Three interviews conducted by John Tobler x2 and others with Joe Strummer, Mick Jones, and Paul Simonon on BBCTV, broadcast 8 March 1978, "Something Else TV", 6:45mins, "BBCR1 Rock On" cMay 1977, 11:15mins, "BBC1 Rock On" early 1980, 8:15mins,
Something Else '78 audio &
John Tobler interviews:
Joe, Mick '78 & Mick, Paul '80
- Contains three distinct interviews spanning 1977-1980, originally broadcast on BBC programs including Something Else TV and Rock On
- Features discussion of musical direction with debate about New Wave vs punk labels, with Mick Jones declaring "It's just rock and roll"
- Reveals tensions with record label CBS over contract terms and creative control, including Strummer's claim they were signed to "be kept quiet"
- Details recording process for London Calling double album, including pricing strategy (sold for £5 when standard was £6)
- Contains controversial statements about live performances, including wanting audiences to riot and destroy venues
- Political stance and vehement attack on the National Front
- Musical excerpts include Clash City Rockers, Tommy Gun, London's Burning, and Guns of Brixton
- Concert references include shows at Rainbow Theatre and various pub venues
- Features rare insight into songwriting collaboration between Strummer and Jones, and Paul Simonon's transition to guitar
- Documents early US touring experiences and audience reactions and gobbing
Contents
1. Something Else, UK TV, (11 March 1978): 00:00 - 06:45
2. John Tobler Interview with Mick and Joe, BBC Radio (cMay 1977): 06:45 - 18:00
3. BBC Radio Interview 18:00 - 26:15
Transcript
1. Something Else, UK TV,
(11 March 1978): 00:00 - 06:45
00:07
Music: Clash City Rockers
03:31
Something Else: What do you think young people are going to do in years to come?
Joe Strummer: Get old.
Something Else: That's true. But do you think it's going to be a total disinterest in politics in the future?
03:43
Joe Strummer: don't know, maybe I'll grow up to be Prime Minister.
03:45
Music: Tommy Gun
06:45: Something Else ENDS
2. John Tobler Interview, Mick, Joe,
BBC Radio 1, cMay 1977
06:24
John Tobler: It sounds like being called New Wave, and you prefer punk, but admittedly you prefer neither. So what do you describe your music as?
06:53
Mick Jones: I just think it's rock and roll. Just carry it on, you know.
John Tobler: What, a direct progression from what has gone before?
Mick Jones: Yeah, with differences.
Joe Strummer: I just hate the word new wave. It makes me want to vomit.
Mick Jones: It's just like the 70s rock and roll, right? That's the difference. The time difference is the 70s, right? And Eddie Cochran, obviously.
John Tobler: Your songs are political, is that right?
Joe Strummer: Yeah, Don't know.
07:21
Mick Jones: We're not political in the party sense, in as much as we're not. We are neither right nor left, nor middle. They are politcial in that they are talking about things which we believe, to be honest. And when someone makes honest statements, right, people who feel threatened by those statements generally say that they are political statements.
07:48
John Tobler: One of the things you said earlier, you said that you were in it for as much as you could get. Is that right? I mean, it's reported that you signed on for an incredible amount.
Joe Strummer: Yeah, a million pounds.
John Tobler: It was over a hundred thousand.
Joe Strummer: Yeah, so what now?
John Tobler: Do you think that that was CBS being extremely clever and recognizing what's going to be the next big thing and figuring they'd have to pay for it.
08:09
Joe Strummer: I don't know. No, I think it's a mistake. This is what's going on, right? They signed us up for that much money because they want to try and keep us quiet. You watch, they're going to attempt to muffle us up in the next six months so they can get on with their lovely little Johnny Mathis and Vibrators and other records, right? (Mick mubbles about the Vivrators) ... Joe .. I reckon they paid a lot of money just to silence us, you know what I mean?
John Tobler: What, a sort of industry intrigue?
Joe Strummer: Right, and they have a lasting light bulb.
Mick Jones: It's impossible.
Joe Strummer: You watch.
John Tobler: Really?
Joe Strummer: They've done it with the pistols. Twice, right? And they're going to come out of it, but they're still struggling, right? And we haven't had that yet. And they're going to do it. I mean, what do they need us for? They don't need us. This place for citizens doesn't need us. See, the Abba records they could sell. I think they just see us as a threat to their already fantastic rivers of money, you know? They see us as like something to block it up, right? So if they own us and we haven't got any money...
John Tobler: Well, they gave you a hundred grand. I mean, if you haven't got it, that's your problem, isn't it?
Joe Strummer: Exactly. They're training us to be like, you know, take a helicopter. To the supermarket.
John Tobler: Oh, I see. They're paying that game, are they?
Joe Strummer: Pretty much, yeah.
John Tobler: One of the things about the songs on your album is that, in terms of tunes, there's not a great deal there, I found. Personal opinion.
Mick Jones: Well, I find that very disturbing.
Joe Strummer: I mean, ...
John Tobler: I'm so bored with the USA, it's certainly got...
09:53
Mick Jones: Okay, that's really weird. Every one of them to me is a tune.
Joe Strummer: I think they're terrific tunes.
John Tobler: What do you mean?
Mick Jones: You better go back and have a listen again.
John Tobler: It could be covered by somebody else.
Mick Jones: You bet. I mean, (Joe and Mick duet on Remote Control vocals). You could go through the whole album and sing the whole album. It's a tunes.
10:20
Music: Remote Control
12:58
John Tobler: now you along with several of these other bands seem to feel that it's necessary to play at very high volume
Mick Jones: when you're you've got a live situation right it helps make it much more exciting you know i mean like moves you more it moves you physically as well as like emotionally like i've made premises to work on an emotional basis and like you know that it helps with that full strike it feels good
John Tobler: there's also a brevity about a lot of your songs which is interesting
Mick Jones: but no room for instrumental excess
13:28
John Tobler: Do you say there's no room for instrumental excess because you don't want to or because you can't?
Joe Strummer: Yeah.
John Tobler: I don't understand this. But again, several of the bands of the new generation clearly obviously can't play their instruments very well. I'm not saying that about you, necessarily.
Mick Jones: Well, I practice a lot. Alright, I admit it, I can't play!
13:55
John Tobler: Would you actually be as violent as you suggest in your songs if it came to it?
Mick Jones: Of course.
John Tobler: Would you try to incite an audience to riot?
Mick Jones: Of course.
Joe Strummer: We try every night. I want to hear the smashing of seats and the crumpling of the wood and the stepping of the iron.
John Tobler: Suppose they take the money away from your fee.
Joe Strummer: I don't care. I don't care if the ceiling falls down and kills everyone in the theatre. What do I care about it? Me included, I don't care. I don't care what happens. As long as it's out of hand, you know? Out of control, I don't care.
John Tobler: So you really couldn't care less what happens as long as it's exciting?
Joe Strummer: As long as it's out of control.
John Tobler: And don't you think that signing with CBS, in retrospect, has put you well in control?
Joe Strummer: Look, we can be one of two things, right? We can be a little forgotten article in Old Sniffing Glue Nostalgia Book 3 (Sniffin' Glue fanzine), right?
Mick Jones: On Monday May the 9th, right? We could have played the Rainbow Theatre or the Red Cow.
Joe Strummer: Yeah, or even the Red Cow, (joe mubles about alsorts of pubs with "cow in") right?
Mick Jones: We chose to make it...
Joe Strummer: .. Rainbow Theatre, you know, we ain't doing this just to be a little part of history, right? We want to blitzkrieg the world and stomp everyone, right?
15:32
Music: London's Burning
17:23
Another BBC Radio1 Pressenter: Joe Strummer and Mick Jones of The Clash, talking to John Tobler.
Interview continues ...
John Tobler: So you're all National Front?
Joe Strummer: You're kidding! Did you say that seriously?
John Tobler: No, it was an inflammatory question. It works.
Mick Jones: We abhore the National Front. We abhore the National Front. We are absolutely far away from them.
Joe Strummer: I don't like to joke about that kind of thing.
John Tobler: So what do you vote?
Joe Strummer: We don't vote nothing. I don't even stay in the same place long enough to get a registered vote.
17:48
Tommy Vance (BBCR1 presenter): Well, that's it. The Clash, our fourth punk rock new wave band in the last two weeks on Rock On.
3. BBC Radio Interview,
(early 1980) 18:00 -26:15
18:03
Tommy Vance (BBCR1 presenter): Brand new Cadillac, the old Vince Taylor and the Cadillac song from London Calling, the new 18-track double album by The Clash, which is a really good package. Right, when John Tobler met up with Mick Jones and Paul Simonon earlier this week, he wondered whether their new style was a reaction against the Americanization of their last album.
Mick Jones: Yeah, there was definitely a lot of difference in approach. What we did is we approached it as quick as we could and got it over with. We really just cracked it out.
John Tobler: Don't you enjoy recording, though?
Paul Simonon: We did this time, didn't you?
Mick Jones: We did enjoy it this time, yes. We enjoyed this a lot. Um, but we didn't enjoy it the last time (Give 'Em Enough Rope). Now, in retrospect, I can honestly say I didn't enjoy it. Because it took too long and it was too boring and it was in foreign countries and everything. All that stuff's good on it. By the time we finished recording it, it took ages for it to come out and everything and it was like, um...
Paul Simonon: It just got really boring
Mick Jones: Yeah, just really boring for us and it costs more as well
John Tobler: talking about cost this is a double album for a fiver (London Calling 2LP) now joe's been quoted on several occasions as saying you will never see the six quid clash album is this something ...
19:17
Mick Jones: we're close though aren't we but um the idea was you know first we were gonna have one album for two quid but we couldn't get that right and so we thought what we're going to do is we'll have to like have two albums for five quids right and they have to be just as old as good right which i think it is
John Tobler: how is it that you can put out a double album for a fiver most people
Mick Jones: great personal expense to ourselves actually
John Tobler: it's you that's playing the extra
Mick Jones: i expect so eventually (Paul "in the long run) if there's anything ever to pay it will be us i expect. That's what happens in this business
19:47
John Tobler: There's a good deal of songs on the album which are Strummer Jones compositions. Now, when it says that, what does it actually mean?
Mick Jones: It means it's a Strummer Jones composition. Definitely.
John Tobler: Who does what?
Mick Jones: We do both.
John Tobler: Well, you write lyrics and tunes.
Mick Jones: Yes, and so does he. And we swap round.
John Tobler: Are there any of them you can definitely say are yours more than his?
Mick Jones: No, but it might seem that way on the record because it often seems like I get a certain type of song to sing or something. Weedy ones. I get the weedy ones.
John Tobler: Is that because all the papers say you've got a weedy voice?
Mick Jones: Yeah, probably. But I think it's a good, honest, weedy voice.
John Tobler: Paul, you've made your songwriting debut on here with a song called Guns of Brixton. Now, I gather that you also played guitar on it.
Paul Simonon: Yeah.
John Tobler: Why did you decide to do that?
20:40
Paul Simonon: Oh, ages ago. I've always wanted to play guitar. When I first joined the group, I always wanted to play. But I suddenly got lumbered with a bass.
Mick Jones: There was too many guitarists when he first joined the group anyway. Yeah.
John Tobler: And did Joe take easily to playing bass?
Paul Simonon: Yeah, he just sort of picked it up and plunked away.
20:56
Music: Guns of Brixton
22:28
John Tobler: Now you've added an extra musician. Well, several extra musicians on the album.
Mick Jones: Yeah.
John Tobler: Whose idea was this?
Mick Jones: That was the thing that came hand in hand with everything else. It was everybody's idea. Let's have some of that on it and some of that. And some of this, you know, let's have, you know, a bit of keyboards and so. But me and Joe play the keyboards and Micky Gallagher from the Blockheads plays the organ because he was once a member of the animals
22:58
John Tobler: what about the brass section because i think it makes a good addition
Mick Jones: yeah i don't think we're going to be like doing a tour of them or anything actually you know i think it was just like for a record i like records to sound like records and live action to be live action but yeah it was great fun as well seeing because joe was like conducting it in his band leader suit
John Tobler: aren't you afraid of getting compared with secret affair
23:26
Mick Jones: : I don't think it sounds like a secret affair, actually.
Paul Simonon: It just makes the record, like, more colourful, like the particular track.
Mick Jones: It couldn't possibly, you know?
John Tobler: What do you think about this mod business? Were you in mods?
Mick Jones: No, I wasn't. I was too young to be in mods, but I think it's pathetic.
Paul Simonon: Are there any good groups?
Mick Jones: No good groups, none that I've liked.
23:46
John Tobler: Let's talk about your audiences for a minute. Do you think people are afraid to go and see you in case they get mixed up in the aggro that seems to sort of follow you along?
Mick Jones: hope it doesn't. I hope the aggro doesn't follow us around anymore.
John Tobler: But it has done, hasn't it?
24:10
Mick Jones: Yeah, but I hope people aren't afraid to go and see us. I don't think they need to be, actually. I think a lot of it's blown out of proportion, as far as we're concerned. And we're trying, you know, to make sure that kids don't get beaten up for, like, getting out of their station. But very often they get up there and then they look around and feel a bit silly. Don't know what to do, you know. So they just ask to go off and, like, someone will escort them off and put them back down.
John Tobler: Are people still gobbing at you?
Mick Jones: I don't know. They don't gob so much in America. But I suspect we'll have to wait and see.
Paul Simonon: They didn't gob much last tour, did they?
Mick Jones: Not so much, no. I don't like that still. You know, tell them not to bother.
John Tobler: What do you think about America?
24:44
Mick Jones: They're keen to see something which is new to them, and they seem to appreciate it on the whole. A few cases of booing, the odd jelly baby flung. America is a thing we've sort of looked at quite a bit. Anyway, you know, I had a good long look when I was recording that other record, you know. And maybe it's because we had a look first, and we went over and started playing, and we knew what halls weren't good places to play and stuff like that because we'd seen groups make fools of themselves in those very same places.
25:20
John Tobler: What are you going to say to people when they say to you, London calling doesn't sound like a clash to me.
Mick Jones: Sounds like a clash to me.
Paul Simonon: And me.
Mick Jones: People can't expect us to stay the same, can they? Really, they can't honestly just want us to be that thing from 1977 and continue to be that now. They can't. We like music too much aAnd I should think staying the same kills your lack of music.
Music: Plays out