THE WURZELS have been brewing up country music– or West Country music– for decades.
Since the 60s, in fact– and Tommy Banner has been there for almost all of it.
He says that in his time he’s shared the bill with countless other acts, and the secret to their longevity… an enjoyment of their craft.
“When we go to festivals,” he says, “we see some of the other bands from the 70s still going, and we can’t understand why everyone looks so miserable when they’re on stage.
“If you’re not enjoying it, get out of it and let some of the younger bands get a chance- we really believe that.
“We just go out to enjoy ourselves and hopefully the crowds do too.”
As such, the enjoyment of performing especially was something sorely missed over the last two years for the band.
“There was that time, about 18 months solid with COVID, and that was probably the longest 18 months ever.
“It was so good to get back, and importantly even better when we were back inside– our first gig back was outside,
“I mean we’re used to seeing the whites of people’s eyes, but we were outside the rugby club on tables surrounded by perspex scenes, and people seemed even happier just to be out.”
The band was a few short hours away from their annual Sub89 Christmas gig– which had become a tradition lasting well over a decade– when drummer John Morgan fell ill.
A few weeks later, he died at the age of 80 after contracting Covid.
At the time, Tommy said that the band “Can’t believe we shan’t ever see you behind those drums again.”
Speaking of the events, he said: “Unfortunately, we lost a brother before last Christmas as his health had been bad– he phoned me one morning ahead of the Sub89 gig and he said he couldn’t breathe.
“We were fortunate that our now-permanent drummer Dom could play, and he’d watched John religiously because he was our monitor engineer.
“He ran one song on a soundcheck, and then played the whole hour-plus show with just that tiny bit of rehearsal.”
With the anniversary of the event coming up, Tommy said: “I don’t know how he’ll be feeling, for sure, but he’ll be feeling fairly sentimental,
“We’ve been doing this gig for years, and we’ve seen our fans for so many years, so we’re close to them.
“In fact,” he went on, “there’s probably about three generations of fans, I know there’s some families who all come to the show.
“So we’ll have a lump in our throats before we go on for this one.”
Over the years, the band has had a curious relationship with Christmas, having released Christmas albums and singles, and even appearing on the Christmas special of Never Mind the Buzzcocks.
“We put together festive album because we’d never done it before, and that’s how that came about.
“We did the special with Bad Manners, as a challenge to each other– we’ve worked loads over the last 15 years at festivals and stuff.
“But that was especially good fun.”
Nowadays, he admits that Christmas is more of a family event, saying: “we’ve all got families– the lead singer Pete is a great-grandad to about 12 kids, a real hareem of them.
“We’ve all got grandchildren, except for Dom, and that keeps us up to speed with Christmas.
“The great thing about working is that for me I don’t have time to go shopping, which is handy because I can never think what to buy.
“What do you buy a 16-year-old in this day and age? I don’t know.”
The Wurzels return to Sub89 when they kick off their Christmas Tour on Thursday, December 1.
Doors open at 6.30pm and tickets cost £20, available via www.gigantic.com
