Forty-five years ago Dirk put on his white socks and Adam Ant was born.
London-born Stuart Goddard became Adam Ant during the punk rock revolution of 1977, forming the band Adam and the Ants and debuting with “Dirk Wears White Sox” in 1979. Despite a false start with the infamous Sex Pistols Svengali Malcolm McLaren, Ant and his Edwardian-attired company became all the rage with hits such as “Antmusic, “Stand and Deliver,” “Prince Charming” and “Ant Rap,” and the persona was strong enough to sustain Ant himself into a solo career that began in 1982.
Since then he’s been more passionate than prolific, with just nine studio albums during these past 45 years -- most recently 2013′s “Adam Ant is the Blueblack Hussar in Marrying the Gunner’s Daughter.” He’s also acted on screens large and small (“Nomads,” “Love Bites,” “The Equalizer,” “Northern Exposure,” “Tales From the Crypt”) and on stage, in “Entertaining Mr. Sloane” and “Funeral Games” and producing the musical “Be Bop a Lula” about early rockers Eddie Cochran and Gene Vincent.
Primarily Ant, 69, has been a road warrior; his Friend Or Foe Tour took him around North America and the U.K. during 2019, and he was on the road back in Great Britain This year finds him back on our side of the pond, with show dubbed ANTMUSIC that assures us this rock prince is still charming after all these many years. Her performs Saturday with the English Beat at the Goodyear Theater in Akron.
Tell us about the show?
Ant: After the pandemic, I just want to come back with something that’s a celebration of the entire catalog -- not just the hits but some songs I haven’t played live before out of the catalog and just take a new look on it all.
It’s been 45 years since “Dirk Wears White Sox,” your first album. What’s that feel like?
Ant: I don’t think about the time, really. In the lead-up to a tour I just think about the set I’ve got to do, choosing the order of songs and which songs to put where. That takes quite a bit of time and rehearsal. I’ve got my routine of getting the legs going again and getting in shape for everything, so hopefully by the time I go on stage I’ll be rockin’ ready.
What kind of perspective does that passage of time give you about the career?
Ant: I think I’ve created quite a diverse sort of quality of music. The instrumentation’s different on a lot of songs from album to album. A song from “Dirk” is a completely different kettle of fish than doing one from “Kings of the Wild Frontier” or “Strip” or “Wonderful” or “Friend or Foe.” They’re so different that it’s almost like you have to go back and say, “How’s this gonna work with that? How’s this gonna blend in?”
What accounted for that kind of diversity?
Ant: It’s kind of a lower boredom threshold. With the success of “Kings” I could’ve pretty much stayed in that zone of musicality, but I found that after working the album for over a year and touring and going around the world with it, and you’re wearing similar costumes...After that I wanted to completely start again with a fresh, white page. I look at that with every album and every concept, not just a visual concept but a musical concept as well. Each album was completely different, hopefully, both musically and visually, not just for me but for the audience as well.
What’s surprised you over the years?
Ant: I think hitting in America with the “Goody Two Shoes” single (in 1982). Having a brass section was quite a bit turn for me. I was recording “Goody Two Shoes” in London and there was a group of guys, a brass section, who had just been in there doing a session for somebody and I listened to some of the session they were doing and it was such a completely different avenue of music than anything I’d tried on any of my records before. I thought, “OK, I think I’ll just try with this [sings the horn riff], and instead of doing that on guitar let’s do it on brass. So they tried it and it just sounded really great; these were top-class musicians and they really delivered the goods and we kept it and it sounded great. And then of course we had a new secret ingredient, if you like, to put into the “Friend or Foe” album tracks, and then we made it part of the live show. It was very exciting.
You’ve had that kind of brash attitude throughout your career. Are you generally confident that even the wild ideas will work?
Ant: Yeah. Back then, I think calling the album “Kings of the Wild Frontier” we had to sort of get up some kind of bravado to that and to feel like kings and go out and perform like kings and give it our best shot. In a way we wanted to be the best band around -- not that there’s anything wrong with that. I think it’s something all good bands are; they want to be the best band around, so there’s a healthy competitiveness of really great bands out there.
And there were a lot of those at the time Adam and the Ants crawled out there?
Ant: Oh, definitely. We had the punk scene and the post-punk scene. You had bands like the Stray Cats, for instance, who were my favorite band of all time. But there was some competition there; you really had to bring out your best act on the night, because everybody else would be doing the same thing. You had Dexy’s Midnight Runners and Spandau Ballet and Duran Duran...just a lot of good bands. It was all around us.
Where did the Adam Ant character come from? Was it an extension of Stuart or a completely different kind of person?
Ant: I didn’t look like a ‘70s pop singer, a rock singer; I was sort of skinny. But I used to be a grounds man on the tennis court and get up early in the morning and push a roller up and down a sand tennis court to flatten it. I built up my physique by doing that and doing these sort of physical jobs before I’d go to school. So the shape of me was not waif-like. I liked the name Adam; it seemed to be an appropriate name for someone who looked like I did. And then the Ants came together so I was Adam Ant.
What did the persona allow you to do, or be, that was different from what you otherwise were?
Ant: The best and most useful place to put it was on stage, really, to just immerse yourself in the moment and immerse yourself in the music completely, and then off stage be the opposite of that. I’m quite quiet, really, and just focused on writing the songs. What you saw on stage wasn’t what you saw off stage; off stage I was quite relaxed. I think it would have been too much to try to live with that 24-7.
Other performers have been taken over by their personas, though. How did you keep Adam Ant from taking over the rest of your life?
Ant: It was a sort of balance. I know how to go places. I don’t go to many sorts of events and openings and things like that where I know there’s gonna be people. All throughout that period I just kept to myself, really, apart from the occasional awards event or something like that. Most of the time I was quite happy to be at home with a book. I used to walk a lot. When I was off stage I was focused on writing the music and getting on with the work, which was the most important thing to me. The work was its own reward. I was fortunate in that I was in love with my work -- and I still am.
You turn a certain age (70) in November. How’s that feeling?
Ant: I feel OK. If it’s anything like I feel now, I’m ready to rock, as they say. I still give everything I’ve got on stage; that’s going to be different now, but I still feel there’s a lot of energy to use up on stage and I try to use all of it I’ve got every single night.
With all the years of experience you have now, what would you tell that kid who put the war paint on 45 years ago?
Ant: I’d say go for it -- and I pretty much would’ve done the same thing, anyway. Nothing would have stopped me from going for you. You throw a certain caution to the wind. You’ve got to go for the adventure. You’ve got to pursue it and create the opportunity. That’s the art of it, creating the opportunity and then being ready to take it when it’s there and give it everything you’ve got.
Adam Ant and the English Beat perform at 8 p.m. Saturday, March 30 at the Goodyear Theater, 1201 E. Market St., Akron. 330-690-2307 or GoodyearTheater.com.