The unfortunate moment Adam Ant threatened a London pub: “Biggest mistake of my life”
The review of the first-ever Sex Pistols gig might not have predicted the grandiose impact the band would have on punk, but it did capture the chaos of the outrageous outfit pretty well.
“‘Hurry up, they’re having an orgy on stage’,” wrote Neil Spencer, who was writing for the New Music Express at the time, “Said the bloke on the door as he tore the tickets up. I walked to the front and straightaway sighted a chair arcing gracefully through the air, skidding across the stage and thudding contentedly into the PA system, to the obvious nonchalance of the bass drums and guitar. Well I didn’t think they sounded that bad on first earful–then I saw it was the singer who’d done the throwing.”
The band’s first gig was at St Martin’s College in London. Yes, before it was the exposing shot for a Pulp classic, this college was the birthplace of punk, as the Sex Pistols showed everyone what they could expect from this wave of musicians, these artists who left the flamboyancy of rock behind and opted for simple songs played with panache.
People everywhere were inspired by the Sex Pistols, as their performance style led to the development of bands such as Buzzcocks and The Clash. One of the musicians who would be inspired by their outrageous style was standing in that room during their first-ever gig. Not only that, but he was playing in the band which the Sex Pistols were there to support.
Adam Ant was playing bass at the time and had no idea that the support band that evening would wind up essentially inventing punk music. He was impressed by Sex Pistols, maybe not necessarily their sound, as let’s face it, they wouldn’t have been up to scratch during their first show; however, he did like the way they acted, the unapologetic and shocking nature of their performance, and the unpredictability of the whole thing.
Adam Ant took it upon himself to change his style after watching Sex Pistols. He went on to form his own punk band, Adam and the Ants, and wound up becoming a musical icon for many in the process. His sound was a bit of a more pop-centric version of punk, but it was still considered outrageous and helped Adam become one of the most acclaimed musicians of the time. With tracks like ‘Stand and Deliver’ and ‘Prince Charming’, paired with his strange dress sense and eccentricity, it was hard for people not to become slightly obsessed with this new branch of punk.
Despite the success, though, Adam Ant still struggled throughout his life, not because of his music, but because of mental health struggles which impacted his personal life. He admitted that he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, which led to some unfortunate events, like lashing out in a London pub in 2002.
Ant has spoken previously about how much he enjoyed his marriage and revelled in becoming a father. “I became a man. Before that, I was a little boy. My daughter’s the greatest thing that’s happened to me in my life and she turned me into a more responsible man, as opposed to just someone who’s a perpetual teenager, thinking you’re a man when you’re not,” he said, “I took five years off to be with her, and I enjoyed being her dad, and I had enough money to do it, so I was able to not work for five years and look after my daughter.”
Once his marriage ended, things started taking a turn, as Ant was hospitalised in 2001, but stopped taking his antidepressants by 2002; he had also started drinking again. After an argument with a stranger, Ant went into a pub in Camden and was laughed at. Enraged, he left and came back with a second world war pistol, threatened to fire it and then wound up fleeing the scene. He was subsequently arrested, jailed, bailed, and admitted into a psychiatric hospital.
“I basically took the law into my own hands,” said Ant, discussing the incident, “Which was the biggest mistake of my life. I’d never broken the law before, I’d never even had a driving ticket. So you do the wrong thing. Like I say, it was the biggest mistake of my life.”
