Adam Ant Without Ants May Return
If Adam & the Ants guitarist Marco
Pirroni had a nickel for every time the seminal New Wave
band was supposed to reunite but didn’t, he’d be a rich man.
If Pirroni was then actually supplied with all those nickels —
plus many, many thousand-dollar bills — it likely still wouldn’t
be enough lucre to make him do it. “The only way the Ants would
ever do any sort of live performances or reformation is if they’ve
got something new,” Pirroni says. “There’s no way I’m gonna go out
and, even if it’s just for one gig, and just play ‘Antmusic’ and
‘Dog Eat Dog,’ and all that.”
Pirroni’s ultimatum seemingly puts to rest more scuttlebutt
regarding an Ant reunion for as early as this year. Adam without
the Ants, however, has been involved in talks to play alongside
other Eighties acts like Wang Chung, ABC and,
believe it or not, a reunited Thompson Twins, on a
U.S. tour this summer. According to Dave Harris, a promoter with
Nashville-based Murdock Entertainment, the company putting the
package together, Adam Ant would tour “if it were the right
situation and there weren’t a zillion dates, it would be heavily
considered.”
That said, Adam has not recorded or toured without Pirroni since
Adam & the Ants released their debut in 1979 or since Adam went
solo in 1982. Though Ant and Pirroni have demoed at least an
album’s worth of material in a London studio for a potential new
album, it’s the prospect of touring that unnerves the guitarist. “I
don’t like performing,” he says. “I find it tedious … so I’ve
kinda decided in the last couple years that I’m not gonna do any
live performances.” Ant, with Pirroni, last toured in support of
Wonderful, which was released four years ago.
Without a record label in the U.K. or U.S., Ant and Pirroni
continue working on Antbox, a three-disc box set that may
finally get released this fall. The compilation was originally
supposed to come out last year, but Pirroni “can’t remember” why it
didn’t, other than the fact it hasn’t been mastered yet. Set to
include the obvious hits like “Strip,” “Desperate But Not Serious”
and “Goody Two Shoes,” the retrospective will also feature live
material, B-sides, and other material, such as an alternate version
of “Friend or Foe” and demos of “Antmusic,” Stand and Deliver” and
“Prince Charming.”
“It’s going through all this stuff, all these old cassettes and
stuff, that we’d abandoned and you always think, ‘God, why’d we
abandon that?'” Pirroni says. “But we thought it was crap at the
time.”