In a relatively short period of just seven years The Stunning became one of Ireland’s favourite bands releasing a brace of classic singles and playing practically every pub and parish hall in the country.
The Stunning’s debut album, Paradise in the Picturehouse, and the second album Once Around The World, both reached the number one spot in the Irish album charts. The last release was a live album, Tightrope recorded in the Taibhdhearc Theatre at the Galway Arts Festival in July 1993.
Steve Wall, lead singer, main songwriter and founder of The Stunning told Limerick Post that the band would never have happened but for some unsuccessful acting auditions.
“I originally wanted to be an actor and spent three years with the Druid Theatre”, he explains. I had come up to Dublin to pursue a career in acting but that whole time I was going to see gigs and the music scene was exploding with A House and Something Happens and The Golden Horde.”
“I remember doing a few auditions for acting roles and not getting them. I remember that frustration of not having any control over whether you were going to be working or not and the whole thing about a band is that you just started one and nobody was there to tell you that you were hired. You just went and did it. I placed an advert in Hot Press Magazine and auditions were held in Dublin but the band sort of fell into place weeks later in Galway where I had previously been a student for three years.”
The band shared a big farmhouse with friends where they rehearsed and partied and took turns to cook. Steve recalls, “we were listening to a lot of country music, Steve Earle had just released Guitar Town which we were really into, so our first single, ‘Gotta Get Away’ was us trying to do a Steve Earle.”
He continues, “basically The Stunning were writing songs based on the music we grew up with and the music that surrounded us at the time. If you look at the singles they could be by different bands, Gotta Get Away is a country thing, Half Past Two could be a Burt Bacharach tune, Romeo’s on Fire had a Latin feel because we were listening to Los Lobos who were big at the time and then Brewing Up a Storm had a Doors vibe off it. That is probably why record companies ran a mile from The Stunning, they didn’t know what section to file us under.”
Steve and the band remained based in Galway throughout this time. And while The Stunning could fill venues throughout the country and could pull big Irish ex-pat crowds in London venues, record companies remained baffled as to how the band could be marketed to a wider audience. At one particular showcase gig in London, it was the band supporting The Stunning who attracted all the A&R guys’ notice and eventually picked up that all important record deal, that band are called Blur. “We weren’t like a cool band in any way. In Dublin you had all these bands that were following in the footsteps of U2 but record companies didn’t know what to do with The Stunning”.
Being based in Galway back in the days before the Internet or mobile phones left the band in somewhat of a void of it’s own making which may have played a part in hindering the band’s progression, Steve reflects, “in the beginning it was great but in the end I think maybe being based in Galway was a hindrance. Because at the time there was very few bands in Galway writing original material, the only other band was the Sawdoctors. I think young musicians really benefit from being somewhere where they are going to see a lot of gigs and where the bar is being raised all the time and are being challenged. I think in Galway we were isolated from the business and other influences as well, I think it left us without a sense of direction and a bit rudderless and we missed that constant stimulation.”
Nonetheless the music of The Stunning lived on after the band broke up ‘94. Steve remembers, “For some reason the songs kept ending up on all these compilations of Irish bands and were still on the radio, Half Past Two and Brewing up a Storm in particular and cover bands were playing them and we were amazed that the songs seem to last the test of time.”
There were constant requests to Steve through The Walls website to make a CD version of The Stunning’s debut album available to all those who had literally worn out the original cassette copies.
Re-releasing ‘Paradise in the Picturehouse’ led to the original members reuniting for a one-off show, which led to a tour in 2003 and which has in turn led to the band playing a few reunion shows yearly when the availability of members allows.
Of course after the demise of The Stunning, brothers Steve and Joe formed The Walls and have released two albums on their own Dirtbirds imprint. The album New Dawn Breaking went straight into the Irish charts at No. 5 in its first week of release in June 2005 and has produced four hit singles including “To the Bright and Shining Sun” (“the song from the bank ad”) which regularly features in the encore of The Stunning live show along with Carrying The Fire, a single by The Walls from 2010.
The Walls released ‘Bird in a Cage’ in March this year, a wonderful autobiographical tune that will feature on The Wall’s third album titled ‘Stop The Lights’ which will go on release early next year.
The Stunning play Live at the Big Top in Limerick’s Milk Market this Friday September 23 with guests Hermitage Green and Eoin Coughlan. The band then head up the country to headline the Green Village Festival in Westmeath on Saturday September 24.
