U.S. Bunnymen Fans May Have To Wait For New Album

03/11/1999 4:00 AM, Yahoo! Music
Craig Rosen

(3/11/99, 1 a.m. PST) - The new album by Echo & the Bunnymen, What Are You Going To Do With Your Life?, is scheduled for an April release in the U.K., following the single, "Rust," which hit the streets in England on Monday.

In the U.S., however, it remains to be seen when the album, the Bunnymen's second post-reunion effort, will see the light of day.

The reason behind the delay is the fact that London Records, which has the Bunnymen under contract, is considering leaving the Universal Music Group. London was folded into UMG following the Universal-PolyGram merger. According to the Los Angeles Times, it's likely that London will move to the Warner Music Group, and it may be merged with the Sire Records, which is helmed by Seymour Stein. If such a plan pans out, it would reunite the Bunnymen with the record executive who had a song named for him on Belle & Sebastian's The Boy With The Arab Strap.

In a lengthy interview published in the British magazine Uncut, Bunnymen frontman Ian McCulloch says when Stein caught the band appearing on a bill with Joy Division at the London YMCA in August 1979, it was a turning point for the Bunnymen. "Rumor has it [Stein] thought I looked great and wanted to shag me, and didn't mind the songs. After that we were signed to Sire/ Korova," he told Uncut.

Aside from reuniting the Bunnymen with Stein, the possible Sire-London merger would rejoin the two labels. Sire's earliest releases were distributed by London in the late '60s.

In other Bunnymen news, longtime bass player Les Pattinson left the band on the first day of recording to deal with personal matters, leaving McCulloch and guitarist Will Sergeant the only original members remaining in the band. Drummer Pete de Freitas died in a 1989 motorcycle crash.

To read a Belle & Sebastian feature, click here.

Got news tips, comments, or questions? Send them to newstips@launch.com.