Stevie Potier, musician, band-leader, protestor and family man, is our first interviewee for Roots and Branches.
Stevie P greets me at the door of the cosy cluttered home in Baltonsborough he shares with his partner Sophie and their two children, Ea, 11, and Inty, 4. Barefoot, with a just-got-out-of-bed manner and hairstyle, Stevie scratches his head and makes a pot of real coffee while I look out the window at an orchard in extravagant bloom. We settle in his new studio to talk, with an ear cocked for the kids he’s looking after.
We go back to the beginning: Born in the 60s in suburban Kent Stevie went to the local school and then to Croydon Art College where he studied graphic design.
‘I wish I’d done fine art,’ he smiles. ‘I thought I’d earn a living in graphics but I wish I’d been throwing paint around.’
Like many art school undergraduates he learnt a musical instrument and formed a band. In the holidays he worked at his dad’s photographic shop and after graduation went to work in a design studio. His life seemed set on its conventional course. But after six months he couldn’t take any more of an office job.
‘I wrote a letter to the boss. I can’t remember exactly what it said, it was probably really corny ‘cos I was 21, but I do know it started: The time has come the walrus said.’
And thus started Stevie’s precarious life as a musician.
‘Music was the best way of expressing myself. I didn’t bother too much about supporting myself. I signed on…which could be a bit of a cop out, but I see the dole as state sponsorship of the arts. I am really grateful for it when I think about it. But for months and months I didn’t get any money, and that taught me to live on very little.’
In the early 80s, as Thatcherite ideology started to tighten its grip, Stevie P, like a number of others, decided it was time to duck out of the mainstream.
‘I went to Stonehenge festival in 1983. It was really happening: vibrant, and opened my eyes to other ways of being. I hadn’t seen living in busses and trucks on the road by that point. There was a bunch of people called the Tibetan Ukrainian Mountain Troup making music and taking psychedelics. There were a bunch of hippies,’ Stevie laughs. ‘I bought an Afghan coat for two packets of Dunhill off a guy in college and wore a big red hat.’
He moved into a squat – London abounded with them before the gentrification of swathes of perfectly beautiful run-down neighborhoods. ‘I started in Streatham. In a hilarious household. The landlord was this Nigerian who dressed like a prince and got cowboy builders to work on the place while we lay in bed. They took the bath out turned it round, smashed a hole in the wall and drained it straight out the side of the house. We had no money and I didn’t know how to cook food. You lived in a place till you were evicted. Musically I was playing psychedic rock, but moving towards playing acoustic music. We had a band, but it wasn’t mine. We had a singer,’ Stevie’s face mists over with the memory. He chuckles amiably. ‘He used to turn up with his microphone while we lugged all the gear around. Always the same with singers. We rehearsed in a basement filled with stolen street signs.’
The band did what bands do: break up. ‘Some people in the band were growing up,’ Potier remembers, adding with a smile: ‘But I was the Eternal Kid.’
He’s right there. Though now around 50, Stevie P has retained a beautiful, effulgent youthfulness that shines from him.
We go back to the beginning: Born in the 60s in suburban Kent Stevie went to the local school and then to Croydon Art College where he studied graphic design.
‘I wish I’d done fine art,’ he smiles. ‘I thought I’d earn a living in graphics but I wish I’d been throwing paint around.’
Like many art school undergraduates he learnt a musical instrument and formed a band. In the holidays he worked at his dad’s photographic shop and after graduation went to work in a design studio. His life seemed set on its conventional course. But after six months he couldn’t take any more of an office job.
‘I wrote a letter to the boss. I can’t remember exactly what it said, it was probably really corny ‘cos I was 21, but I do know it started: The time has come the walrus said.’
And thus started Stevie’s precarious life as a musician.
‘Music was the best way of expressing myself. I didn’t bother too much about supporting myself. I signed on…which could be a bit of a cop out, but I see the dole as state sponsorship of the arts. I am really grateful for it when I think about it. But for months and months I didn’t get any money, and that taught me to live on very little.’
In the early 80s, as Thatcherite ideology started to tighten its grip, Stevie P, like a number of others, decided it was time to duck out of the mainstream.
‘I went to Stonehenge festival in 1983. It was really happening: vibrant, and opened my eyes to other ways of being. I hadn’t seen living in busses and trucks on the road by that point. There was a bunch of people called the Tibetan Ukrainian Mountain Troup making music and taking psychedelics. There were a bunch of hippies,’ Stevie laughs. ‘I bought an Afghan coat for two packets of Dunhill off a guy in college and wore a big red hat.’
He moved into a squat – London abounded with them before the gentrification of swathes of perfectly beautiful run-down neighborhoods. ‘I started in Streatham. In a hilarious household. The landlord was this Nigerian who dressed like a prince and got cowboy builders to work on the place while we lay in bed. They took the bath out turned it round, smashed a hole in the wall and drained it straight out the side of the house. We had no money and I didn’t know how to cook food. You lived in a place till you were evicted. Musically I was playing psychedic rock, but moving towards playing acoustic music. We had a band, but it wasn’t mine. We had a singer,’ Stevie’s face mists over with the memory. He chuckles amiably. ‘He used to turn up with his microphone while we lugged all the gear around. Always the same with singers. We rehearsed in a basement filled with stolen street signs.’
The band did what bands do: break up. ‘Some people in the band were growing up,’ Potier remembers, adding with a smile: ‘But I was the Eternal Kid.’
He’s right there. Though now around 50, Stevie P has retained a beautiful, effulgent youthfulness that shines from him.
The onset of entrepreneurial Britain and ratcheting up of laws against slackers sent a lot of people out of London in the 80s and Stevie went with them.
‘I started at the Twyford Down Protest and moved on to the Newbury bypass. People had idealistic views. And some people walked their talks. I didn’t do much direct action. I just went and played music to riot to. I tried to keep the spirits light, and when it got violent it added to the surreality of it. I was playing tunes on the banjo while there were people being arrested and having their arms twisted up their backs. At one tree protest I saw my brother-in-law, who was a policeman, in full riot gear half way up a tree I was at the bottom of playing my bazuki. I yelled take those ridiculous clothes off! He’s divorced from my sister now.’
We are interrupted by Stevie’s son Inty whose mother is Sophie Harrison, designer of Elfn Felt, and also a musician.
Inty says, ‘Come upstairs. You’ve got to show me.’
Stevie jumps up and hurries off enthusiastically with the little boy. I hear him saying from upstairs, ‘I don’t know if it'll stretch that far… Oh how about this? It’s like a little Bedouin tent.’
When Stevie is settled back in his chair I asked what brought him west to Glastonbury. ‘That was in 85 after the Battle of the Beanfield,’ he says. Beanfield was a famous stand off between the hippy convoy and the Police at Stonehenge. From there he went straight to Pilton (aka The Glastonbury Festival) where he played in a thirteen piece band called Heathens All and hung out in the travellers field. Something made him stick around after everyone left. Something that most of us who live around here know about:
‘For me there was a magical air about the place and people. I would go into the Assembly Rooms and there would be such a diverse range of musicians and singers and a sort of other worldly, appreciative audience lapping up all the music. In London the audiences were far more judgmental. People here loved music, not this kind of music or that. Just music. There was an openness. The West country seemed more friendly.’
Stevie lived first in Compton Dundon and then a variety of other places before settling in Baltonsborough, always playing and developing the music.
‘I have never been a very good self publicist,’ he says. ‘Not enough confidence in my own thing, maybe.’ He looks out the window lost in thought. Maybe wondering how it mght have gone differently.
‘The only reason I would ever want a big hit would be to enable me to do it all the time,’ he smiles. ‘Now I’m in a space where I have to fit so many things around it. Like family. That’s a knackering joy. I do a few extra things so I can carry on playing music. I call it my career but in some ways it’s just a hobby.'
‘I started at the Twyford Down Protest and moved on to the Newbury bypass. People had idealistic views. And some people walked their talks. I didn’t do much direct action. I just went and played music to riot to. I tried to keep the spirits light, and when it got violent it added to the surreality of it. I was playing tunes on the banjo while there were people being arrested and having their arms twisted up their backs. At one tree protest I saw my brother-in-law, who was a policeman, in full riot gear half way up a tree I was at the bottom of playing my bazuki. I yelled take those ridiculous clothes off! He’s divorced from my sister now.’
We are interrupted by Stevie’s son Inty whose mother is Sophie Harrison, designer of Elfn Felt, and also a musician.
Inty says, ‘Come upstairs. You’ve got to show me.’
Stevie jumps up and hurries off enthusiastically with the little boy. I hear him saying from upstairs, ‘I don’t know if it'll stretch that far… Oh how about this? It’s like a little Bedouin tent.’
When Stevie is settled back in his chair I asked what brought him west to Glastonbury. ‘That was in 85 after the Battle of the Beanfield,’ he says. Beanfield was a famous stand off between the hippy convoy and the Police at Stonehenge. From there he went straight to Pilton (aka The Glastonbury Festival) where he played in a thirteen piece band called Heathens All and hung out in the travellers field. Something made him stick around after everyone left. Something that most of us who live around here know about:
‘For me there was a magical air about the place and people. I would go into the Assembly Rooms and there would be such a diverse range of musicians and singers and a sort of other worldly, appreciative audience lapping up all the music. In London the audiences were far more judgmental. People here loved music, not this kind of music or that. Just music. There was an openness. The West country seemed more friendly.’
Stevie lived first in Compton Dundon and then a variety of other places before settling in Baltonsborough, always playing and developing the music.
‘I have never been a very good self publicist,’ he says. ‘Not enough confidence in my own thing, maybe.’ He looks out the window lost in thought. Maybe wondering how it mght have gone differently.
‘The only reason I would ever want a big hit would be to enable me to do it all the time,’ he smiles. ‘Now I’m in a space where I have to fit so many things around it. Like family. That’s a knackering joy. I do a few extra things so I can carry on playing music. I call it my career but in some ways it’s just a hobby.'
'I'm in a space where I have to fit so many things around my music. Like family. That's a knackering joy.'
Whatever Stevie calls it – it is a blessing for all of us who hear it. To us at Roots and Branches his career has been, and remains, truly successful. To see him on stage is to see a musician of exquisite skill: tender, raucous, intimate and wild, a rare example of someone who has hung on to their values and integrity in a world where too many of us compromise them.
‘This area and the people who live round here have changed a lot,’ he sighs. ‘Maybe I’m less naïve than when I came, in a way I’d rather still be naïve. Everyone’s grown up and maybe that’s it.’
Not quite everyone, I think, as I give Stevie a goodbye hug in his doorway. As I reverse past his ancient curtained bus – his transport for a summer of festival gigs – I think how glad I am that Stevie P hasn’t grown up. He still plays with the enthusiasm and love you only find with someone who isn’t faking it, and who definitely hasn’t allowed their heart to harden. Whether it's walking down the High Street with a three piece, or organising the Ancient Futures stage at Pilton, or gigging in a venue around town or beyond, make sure you catch Stevie P's beautiful naivety, tender wisdom and raucous talent on a stage soon.
We recommend: Stevie playing the Assembly rooms in 1996 click here
Stevie’s haunting cd MOMENTS NOTICE can be bought here: https://steviepea.bandcamp.com/
To catch him playing live, just ask around. Two of his current bands are Intravaganza and Animal Crackers.
‘This area and the people who live round here have changed a lot,’ he sighs. ‘Maybe I’m less naïve than when I came, in a way I’d rather still be naïve. Everyone’s grown up and maybe that’s it.’
Not quite everyone, I think, as I give Stevie a goodbye hug in his doorway. As I reverse past his ancient curtained bus – his transport for a summer of festival gigs – I think how glad I am that Stevie P hasn’t grown up. He still plays with the enthusiasm and love you only find with someone who isn’t faking it, and who definitely hasn’t allowed their heart to harden. Whether it's walking down the High Street with a three piece, or organising the Ancient Futures stage at Pilton, or gigging in a venue around town or beyond, make sure you catch Stevie P's beautiful naivety, tender wisdom and raucous talent on a stage soon.
We recommend: Stevie playing the Assembly rooms in 1996 click here
Stevie’s haunting cd MOMENTS NOTICE can be bought here: https://steviepea.bandcamp.com/
To catch him playing live, just ask around. Two of his current bands are Intravaganza and Animal Crackers.