Adam Ant On Bikes

Adam Ant is one of the most iconic British pop stars of all time. He dominated the charts in the early Eighties with hits like Antmusic, Stand and Deliver and Prince Charming. As famous for his outlandish stage costumes as his warrior chants and Burundi drum sound, he sold over 16 million records, both with Adam & and Ants and as a solo artist, before dropping out of the public eye for the best part of 15 years. But now he's back with a critically-acclaimed live show and equally-lauded double album. And as part of his surprise return to the limelight, Adam Ant unlocked his garage to reveal a secret passion he has never spoken publicly about before - bikes.

Words: Stuart Barker

Photography: Mark 'Weeble' Manning

It's easy to get blase about the aesthetics of a motorcycle when so much emphasis is now put on performance; easy to forget what marvels of engineering and design they really are. The graceful lines of a petrol tank, the iconic power of a well designed logo, the neat, even majestic, solutions that their creators have dreamt up in order to balance function with form.

            But when you listen to Adam Ant talking about motorcycles, you learn to see them in a different light and to appreciate their innate beauty. You soon forget the largely pointless obsession with power and performance and begin to understand the motorcycle almost as an art form. 'I love motorcycles' he says, running his skull-ringed fingers along the swooping curves of the fuel tank of his 1954 James Cadet. 'I think they're beautiful. I approach bikes in the same way that I approach guitars - I like to buy things of beauty that make me happy, and make other people happy. In the guitar world it's very specific, I'll maybe buy a Gretsch or a Mark 1 Les Paul, it's a very specific field, but I'm always looking out for something different and you often find some little gems, you really do. The interest is always to look out for something that's collectible, both with guitars and bikes, because it's worth a lot to you and you can really enjoy it, and it's better than just leaving the money in the bank and doing nothing with it.'

            It's perhaps no surprise to hear Adam Ant referring to bikes in such visual terms, as objects of beauty. Long before he became the biggest pop star in Britain, Stuart Goddard was a graphic design student at Hornsey College of Art. He would later put his ingenuity with imagery and his striking visual concepts to devastating use not only on stage, but in the then-new art form of video. No-one who lived through the early Eighties could ever forget the assault he made on the nation's collective senses as he appeared first as a noble warrior pirate, then a dandy highwayman, and ultimately, as Prince Charming, before splitting with his Ants. After topping the charts with Stand and Deliver and Prince Charming, Adam scored another number one as a solo artist with Goody Two Shoes. More hits followed but Adam eventually moved to America in the late Eighties to pursue an acting career and worked with the likes of Ray Liotta (of Goodfellas fame), Pierce Brosnan and the late Edward Woodward in various movies and TV series. By 1995 he had returned to the UK, released the Wonderful album, and had another hit with the single of the same name, before dropping out of the public eye while fighting his much-publicised battle with bipolar disorder. Adam's recent return to the stage has been universally acclaimed, as was his first new album in 17 years: Adam Ant is the Blueblack Hussar in Marrying the Gunner's Daughter.

As Prince Charming...

... and the Dandy Huighwayman

            Despite the enormous amount of press attention he has commanded over the last three decades, Adam has never spoken publicly about his love of motorcycles (for no other reason than that no-one thought to ask him), but it's a love that dates back as far as the 63-year-old singer can remember. 'My dad had bikes' he says, flicking open the family photo album to reveal a grainy black and white image of Les Goddard on a BSA. 'He was a riding instructor in Israel after the war. Les could strip a bike down in no time, no problem. He used to go to a lot of speedway meetings when he was courting my mum - he just always liked bikes.'

            Adam grew up at a time when the Mods and Rockers rivalry was thriving and his early encounters with the two subcultures had a lasting effect. 'I remember as a kid going down to Birchington in Kent with my dad driving a Riley 1.5 and seeing all the Mods and Rockers surrounding the car as we drove along, and my dad having a go at them! I always liked the whole Rocker stance more than the Mod thing though. When I was about five I got a green plastic highway patrol jacket cos I wanted to be like a biker!'

            Those early encounters with the Rockers instilled in Adam a love of classic British motorcycles, and of the menacing leather-jacketed look that went with them. So it was somewhat inevitable that a cultural magpie like Ant would borrow from the look and attitude and incorporate it into his own work. 'There's always been a strong connection between bikes and music' he says, the wall behind him practically tiled in gold records. 'I grew up as one of the first generation of kids who were able to watch music on TV; Juke Box Jury, Thank Your Lucky Stars, Ready Steady Go, all those kind of shows. I remember one show when Gene Vincent was on. There was a whole audience of bikers and Gene rode in on a bike and got up onto the stage and started belting out “Bee-Bop-a-Lula.” That definitely stuck with me and really appealed to my imagination. When I recorded my Vive Le Rock album in 1985 I thought it would be good to put that sort of thing into it and write songs about the whole biker movement and where it came from - Marlon Brando and The Wild One, all that stuff. The concept for the whole album was “Rockers going Star Wars” which was a line in the Vive Le Rock single. I love the whole astronaut thing because I grew up watching President Kennedy and the space race and I noticed that all the astronauts seemed like cowboys and spoke like cowboys. You heard it on the transmissions (puts on American drawl) “We're comin' home now, diggety dig.” They were like cowboys in space so I crossed that with the whole Marlon Brando and Lee Marvin biker thing for the Vive Le Rock look.

            'So I've incorporated a lot of the biker culture into my work, but in quite a subtle way. I think it's just a fascinating history. I wrote a song called Anger Inc. (from the 1990 album, Manners & Physique) which was all about the birth of the Hells Angels movement. It's an interesting story how they came back from the war after serving as aircrews in B-17s and then suddenly they were being told to stack shelves. Their army pay-off money wouldn't reach to a car so they bought bikes and stripped them down and started riding together at weekends.'

Ant with his Royal Enfield Bullet, BMW R25 and James Cadet

            Some of Adam's earliest riding experiences were as a pillion but were occasioned more by necessity than desire. 'I was in a band called Bazooka Joe before Adam and the Ants and we used to rehearse every day up in Edgware. So I'd go from Hornsey College of Art, where I was studying, to Edgware on the back of my band-mate Danny Kleinman's bike (Kleinman would later become the title sequence designer for some of the James Bond movies). Danny was a massive biker. He had a NorBSA (hybrid Norton/BSA) that was a real monster, a real grubby thing. I used to get on the back of it, holding my Fender precision bass off to the side and hanging on for dear life! That was an experience I wouldn't necessarily want to repeat. Danny was a good rider but he had quite a bad crash at one point and gave it up after that.'

            Ant continued blagging lifts right up until 1990, though usually in chauffeur-driven limousines rather than on NorBSAs. The fact that he didn't gain his driving licence until he was 36 was partly down to the fact that he was a global star with a famously punishing, self-inflicted work ethic who simply didn't have the time to learn. But it also stemmed from being put off driving in his childhood by his well-meaning father. 'My dad tried teaching me to drive in a little yellow Fiat 500 with a crash gearbox. I hated it - sends shivers up my spine just thinking about it - and it put off driving. But when I moved to Los Angeles I had to drive so I passed my test in about 1990.'

            His bike licence soon followed, as did an advanced riding course with the Los Angeles Police Department. 'I think that doing the LAPD course really straightened me out' he says. 'They were like drill sergeants - even wore the same kind of hats. They really shouted at you. It was quite a tough test, you had to do class work and everything. They give me a little 250cc bike and I was the last one to pass. I think they just got so tired of me they gave me the pass. “Jesus, give him it - get him out of here!”'

            Armed with full LAPD approval, however reluctantly bestowed, Adam Ant bought his first motorcycle in 1994. 'It was a Triumph T120R Bonneville which I bought off a Hells Angel' he says. 'I was living in LA at the time and there was a bike shop in the Valley and the guy had put an advert in there. I went to his house to see it and the front end was all bashed in but I bought it off him anyway. There was an English mechanic I knew in LA and he took the bike to bits. He had the whole thing laid out in his garage, every nut and bolt, and he just knocked it all back together and got it really ship-shape. It was a 1967 model with a beautiful gold and cream tank. It had the grey seat with black round the side and the white piping. In the end I sold it to Jay Leno. I went on his show to do an interview and all he wanted to talk about was the bike!'

            Adam's love of Triumphs is bolstered by the connection of the marque to his biking hero, Steve McQueen. 'I've never seen a bad picture of Steve McQueen - he always looks cool! And he really had a genuine love for riding motorcycles. I think you can see from a lot of his acting that he could be like a bomb going off and I think that riding bikes helped to calm him down a lot. On Any Sunday (classic 1971 biking movie part-financed and starring McQueen) really captures the spirit of motorcycling. They were amazing, the guys in that film. I think everyone needs a release valve and biking can provide it. Steve always kept his bikes and cars in pristine condition so if he went out for a ride with his kids then they'd have to clean them all and put them back in the garage afterwards. That was just down to Steve's upbringing and I think that's a nice discipline to have.'

            Although he doesn't currently own one, Adam Ant maintains a real love of Triumphs and has done several photoshoots wearing clothing from the British firm's range. 'When you see a Triumph going past you, and the sound of it....they're just kind of special. And the people who ride them absolutely love them. Paul Simonon out of The Clash used to live in LA and he had a Triumph. He just looked great on it. When he wore that stuff in The Clash it looked great because it was real, it was part of him. He was a genuine biker.'

There's no shortage of gold records on Ant's wall

            Like so many celebrities who lived in Los Angeles in the Nineties, Adam succumbed to the Harley-Davidson craze, though soon discovered it wasn't for him. 'Yeah, I had a Harley Heritage for a while' he admits. 'Had it sprayed up in peach and black, but it was just too bloody big. They're great to ride but they're just really heavy and it's embarrassing if you drop them and can't pick them up again! They're more suited to riding out in the States than over here though - you could wake up in the morning and just go down to the big wide coast roads. But I prefer little bikes, to be honest.'

            While admitting it wasn't for him, Ant does concede that the right rider, on the right Harley, can make a devastatingly cool combination, especially if that rider is movie star Mickey Rourke. 'About the time I had the Heritage, Mickey Rourke was the king of Hollywood and he was really cool. He invited me to go to dinner with him at a place called Spargos in Hollywood. He was sitting there in a grubby old Mac looking like a tramp who had just wandered in off the street! You would always see Mickey floating about on his Harley back then and I think he got it all right at that point. He was just so cool, although that movie he did, Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man (1991 flop co-starring Don Johnson), was a bit of a worry! I remember Mickey had a tiny little coffee bar in a shopping mall in Hollywood, with fuel tanks all over the wall, and it was just for him and his mates to go and have a coffee when they were out riding!

            'Out of all the Hollywood lot that were into riding Harleys at the time, Mickey Rourke was one of the few that got it right. At that time, you'd go to any Harley dealership in Hollywood and all the stars were having their bikes cleaned and it all got a bit silly, a bit too trendy. I found that whole Harley culture a bit too Hollywood for my liking so I sold mine. It's very good currency a motorcycle - it's like a guitar, you have it and you use it but you can always sell it and recoup your money.'

            While the trendy Harley culture in the States may have proved too pretentious for a working class boy from North London, Ant does admit to having enjoyed some of his best ever riding experiences on his Heritage. 'I remember waking up early and going for rides up the Pacific Coast Highway' he says. 'That was lovely. The roads are so massive out there, really wide with big swooping curves.'

            Unlike the over-crowded roads in London. When the dandy highwayman takes to the roads in the UK, it's not in his native capital. 'Over here it's a bit mad - I just wouldn't ride in London' he says. 'But hopefully when I get a bit of time I'll be able to take one of the bikes out and do one of the coastal routes. That's the sort of thing I like to do.'

            While Adam didn't entirely sever all Harley-Davidson connections during his time in America, the next model he bought was much more quirky and individual - a 125cc Harley Hummer. 'That was a lovely little bike' he says, smiling at the memory. 'It had a beautiful cream and blue fuel tank with the old-fashioned Harley logo on it. My next door neighbour at the time, a guy called Ron, was an ex-Navy guy who was on US nuclear submarines and he was a biker. He had a Harley Sportster and he'd take me pillion down to the real swamp areas - I was living in Tennessee at the time - where he'd introduce me to his friends. He kept the Hummer running for me. There's a magazine in America called Walneck's Classic Cycle and the stuff they have in there for sale is amazing. So I saw the Harley Hummer in there and had it shipped to me and Ron helped me get it going, it was like a little hobby for him. There's a lot of people with bikes out in Tennessee and there's lots of family-friendly biking events with square dancing for the kids and stuff, and all these massive, hairy biker blokes just loved the Hummer. There'd be massive bikes everywhere but they all gathered round the little Hummer. When I left Tennessee I gave it to Ron and he used to ride it everywhere. He said it was the star attraction of any biking event he went to.'

            Ant has always been fascinated by history and his bookshelves are overflowing with the research material that helped create his various historically-themed looks, from the native American warrior of the Kings of the Wild Frontier era to his current Napoleonic-inspired stage gear. So it's no surprise to discover that he's also fascinated by the cultural history of biking. 'I really enjoy studying the whole history of motorcycling and I read as much as I can about it. If I had to do a PHD on anything I could probably do one on the history of the leather jacket and the whole biker look. I suppose it affected me growing up as a little kid, seeing all the Rocker guys looking really cool whenever we went to the seaside - and there was the whole James Dean thing too. So when I was in a position to afford a bike, I always preferred the old vintage ones that hark back to that era.'

            The current Ant stable consists of a 250cc BMW R25 of 1951 vintage, a 1954 125cc James Cadet, and a brand new limited edition Royal Enfield Bullet Classic 500. 'I like British bikes' he says, throwing a leg over the Bullet. 'This is a limited edition. It's number 11 of 50, and it was designed by a guy at the Royal College of Art (vintage style aficionado, Nick Clements) and I just think it's lovely. I mean, you can put your money in the bank - and we all know what can happen there - or you can invest it in something of beauty. I'll be using the Enfield in photo sessions for some of the bands on my record label. And when I've got some time in the summer it'll be nice to get out and go for a bit of a ride. I've only ridden it a little bit but it seems big compared to my other two bikes, and it feels powerful compared to them too - they're only little!'

            Ant is also attracted to the Enfield because it has classic looks coupled with modern bike reliability. 'It's the best of both worlds cos if it broke down, I'm not mechanically minded, so I'd be screwed! So the Enfield is all EU-approved and you can't mess with it. All you have to do is change the oil and that's it. It's lovely - it's a work of art that bike. I think it's absolutely stunning. To me it's like buying a Gretsch guitar, it really is the same thing. I've got a lot of guitars and I use them all in my work. Some are good for photo sessions - they can be really good props - and the Enfield is the same.'

            Adam Ant has always been known for his outlandish stage costumes and completely original looks, but not all his clothes are designed specifically for him. You're just as likely to see him rummaging around at a vintage autojumble searching out his next look. 'I went to Goodwood last year for the Revival and the Festival of Speed. I think those festivals are really good events that attract really nice people. They keep their machines for posterity, and there are some beautiful bikes on show. You can pick up some really nice jackets and what have you too. So I can find something nice to wear and just see all the bikes and have a great day out. I love it.'

            For a man who was once the biggest pop star in Britain, and who still commands prodigious amounts of coverage in the mainstream media, as well as selling out venues all over the UK, Australia and America, Adam Ant is no prima donna. Even an incident in which he practically destroyed his knee cap - and which could have had far more serious consequences - wasn't enough to put him off riding bikes. 'I bought an old BMW R50 when I was living in America' he explains. 'It had a kick-start and I was trying to start it on my driveway and I messed it up and it went into gear and hit the kerb and dragged me halfway down the street. I ended up going under a car and ripped my knee up pretty bad. I didn't have a helmet on at the time but, fortunately, my head's probably the hardest part of my body! Hurting my knee so badly really shook me up but, you know, you've got to get back on it, don't you? It certainly didn't put me off - I love motorcycles, I think they're beautiful. At the end of the day, biking's just boys being boys isn't it? There's always that side of you that wants to be the teenager - and there's that outlaw mentality as well which really appeals to me.'