingham Conservatoire in the summer of 2006. As a ‘classically trained’ violinist (as that seems to be the title awarded to me) I’ve been performing with orchestras and string quartets for the most part of my life.
What really interests me, however, is the power of ROCK! I was 17 years old when I purchased my first electric violin (it was a transparent red Ted Brewer ‘VIVO’) and ever since then, sought out other rock musicians that wanted to play with me. My initial band endeavour was to come under the name FIRESWITCH – a Birmingham based prog metal band.
At the same time as playing ‘metal’ violin, I met another Birmingham based band – The Wonder Stuff and as of March 2005, joined them! As a result of my work with The Wonder Stuff I secured full sponsorship with Ted Brewer Violins (www.tedbrewerviolins.com). Since then I’ve been demonstrating these ace violins at music conventions around the world.