Steve New
| Steve New | |
|---|---|
Steve New on stage with re-united Rich Kids in 2010
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| Background information | |
| Birth name | Stephen Charles New |
| Also known as | Shooz, Stella Nova |
| Born |
16 May 1960 Paddington, London, England |
| Died | 24 May 2010 (aged 50) London, England |
| Genres | Punk rock, post-punk, new wave, synthpop, experimental |
| Instruments | Guitar, Vocals, |
| Years active | 1975–2010 |
| Labels | EMI |
| Associated acts | Sex Pistols, Rich Kids, Vicious White Kids, Kim Fowley, Gen X, Pearl Harbor and the Explosions, Iggy Pop, Wasted Youth, Lude, The New, John Sinclair, The Philistines, Beastellabeast |
Steve New (16 May 1960 – 24 May 2010) was an English pop music guitarist and singer, who performed with a number of punk rock and new wave bands in the late 1970s and early 1980s, including the Rich Kids. Born Stephen Charles New, in the 2000s he changed his name to 'Stella Nova', whilst performing with the band Beastellabeast.
Born in Paddington in London, New received his formal education at Quintin Kynaston School in St. John's Wood, London, and started playing the guitar with the London Schools' Jazz Orchestra at the age of 14.
New first came to notice for his talented lead guitar playing style at the beginning of London's punk rock music and fashion scene in the mid-1970s. In September 1975 at the age of 15 he auditioned and rehearsed with the Sex Pistols before they became publicly known, as a potential replacement for Steve Jones, but was let go after a few weeks as being surplus to requirements, and got a day-job working in the London office of Warner Bros. Records as a junior postal clerk.
When the bass player Glen Matlock left the Sex Pistols in early 1977 he invited New, still only 16 years old, to join a new band that he was setting up entitled Rich Kids as its lead guitarist.
On 15 August 1978, whilst still with Rich Kids, New performed with a one night only line-up entitled the Vicious White Kids at the Electric Ballroom in Camden Town, in what subsequently came to be seen as one of the events that marked the last hurrah of the punk rock movement's heyday in London.
Whilst Rich Kids was musically gifted, it failed to find commercial success and broke up in early 1979 after the commercial failure of two of its three singles releases and first long-player release entitled Ghosts of Princes in Towers (which reached #51 in the U.K. Album Chart in 1978), and New's career was undermined beyond this period by long-term narcotics use.
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