Joe Strummer Q&A

INTERVIEW

YOU MUST HAVE BEEN ASKED EVERY QUESTION A MAN CAN BE ASKED.
“Perhaps… For something like ‘Walker’, there’s no other way to promote it (snarls/disgruntled). It won’t go on the radio, they won’t buy adverts for it. It’s not that big a deal with Virgin, it’s a one-off thing, why should they bother ? There’s no long-term investment in me.

YOU’RE NOT HAPPY WITH THE RECORD COMPANY ?
“We’re considering ‘Immortal’ as a single. It’s as bad as CBS – it’s really difficult to find anyone who’s in charge… probably better than CBS. It’s not even worth going in the front door as far as I’m concerned. I’ve got 3 more albums with CBS.”

YOU COULD DO A SANDINISTA !
“In order to have a triple album sell for the price of one, we made two concessions. 1) that it counted as one LP in our deal. 2), we got no record royalties. We got song writing royalties – PRS, record royalties. We got zip, 12/14% of the sale cost we waived that, in order to get it out.”

A BIT RASH…
“Well. We were like that. We didn’t care. We were into the music. Nobody got any money out of that – not us, not the Sandinistas, only CBS. It didn’t sell two copies.

WHAT ABOUT PERMANENT RECORD COMING OUT IN THE UK ?
“We’ve got to wait here, I don’t really see why we should, CBS/ Epic. Want to re-negotiate, don’t want any interference, I won’t record until I’ve had that because the tapes just become a pawn in a game, you know ?
I wanna get the rules of the game straight first because I don’t want some fucker getting hold of my music. I’d rather not have a single ever again than have that (bitterly).”

TELL ME ABOUT WALKER
“I definitely wouldn’t have written that way without the film. No, I didn’t use anything too modern, nothing clean, no beatbox. I hadn’t written anything like that ever. It was a voyage of discovery for me, winging it, from tune to tune. I worked and worked and when I stopped, I found out I had 14 cuts that seemed pretty cool. It’s in the groove. Coney Island Magazine said Latin parties are all playin’ it.”

IT’S A BRILLIANT RECORD
“That’s cool. It’s sold one and a half copies. 15,000 in the US – in nation of 400 million. I’m not moaning. It’s good to know there are 15,000 people there who are awake; it’s bribery and corruption. NYC has got millions of radio stations. Here it’s dead. Pirate stations are cool here.”

WE TALK ABOUT ITALIAN RADIO STATIONS, YOUNG GROUPS, BROS MANIA, RAPPING IN ITALIAN…
“Schooly D in Rome. The mind boggles.. I’ve played a lot in Italy, communist party festivals. The own square in Bologna. Milan, Turin, Genova, Naples. 3 days in Naples on my own. I don’t mind Bros, it’s quite hard. I like the beat to I Owe You Nothing.”

ARE INTERVIEWS USEFUL/INTERESTING IN ANY WAY ? DO YOU LEARN ANYTHING ?
“I tell you what the main effect is: I think to myself: ‘I never ever want to do another interview again.’ It’s stressful; I’m given the chance to say something. You’re aware that you’re saying the wrong thing. Next day, you realise how you should have done it, like an actor in rehearsal. It’s my only avenue of drawing attention to my work. I’d love to shut up for a while. I suppose there are some – sometimes it’s interesting. I try and pay no attention. I look at them thru one eye, out the corner; it’s too false, I really just want to be normal. I want to walk forward in life like everyone else. I change my mind every week too.”

YOU MUST GET A LOT OF YOUNG HACKS IN AWE.
No, not really hahaha. I once read an interview with Craig Stadler (USA golfer). A terrific interview, two pages. Every question – about 50 of them – every single one, he said: ‘No not, really’ ! I was always really impressed by that. He obviously didn’t realise ! I wish I could do that !”

I WAS AT THE CRAWLEY GIG WHEN I WAS 12.
“Jesus, what a gig. I’ll never forget that. We all grow up. It’s difficult. I’d prefer to talk to somebody who hates you. It upsets me the term “Clash expert”. Anything I do for the rest of my life will be given to Charles Shaar Murray at Q magazine. I’m like, ‘it’s not my fault your fucking rhythm and blues band didn’t work out !’ I like a bash-up. He reviewed the Clash compilation and ‘Walker’. I’m interested to meet people who don’t know or don’t care.”

HOW DID RECORDING WALKER WORK ?
You do something like Walker – the session’s over, you leave the city (“the ciddy”), you finish up, it slips away and then a few weeks later, you listen to it again. To me, I almost get worried. I wonder how did I do that ? You’re never secure.
I demoed all of Walker on my 4 track; it was all written down. I wish ‘Filibustero’ was a bit harder – like the demos. I switched it on to Cassio. 3 trumpeters; I was quite nervous, I didn’t push them, got tougher as we went along. BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM BABABABABAM. Off off off off on. (Play it all). I was so pleased to get the approximate, working against time and money. The musicians were great, quite old. They all had Latin bands. Some did jingles for Taco-Bell. They were always rushing off to do Taco-Bell adverts. Some kind of sick fast food chain. I kept catching the engineer mixing Taco-Bell jingles and then switching on to my stuff. They all rushing into next studio; you listen and hear (sings James Bond style): “DON’T TRY TO HIDE IT !” You think that sounds pretty good. (Sings) “YOU’VE GOT TO SLIP AWAY…. WHEN IT COMES TO LUNCHTIME, IT’S TACO-BELL ALL THE WAY”: they get the best players, they pick up the tune in seconds. It was fun.”
YOU’VE RARELY DONE A RECORD WITH SOME ANGER IN IT.
“Doing ‘Permanent Record’ in Hollywood, I got quite bolshy; the ad-men are ripping off the music, I tried to start fights – I’m gonna form an organisation and paint slogans on all the studios in the world: JINGLE MAKERS FUCK OFF (snarls). These guys loved my session. Oh man, I didn’t tell them what to play, I said, ‘go your way’, a cool double bass player, that’s the chords, ‘GO MAN GO !’ ‘Pull out the best shot, the heavy licks that you can’t play, nothing medium. Let it rip. Rebecca on the piano in ‘Filibustero’, it’s all hot. Real Latin style, rocked it up. I’m screaming “GO MAN GO !”
‘Permanent Record’ is strictly rock, rock with kind of Latin percussion. Used a double bass player, didn’t want it too boring. It’s ok. What I can do on the guitar but it’s not particularly world-gripping you know ? Stop it getting too boring; mix it up. One came out sounding like the Buzzcocks, I was so pleased. ‘Fuck me, it’s The Buzzcocks !’ A real blast.
‘Trash City’ to me, it’s like not bad. I sing on about 6 – they’ve put other people on the record – I had 16 cuts, they’ve used only 5 with vocals. Lou Reed, The Godfathers, Stranglers, Bodeans, I’ve got another 10 cuts.”
I did ‘Permanent Record’ after The Pogues’ tour. After the ballads, I had to do a really bum deal cos CBS got in on it – whether I was allowed to sing on it. They really stuck a real hot red-hot poker up my bum. The deal is (laughing) after 100, 000 copies, I get a quid. At the end of the 21st century. It’s not ‘Dirty Dancing.”

WHAT HAVE YOU DONE SINCE ‘CUT THE CRAP’ ?
“That was ‘85. Three years. You know those large dustbins, catering bins. Song-writing – I visualise like that, fill to the brim of murky water. Songs sort of circle, you have to stir it up things come up; you can reach down and grab something but if you don’t it’s still circling round in there. So I didn’t mind not doing much.
Elvis Costello or someone is obsessed with writing, writing, writing. Sometimes I don’t write a song for months and then sit down and bash out loads; the longer you leave them in the dustbin in fact, the more interesting branches they grow.”

A BIT OF A DANGEROUS METAPHOR…
WHERE DID YOU WRITE WALKER ?
“I wrote it on a cheap cassio to Nicaragua. All on the keyboard. Anything that wasn’t guitar-based – I’m useless. I hardly understand anything. In fact, I can hardly play an instrument at all.”

WHAT ABOUT ‘BROADWAY’ ? OR THE RUDE-BOY PIANO/ JAZZY STUFF WITH THE CLASH ?
“It’s a really great track. ‘Death Is The Star’ ? That’s a weird one yeah. I had no real self-confidence. Mick, Paul and Topper did the backing (for Broadway). I did the lyric. ‘Death Is The Star’ was me and Mick – the music.
With my musical ability, when you had good players around, I sat in the background. At one point, Mick said ‘great news’ – I thought if I let him into the project (Walker), I’d lose it. I knew for myself I had something to write and it might come out OK. When I’m around Mick, I tend to take a backseat – it’s my nature.

I’m aware I’ve got no technique or schooling, that’s why I keep myself to myself. I don’t have any confidence. If I’m on my own, I have to do it. If I’m worried that if I get a group I’ll let people walk all over me, that’s what worries me. I was thrown out of music class, I was thrown out of the choir. I never picked up a guitar until I was 21. I can’t play lead guitar. Mick is a really cracker musician.”

I FIND BIG AUDIO DYNAMITE REALLY DISAPPOINTING MUSICALLY…
“I surprised myself with ‘Walker’. Every single Clash track was really arranged by Mick, arranged and produced by Mick Jones. He’s great musician.”

YOU WERE IN MICK’S SHADOW ?
“After The Clash was over and we’d made up, I did the second B.A.D LP, we argued a lot. It was frustrating for me cos I had to say, ‘well it’s your group’. If we’d been in a group I could have shouted louder – I wanted Kay to play real drums on it was what it boiled down to. In Trident, there’s a very interesting back passage, disused shower room – having main drums in main room and running microphone cable out into this disused shower room, and another up this corridor was brilliant, mikes round the kit – I was getting this great idea together, crunchy drum sound. Groucho their engineer is real ‘reggae mon, reggae fonky’. This is rock ‘n’ roll ! I was shouting, crunchy – crunchy, this was 50s beatbox, hi-fi faders. Mick would do the night shift, when the faders were up, it was me. When the faders were flat against the cushion every morning. I wanted to investigate the hip-hop potential of a real drum kit.”

DO YOU THINK THIS ALWAYS HAPPENED WITH YOU AND MICK ?
“We did a song called ‘U.S. North’ for a film called ‘Candy Mountain.’ Robert Frank did a prize–winning book of photos in the 50s, a Jack Kerouac man, it had a foreword of Kerouac’s. He directed ‘Cocksucker Blues’. Frank was directing. I’ve never actually seen it although I am in it. I’m a security guard on crack. Duffing up the hero at the start. We got together to write, had this song ‘US North’ – like a fool. It was funded by Canadian money – the last thing we should have done was call it ‘US North’. It had Jim Jarmusch, Tom Waits, Dr.John, groovy Manattan. Recording it. All Mick’s pals. I was at the back of the room more and more. My only contribution apart from helping a bit and writing the lyrics was singing underneath Mick’s vocal, I realised, hang on, this was mine. It was my brief. At the end, I’m under the backing vocals. I’m not criticising Mick cos he came forward with a brilliant tune (sings: ‘well it’s a long way back, to your laundermat. Got no protection from the city block code’). He sings it cracker.
B.A.D. picked it up. I really had no answer to Mick’s powerful personality so with Walker I said to myself: ‘right, you cunt. Let’s see if you can hack it’ without Mick. Do or die. It was a confidence booster. Cos it meant I did have something musical in me. I could be an English Tom Waits figure. I don’t know what happened to the soundtrack.”
WHAT ABOUT THE CLASH COMPILATION ?
It’s called “Volume 1” cos its my idea of a joke. To wind up the hacks: ‘Double Album, Volume 1. Who do these cunts fucking think they are ?!’ You never know, I don’t think there’ll be more. It had to come. I was quite into it. We got some control over it, mainly cos Rob Steiner was a Clash fan, he and Mick put the running order together. I checked it. My mind wasn’t on it. The old team, I don’t like the front (pic) one. Can’t stand it.”
A GROUP SHOT BY PENNIE SMITH ?
It was the highpoint to ‘London Calling’ and we were away from Bernie Rhodes too, which is not a coincidence probably we stopped the bus on that tour HATSHOP ! On a rock ‘n’ roll tour, everybody buys hats.”

YOU DID A LOT OF POSING…
All the time. Pennie snaps, quietly, some were posed.
We weren’t dressing up cos we were dressing up all the time. I like all that, all this,”

YOU LOOK COOL
Yeah thanks. One time (laughs) God help us. We were on The Who tour because The Who were so big, we thought we needed something to make us feel better, so we used to hire Rent-A-Wrecks, some 50s Cadillac convertibles.
They’re kept for films, arrive in them at the gig to give us a buzz. They’d come with a driver from the motorpool. We drove off, he looks at us in the rear-view mirror, and says ‘Great disguises guys !’ We weren’t in disguise. Mick was all hip-hopped up, he was sincere.
I looked at him, and us and thought ‘what have we come to ?’ After that, it used to be ‘why are you wearing those stupid glasses ?’ We were falling apart then. We couldn’t even agree what was cool anymore.”

THE CLASH HAVE GOT TO ANSWER FOR…
“‘Spin’ magazine in the US, ages ago before the compilation had 2 essays, a 5 page spread, slagging us to fuck. Why not blame Les Paul for inventing the guitar ?! I like the rock n punk aspect, that funk aspect.

WHICH 3 RECORDS WOULD YOU SAVE IF THEY WERE GOING TO BE CONFISCATED FOR GOOD BY THE STATE ?
‘The first album and London Calling’ – the first blast and then moving forward, musically bettering ourselves. using what we learned. I have no enthusiasm for ‘Give ‘Em Enough Rope’ and ‘Sandinista’ is too sprawling; I like the first side of Combat Rock. No affection for ‘Atom Tan’ style. I like ‘Sean Flynn’.”

WHAT ABOUT THE WORST MOMENTS ?
Of the whole shebang? For me, it’s ‘Cut The Crap’. Of the original, proper Clash ? Give ‘Em Enough Rope is OK. No fond memories of it. I remember… we were so young and stupid at that time. Sandy Pearlman (producer) & Corky Stasiak (sound engineer) came in from the US of A to produce it. One night in the studios all in the control room and Sandy went, ‘I know ! I’VE GOT IT’! And I thought, ‘wow I’m privileged to be here at this moment of rock ‘n’ roll breakthrough. Then he turned to Korky Stasiak and he went ‘We eat Thai tonight’. My heart sank.
Another low point was, up north at the Glasgow Mecca, we’re fighting and the gorillas (bouncers) saying ‘We know who to thump when the audience fights, but who do we thump now ?’ We’d done a raging set, stormed off, the crowd’s all shouting for more. I said right, ‘let’s do White Riot, come on !” And Mick says ‘No ! I refuse !’ I said ‘come on where’s your respect?’ Mick said ‘you haven’t got any respect for the stage’ and threw his orange juice on me. As he threw, I planted one right on him – my fist square on his forehead, and knocked him right over and won the argument ! We played it. Anyway, he stayed in his room that night, did quite a good drawing of himself in the mirror, actually showed it to me the next day and when he came out he had a scarf round his head and I said ‘what are you wearing that for ?’ And he said ‘come here’ and took it off, and there was like a photographic imprint of four fingers from the knuckle to the first joint on his forehead. The bouncers were really confused !”

ANY OTHERS LOWS ?
“In ‘83 about May, we got rid of Topper after Combat Rock. Combat Rock was Xmas/New Year 82/83. We played in Australia and Thailand and Hong Kong, Japan, came back did some festivals, and then got rid of him. That’s really when it all ended. It was me that told him yeah. The others were too fucking chicken.”

THAT WAS BECAUSE OF HIS HEROIN HABIT. DID YOU EVER TAKE IT ?
“I never took heroin. One time when I was on a busking tour of Holland, about ’72, Spring, me and Tymon Dogg, busking our way through Belgium and France with not a penny between us. Some Dutch people took us in, smoking some joint, this wild guy said ‘the next one has heroin in it’ and it went round, I thought ‘Fuck me, I don’t want to get involved on this !’ I did a pretend puff and passed it on. That’s the only time I’ve ever got into physical bodily contact with it. I’ve been offered it hundreds of times. Musicians, which I shan’t name, go round to see them and it’s hi man, how ya doin ?’. Then
they sort of nod off, you know. I’m thinking this is a bit awkward, he’s gone to sleep. He’s obviously tired.
Maybe I’ll go. And then he’ll shake himself into life. With junk, you nod off and nod out. I’ll get up to go and he wakes up, ‘where you going ?’ !
Junkies always try and force their gear on other people. He offered me it. I’d heard that if you had a snort, you had to go and throw up immediately and I thought, first you’ve got to throw up and then you just sit there and nod off, I’ve got things to do ! We liked speed. Take some blues and go down the West End, jumping and screaming.
Topper always liked to do Charlie (coke). I didn’t think too much about that; we were always smoking dope, so how could we complain ? And he liked Mandrax. We had no moral grounds. Now we know what an insidious, addictive drug cocaine is. This is 8 years ago. He started to speedball it: mix it. I’d think he’s off in the corner having a hint of Charles but he’d start to substitute the powder. He told me gleefully, ‘I’ve been doing it for 18 months.’ What did we know about it? Now it’s everywhere. He’s in prison, so I expect he’s got a lot to think about.”

IT WAS IRONIC YOU JUST RELEASING ‘I FOUGHT THE LAW’…
“Mmm imagine, ‘And the law won’. Thanks guys. All the other prisoners. He can handle it.”

WHAT ABOUT THE BEST MOMENTS ?
“May 7th 1977 at The Rainbow ! A night where you’re at the right place, at the right time, doing the right thing, saying the right words, almost without effort, all the seats get demolished. Chance, luck, the effect was magic. I can remember that sort of high point. I could never write a book about it.
Jagger got a million dollars advance! Pocketed the cash. He couldn’t remember anything, he phoned up Wyman, ‘hello old mate. Lend us yer diary, need to check some things’ (In the voice). Wyman goes ‘Fuck off !’ I’m writing my own book, returned the advance. Need some accurate detail. I’d like to write about the dirt. I’ve said everything about drugs.
As a fan you need to know the dirt. I always try and tell the truth. I feel bad about Topper being in prison and can’t defend himself. But if someone asks me ‘why did you sack him ?’ It’s cos he was on junk. I can’t say he was late. He was no good. Mick hasn’t done any interviews for this record. Got to tell young people where you fuck up.
In the 60’s it was all, dope’s cool. I’ve stopped smoking marijuana cos I know it’s very addictive and it’s linked to the gangsters who are selling crack. It’s no longer a groovy counter-culture thing to do. It’s playing in the hands of the state, trying to keep a grip on drinking. I smoke cigarettes, drink lot of black coffee; it’s an apathy drug. God knows I’ve wasted my life on that. In the Village Voice, they have marijuana/pot-smokers anonymous. It’s heavy, weed.”

WHO DID YOU ENJOY MEETING OR WORKING WITH MOST ?
“Bo Diddley was wild. And Lee Dorsey. Great people. Screaming Jay Hanwkins. Still tours. Never met the guy (Bowie). The trouble is, when you meet anyone it already happened somehow. If we thought of some despicable tosser, when we met him we’d probably see it from his point of view. One of the Human League said, the name of the game is you mustn’t meet anyone cos they become sort of friends. Don’t want to slag them off. They’re not that different from you.
I met Jagger. I asked him ‘How do you play these big stadiums ? To me, there was no concentration – on The Who tour. He said ‘Well you just don’t give a fuck about them.’ I went ‘ohh there’s no answer to that’ !
Quincy Jones always wanted to work with us but I never will. I refuse to work with a Fairlight, that Fairlight shows the waveform of the sound of the screen, you can analyse it; but I’m not interested. I can fucking hear it in my ear; to me, the art of recording is to hear a sound that affects the soul – this scientific stuff, analyse it, is a safety net. I prefer no safety net. It’s no fun.
I’d like to record with The Pogues. I knew Shane since 76. He was at every gig. I’ll never forget that night. The skinheads were just intense. They were cool people, they wanna talk. In Luton too. Some idiot sold super-strength Skol lager in cans. Jesus, I’ve never seen so many cans. In Luton. The British are an island nation and they’re really good at fighting, that’s just the way it is. Without a war, there’s a lot of energy there unharnessed. It’s an adolescent trip to prove you’re a man. The only direct way with peer pressure is violence, a ruck. It was like that in the ted-punk days. We were talking me and this headcase, I said ‘why beat the shit out that punks ?’ He said: ‘We get noticed’. It’s a bad energy.”

WHAT ARE YOU WORKING TOWARDS JOE ?
“I might go on the road with a group. Just play what I know how to play. I don’t expect to find that many good movies. I’m not interested in a crap film. Not going to bash out soundtracks just for the sake of it. No, definitely no acting, forget it. It’s just too weird. People like Tom Waits can handle cameos, but an actor’s really weird. Ed Harris really became ‘Walker’. Then I heard he was in Poland as a Polish priest. He does it. To be an actor is a weird thing. I think Adam Ant might do quite well – he’s doing auditions, readings, not using his name. Your average rock n roller doesn’t know what to do with it.”

WHERE DO YOU LIKE GOING ?
“The South of Spain is great. The States – the desert, Texas, Arizona… London is my home, whatever it is, it’s a melting pot, we’re on top of something here, even through it’s decline. Rubbish on the street and morale is bottom rock; wherever we’re going, we’ll be the first to get there. One thing about London, a guy from Glasgow was telling me he was always getting beaten up cos he had hair like Fergal Sharkey. I realized, in London, nobody bats a fucking eyelid. Dress like what the hell you like. Happens a bit but not as a matter of course.”

WHAT ARE YOUR FAVOURITE PLACES ?
“The markets are the life and soul of the city. Portobello runs the whole gamut, from poncy, snobby rubbish to vegetables. They throw things, carrots at your head, craftsmen selling their wares then the junk stuff rubbish. Perhaps it just goes round in a circle. I stay in west London, don’t like north, south, east London.”

SO DESCRIBE YOUR AVERAGE DAY
“My day ? I go down the boozer at lunchtime, have a cider, low alcohol. No stiff drinks. Then I might go and stand by the paper stand and talk to Pete; then I might go to a couple of coffeehouses on the Grove (Ladbroke Grove) where I know people sitting around talking, see who’s doing what – lots of painters, writers, musicians. Then come evening time, properly go back to the boozer, chat to a few people, drink Brown Ale, call it a day. I like to move around, talking, get out of the house. I can’t stand television, not interested. Get out of the house.”

DO YOU EVER WRITE ?
“No, I only ever write lyrics. Maybe 5 years after I write my last lyric, I will. Movies ? No. Can’t stand the movies. Once/twice a year. ‘Hollywood Shuffle’. Not interest in horror; couple of irons in the soundtrack fire. I want to make a Strummer album but I ain’t going to record anything while they’re fucking me around, after 10 years.”

WALKER’S AN ACE UP YOUR SLEEVE
“They couldn’t give a fuck, I bet no one at CBS has ever listened to it. (pulls out pager/gizmo ?) I carry this absurd thing, I haven’t heard it making its stupid beeping noise. I wonder if I’ve lost it. It’s London, summer time, 6.27.”

ends