Steve New

Born in Paddington in London,[3] 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.[1]

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,[4] but was let go after a few weeks as being surplus to requirements,[5] and got a day-job working in the London office of Warner Bros. Records as a junior postal clerk.[6]

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 forming called Rich Kids as its lead guitarist. On 15 August 1978, whilst still with Rich Kids, New performed with a one night only line-up titled the Vicious White Kids at the Electric Ballroom in Camden Town, in what 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 titled Ghosts of Princes in Towers (which reached No. 51 in the UK Album Chart in 1978), and New's career was undermined beyond this period by long-term narcotics use.[1][6]

Unable to find another band to join after the Rich Kids, New resorted to working as a jobbing guitar for hire with a number of acts, including Public Image Ltd.

New rehearsed and recorded with the band Gen X in 1980, both in demo-sessions and on their long-player Kiss Me Deadly, playing the guitar track on the "Dancing with Myself" single release.[7] The lead singer Billy Idol and bassist Tony James wanted him to be the newly re-branded band's lead guitarist, but they reluctantly decided against it due to his professional unreliability caused by his increasingly severe narcotic habit.[8][9] The Gen X song Heavens Inside was written by Billy Idol about New.[10]

After the Gen X opportunity had fallen through, New worked as a session musician, going on tour with Iggy Pop, on whose Soldier L.P. (1980) he played, during the recording of which New assaulted David Bowie[6] who was acting as a quasi-producer of the record at the time. He also worked with Chrissie Hynde and Kim Fowley. In the early 1980s he rejected an offer to play with Duran Duran at its inception.[6] He also recorded under the performance alias of "Shooz".[11] Having relocated to the United States of America in the 1980s, by the mid-1990s he was resident in Los Angeles, but failed to find musical success there, and ended up homeless, living in a car for a while, before returning to England.[6]

In 2001 he released a solo long-player entitled Here Comes Everybody.[12]

In the early 2000s he formed a new experimental pop band entitled Beastellabeast with the young singer Beatrice Brown, whom he had become the mentor of after they met whilst both temporarily employed as guides at a publicity event for a cinema film at the Wembley Exhibition Hall in 1998,[10][13] which released three self-produced L.P.'s, viz. With Bestellabeast (2004), Beastiality (2009) [14] and Stars & Wronguns (2010).[15]

He worked again with Glen Matlock, whose solo album Born Running (2010) was dedicated to New,[16] and featured his last recorded work.[17]

Afflicted with what would prove to be terminal cancer,[10] New performed live for the last time with Beastellabeast and a reformed Rich Kids at the Islington Academy in London on 7 January 2010, at a testimonial concert organised for his family's finances.[18][19][20] He died of cancer on 24 May 2010 at the age of 50.[1][2][21][22]

A funeral service was held at the Islington & St. Pancras Cemetery in East Finchley on 11 June 2010, Glen Matlock, Tony James and Terry Edwards being among the pallbearers, where New's body was cremated.[23]

New married once, the marriage subsequently being divorced with one daughter; he also fathered a son from another relationship.[1] In the early 2000s New adopted transvestism, a decision he associated with his success in breaking his 20-year-long drug habit at around the same time, and renamed himself Stella Nova.[6]

• Beastellabeast's MySpace site
• Final Rich Kids concert, and photos