A funny yearning for music Adrian Edmondson, flanked by Troy Donockley and Andy Dinan in The Bad Shepherds. ADRIAN Edmondson, known to a generation of fans as Vyvyan - the manic, forehead-studded sociopath from The Young Ones - is waxing whimsical about punk: the Ramones, the Sex Pistols, Marshall stacks, the Clash, mandolins ... "You know, I'm thinking about getting a double-necked mando," he says, in what sounds like a classic set-up for a one-liner. There are times, you know, where I just can't reach the higher octaves on the neck. I know a man who can make a double-neck for me. After letting the silence sit for a few seconds, it becomes clear there is no punchline. Edmondson, the man who forged a 30-year television, film and stage comedy career alongside fellow Young Ones and Bottom co-star Rik Mayall, is deadly serious. "This life is all I've ever wanted," he says down the phone from his home in London. All I've yearned for is to have those words at the end of my name - Ade Edmondson: musician. For the past decade, Edmondson has worked tirelessly to make that dream a reality. The bespectacled 56-year-old fronts folk-punk cover band The Bad Shepherds, which began a five-stop Australian tour in Adelaide yesterday. "We do what it says on the tin: punk songs in a folk style," he says of the band which consists of Edmondson on vocals, mandolin and mandola; Troy Donockley on uilleann pipes, cittern and whistles and Andy Dinan on fiddle. "For us, there's not so much of a connection about those old folk tunes about blacksmiths," he continues. So we cover punk. Both genres feature songs about social commentary and protest. It seems to work pretty well. The Shepherds are the latest in a line of bands Edmondson has formed in a conscious move from comic to musician. In 2003 after his final world comedy tour with old sparring partner Mayall (who played fascist-fearing sycophant and would-be anarchist Rick from The Young Ones), Edmondson had had enough. I got to an age (approaching 50) when I just thought, 'Well this is all right but I want to do something else'. I thought I don't want to be the person who only did (comedy)," says Edmondson, who has been married to fellow British comic Jennifer Saunders for 27 years. I'm not embarrassed about (my comedy career) at all. I loved it. I thought it was great; we were very good, and I enjoyed it. But I had just had enough. He pauses: Edmondson, musician, returns briefly to Edmondson, comic. It's like it's Christmas time, the cheeseboard comes out. And you think 'I'll have a bit of Stilton', then you have a bit more Stilton, then you ... well, actually you can never finish the bloody Stilton because it's just too much bloody Stilton," he says. The point is you don't want to eat it all. It felt like that in my comedy career. I'd eaten enough cheese in comedy. I'd eaten enough of my own comedy cheese ... Erghhhh. While the Shepherds are a serious band - as compared with, say, his other outfit the parody band Idiot Bastards - Edmondson is keen to stress the punk-folkers are not without fun. "We're not a joyless band, but we're not a comedy band," he says, adding that the Shepherds' motto is "maximum joy." The difference I think between music and comedy is that comedy is combat and music is about a communion; meeting in the middle. And that, in the end, is more fun and more satisfying. So how, then, did a successful middle-aged comic actor wind up plucking a much-maligned member of the lute family in a band that is now something of a mainstay on the international folk circuit? Edmondson says his love affair with the instrument - he now owns seven - all began when he woke in a post-Christmas booze-up funk to find a new mandolin in his kitchen. "I'm an inveterate collector of instruments," says Edmondson. I was with some old friends and we ended up in a shop there with instruments of the nicest kind. After a few beers, I often go in there and buy something inappropriate. That's how I bought a mandolin. Edmondson picked it up, and "starting working out chords, playing songs I generally play when I pick up an instrument," the punk staples of The Clash, Ramones, Sex Pistols and co. While it may seem an obvious connection to make, Edmondson's love of punk is no throwback to Vyv, the bolshy Young Ones character beloved by fans of the BBC comedy show that ran between 1982 and 1984. Rather it's the soundtrack to his own youth. "I was 19 when punk arrived, so it's always been a part of me," he says. But even before that I remember when we got (folk electronic band) Fairport Convention. That felt kind of revolutionary. The folk connection was further forged at the University of Manchester, where Edmondson famously met and began collaborating with Mayall. When I went to uni, helpfully, there was a pub right next door. It was an Irish pub where musicians would just bring along their instruments and play sessions," he says. Something in that connected with me. Edmondson concedes people don't always know what to expect when they arrive at Shepherds shows. "We often start off with a version of (Sex Pistols') Anarchy in the UK," he says. It starts with a two-minute lament on the pipes, and people will come in, and listen to this weird (sound); they look a bit quizzical for a minute then they start nodding their heads ... it's like being a magician. In four minutes, we turn them around; bring them into the church. Edmondson is no stranger to the music industry. His earliest collaborations with Mayall were musical skits, which morphed into the spoof band Bad News. Then there's the little matter of his British No 1 hit. In 1986 the cast of The Young Ones and Cliff Richard spent three weeks at the top of the British charts with their comic version of the crooner's 1959 hit Living Doll. Edmondson has also written for Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, and has played in bands - "I started as a bass player: the easiest way to get into a band" - since he was 13. At uni, I didn't want to work hard. So I took the path of least resistance and did drama. Of course that's where I met Rik," he says. As a child, all I remember is drawing pictures of myself on stage in front of a wall of Marshall amps. Edmondson laughs, marvelling at his own late-career fortune. "There is nothing better than a roadtrip and being in a band, is there?" he says. I'm doing the big Australian cities, which are great. But next time I come I want to tour nice little Australian towns. You know, shit-kicking towns with one pub in the main street. Yeah, that would be fun. The Bad Shepherds play Melbourne's Corner Hotel tonight, then Sydney, Brisbane and Perth.