Ten Mancs: Stella Grundy

Since 1991, I have felt grateful to Stella. She rescued (kidnapped) a young Border Collie puppy that was being abused. I promised to look after the puppy while she was on tour and we called him Chorlton, as that was where he had been found. He ended up staying with my family for sixteen-and-a-half years. The best dog ever!

STELLA GRUNDY is a singer, songwriter, actress and scriptwriter with her roots firmly in Manchester.

Both her parents were from Beswick where she was born. The first part of her life was spent there in an old Terrace house with the loo in the back yard. The family then briefly moved to Chorlton but when Stella was four the family got a council house in Moston. ‘If we had stayed in Chorlton I would have been posh but I ended up living on The Miners Estate. As a lonely, sensitive child it toughened me up!’

Moston was an interesting if harsh place to be as a teenager with a great scene of gangs, skinheads, Teds and Mods. It had some very stylish people and a great youth club where Stella got to know older kids who listened to Bowie.

School was boring but music exciting. Influenced by her Mum listening to jazz and taken to a concert at an early age, Stella decided to join the Church choir but spent most of the time giggling. It was when she joined the band ‘Marine Escape,’ that she started taking her singing and songwriting seriously. At the age of fourteen Stella was going into town to rehearse in the Decibel Studios and she also started to go to clubs. Soon after, she was into the Manchester music scene and following the Mondays and the Roses.

She left School at sixteen and got a job in a factory making leotards and from the forty pounds a week that she earned, she paid rent on her flat in Didsbury. At the age of eighteen she went back into education to do an Art Foundation course.

When Stella met Spencer in nineteen-ninety they formed the band Intastella that was active till nineteen ninety-seven. When asked it was no surprise that Stella said the music she has been most inspired by was that of Lou Reed. The storytelling in the music is important.

Life changed when Stella became a Mother to Nico sixteen years ago. When Nico was one, Stella went back into education. Why acting? ‘A stupid idea, I didn’t want a proper job! Studying was very hard, so much work goes into acting to make it look like you are not acting!’ After graduating she started to write her own plays, one of which was based on her own experiences from the Manchester Music Scene.

‘The Rise and Fall of a Northern Star’ has toured throughout Britain and received great reviews. The play has garnered international interest and there are now plans to take it abroad. This autumn her first solo album ‘Stella Grundy – The Rise and Fall of a Northern Star’ will be released on John Robb’s label, Louder than War.

Stella has also been commissioned to write, produce and tour with two new theatre productions. My last two questions; what character would you love to play? Sally Bowles out of Cabaret!

Do you see yourself as a Manc? NO, because I don’t wear my coat indoors!