We're the Kids in North Hertfordshire


When it comes to pop music everyone has a guilty pleasure - and yesterday afternoon I was listening to the radio when they happened to play one of mine: Kim Wilde's 'Kids in America'.



I should probably be ashamed, but I’m not.


‘Kids in America’ was first released in 1981; a couple of months before I was born, so I was too young to be aware of it. My main interests back then were crying and soiling myself; nothing much has changed in the intervening years.

A couple of years ago I played bass on a short tour of the Netherlands as part of a 70s & 80s show - and both this and 'Come on, Eileen' were setlist highlights; neither song has much credibility, but they both have enjoyable bass parts.

(Not a euphemism.)
Arriving at a Dutch venue.
My enjoyment of this song wasn’t strictly professional: everything bar the guitarist, drummer and myself was on click-track – and me and the lead guitarist, Tim, would be in stiches watching Dean Elliott mime the keyboard part: constantly failing to anticipate the random car horn effects of the song’s introduction.

(Don’t be misled: Dean is a talented muso in his own right. Check out his show The Simon & Garfunkel Story: coming to a theatre near you, with not a mimed instrument in sight.)

The tour coincided with my thirtieth birthday – with us performing at the Chasse Theater in Breda that night. As a result I was treated to the slightly surreal experience of a couple of thousand people singing Happy Birthday to me in Dutch, dressed all the while in a sequined-and-platform-shoed combo. 


My microphone wasn’t live so I couldn’t thank them afterwards. I must have looked such a c**t.

The song also has an early and slightly less-sequined significance. In the late nineties, on the eve of my seventeenth birthday, my band Big Day Out won the much-coveted prize of ‘Best Band in Hertfordshire’; like the Mercury Music prize, on a minimalistic scale.

One of the competition’s judges was the record producer Ricky Wilde (Kim Wilde’s brother, who co-wrote ‘Kids in America’ with his veteran rock and roller father, Marty Wilde; it was a family affair.)

Ricky spoke very highly of us, and invited us into his studio to record a demo. He expressed an interest in managing us, but ultimately nothing ever came of it. 

It was still exciting going into a professional studio for the first time. Here's one of the tracks Ricky produced for us: not a bit like 'Kids in America', damn it. 

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