Mark John Hough (8 December 1954 – 7 January 2018), known by the

stage name A stage name is a pseudonym used by performers and entertainers—such as actors, comedians, singers, and musicians. Such professional aliases are adopted for a wide variety of reasons and they may be similar, or nearly identical, to an individu ...

Buster Stiggs, was an English-born New Zealand drummer. Hough was born in Harold Wood,

Essex Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and G ...

, England, in 1954, moving to New Zealand as a child. His family settled in Hawke's Bay, and he attended

Hastings Boys' High School Hastings Boys' High School is a boys' secondary school in Hastings, New Zealand. The school is part of the Super 8. The school was founded in 1904 as Hastings High School. In 1922, it became Hastings Technical School under the leadership of Wi ...

before studying art at Elam School of Fine Arts in

Auckland Auckland (pronounced ) ( mi, Tāmaki Makaurau) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. The List of New Zealand urban areas by population, most populous urban area in the country and the List of cities in Oceania by po ...

from 1972 to 1975. He began studying to be a teacher in 1976, but his primary interests were art and rock music, especially the nascent New Zealand punk scene.Dix, J.
Buster Stiggs
" ''audioculture.co.nz'', 9 August 2017. Retrieved 8 January 2018. Hough's first band was After Hours, the first band of a teenage Neil Finn, which lasted until 1977 when Finn was asked to join his brother's band,

Split Enz Split Enz were a New Zealand rock band formed in Auckland in 1972 by Tim Finn and Phil Judd and had a variety of other members during its existence. Originally started as a folk-oriented group with quirky art rock stylings, the band built a ...

. From here, Hough moved to the short-lived Fang, for whom he played drums. By late 1977 he was playing with up-and-coming Auckland punk band

Suburban Reptiles The Suburban Reptiles were one of the first two punk bands to form in New Zealand, the other being the Scavengers. History The Suburban Reptiles were conceptualised by Auckland students Simon Grigg and Brett Salter in late 1976, with some enc ...

using the stage name Buster Stiggs, which would remain with him for his whole musical career. He was a main songwriter of the band,Van Beynen, J.,
Buster Stiggs of The Swingers and Suburban Reptiles dead at 63
" ''stuff.co.nz'', 8 January 2018. Retrieved 8 January 2018. writing their single "Saturday Night Stay At Home". After briefly playing guitar with

The Scavengers The Scavengers were a New Zealand punk rock band that formed in 1977. They moved to Melbourne, Australia, in November 1978 and became Marching Girls. History The band was formed in 1976 at Auckland Technical Institute by graphic design stude ...

for a couple of gigs in 1978, Stiggs and fellow Suburban Reptile Bones Hillman joined Split Enz founder Phil Judd — a former schoolmate at Hastings Boys' — in a new three-piece band,

The Swingers The Swingers were a New Zealand rock band who were together from 1979 to 1982 and whose biggest single was the song " Counting the Beat". Background Formed out of the remnants of the Suburban Reptiles, the founding members were Phil Judd (gui ...

. The Swingers found quick success, and hit the charts with two singles, "One Good Reason" (1980) and " Counting the Beat" (1981). The latter reached the top of the charts in both New Zealand and Australia. Stiggs left The Swingers just as their second single was starting to hit the charts, joining Australian band

Models A model is an informative representation of an object, person or system. The term originally denoted the plans of a building in late 16th-century English, and derived via French and Italian ultimately from Latin ''modulus'', a measure. Models c ...

. He stayed with the band for under a year, failing to gel fully with the band's sound. After leaving Models, he moved to the back room of the rock industry, working as a graphic designer and designing record covers and tour posters. Stiggs struggled with kidney disease and

multiple myeloma Multiple myeloma (MM), also known as plasma cell myeloma and simply myeloma, is a cancer of plasma cells, a type of white blood cell that normally produces antibodies. Often, no symptoms are noticed initially. As it progresses, bone pain, an ...

in the last few years of his life, and finally succumbed to their combined effects in his adopted city of

Perth Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia. It is the fourth most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of 2.1 million (80% of the state) living in Greater Perth in 2020. Perth is ...

, Australia, on 7 January 2018. He is survived by one son.

External links

- AudioCulture profile.
R.I.P. Buster Stiggs (The Swingers)
— Tribute to Stiggs by former bandmate Bones Hillman.

References

1954 births 2018 deaths New Zealand rock musicians New Zealand drummers People from Harold Wood English emigrants to New Zealand People educated at Hastings Boys' High School Elam Art School alumni Deaths from multiple myeloma Deaths from cancer in Western Australia Deaths from kidney disease New Zealand expatriates in Australia {{NewZealand-musician-stub