Adam & The Ants

The first Ants

Stuart Goddard was born in Marylebone in 1954 and played bass in a pub rock group, Bazooka Joe, who were the headline act on the night the Sex Pistols played their first gig, on 6 November 1975. He became Adam Ant, and in early 1977 he formed the Ants with Lester Square, Andy Warren and Paul Flanagan.

They toured Britain, often with the Banshees, and the music press mostly disliked their fetishistic lyrics and imagery. The band recorded three sessions for John Peel, put out a single on Decca in October 1978, and then moved to the independent label Do It, which released the single Zerox in July 1979. In August 1979 they recorded their debut album, Dirk Wears White Sox, at Sound Development Studios in London. The sessions took twelve days. The album came out on 30 November 1979 and became the first number one on the UK Independent Albums Chart.

Kings of the Wild Frontier

Ant then asked Malcolm McLaren to manage the band. At the end of January 1980 McLaren persuaded guitarist Matthew Ashman, bassist Leigh Gorman and drummer Dave Barbe to leave and form Bow Wow Wow with the singer Annabella Lwin. Ant told Classic Pop it was devastating on a personal level, though he thought Bow Wow Wow a really good project.

He rebuilt within days. The new line-up had Marco Pirroni on guitar, who became his co-writer for years, Kevin Mooney on bass, and two drummers, Terry Lee Miall and Chris Hughes, who played under his middle name, Merrick. Hughes produced the band as well. He met Ant at the offices of Do It a few days after the split, and within a week they were recording at Rockfield in Wales. The tribal sound came from Ant's talks with McLaren and from a French record of Burundi drumming that Hughes already owned.

CBS signed the band in July 1980. Kings of the Wild Frontier was finished at Rockfield by the end of August and released in November. Ant said he wanted to make something heroic and celebratory after a punk scene that had become grey and political, and he said he laid down about thirty layers of vocals. The title song, Kings of the Wild Frontier, peaked at number 48 on its first release, but Dog Eat Dog reached number 4 after the band's first Top of the Pops appearance, and Antmusic peaked at number 2. The album reached number one on 24 January 1981.

Antmania

In early 1981 the band played the Children's Royal Variety Performance. Mooney was sacked afterwards and replaced by Gary Tibbs. The next day the band recorded Stand and Deliver, with Ant playing bass. It entered the chart at number one on 3 May 1981 and stayed there for five weeks. The title track of Prince Charming followed it to number one in September, and the album arrived in November 1981. Writing in the Guardian, Alexis Petridis said that from late 1980 to mid 1982 the group were unequivocally the biggest pop stars in Britain, and that at one point in 1981 they had seven singles in the Top 40.

Early in 1982 Kings of the Wild Frontier won British Album of the Year at the BRIT Awards, and Ant and Pirroni took the Ivor Novello award for Songwriter of the Year for Stand and Deliver. In March 1982 Ant disbanded the group. He started a solo career a few months later, kept Pirroni as co-writer, and had a number one with Goody Two Shoes.

Afterlife

The albums were remastered in 2004. In 2014 Ant, Barbe and Gorman reunited at the Hammersmith Apollo to play Dirk Wears White Sox in full, and in 2016 and 2017 Ant toured Kings of the Wild Frontier from start to finish, telling one interviewer that playing it in sequence taught him something different each night. Sony issued a super deluxe edition in 2016.

Kings of the Wild Frontier appears in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die, and Rolling Stone placed it in its 2020 list of the 80 greatest albums of 1980. Nine Inch Nails covered Physical (You're So) on their 1992 EP Broken. No Doubt covered Stand and Deliver in 2009.