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‘We were banging our heads against a wall – the wall won’: the genius pop and tragic demise of Boys Wonder

They swaggered into the late 1980s, a potent brew of punk, glam and classic rock. But they went nowhere, then had to watch as their recipe conquered the charts. Now they’ve returned – so are they looking back in anger?

The opening lyrics are mewled out in an estuary accent: “I get bored so easily – that’s why I only say hello.” And the list of influences from here includes the Sex Pistols and Ziggy Stardust-era Bowie – before it ends with a brazen lift of the coda from the Beatles’ version of Twist and Shout. He and his twin brother, Scott, were art-school alumni from south-east London, who cut their musical teeth as the drummer and bassist with a quartet called Brigandage(“the Sex Pistols with a female singer,” he says), in the vanguard of a short-lived genre known as Positive Punk. By the mid-90s, the Addison twins had formed Corduroy, a quartet signed to the Acid Jazz label who retained a London-centric sense of place, but mixed it up with everything from 60s film soundtracks (their first two albums were largely instrumental) to Steely Dan.

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