Stephen Hopkins (born 14 May 1951) is a British former musician who worked (as Steve Hopkins) with different

Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...

punk Punk or punks may refer to: Genres, subculture, and related aspects * Punk rock, a music genre originating in the 1970s associated with various subgenres * Punk subculture, a subculture associated with punk rock, or aspects of the subculture s ...

and new wave artists including

John Cooper Clarke John Cooper Clarke (born 25 January 1949) is an English performance poet, who first became famous as a "punk poet" in the late 1970s. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, he released several albums. Around this time, he performed on stage with sev ...

Pauline Murray Pauline Murray (born 8 March 1958) is best known as the lead vocalist of the punk rock band Penetration, originally formed in 1976. Early years Pauline Murray was born on 8 March 1958 in Waterhouses, County Durham, England, and her parents late ...

Morrissey Steven Patrick Morrissey (; born 22 May 1959), known professionally as Morrissey, is an English singer and songwriter. He came to prominence as the frontman and lyricist of rock band the Smiths, who were active from 1982 to 1987. Since then ...

and Ed Garrity amongst others. After retiring as a musician, he pursued a career in experimental cold atom physics.

Biography

Between 1970 and 1990, Hopkins worked as a musician. He was primarily a session keyboard player and pianist. However, during his career he also worked as a composer, programmer, lounge lizard, record producer, teacher and recording engineer. His role began to be shown with his collaboration with

, playing keyboards and co-producing his discs alongside producer

Martin Hannett James Martin Hannett (31 May 1948 – 18 April 1991), initially credited as Martin Zero, was an English record producer, musician and an original partner/director at Tony Wilson's Factory Records. Hannett produced music by artists including Joy ...

. Both formed

The Invisible Girls The Invisible Girls were a British rock band, formed in Salford, Greater Manchester in 1978, to provide a musical backdrop to the recorded output of Salford punk poet John Cooper Clarke. The band's nucleus was Joy Division and New Order produc ...

Salford Salford () is a city and the largest settlement in the City of Salford metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. In 2011, Salford had a population of 103,886. It is also the second and only other city in the metropolitan county afte ...

to be the Cooper Clarke's backing band in the rest of the years. However, the band also helped to relaunch the careers of former Penetration singer

, with whom they released one album and two singles between 1980 and 1981, and of

Nico Naftiran Intertrade Company Société à responsabilité limitée#In Switzerland, limited (NICO) is a Switzerland, Swiss-based subsidiary of the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC). NICO is a general contractor for the oil and gas industry. NIOC bu ...

, of

Velvet Underground Weave details visible on a purple-colored velvet fabric Velvet is a type of woven tufted fabric Textile is an umbrella term that includes various fiber-based materials, including fibers, yarns, filaments, threads, different fabri ...

fame. Hopkins also collaborated with

Jilted John ''Jilted'' is the past tense of jilt Jilt or may refer to: * Jilț, a tributary of the river Jiu in Romania * Jilț Coal Mine, an open-pit mine in Romania * ''The Jilt'', a 1922 American drama film directed by Irving Cummings * A B-girl (archa ...

, Ed Garrity (former

Ed Banger and the Nosebleeds The Nosebleeds are a punk band formed in Wythenshawe, Manchester, England in 1976. The band is well known in modern rock history for the later successes of its individual members, notably Morrissey (the Smiths), Billy Duffy (the Cult), and Vin ...

frontman), and later with

and

Distant Cousins Distant Cousins were an English band from Manchester. They are grouped within the Madchester scene, though the music was a blend of soul and pop. The group consisted of Doreen Edwards (vocals), Neil Fitzpatrick (ex- Smirks, guitar/sax), and "Sn ...

. Following his music career, in 1991, he began a PhD in experimental atomic physics at the

Open University The Open University (OU) is a British public research university and the largest university in the United Kingdom by number of students. The majority of the OU's undergraduate students are based in the United Kingdom and principally study off- ...

. This was followed by postdoctoral positions at Oxford and Sussex, as well as a teaching fellow post at the Manchester Photon Science Institute. In 2010 he joined the Atomic and Molecular Physics group at Durham University where he worked as a postdoctoral researcher until 2016. His father is Billy Hopkins, author of seven bestsellers, including ''Our Kid'' and ''Kate's Story''. His sister is the author

Cathy Hopkins ''For The Apprentice (UK) candidate, see Katie Hopkins'' Cathy Hopkins (born January 23, 1953) is an English writer with over 70 published titles. She has recently been writing for the popular fiction market with The Kicking The Bucket List publi ...

, best known for her teenage books '' Mates, Dates series''.

References

External links

Steve Hopkins personal web pages
Official site * allmusic - Steve Hopkins
Author Billy Hopkins
Official site British rock keyboardists Living people 1951 births Suns of Arqa members The Invisible Girls members {{UK-keyboardist-stub