Echo & the Bunnymen are an English rock band formed in Liverpool in 1978."The Roaring Boys: An Interview with Echo & the Bunnymen". Richard Foster, The Quietus, 28 August 2026 The original line-up consisted of vocalist Ian McCulloch, guitarist Will Sergeant and bassist Les Pattinson. In 1979, Pete de Freitas joined as the band's drummer.
Their 1980 debut album, Crocodiles, went into the top 20 of the UK Albums Chart. After releasing their second album, Heaven Up Here, in 1981, the band's cult status was followed by mainstream success in the UK in 1983 when they scored a UK Top 10 hit with "The Cutter", and the album which the song came from, Porcupine, hit number 2 in the UK. Ocean Rain (1984), continued the band's UK chart success with its lead single "The Killing Moon" entering into the top 10.
After they released a self-titled album in 1987, McCulloch left the band and was replaced by singer Noel Burke. In 1989, de Freitas was killed in a motorcycle accident. After working together as Electrafixion, McCulloch and Sergeant regrouped with Pattinson in 1997 and returned as Echo & the Bunnymen, before Pattinson's departure in 1998. The band have toured and released several albums since the late 1990s to varying degrees of success. In more recent years the band have headlined the Rockaway Beach Festival twice.
History Early years Ian McCulloch began his career in 1977, as one third of the Crucial Three, a bedroom band which also featured Julian Cope and Pete Wylie. When Wylie left, McCulloch and Cope formed the short-lived A Shallow Madness with drummer Dave Pickett and organist Paul Simpson, during which time such songs as "Read It in Books", "Robert Mitchum", "You Think It's Love" and "Spacehopper" were written by the pair. When McCulloch left the band, A Shallow Madness changed their name to the Teardrop Explodes, and McCulloch joined with guitarist Will Sergeant and bass player Les Pattinson to form Echo & the Bunnymen. This early incarnation of the band featured a drum machine, assumed by many to be "Echo", though this has been denied by the band. In the 1982 book Liverpool Explodes!, Will Sergeant explained the origin of the band's name:
In November 1978, Echo & the Bunnymen made their debut at Liverpool's Eric's Club, appearing as the opening act for the Teardrop Explodes. The band played one song, a 20-minute version of "Monkeys" which was entitled "I Bagsy Yours" at the time.
Echo & the Bunnymen's debut single "The Pictures on My Wall" was released on Bill Drummond and David Balfe's Zoo Records in May 1979, the B-side being "Read It in Books" (also recorded by the Teardrop Explodes approximately six months later as the B-side of their final Zoo Records single "Treason"). Though credited as a McCulloch/Cope collaboration, McCulloch has denied on more than one occasion that Cope had any involvement with its writing.
With the group now gaining wider attention, they were invited to record a four-song set for the BBC'S John Peel Show on 22 August, at which time they were still using a drum machine. This was the first of six live sets they would cut for the Peel show between 1979 and 1983.
By the time of their debut album, 1980's Crocodiles (July 1980), the drum machine had been replaced by Trinidad-born Pete de Freitas. Unlike the other band members, who were from working class Liverpool families, de Freitas was considered "posh" – he came from an affluent background, grew up in the south of England, and attended an elite private school. Despite his different background, the drummer's affable and outgoing manner was a welcome addition for his famously fractious bandmates. De Freitas met the trio at their 15 September 1979 gig at Eric's in Liverpool and immediately joined the band, but his 12 October live debut with them at London's Electric Ballroom was less than auspicious. Supporting hugely popular ska bands Madness and Bad Manners, the Bunnymen proved an uncomfortable fit, and they were booed off after just two songs.
"Rescue" (produced by Ian Broudie), the lead single from Crocodiles, reached No. 62 on the UK singles chart but the album (co-produced by manager Bill Drummond and his business partner David Balfe of the Teardrop Explodes) broke into the Top 20, reaching No. 17, and garnered wide critical acclaim.
Eschewing the traditional "pin-up" cover shot, Crocodiles featured an atmospheric cover image, which showed the band posed in a mysterious woodland setting, lit by hidden coloured lights. Designed by Martyn Atkins and photographed by Brian Griffin, it became the first in a coordinated series of elemental-themed album covers by Atkins and Griffin, which spanned their first four LPs, each depicting the band posed at some distance from the camera, in a visually striking natural setting – a forest (Crocodiles), a beach at sunset (Heaven Up Here), a frozen waterfall in Iceland (Porcupine) and a subterranean river (Ocean Rain). It would not be until their fifth, self-titled album that the band employed a traditional group portrait.
Shine So Hard
The band embarked on their first major concert tour between September and December 1980 to promote Crocodiles, supported by London band the Sound, during which they performed their first European concerts in France, The Netherlands and Germany. The end of the Camo tour was followed by a four-month break, mainly dedicated to the preparation and recording of their second LP.
Manager Bill Drummond (later of KLF) and lighting director Bill Butt launched plans for a one-off promotional concert event as the final date of the Camo tour, which would be professionally filmed and recorded. It was primarily intended to provide material for the group's first music video, but Drummond and Butt's vision went well beyond the conventional three-minute pop-rock promotional clip, and it reflected their desire to capture Echo & the Bunnymen's live performance during this crucial breakthrough phase of their career. Butt was slated to direct, but British film union regulations at the time meant that the film would not be distributed commercially unless it was directed by a union member. Butt took over as producer, and on the recommendation of their mutual friend, Patrick Duval, Butt engaged novice filmmaker John Smith, who had earned a union ticket for a film he had directed while at university.
After extensive consultation with their clients, Smith and Duval were "embedded" in Buxton with the band in the week leading up to the concert, and they were given a free hand to structure, shoot and edit the project. Smith and Duval shaped the first part of the film around the differing characters of the four band members, filming both the town and the musicians, but using unusual shooting angles and perspectives. This material was then assembled into an impressionistic sequence of seemingly disconnected images, which are gradually revealed to be a montage of the activities of the band members as they prepare for and head to the show.
The concert was staged on 17 January 1981, in the striking Victorian-era glass concert hall in the Buxton Pavilion Gardens in Derbyshire before a specially invited audience. Before the show, advertisements had been placed in the music press, and 500 lucky fans who responded were given free passes and a map directing them to the secret location (called "Gomorrah" in the advertisement), which also advised "BE PREPARED: THIS IS AN ATLAS ADVENTURE". For an additional fee of £5, coach transport was provided for fans from London, Liverpool and other cities.
Although inclement winter weather complicated the rehearsals, causing transport headaches for the band, as well as for their fans, the concert went ahead as planned, with the band taking the stage 30 minutes after the scheduled start time. The performance was filmed by Smith, Duval and cameraman Mike Tomlinson, with multitrack audio recorded on the Manor Mobile studio by Peter Woods. The footage captures the band at the height of their early success, and documents both their musical prowess as a live act and the impressive staging and lighting designed by Bill Butt. The set list was drawn mainly from Crocodiles, plus previews of several tracks from the upcoming second album.
The finished 33-minute short film combined Smith and Duval's opening montage with dynamic footage of four songs from the show. Titled Shine So Hard: An Atlas Adventure, it was given a limited UK cinema release, but Warner executives were reportedly dismayed by its avant-garde structure and the fact that the band don't even appear clearly until partway through the film. The audio recordings of the four songs featured in the film were also released on the "Shine So Hard" EP, which reached #37 on the UK singles chart, thus becoming the group's first British hit single. In 1982, the film was released as a limited edition of 500 VHS cassettes, redeemable only with a voucher given out to those who had attended the concert, and copies found their way onto the second-hand market.
Heaven Up Here Beginning in April 1981, the band commenced another round of touring to promote the forthcoming album. This included their first North American dates in New York, Toronto, Pittsburgh, Detroit, Chicago, Boston, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. After another round of shows in the UK and Europe mid-year, they returned to America for more shows during October, and in November they made their only visit to Australia, including a show on 11 November at the Manly Vale Hotel on Sydney's northern beaches. This was recorded, and four tracks from that concert were subsequently included as bonus tracks on the 2003 CD reissue of the second album.
Heaven Up Here was recorded at Rockfield Studios in Wales during March, and was released in May 1981. Produced by the band and Hugh Jones, it proved a very positive and enjoyable recording experience for the band, and became an even bigger critical and commercial success, reaching the UK Top Ten (No. 10), although "A Promise", the sole single lifted from the album, only reached UK No. 49. In July that year, Rolling Stone described them as "the best band to come out of Liverpool since the Beatles". The album's cover image continued the elemental theme of Crocodiles, and depicted the group standing on a beach, with their backs to the camera, looking out to sea, silhouetted against a bank of storm clouds at sunset, with a flock of seagulls flying across sky in front of them. The photograph was taken on the beach at Porthcawl in South Wales on a day off from recording. According to photographer Brian Griffin, they had to use buckets of fish offal to entice the seagulls to fly through the shot. Manager Bill Drummond and Korova label head, Rob Dickins, reportedly hated the image and Atkins, Griffin and the band had to fight to have it accepted as the cover shot.
Porcupine and mainstream success After another break over the winter, the band played three UK dates in April 1982. In June, they achieved their first top 20 UK hit single with "The Back of Love" (No. 19). In July, they began a short round of festival appearances and headlining concerts in Britain and Europe, including an appearance at the first WOMAD festival, where they were joined onstage for the song "All My Colours (Zimbo)" by the Drummers of Burundi. Their only American date that year was a one-off show at New York's Peppermint Lounge on 24 August, and their 1982 touring schedule concluded with four UK dates in December.