If Stewart Lee Wants to Be A Rock Star He's Left It A Bit Late
The cerebral stand-up was spotted singing at a gig the other night. Is he about to pivot?
A video was circulating yesterday on social media of comedian Stewart Lee making a guest appearance singing with the indie band The Girl With The Replaceable Head at the Waiting Room club in London. I don't know if it was a one-off or if it points to a new side hustle to add to his portfolio, but if he wants to be a rock star he has just turned 56. He may have left it a bit late. You can watch him in action, if you can call it that, here
It's typical of the Morrissey-has-let-himself-go lookalike that he is doing things in reverse. It has previously been the case that comedians start out trying to be rock stars and end up being stand-ups. Sometimes because they realise they aren't sexy enough to front a band, sometimes because they realise they can make a pretty decent living making people laugh.
I saw the Fast Show reunion show a couple of weeks ago at the Adelphi Theatre. Onstage Charlie Higson and Paul Whitehouse reminisced about how they formed a punk band at the University of East Anglia called, titter ye not, The Right Hand Lovers. While Whitehouse dropped out of uni and out of the music business Charlie then had a proper pop career, fronting The Higsons, who were signed to Two Tone and even made it onto Top of the Pops before they both turned to their true love, comedy, working with Harry Enfield.
Vic Reeves also had rock star ambitions before his comedy-slash-art career took off. He was in numerous bands where it seems that more attention was given to thinking of their names than the music. Rum, Dig Me I'm Django, Bobby and Jackie Charlton's Eerie Mansion spring to mind. He once said that he was also in a band that didn't have a name but came on stage with flasks of curry so that people would talk about the smell. Bob Mortimer was in a more down-to-earth sounding punk band called Dog Dirt.
Frank Skinner also had a brief flirtation with punk stardom. There are various different accounts but he may or may not have performed with two great Midlands bands, The Prefects and The Nightingales. It may have given him his first taste of the limelight but things didn't take off and it was another decade before he decided comedy was the way he could make something of his life.
It might have been something about that era. Teenage boys back then always saw being in a band as a way of being popular, ie sexually attractive. But then comedy came along and they could be sexy by making people laugh which was what they were doing with their mates already. These days aspiring primetime clowns skip the rock band stage because there is now an established career structure for stand-ups.
I don't think Michael McIntyre was ever in a band. Or Kevin Bridges. In fact maybe there are more comics now who are frustrated superstar DJs than frustrated pop stars. Ivo Graham has been known to DJ, Elis James DJs at Scared To Dance nights. And somehow hip hop obsessive Romesh Ranganathan has even found time to do things behind the decks when not appearing on every TV show.
Of course, when Vic and Bob and Paul and Charlie were making the move from singing to stand-up they were unwittingly treading a well-trodden path. Freddie Starr fronted a band called The Midniters who were managed by Brian Epstein and played in Hamburg around the same time as the Beatles. If things had panned out differently, who knows, maybe Freddie Starr would have married Yoko Ono.
In fairness Stewart Lee does have previous when it comes to mixing music and comedy though. He has played guitar onstage at comedy gigs and made the film King Rocker about aforementioned post-punk legends The Nightingales with director Michael Cumming. He has even appeared on a number one single. Asian Dub Foundation's track, Comin’ Over Here, topped the official download charts at the start of 2021 and featured a vocal contribution from Lee.
I don't know what his long-term musical plans are but maybe he should have done things the other way round. Russ Abbot started out in the band The Black Abbots who mixed comedy and pop before striking out on his own. If only Lee had concentrated on music first like Abbot maybe he too could have ended up playing the lead role in the national tour of Doctor Dolittle.
Perhaps in a parallel universe families sit down in front of their screens on a Saturday night and watch Stewart Lee's Madhouse.
Stewart Lee picture by Steve Ullathorne
Stewart Lee is touring in 2025 with a new show. Details here. His last show, Basic Lee, is due to air on Sky in 2024. There are no details of any upcoming rock gigs.