New musical memoir strikes a rich 'Vayne' for Leeds punk singer Stevie

Not much connected the council estates of east Leeds with the notorious 1970s American punk band The Dead Boys, but sure enough Stevie Hulme - you might know him by his stage name Stevie Vayne - knew the path he wanted to take after first hearing them.

- by John Blow

Stevie Hulme, aka Stevie Vayne, performing back in the day.

But it might never have happened had he not drawn a peculiar picture back in his early teens.

"There was a drawing competition and it was 'draw a picture of God'. Everyone on our estate was entering it and I couldn't draw... but I entered it," says Stevie, now in his early 60s, over video call from his home in Ibiza.

What he drew resembled Gandalf, he says. He didn't win, but his imagination was enough to earn him a record token anyway.

"I saw an album by The Dead Boys called Young, Loud and Snotty. It was 1977 so I was about 13 or 14, and I said, 'Oh, I love the name of the band, and I love the name of the album'.

"I asked the guy in the Seacroft Centre record store, when I was redeeming my voucher, to play the first track, because he didn't know what it was, either. He put it on and I was all in.

"I thought I was the only person in the world who had this album, but I wasn't."

After spending his very earliest days in the Cardigans off Kirkstall Road, the family soon moved to new council housing which had been created in Whinmoor.