Barrie Masters
Singer with Eddie and the Hot Rods, proto-punk pub-rockers
BARRIE MASTERS, who has died aged 63, was the charismatic, high-energy singer with Eddie and the Hot Rods, leading lights of the mid-1970s pub rock scene that fed into the punk revolution.
Founded on Canvey Island, Essex, in 1975, the band had four Top 40 singles and are probably best remembered for their 1977 hit Do Anything You Wanna Do. Stripped to the waist, sweat flying in all directions, Masters resembled a teenage Mick Jagger.
Richard Holgarth, one of the Rods’ many guitarists over the years, recalled Masters as “someone with a voice that could strip paint. Someone who had a capacity for having a great time that was unmatched, and just looked the part completely.”
Barrie Masters was born at Rochford in Essex, on May 4 1956. He attended King Edmund School in the town, and was working as a glazier when he formed Eddie and the Hot Rods on Canvey Island – home of one of the band’s greatest influences, Dr Feelgood – with the guitarist Dave Higgs, drummer Steve Nicol and bassist Rob Steele. “Eddie” was a lifesize onstage dummy, but he was soon given his marching orders when the joke wore thin.
The band developed a fierce reputation as a live act. A residency at the Kensington Club in London was followed by a joint residency at the Nashville with the 101ers, who were led by the future Clash frontman Joe Strummer.
As the beery, good-time tropes of pub rock were elbowed aside by the spitting, snarling rise of punk, Eddie and the Hot Rods were supported by the Sex Pistols at the Marquee in 1976; following chaotic scenes the Pistols trashed the Hot Rods’ equipment, and Masters confronted their singer, Johnny Rotten. “Fists flew but didn’t necessarily make any contact,” said Holgarth.
Although the Hot Rods were co-opted by the new movement, they did not consider themselves to be a punk band. “I was peeved about it because punk rock was a fashion and we weren’t into spitting,” Masters recalled.
They signed to Island Records and had their first chart entry in September 1976 with the EP Live at the Marquee. It was followed three months later by their debut album Teenage Depression, seen by some critics as the missing link between pub rock and punk.
In 1977 they played Reading Festival alongside Aerosmith, toured the US with the Ramones and Talking Heads, and released a follow-up album, Life on the Line, which penetrated the Top 30 and yielded three singles, including Do Anything You Wanna Do, which reached No 9 in the UK charts.
When their third album, Thriller (1979), had disappointing sales, they were dropped by Island; they were snapped up by EMI, but when their next album, Fish ’n’ Chips, also flopped, they disbanded in 1981.
The first of many reunions took place in 1984, all of them led by Masters, who worked as a glazier in London during quiet times. In the new century, there were sell-out tours of Europe, the US and Japan, as well as albums in 2005 and 2006, and the Hot Rods developed a sideline in visiting performing arts colleges and pupil referral units.
In 2011, to celebrate their 35th anniversary, the Hot Rods released a new album, 35 Years of Teenage Depression, on which they recorded new versions of the songs on the original.
In 2018, with Masters in declining health, the Hot Rods announced that they would wind down as a live act; in March 2019 they toured with Stiff Little Fingers, then the following month they played a gig in Islington entitled “Done Everything We Wanna Do”.
Masters did not marry; he is survived by a daughter and son.
Barrie Masters, born May 4 1956, died October 2 2019