Crisis were one of the many bands that sprang to life as Punk Rock spread across the UK in 1976-77. The first thing that set them apart was their militant Marxist background, with founding members Douglas Pearce and Tony Wakeford both being ardent Socialists. Taking the rhetoric of The Clash to an extreme level, they supported organisations like Rock Against Racism and the Anti-Nazi League and gained a reputation for not backing down from the confrontations which often occurred at their gigs. But while their lyrics can sometimes appear a little naïve in retrospect, musically they soon began to develop their own sound, moving away from the uninteresting three-chord template that was becoming the norm for so many bands after 1977. Crisis adopted slower tempos and concentrated more on the atmosphere and tension of the music rather than just making a loud, generic thrash. In many ways, by 1978 they were already dabbling in a style which, much later on, would be referred to as Post-Punk, not a million miles away from early Joy Division or The Ruts’ moodier moments.
Although receiving healthy support from John Peel, the band gained little coverage from the music press and most of their releases were issued on their own label, Ardkor. In 1980, the mini-album ‘Hymns of Faith’ looked set to finally crossover to a wider audience, as their musical approach continued to develop and their lyrics moved away from the sloganeering of earlier releases. Unfortunately, this was not to be. Differences within the line-up had started to set-in, so when drummer Luke Rendall decided to take-up a job offer with Theatre of Hate, Doug and Tony decided to call it a day. They eventually went on to form Death In June, although Tony was sacked after the first album due to a developing interest in Far Right politics (which he has since denounced.) He continued at first with a controversial project called Above The Ruins and then with Sol Invictus, with which he continues to work to this day.
Despite their relatively short career, interest in Crisis has continued to spread. Their original records have always been sough-after, but it wasn’t until 1997 that a thorough CD compilation, ‘We Are All Jews And Germans’ was released by Doug Pearce, collecting all of the original releases plus demos and a great live recording made during their tour of Norway. Although initially available in limited amounts, this album has served as the basis for subsequent compilations, including ‘Holocaust Hymns’ in America and, most recently, the excellent ‘Kollectiv’ double LP on La Vida Es Un Mus (which is highly recommended !) As well as appealing to old fans, these records have brought the band to the attention of a new generation who have been
able to appreciate that the music was clearly ahead of its’ time.
But even with the renewed interest, it seemed very
unlikely that Crisis themselves would ever reform. Neither Doug or Tony had ever shown any interest in revisiting the material and, musically, they were now far-removed from what Crisis had been doing. So it was with some surprise when I heard in 2015 that Tony had formed a new line-up, ‘1984’, to perform the songs that he had written for both Crisis and Death in June. Featuring Clive Giblin and Dave Morgan (both also members of Alternative TV) the band proved to be a perfect foil to perform the songs again, showing that they still stand-up as unique body of work which remains surprisingly valid.
Although it took some time to set-up, I eventually managed to arrange a retrospective interview with Tony, talking about how Crisis had come together, how they developed and how he sees their legacy now. We met-up in a pub in Southwark and had a great chat over a couple of pints.
Firstly, I wondered if he had been playing in any bands before Crisis came together ?
‘Yeah, I was playing in a school band called ‘Backwater’. We were really just playing covers by The Who and Status Quo, but that’s how you learn to play and anybody who says otherwise is a liar. I actually got told off by one of the ex-members once, because I’d mentioned the band somewhere and I’d been quite disparaging about it. But he was right because it was the way that we learned and it was good fun.’
Was there much of a gap between that band and when Crisis formed ?
‘There was a year or so in between, while I got interested in politics. I’d met Doug and we were both involved in Far-Left politics. I’d joined the International Socialists, which later morphed in to the appalling Socialist Workers Party. The International Socialists were originally a lot better than what they became. Doug was a member of the International Marxist Group at the same time, which was more of a traditional Trotskyite organization. Through that we both became involved with the Anti-Fascist movement and as we were the only people who went to these things who were under 25 and didn’t have beards, we kind of gravitated towards each other. Then, in late ’76, we started to hear about this new ‘punk’ thing. We were living just outside London and already going to gigs in places like Guildford and Woking, so it gradually started to filter through. I can’t remember if I phoned him or he called me, but we talked about it and one of us suggested putting our own band together. But it wasn’t really until we started going to punk gigs that we began to meet other people and things came together.’
Were there any particular bands that influenced you early on ?
‘I suppose The Clash were the band we most identified with at first, mainly because they said the right things and made the right pose. But I also really liked The Damned and I thought The Saints were really good, although that was maybe a bit later on.’
‘Yeah, I was playing in a school band called ‘Backwater’. We were really just playing covers by The Who and Status Quo, but that’s how you learn to play and anybody who says otherwise is a liar. I actually got told off by one of the ex-members once, because I’d mentioned the band somewhere and I’d been quite disparaging about it. But he was right because it was the way that we learned and it was good fun.’
Was there much of a gap between that band and when Crisis formed ?
‘There was a year or so in between, while I got interested in politics. I’d met Doug and we were both involved in Far-Left politics. I’d joined the International Socialists, which later morphed in to the appalling Socialist Workers Party. The International Socialists were originally a lot better than what they became. Doug was a member of the International Marxist Group at the same time, which was more of a traditional Trotskyite organization. Through that we both became involved with the Anti-Fascist movement and as we were the only people who went to these things who were under 25 and didn’t have beards, we kind of gravitated towards each other. Then, in late ’76, we started to hear about this new ‘punk’ thing. We were living just outside London and already going to gigs in places like Guildford and Woking, so it gradually started to filter through. I can’t remember if I phoned him or he called me, but we talked about it and one of us suggested putting our own band together. But it wasn’t really until we started going to punk gigs that we began to meet other people and things came together.’
Were there any particular bands that influenced you early on ?
‘I suppose The Clash were the band we most identified with at first, mainly because they said the right things and made the right pose. But I also really liked The Damned and I thought The Saints were really good, although that was maybe a bit later on.’
Did you start Crisis with an intentionally political agenda ?
‘Oh yeah, the whole reason behind forming the band was political. It was blatantly intended as a way to put our ideas across. Looking back at it now, it’s actually everything I dislike because I’ve grown to hate party-political music. But back then, forming a Trotskyite punk rock band seemed like a great idea and virtually all of our early gigs were for things like Rock Against Racism and the Anti-Nazi League.’
Musically, did you set out with any particular aims, because even from early-on, Crisis sounded pretty different to the majority of punk bands that were springing-up…
‘I think one of the things that worked for us was that we could already play a little bit. My musical background had originally come from being a skinhead and then getting into bits of Prog. Both me and Doug also had this strong sense of melody or, at least, could write good hooks. Lester was a good guitar player and we always had good drummers, so we were immediately ahead of the game. Everyone in the band had their own ideas and it was a collision of those that helped us develop our own sound. We were able to write songs that were pretty catchy and, as it went on, bring in other ideas. Doug used to have a Watkins Copicat effect for his guitar so that made the sound a lot more distinct, along with the way he actually played guitar itself.’
Once the band had come together, did you try to play in London straight away ?
‘More or less, because that’s where everything was happening. As we were involved with Rock Against Racism we were able to get gigs through them, although a lot of those were practically in warzones where no one else wanted to play ! So we did get to play all over, but London was the main place. We also got some gigs at the Roxy, but by then it was actually a very sordid little place and the bloke who ran it, Kevin St John, was particularly seedy. For a very short time he even managed us, before he was brutally murdered, so that also helped us a bit. We played there with quite a few bands like Adam & The Ants and Sham 69, but afterwards we’d have to walk back to Waterloo dodging Soul Boys who wanted to beat up any punks that they saw. Then we’d have to find which train was going to be the first back to Woking in the morning and try to sleep on it until it was ready to go.’
‘Oh yeah, the whole reason behind forming the band was political. It was blatantly intended as a way to put our ideas across. Looking back at it now, it’s actually everything I dislike because I’ve grown to hate party-political music. But back then, forming a Trotskyite punk rock band seemed like a great idea and virtually all of our early gigs were for things like Rock Against Racism and the Anti-Nazi League.’
Musically, did you set out with any particular aims, because even from early-on, Crisis sounded pretty different to the majority of punk bands that were springing-up…
‘I think one of the things that worked for us was that we could already play a little bit. My musical background had originally come from being a skinhead and then getting into bits of Prog. Both me and Doug also had this strong sense of melody or, at least, could write good hooks. Lester was a good guitar player and we always had good drummers, so we were immediately ahead of the game. Everyone in the band had their own ideas and it was a collision of those that helped us develop our own sound. We were able to write songs that were pretty catchy and, as it went on, bring in other ideas. Doug used to have a Watkins Copicat effect for his guitar so that made the sound a lot more distinct, along with the way he actually played guitar itself.’
Once the band had come together, did you try to play in London straight away ?
‘More or less, because that’s where everything was happening. As we were involved with Rock Against Racism we were able to get gigs through them, although a lot of those were practically in warzones where no one else wanted to play ! So we did get to play all over, but London was the main place. We also got some gigs at the Roxy, but by then it was actually a very sordid little place and the bloke who ran it, Kevin St John, was particularly seedy. For a very short time he even managed us, before he was brutally murdered, so that also helped us a bit. We played there with quite a few bands like Adam & The Ants and Sham 69, but afterwards we’d have to walk back to Waterloo dodging Soul Boys who wanted to beat up any punks that they saw. Then we’d have to find which train was going to be the first back to Woking in the morning and try to sleep on it until it was ready to go.’
I think you played with Adam & The Ants quite a few times…
‘Yeah… I think the infamous time was at the South Bank Poly, which ended up in a huge riot ! The BM turned up and our lot were already there so it was really tense even before the gig started. Typically, the Students Union in their wisdom, being right-on Lefties, had decided that having all-male security was perpetuating the patriarchy, so on that particular night the security was made up of a bunch of middle-class girls ! As soon as any trouble started, they basically burst in to tears and ran-off. It looked as if it was really going to kick-off, but then both sets of blokes realized that the bar had been left unguarded .To be honest, a lot of the BM lot were really just skinhead hooligans and our lot weren’t much different, so they all decided to fuck politics and nick everything from the bar before running off !’
Playing with Sham 69 around that time can’t have been much easier…
‘No ! From what I remember, it was pretty unpleasant. They had a lot of trouble and there was a lot of violence because they already had a skinhead following who were always fighting amongst themselves. Adding the kind of politics that we were singing about to their gigs just made it worse.’
Crisis did end up with a reputation for attracting trouble, even at their own gigs…
‘There was a lot of violence, but I think that was happening at a lot of gigs around that time. We went through one period where we couldn’t play a gig without there being at least one punch-up. Some of it was because we were politically outspoken, but a lot of it was for other reasons. Sometimes it would be territorial, because we’d always have a mob that came to see us and the locals never liked that. Superficially it may have been political, but often it was more a case of a load of young blokes getting pissed-up and starting a fight. I think the worst occasion was when we played at Acklam Hall, where there were people swinging chains and baseball bats at each other. A few people got seriously hurt that night and I’m surprised that it didn’t put us off playing altogether. In retrospect, you end up thinking, What the Hell were we doing ? You don’t think that anything really bad is going to happen to you, but one unlucky hit from a baseball bat and you could’ve been dead. It’s amazing that no-one got killed. In fact, I think I was probably suffering from post-traumatic stress after that gig, because for the whole next week I couldn’t sleep. One guy, who I’d known when I was at school, got really badly hurt at that gig and later on, I heard that he committed suicide. The thing is, you almost feel immortal when you’re that age, but you’re not and it isn’t until you look back that you realise how terrible it really was.’
‘Yeah… I think the infamous time was at the South Bank Poly, which ended up in a huge riot ! The BM turned up and our lot were already there so it was really tense even before the gig started. Typically, the Students Union in their wisdom, being right-on Lefties, had decided that having all-male security was perpetuating the patriarchy, so on that particular night the security was made up of a bunch of middle-class girls ! As soon as any trouble started, they basically burst in to tears and ran-off. It looked as if it was really going to kick-off, but then both sets of blokes realized that the bar had been left unguarded .To be honest, a lot of the BM lot were really just skinhead hooligans and our lot weren’t much different, so they all decided to fuck politics and nick everything from the bar before running off !’
Playing with Sham 69 around that time can’t have been much easier…
‘No ! From what I remember, it was pretty unpleasant. They had a lot of trouble and there was a lot of violence because they already had a skinhead following who were always fighting amongst themselves. Adding the kind of politics that we were singing about to their gigs just made it worse.’
Crisis did end up with a reputation for attracting trouble, even at their own gigs…
‘There was a lot of violence, but I think that was happening at a lot of gigs around that time. We went through one period where we couldn’t play a gig without there being at least one punch-up. Some of it was because we were politically outspoken, but a lot of it was for other reasons. Sometimes it would be territorial, because we’d always have a mob that came to see us and the locals never liked that. Superficially it may have been political, but often it was more a case of a load of young blokes getting pissed-up and starting a fight. I think the worst occasion was when we played at Acklam Hall, where there were people swinging chains and baseball bats at each other. A few people got seriously hurt that night and I’m surprised that it didn’t put us off playing altogether. In retrospect, you end up thinking, What the Hell were we doing ? You don’t think that anything really bad is going to happen to you, but one unlucky hit from a baseball bat and you could’ve been dead. It’s amazing that no-one got killed. In fact, I think I was probably suffering from post-traumatic stress after that gig, because for the whole next week I couldn’t sleep. One guy, who I’d known when I was at school, got really badly hurt at that gig and later on, I heard that he committed suicide. The thing is, you almost feel immortal when you’re that age, but you’re not and it isn’t until you look back that you realise how terrible it really was.’
One of the things that people don’t realize about that time, in retrospect, was how mixed-up and extreme so many things became. It was a pretty weird time…
‘Yeah. It was a very political era and there was also a very violent atmosphere. When you put the two things together, there was bound to be trouble. The NF were still on the rise, the far-left were doing well, there were various strikes and we’d had the three-day week. And then Thatcher came to power, which was incredibly divisive. But the Acklam Hall thing was as much about Brixton versus Notting Hill as it was about the Anti-Fascists and the NF. There were elements of that, of course, but just as much of the trouble was about North London versus South London.’
You also attended the infamous protest march in Lewisham during 1977 which ended up as a riot…
‘It was an insane day ! The National Front were trying to march through Lewisham, which had a large black population, and the Police were there to make sure that it didn’t get stopped. We were supporting the counter-demonstration and there was a huge turn-out on both sides, so it quickly kicked-off. The thing I remember the most was that there were a load of wankers, probably the International Marxists, at the back of the crowd trying to throw bricks towards the Police and the NF, but they weren’t throwing them very well and a lot of us at the front were getting hurt by our own side ! Later on, I committed a particularly cowardly attack on one of the NF supporters… At one point a load of them had become wedged in a really small space. One of the NF ‘Honour Guards’, who were all really big blokes, had got stuck in this alley and couldn’t move. He was facing me so basically I just ran up and clobbered him while he couldn’t do anything about it. Neither side was playing by the rules that day and it was pretty exciting to be there at the time, but looking back it was also rather dangerous.’
‘Yeah. It was a very political era and there was also a very violent atmosphere. When you put the two things together, there was bound to be trouble. The NF were still on the rise, the far-left were doing well, there were various strikes and we’d had the three-day week. And then Thatcher came to power, which was incredibly divisive. But the Acklam Hall thing was as much about Brixton versus Notting Hill as it was about the Anti-Fascists and the NF. There were elements of that, of course, but just as much of the trouble was about North London versus South London.’
You also attended the infamous protest march in Lewisham during 1977 which ended up as a riot…
‘It was an insane day ! The National Front were trying to march through Lewisham, which had a large black population, and the Police were there to make sure that it didn’t get stopped. We were supporting the counter-demonstration and there was a huge turn-out on both sides, so it quickly kicked-off. The thing I remember the most was that there were a load of wankers, probably the International Marxists, at the back of the crowd trying to throw bricks towards the Police and the NF, but they weren’t throwing them very well and a lot of us at the front were getting hurt by our own side ! Later on, I committed a particularly cowardly attack on one of the NF supporters… At one point a load of them had become wedged in a really small space. One of the NF ‘Honour Guards’, who were all really big blokes, had got stuck in this alley and couldn’t move. He was facing me so basically I just ran up and clobbered him while he couldn’t do anything about it. Neither side was playing by the rules that day and it was pretty exciting to be there at the time, but looking back it was also rather dangerous.’
Your first single, ‘No Town Hall’, was released in 1978 by Peckham Action Group, which looking back now, sounds like something from an episode of ‘Only Fools & Horse’. But it was actually released to highlight their campaign against the plan to build a new Town Hall in Southwark. How did you get involved with that ?
‘They asked us to do a single for them. The whole campaign was against the local Council spending a ridiculous amount of money building a new Town Hall for themselves, while the area they were supposed to be serving was falling apart. The Action Group told Doug that we could put any two of our songs on the B-side, but they wanted a song about the campaign on the A-side, so we had to put something together really quickly. Fortunately I’d just been working on a new song at the time called ‘No Rich No More’, so I just wrote new words for it. I think it took me about five minutes to do that and then Doug got back to them and said we would do it. I have to admit, it wasn’t about any deeply-held beliefs because, before then, I don’t think any of us gave a shit about Peckham or the Town Hall. But it worked, because they were happy with it and we got a single out.’
What kind of reaction did the single get ?
‘I think it was really good. When it came out, there was a big protest march against the new Town Hall and we played on the back of a lorry. Things like that got a lot of support. I think people were generally a lot more political back then and would get involved in local issues like that.’
The single also brought you to the attention of John Peel…
‘I think so, but it was Doug that really put everything together. There probably wouldn’t have been a band at all if it had been left to me, because I was too lazy and taking drugs all the time. But Peel got to hear the single and seemed to love us, so we got to record a session for him and he played it several times.’
One of the things that seemed to hinder your progress was the many line-up changes…
‘Yeah, although it seemed we mainly had problems with the drummers. It was almost like Spinal Tap ! We went through a lot of drummers and a couple of vocalists. Lester was there through most of it and once we started playing in London, Luke Rendall was there most of the time. But really, Crisis was down to me and Doug and back then, we were very serious about the left-wing side of it. If we thought someone was a bit wishy-washy about what we were doing we would start looking for someone else and I’m sure that didn’t make us the easiest people to get along with !’
I heard that Jock from The Straps was once asked to front the band…
‘I’m pretty sure that’s true, but I’m not exactly sure what happened. I think he would’ve been really good. Around the time that Phrazer left and we were looking for a new singer, I went down with glandular fever, so I really didn’t know what was going on. I don’t understand why he didn’t get the job, because he would’ve been the obvious choice, but in the end Dexter became the singer, probably just down to his sheer thuggish insistence…’
‘They asked us to do a single for them. The whole campaign was against the local Council spending a ridiculous amount of money building a new Town Hall for themselves, while the area they were supposed to be serving was falling apart. The Action Group told Doug that we could put any two of our songs on the B-side, but they wanted a song about the campaign on the A-side, so we had to put something together really quickly. Fortunately I’d just been working on a new song at the time called ‘No Rich No More’, so I just wrote new words for it. I think it took me about five minutes to do that and then Doug got back to them and said we would do it. I have to admit, it wasn’t about any deeply-held beliefs because, before then, I don’t think any of us gave a shit about Peckham or the Town Hall. But it worked, because they were happy with it and we got a single out.’
What kind of reaction did the single get ?
‘I think it was really good. When it came out, there was a big protest march against the new Town Hall and we played on the back of a lorry. Things like that got a lot of support. I think people were generally a lot more political back then and would get involved in local issues like that.’
The single also brought you to the attention of John Peel…
‘I think so, but it was Doug that really put everything together. There probably wouldn’t have been a band at all if it had been left to me, because I was too lazy and taking drugs all the time. But Peel got to hear the single and seemed to love us, so we got to record a session for him and he played it several times.’
One of the things that seemed to hinder your progress was the many line-up changes…
‘Yeah, although it seemed we mainly had problems with the drummers. It was almost like Spinal Tap ! We went through a lot of drummers and a couple of vocalists. Lester was there through most of it and once we started playing in London, Luke Rendall was there most of the time. But really, Crisis was down to me and Doug and back then, we were very serious about the left-wing side of it. If we thought someone was a bit wishy-washy about what we were doing we would start looking for someone else and I’m sure that didn’t make us the easiest people to get along with !’
I heard that Jock from The Straps was once asked to front the band…
‘I’m pretty sure that’s true, but I’m not exactly sure what happened. I think he would’ve been really good. Around the time that Phrazer left and we were looking for a new singer, I went down with glandular fever, so I really didn’t know what was going on. I don’t understand why he didn’t get the job, because he would’ve been the obvious choice, but in the end Dexter became the singer, probably just down to his sheer thuggish insistence…’
In August 1979, you took part in a rather long tour of Norway, organised through the SWP. How did that come about ?
‘The SWP had links with the ‘Socialist Nordski’ over there, so we agreed to go over and play a month in Norway along with a Reggae band called Cygnus. We didn’t know anything about Norway at the time, but going over for a whole month meant that we ended up playing virtually every bar and cowshed in the country. It was being subsidized, as Norway has always had a well-organised left-wing scene, so most of it was arranged pretty well, but I was later told by friends in Norway that the tour pretty much destroyed them as a political organization, although I’m not entirely sure why that was. For us, it was a really interesting thing to do, even though it was also quite violent in some places. The thing was, out of all the Scandinavian countries, Norway was probably the most conservative back then. When we arrived there and went to the Norwegian tourist office to get some information, the staff just started laughing at us because we had dyed hair. That didn’t seem to bode too well for us, but we didn’t really have any problems in the main cities. It was once we were outside of them that it became different. It was as if the locals in these small places thought it was a point of honour to pick a fight with these strange Punks. And I’m not even sure if it was particularly malicious… At one place, this guy came up to Doug and said, ‘We will fight first and then I will take you to the hotel and you can fuck my girlfriend !’ He was obviously barking up the wrong tree with Doug, but things like that seemed to happen at a lot of the gigs and it got quite heavy at some points. The one time we were quite lucky was at a gig where the Raggare turned up. They were a gang who drove Fifties-style American cars and had a reputation for being really tough. I think The Stranglers had a lot of problems with them when they had played in Scandinavia… Anyway, as we arrived at one of the clubs, a bunch of these old cars suddenly drove up, full of all these Rockabilly-type guys. I don’t know if they’d already heard about us because of the trouble that had been happening at other gigs, but it didn’t look too good. Luckily, Dexter took his camera out and did exactly the right thing. He went over to them and asked if he could take some photo’s of their cars ! After that, I won’t say they became particularly friendly, but they were at least willing to accept us being there. I think they’d really just come out to show us that this was their town and if we had got into any kind of fight with them, they could have absolutely slaughtered us ! We were still very wary and watching out in case they started anything that night, but nothing happened and I still think that, because Dexter treated them with respect and asked to take photo’s of their cars, they had decided that honour had been maintained. But even saying all of this, we had a really positive response at a lot of the gigs, even if a fight did break out in the middle of them. From what I remember of the tour was a pretty positive experience. We were playing really well and there were a few times when we’d even have a jam with Cygnus at the end of the night, so a lot of it was really good fun.’
‘The SWP had links with the ‘Socialist Nordski’ over there, so we agreed to go over and play a month in Norway along with a Reggae band called Cygnus. We didn’t know anything about Norway at the time, but going over for a whole month meant that we ended up playing virtually every bar and cowshed in the country. It was being subsidized, as Norway has always had a well-organised left-wing scene, so most of it was arranged pretty well, but I was later told by friends in Norway that the tour pretty much destroyed them as a political organization, although I’m not entirely sure why that was. For us, it was a really interesting thing to do, even though it was also quite violent in some places. The thing was, out of all the Scandinavian countries, Norway was probably the most conservative back then. When we arrived there and went to the Norwegian tourist office to get some information, the staff just started laughing at us because we had dyed hair. That didn’t seem to bode too well for us, but we didn’t really have any problems in the main cities. It was once we were outside of them that it became different. It was as if the locals in these small places thought it was a point of honour to pick a fight with these strange Punks. And I’m not even sure if it was particularly malicious… At one place, this guy came up to Doug and said, ‘We will fight first and then I will take you to the hotel and you can fuck my girlfriend !’ He was obviously barking up the wrong tree with Doug, but things like that seemed to happen at a lot of the gigs and it got quite heavy at some points. The one time we were quite lucky was at a gig where the Raggare turned up. They were a gang who drove Fifties-style American cars and had a reputation for being really tough. I think The Stranglers had a lot of problems with them when they had played in Scandinavia… Anyway, as we arrived at one of the clubs, a bunch of these old cars suddenly drove up, full of all these Rockabilly-type guys. I don’t know if they’d already heard about us because of the trouble that had been happening at other gigs, but it didn’t look too good. Luckily, Dexter took his camera out and did exactly the right thing. He went over to them and asked if he could take some photo’s of their cars ! After that, I won’t say they became particularly friendly, but they were at least willing to accept us being there. I think they’d really just come out to show us that this was their town and if we had got into any kind of fight with them, they could have absolutely slaughtered us ! We were still very wary and watching out in case they started anything that night, but nothing happened and I still think that, because Dexter treated them with respect and asked to take photo’s of their cars, they had decided that honour had been maintained. But even saying all of this, we had a really positive response at a lot of the gigs, even if a fight did break out in the middle of them. From what I remember of the tour was a pretty positive experience. We were playing really well and there were a few times when we’d even have a jam with Cygnus at the end of the night, so a lot of it was really good fun.’
The second single, ‘UK 79’ / ‘White Youth’ was released in 1979 and the songs seemed to have a much stronger direction. Do you think you were really beginning to establish your own sound by then ?
‘I think we were. We had gelled more as a band and had started to see what we could do. This was definitely an improvement on the first one and we were starting to go in the direction we wanted. We were playing live a lot, almost constantly, and that helped us to improve.’
This single was also the first on your own label, Ardkor, and instead of re-recording the tracks for this release, you licensed the Peel Session recordings from the BBC…
‘The label was basically Doug. As I said, he did all of that stuff and by then, he’d also got a job at Rough Trade so he also had some good contacts. We found out that we could license the tracks from the BBC which, amazingly, wasn’t too expensive. I’m not really sure but that may have had something to do with John Peel, because he liked us. I think if he liked your band he was always happy to help out and I think he may have put-in a good word for us. Anyway, Doug worked out a deal and we were able to use those tracks.’
The mini-album ‘Hymns of Faith’, followed in 1980 and most fans still consider it to be the defining Crisis record. Are you happy with the way it came out ?
‘I’m not sure really, just because it’s not something I think about very often. Obviously, it had limitations as we only had a certain amount of money to make it and this was before any of us really knew what we were doing in the studio. I rarely listen to it now, but I think it still stands-up pretty well. I mean, if we were recording it now, I’m sure it would sound very different as that’s the nature of it, but it did sound pretty different to the way that most punk bands seemed to be going.’
The album cover was also particularly striking…
‘It was our roadie, Flea, who drew that. He was a really good bloke and I recently got back in touch with him. He also did the cover for the ‘UK79’ single, with the Union Jack and the police officer, and he also did a similar design for us when we went to Norway, which was a Union Jack with a sten-gun painted over it. But I’m not sure if he did that image specifically for the album or whether it was something he’d already done that we decided to use… Doug would probably know more about that.’
Your artwork was always pretty distinct from the more usual punk releases of the time. In many ways, it was closer to the kind of imagery that would be used by Crass and the anarcho-punk movement…
‘Yeah, it was. Even the first single looked good, before we really knew what we were doing. But as we went on, I think it was much more like something that Crass would have, rather than bands like X-Ray Spex or Sham 69. Funnily enough, I was recently at an event and Penny Rimbaud from Crass was one of the speakers. Afterwards, I talked to him and mentioned that I had been in Crisis. At the time we virtually treated them as enemies because they were Anarchists, but I said to Penny that, looking back, they were proved to be more right than we were. When you look back at what they achieved compared to people like the SWP, I think it’s undeniable. Even now, they still have their house where they’re teaching about perma-culture, while the SWP ended-up almost like a cult that tried to cover-up rape-allegations…’
‘I think we were. We had gelled more as a band and had started to see what we could do. This was definitely an improvement on the first one and we were starting to go in the direction we wanted. We were playing live a lot, almost constantly, and that helped us to improve.’
This single was also the first on your own label, Ardkor, and instead of re-recording the tracks for this release, you licensed the Peel Session recordings from the BBC…
‘The label was basically Doug. As I said, he did all of that stuff and by then, he’d also got a job at Rough Trade so he also had some good contacts. We found out that we could license the tracks from the BBC which, amazingly, wasn’t too expensive. I’m not really sure but that may have had something to do with John Peel, because he liked us. I think if he liked your band he was always happy to help out and I think he may have put-in a good word for us. Anyway, Doug worked out a deal and we were able to use those tracks.’
The mini-album ‘Hymns of Faith’, followed in 1980 and most fans still consider it to be the defining Crisis record. Are you happy with the way it came out ?
‘I’m not sure really, just because it’s not something I think about very often. Obviously, it had limitations as we only had a certain amount of money to make it and this was before any of us really knew what we were doing in the studio. I rarely listen to it now, but I think it still stands-up pretty well. I mean, if we were recording it now, I’m sure it would sound very different as that’s the nature of it, but it did sound pretty different to the way that most punk bands seemed to be going.’
The album cover was also particularly striking…
‘It was our roadie, Flea, who drew that. He was a really good bloke and I recently got back in touch with him. He also did the cover for the ‘UK79’ single, with the Union Jack and the police officer, and he also did a similar design for us when we went to Norway, which was a Union Jack with a sten-gun painted over it. But I’m not sure if he did that image specifically for the album or whether it was something he’d already done that we decided to use… Doug would probably know more about that.’
Your artwork was always pretty distinct from the more usual punk releases of the time. In many ways, it was closer to the kind of imagery that would be used by Crass and the anarcho-punk movement…
‘Yeah, it was. Even the first single looked good, before we really knew what we were doing. But as we went on, I think it was much more like something that Crass would have, rather than bands like X-Ray Spex or Sham 69. Funnily enough, I was recently at an event and Penny Rimbaud from Crass was one of the speakers. Afterwards, I talked to him and mentioned that I had been in Crisis. At the time we virtually treated them as enemies because they were Anarchists, but I said to Penny that, looking back, they were proved to be more right than we were. When you look back at what they achieved compared to people like the SWP, I think it’s undeniable. Even now, they still have their house where they’re teaching about perma-culture, while the SWP ended-up almost like a cult that tried to cover-up rape-allegations…’
One of the peculiarities of the album is that the image of four masked Punks on the inner sleeve isn’t actually Crisis…
‘I think that was some other punk band. Over the years, people have asked which one was me, but it’s not us at all. I think the picture originally came from a gig down in Bristol. Doug was in control of the design for the album so all of that was down to him. It’s one of those decisions by Doug, like the Death in June live album, ‘Burial’, that I have no idea about. But as we didn’t have any pictures of ourselves on the singles, people saw that they assumed it must be us.’
One of the songs on the album, ‘Back in the USSR’, seemed to suggest that you were starting to become disillusioned with left-wing politics…
‘We sorta were, but that song was because we were Trotskyites and so were very anti-Stalin and anti-Russia. That’s where lines like ‘Don’t want to buy the Morning Star, Just be the boss in your big black car’ were coming from. I was still in the SWP but I was also looking into anarchism at the time and the whole idea of ‘neither Washington or Moscow’. We were definitely becoming disillusioned by the SWP and Rock Against Racism. We started to realize that we were basically being used by them for their own purposes, particularly when they wanted a band that would play in an area where no-one else wanted to go. We had done all of these things for them but when we went to one of the SWP conferences, they still expected us to sleep on the floor. Once we realized that was the way it was, there was inevitably going to be a parting of the ways. When you look at all the different political parties, you find that the people who run them are usually very similar. I think that’s another point where Crass got it right and we got it wrong. Party politics has to be authoritarian, and there’s nothing worse than becoming aligned to something like the SWP. The thing was you became a part of every decision they made, however embarrassing it might be.’
Musically, you also seemed to be trapped between different camps. You had started out supporting bands like Sham 69 and Slaughter & The Dogs, but by the end you were playing with the likes of Magazine and Bauhaus. You still had the energy of earlier punk, but also had the more creative approach of the so-called ‘post-punk’ bands…
‘We never just wanted to be a three-chord band and, in fact, someone once said to me that if Crisis had continued in the way things were going, we would have probably ended-up being signed by a major. I think we were perhaps associated a bit too much with the more basic punk bands and the arse-end of left-wing politics, but by the time of ‘Hymns of Faith’ we were definitely moving away from the more sloganeering side of things and perhaps if we had been a little more savvy, we could have gone further.’
I’ve always read Crisis played their final gig in Guildford, supporting Magazine and Bauhaus, but when the recording was released on the ‘Ends’ CD, Dexter announces another upcoming gig …
‘I don’t recall any others after that and I’m pretty sure that was the last one. Basically, Luke had been offered a job with Theatre of Hate and I think neither me or Doug had the energy to find yet another drummer to keep things going. I think we both felt burned-out by all of it. Faced with the prospect of having to find another drummer and getting him up to speed with the rest of us, it just felt that this was the right time to end it.’
‘I think that was some other punk band. Over the years, people have asked which one was me, but it’s not us at all. I think the picture originally came from a gig down in Bristol. Doug was in control of the design for the album so all of that was down to him. It’s one of those decisions by Doug, like the Death in June live album, ‘Burial’, that I have no idea about. But as we didn’t have any pictures of ourselves on the singles, people saw that they assumed it must be us.’
One of the songs on the album, ‘Back in the USSR’, seemed to suggest that you were starting to become disillusioned with left-wing politics…
‘We sorta were, but that song was because we were Trotskyites and so were very anti-Stalin and anti-Russia. That’s where lines like ‘Don’t want to buy the Morning Star, Just be the boss in your big black car’ were coming from. I was still in the SWP but I was also looking into anarchism at the time and the whole idea of ‘neither Washington or Moscow’. We were definitely becoming disillusioned by the SWP and Rock Against Racism. We started to realize that we were basically being used by them for their own purposes, particularly when they wanted a band that would play in an area where no-one else wanted to go. We had done all of these things for them but when we went to one of the SWP conferences, they still expected us to sleep on the floor. Once we realized that was the way it was, there was inevitably going to be a parting of the ways. When you look at all the different political parties, you find that the people who run them are usually very similar. I think that’s another point where Crass got it right and we got it wrong. Party politics has to be authoritarian, and there’s nothing worse than becoming aligned to something like the SWP. The thing was you became a part of every decision they made, however embarrassing it might be.’
Musically, you also seemed to be trapped between different camps. You had started out supporting bands like Sham 69 and Slaughter & The Dogs, but by the end you were playing with the likes of Magazine and Bauhaus. You still had the energy of earlier punk, but also had the more creative approach of the so-called ‘post-punk’ bands…
‘We never just wanted to be a three-chord band and, in fact, someone once said to me that if Crisis had continued in the way things were going, we would have probably ended-up being signed by a major. I think we were perhaps associated a bit too much with the more basic punk bands and the arse-end of left-wing politics, but by the time of ‘Hymns of Faith’ we were definitely moving away from the more sloganeering side of things and perhaps if we had been a little more savvy, we could have gone further.’
I’ve always read Crisis played their final gig in Guildford, supporting Magazine and Bauhaus, but when the recording was released on the ‘Ends’ CD, Dexter announces another upcoming gig …
‘I don’t recall any others after that and I’m pretty sure that was the last one. Basically, Luke had been offered a job with Theatre of Hate and I think neither me or Doug had the energy to find yet another drummer to keep things going. I think we both felt burned-out by all of it. Faced with the prospect of having to find another drummer and getting him up to speed with the rest of us, it just felt that this was the right time to end it.’
Two final releases came out about a year after the split. A 7” single featuring the two remaining tracks from the Peel Session (‘Alienation’ and ‘Bruckwood Hospital’) and a 12” EP, ‘Holocaust UK’, which featured the tracks from the first two singles. The 7” was released by Ardkor, but the 12” included very little information, so I always wondered if it was a bootleg ?
‘I’m pretty sure that Doug released it, although I’m not sure why it was done that way. But the original releases had both sold-out and he wanted to make them available again. With the 7”, we’d already paid the BBC to license the tracks so it made sense to release them as well, just to tie-up all the recordings we had made.’
The song ‘Bruckwood Hospital’ actually referred to Brookwood Hospital in Surrey. Was there any particular reason why the name was changed ?
‘I think it was just Doug’s Germanophile tendencies coming out, or maybe he thought it made it sound a little more sinister ? It was another one of Doug’s songs and it was a bit different to other things we had done as it was more narrative, telling a story about patients breaking out of the hospital. I still think Doug wrote the best lyrics in the band, certainly the ones that I prefer.’
There was some crossover between the final songs written by Crisis and the early material performed by Death in June, particularly ‘All Alone in Her Nirvana’. That would seem to suggest that Death in June followed on from Crisis quite quickly…
‘Nirvana’ was the one real cross-over track. It started-off in Crisis and we reworked it with Death in June. There were a few things that we wrote during that time when it was just me and Doug working together, so they were possibly more like Crisis to begin with and eventually became Death in June. ‘Nirvana’ was the only song that had actually been played by Crisis which was adopted by Death in June.’
Did you feel that what you were doing with Death in June was a natural progression from Crisis, or was it meant to be a complete break ?
‘It was a progression from Crisis, musically, but it was also a reaction to it. We didn’t sit down and decide to do something totally different, but it did reflect the fact that we had changed our viewpoint about a lot of things and also changed our attitudes towards what we had been supporting in Crisis. Death in June had a more cerebral approach and we gave ourselves more space. Crisis had never been a run-of-the-mill Oi-Oi punk band so I think some of the more interesting elements came out when we started what would become Death in June. But it was also a rejection of the more basic and uninteresting styles that had come out of Punk.’
The presentation of Death in June, especially live, was very different to what you had been doing with Crisis…
‘Oh yeah… we definitely got a reaction and also got offered some really good gigs as a result, supporting people like the Birthday Party. Some people really didn’t know what to make of us, so we got some mixed reviews, but at the same time we also got some really good ones. We certainly played some good gigs, but I think the thing was that it was never going to survive with the three of us that were involved at that time. We were all really fucked-up in various ways and I remember rehearsals where there would be me, Doug and Patrick all standing in separate corners of the room, staring at each other menacingly. We were all very egotistical in our own ways and I think we all really needed to do our own thing. When you put three people like that together in one band, it’s not going to work, even if it’s successful. I mean, I was possible the most-sane person among us, and that’s worrying !’
‘I’m pretty sure that Doug released it, although I’m not sure why it was done that way. But the original releases had both sold-out and he wanted to make them available again. With the 7”, we’d already paid the BBC to license the tracks so it made sense to release them as well, just to tie-up all the recordings we had made.’
The song ‘Bruckwood Hospital’ actually referred to Brookwood Hospital in Surrey. Was there any particular reason why the name was changed ?
‘I think it was just Doug’s Germanophile tendencies coming out, or maybe he thought it made it sound a little more sinister ? It was another one of Doug’s songs and it was a bit different to other things we had done as it was more narrative, telling a story about patients breaking out of the hospital. I still think Doug wrote the best lyrics in the band, certainly the ones that I prefer.’
There was some crossover between the final songs written by Crisis and the early material performed by Death in June, particularly ‘All Alone in Her Nirvana’. That would seem to suggest that Death in June followed on from Crisis quite quickly…
‘Nirvana’ was the one real cross-over track. It started-off in Crisis and we reworked it with Death in June. There were a few things that we wrote during that time when it was just me and Doug working together, so they were possibly more like Crisis to begin with and eventually became Death in June. ‘Nirvana’ was the only song that had actually been played by Crisis which was adopted by Death in June.’
Did you feel that what you were doing with Death in June was a natural progression from Crisis, or was it meant to be a complete break ?
‘It was a progression from Crisis, musically, but it was also a reaction to it. We didn’t sit down and decide to do something totally different, but it did reflect the fact that we had changed our viewpoint about a lot of things and also changed our attitudes towards what we had been supporting in Crisis. Death in June had a more cerebral approach and we gave ourselves more space. Crisis had never been a run-of-the-mill Oi-Oi punk band so I think some of the more interesting elements came out when we started what would become Death in June. But it was also a rejection of the more basic and uninteresting styles that had come out of Punk.’
The presentation of Death in June, especially live, was very different to what you had been doing with Crisis…
‘Oh yeah… we definitely got a reaction and also got offered some really good gigs as a result, supporting people like the Birthday Party. Some people really didn’t know what to make of us, so we got some mixed reviews, but at the same time we also got some really good ones. We certainly played some good gigs, but I think the thing was that it was never going to survive with the three of us that were involved at that time. We were all really fucked-up in various ways and I remember rehearsals where there would be me, Doug and Patrick all standing in separate corners of the room, staring at each other menacingly. We were all very egotistical in our own ways and I think we all really needed to do our own thing. When you put three people like that together in one band, it’s not going to work, even if it’s successful. I mean, I was possible the most-sane person among us, and that’s worrying !’
As it turned out, you were the first person to be sacked from Death in June. There’s a lot of stories and rumours about why this happened, so what were the real reasons ?
‘Well, bluntly… it came about due to a combination of too much drinking, a broken relationship, moving house and general disillusionment. This isn’t making excuses for myself, I’m just stating it. I moved in to a house on Brixton Hill, which had a shared front door. You’d come through the main door and go either one way or the other. We moved-in, little knowing at the time that our neighbour was a 6 foot 4” Jamaican who was also a paranoid schizophrenic. Things became quite scary and there were times over the next two and a half years where, if we were going in or out, you had to carry a hammer in your pocket for protection. Again, this isn’t something that justifies what I got involved with, but combined with my general disillusionment with left-wing politics, it started to change my view of the world. Around the same time I met some people who were in the NF, who were moving in to a more Strasserite style of politics, which I suppose could be described as the left-wing of National Socialism. I got to know some people who were part of that and from there I became involved with Far-Right politics. At first, I just knew these people socially but gradually I was getting more and more involved, so I think Doug made the right decision to sack me. They couldn’t support the things I was getting involved with and Doug did the right thing for the band. I’m satisfied that was the real reason why I was sacked, although Doug also sacked Pat a bit later on, so perhaps he would have found another reason eventually. He was looking after his own interests and I think he gradually realized that Death in June really had to be just one person. Trying to have it as three separate members wasn’t going to work. Looking back, I can see that he did the right thing and it’s probably what I would have done had I been in his position. Although at the time it happened, I certainly didn’t feel that way !’
I think people have always found it difficult to understand how you could have made such a big change to your political viewpoint…
‘That’s right, but it was a very mixed-up period of time. Again, this isn’t any attempt to justify what I got involved in, but just to say that some of these things weren’t as far apart as you might think now. I knew one bloke who was with an anti-fascist group from Scotland in the late Seventies. They had a reputation because they’d really get stuck-in to the NF at demonstrations, but one night someone gave him a glass to pour his drink and he wouldn’t use it because he thought a black guy had already been drinking from it ! So you can’t pretend that everything was as easily-defined as people like to think when they look back at it. In my case, I crossed the line because it wasn’t just some kind of naïve opinion. I got involved with something that was overtly political and I’ve had to pay for it down the years.’
‘Well, bluntly… it came about due to a combination of too much drinking, a broken relationship, moving house and general disillusionment. This isn’t making excuses for myself, I’m just stating it. I moved in to a house on Brixton Hill, which had a shared front door. You’d come through the main door and go either one way or the other. We moved-in, little knowing at the time that our neighbour was a 6 foot 4” Jamaican who was also a paranoid schizophrenic. Things became quite scary and there were times over the next two and a half years where, if we were going in or out, you had to carry a hammer in your pocket for protection. Again, this isn’t something that justifies what I got involved with, but combined with my general disillusionment with left-wing politics, it started to change my view of the world. Around the same time I met some people who were in the NF, who were moving in to a more Strasserite style of politics, which I suppose could be described as the left-wing of National Socialism. I got to know some people who were part of that and from there I became involved with Far-Right politics. At first, I just knew these people socially but gradually I was getting more and more involved, so I think Doug made the right decision to sack me. They couldn’t support the things I was getting involved with and Doug did the right thing for the band. I’m satisfied that was the real reason why I was sacked, although Doug also sacked Pat a bit later on, so perhaps he would have found another reason eventually. He was looking after his own interests and I think he gradually realized that Death in June really had to be just one person. Trying to have it as three separate members wasn’t going to work. Looking back, I can see that he did the right thing and it’s probably what I would have done had I been in his position. Although at the time it happened, I certainly didn’t feel that way !’
I think people have always found it difficult to understand how you could have made such a big change to your political viewpoint…
‘That’s right, but it was a very mixed-up period of time. Again, this isn’t any attempt to justify what I got involved in, but just to say that some of these things weren’t as far apart as you might think now. I knew one bloke who was with an anti-fascist group from Scotland in the late Seventies. They had a reputation because they’d really get stuck-in to the NF at demonstrations, but one night someone gave him a glass to pour his drink and he wouldn’t use it because he thought a black guy had already been drinking from it ! So you can’t pretend that everything was as easily-defined as people like to think when they look back at it. In my case, I crossed the line because it wasn’t just some kind of naïve opinion. I got involved with something that was overtly political and I’ve had to pay for it down the years.’
I think the thing that has been held against you the most was the release of the ‘Above The Ruins’ EP, shortly after you were ousted from Death in June. The lyrics themselves were not as blatant as bands like Skrewdriver, for example, but it was released by a label with right-wing connections and there have been many rumours about who else was actually involved with it…
‘Well, some of the songs featured lyrics by a guy that had Nationalist connections and there were other things about them that were undeniably right-wing. I played most of the music on that recording and I’ve never liked to say who else was involved because, really, it was all down to me and I don’t know what some of the other people are doing now, or whether they would want to be associated with it now. There’s a girl who sings on some of it, who was my girlfriend at the time, and I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t want that brief involvement brought up thirty years later. I played most of the instruments, but a guy called Mark who ran the studio played drums and may have also played a bit of guitar on it… I didn’t know at the time, but I was told later on that he also worked with Skrewdriver. At the time we recorded Above The Ruins, he still had long hair ! Looking back, I don’t like that record at all as it came out of a rather bad period in my life that I don’t like to recall. In fact, I recently learned that a Russian label was going to reissue it and the problem is that, even if I tell them not to do it, it would be impossible to stop them. So I’ve told them they can go ahead if they pay me some money up front and I intend to donate that to a couple of charities (Hunt Saboteurs and Southall Black Sisters.) I’d prefer that it wasn’t reissued, but I know that even if I told them not to do it, they’ll go ahead with it anyway and there’s no real way that I could stop them.’
After this, you formed the band Sol Invictus, which has continued as your main project up to this day. I won’t go into that here, as it’s an entire subject in itself, but during this whole time, interest in Crisis has remained and, in recent years, has even increased. Are you surprised with this ?
‘I am, actually. It’s strange that 35 years later, I’m doing this interview about it ! But when we first started playing the Crisis songs again as ‘1984’, some guy came down to see us from somewhere like Hull. He told us that he never got a chance to see Crisis back at the time but he had always wanted to see us play…It’s great to hear something like that but it still surprises me. Another time, I was playing in Paris and afterwards we went to a bar. We’d been there a while and suddenly, ‘UK79’ came on. When I got to speak to the DJ, I said, ‘Was that for me ?’ He just stood there and looked confused because he hadn’t realised I had been in the band. He just said, ‘No… I love Crisis ! Every time I do a gig, I play this record because it’s one of my favourites.’ Things like that really catch me out. For a long time I think it was mostly people who knew the band from years ago but more recently it seems that a new generation have started to hear and get into the old records. With the older fans, you always suspect that there’s an element of nostalgia involved, but it now seems there’s a lot of younger people discovering the less obvious and more interesting bands from the Punk era and Crisis seem to be one of the bands that people have picked-up on. And I do think those Crisis records stand-out amongst a lot of the late Seventies Punk records, although that probably doesn’t take a lot to achieve to be honest. I think a lot of people have recognized that and it’s probably why those records are being appreciated. So many punk bands seemed to become a parody of themselves, which seems to happen with most musical trends.’
‘Well, some of the songs featured lyrics by a guy that had Nationalist connections and there were other things about them that were undeniably right-wing. I played most of the music on that recording and I’ve never liked to say who else was involved because, really, it was all down to me and I don’t know what some of the other people are doing now, or whether they would want to be associated with it now. There’s a girl who sings on some of it, who was my girlfriend at the time, and I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t want that brief involvement brought up thirty years later. I played most of the instruments, but a guy called Mark who ran the studio played drums and may have also played a bit of guitar on it… I didn’t know at the time, but I was told later on that he also worked with Skrewdriver. At the time we recorded Above The Ruins, he still had long hair ! Looking back, I don’t like that record at all as it came out of a rather bad period in my life that I don’t like to recall. In fact, I recently learned that a Russian label was going to reissue it and the problem is that, even if I tell them not to do it, it would be impossible to stop them. So I’ve told them they can go ahead if they pay me some money up front and I intend to donate that to a couple of charities (Hunt Saboteurs and Southall Black Sisters.) I’d prefer that it wasn’t reissued, but I know that even if I told them not to do it, they’ll go ahead with it anyway and there’s no real way that I could stop them.’
After this, you formed the band Sol Invictus, which has continued as your main project up to this day. I won’t go into that here, as it’s an entire subject in itself, but during this whole time, interest in Crisis has remained and, in recent years, has even increased. Are you surprised with this ?
‘I am, actually. It’s strange that 35 years later, I’m doing this interview about it ! But when we first started playing the Crisis songs again as ‘1984’, some guy came down to see us from somewhere like Hull. He told us that he never got a chance to see Crisis back at the time but he had always wanted to see us play…It’s great to hear something like that but it still surprises me. Another time, I was playing in Paris and afterwards we went to a bar. We’d been there a while and suddenly, ‘UK79’ came on. When I got to speak to the DJ, I said, ‘Was that for me ?’ He just stood there and looked confused because he hadn’t realised I had been in the band. He just said, ‘No… I love Crisis ! Every time I do a gig, I play this record because it’s one of my favourites.’ Things like that really catch me out. For a long time I think it was mostly people who knew the band from years ago but more recently it seems that a new generation have started to hear and get into the old records. With the older fans, you always suspect that there’s an element of nostalgia involved, but it now seems there’s a lot of younger people discovering the less obvious and more interesting bands from the Punk era and Crisis seem to be one of the bands that people have picked-up on. And I do think those Crisis records stand-out amongst a lot of the late Seventies Punk records, although that probably doesn’t take a lot to achieve to be honest. I think a lot of people have recognized that and it’s probably why those records are being appreciated. So many punk bands seemed to become a parody of themselves, which seems to happen with most musical trends.’
The first compilation of Crisis material, ‘We Are All Jews And Germans’, was released by World Serpent in 1997 and has been the source for various other collections, official and otherwise, ever since. Was the original compilation put together just by Doug, or were any other original members involved ?
‘Doug has been behind all of the official reissues and I don’t think he’s involved anyone else from the band. That being said, it’s a very good compilation and I don’t think any of us would have been able to improve on it, so I doubt there have been any complaints. Since then, all of the official releases have all been done by him, licensing the material through other labels. The guy who did the ‘Kollectiv’ album recently and the ‘Hymns of Faith’ reissue, did a really good job and kept in touch to let me know about royalties and things like that, so I’ve certainly been happy with the way that has gone.’
I think a lot of people were surprised that you decided to start playing Crisis material again, albeit under the name ‘1984’, as it is quite removed from your more recent musical projects. What made you want to play Crisis songs again ?
‘Strangely enough, it started because I really wanted to play bass in a band again. I started playing some of the old Crisis songs and some of the early Death in June songs, and found that I really enjoyed playing them. I’d only really been messing about at first, but after a while I was enjoying the songs so much that I started to think about ways I could play them live with a band. I didn’t want to call it ‘Crisis’ because it was only me and I only wanted to play the songs that I had written, which was a kind of moral decision. As far as I’m concerned, Crisis was always me and Doug, so it could never really be Crisis without the two of us. That’s the simple reason why I thought it should be something separate, even if we were playing the songs. I didn’t want people to think that it was all of the original members of the band, but that being said, pretty much every gig we’ve played has advertised us as ‘Crisis’ or some variation of that, regardless of what we’ve said. It doesn’t seem to have made any difference to the promoters. We went to play in Rome recently and found out that the gig had been entirely advertised as ‘Crisis’. As a result, it was really successful, over 250 people showed up and they all seemed to love it. So that’s the dilemma. There are certainly people who want to hear the old Crisis material again, but if we use a different name most of them won’t realize what we’re doing. I didn’t want to be like one of those bands you see playing the rounds on the basis that their drummer used to be the dog-walker for the original singer of the band that they now claim to be ! But frankly, it all boils down to the name and, if the promoters are going to use it anyway, I don’t see why shouldn’t just use it ourselves and get the benefits from it. At least with us, I was a founding member of Crisis and I wrote at least 50% of the original songs. I still respect the material and I make sure that it’s done properly. It’s certainly not me and four hipsters trying to be ironic. Everyone involved is already a Crisis fan and has been for a long time so I think there is a sense of continuity to it. They all enjoy playing the songs and want them to sound as good as possible. But it is still strange to be doing it again. If someone had asked me about playing Crisis songs again, ten or fifteen years ago, I would have said it’ll never happen and I totally understand why I used to feel that way. But when I found that I still enjoyed them, I also realized that in a few years time I’ll be 60 and if I wanted to do this, I’d have to do it sooner rather than later. I mean, with Sol Invictus, it’s a whole different mood so I could probably get away with sitting down at a Neo-folk festival and playing guitar like Val Doonican. But that’s not something you could do if you’re playing Crisis songs.’
‘Doug has been behind all of the official reissues and I don’t think he’s involved anyone else from the band. That being said, it’s a very good compilation and I don’t think any of us would have been able to improve on it, so I doubt there have been any complaints. Since then, all of the official releases have all been done by him, licensing the material through other labels. The guy who did the ‘Kollectiv’ album recently and the ‘Hymns of Faith’ reissue, did a really good job and kept in touch to let me know about royalties and things like that, so I’ve certainly been happy with the way that has gone.’
I think a lot of people were surprised that you decided to start playing Crisis material again, albeit under the name ‘1984’, as it is quite removed from your more recent musical projects. What made you want to play Crisis songs again ?
‘Strangely enough, it started because I really wanted to play bass in a band again. I started playing some of the old Crisis songs and some of the early Death in June songs, and found that I really enjoyed playing them. I’d only really been messing about at first, but after a while I was enjoying the songs so much that I started to think about ways I could play them live with a band. I didn’t want to call it ‘Crisis’ because it was only me and I only wanted to play the songs that I had written, which was a kind of moral decision. As far as I’m concerned, Crisis was always me and Doug, so it could never really be Crisis without the two of us. That’s the simple reason why I thought it should be something separate, even if we were playing the songs. I didn’t want people to think that it was all of the original members of the band, but that being said, pretty much every gig we’ve played has advertised us as ‘Crisis’ or some variation of that, regardless of what we’ve said. It doesn’t seem to have made any difference to the promoters. We went to play in Rome recently and found out that the gig had been entirely advertised as ‘Crisis’. As a result, it was really successful, over 250 people showed up and they all seemed to love it. So that’s the dilemma. There are certainly people who want to hear the old Crisis material again, but if we use a different name most of them won’t realize what we’re doing. I didn’t want to be like one of those bands you see playing the rounds on the basis that their drummer used to be the dog-walker for the original singer of the band that they now claim to be ! But frankly, it all boils down to the name and, if the promoters are going to use it anyway, I don’t see why shouldn’t just use it ourselves and get the benefits from it. At least with us, I was a founding member of Crisis and I wrote at least 50% of the original songs. I still respect the material and I make sure that it’s done properly. It’s certainly not me and four hipsters trying to be ironic. Everyone involved is already a Crisis fan and has been for a long time so I think there is a sense of continuity to it. They all enjoy playing the songs and want them to sound as good as possible. But it is still strange to be doing it again. If someone had asked me about playing Crisis songs again, ten or fifteen years ago, I would have said it’ll never happen and I totally understand why I used to feel that way. But when I found that I still enjoyed them, I also realized that in a few years time I’ll be 60 and if I wanted to do this, I’d have to do it sooner rather than later. I mean, with Sol Invictus, it’s a whole different mood so I could probably get away with sitting down at a Neo-folk festival and playing guitar like Val Doonican. But that’s not something you could do if you’re playing Crisis songs.’
The other dilemma is that it’s difficult enough for bands to cover their costs at all. At least if it’s called Crisis it’s likely to attract a larger audience and give you a chance of not having to play at a loss…
‘That’s right. If the gigs are promoted as Crisis, at least I’ll be able to pay the other musicians for the gigs and cover the costs of rehearsals. I’ve always believed that musicians should be paid and I don’t expect people to rehearse, travel to the gigs and pay for their hotels all out of their own pockets. If I call the band ‘Crisis’, we should at least be able to cover the costs. If we had gone to Italy to play one gig just advertised as ‘1984’, we would have had a much smaller audience and we would have gone all that way to play a gig for nothing. So if the sacrifice I have to make to ensure that everyone gets paid something is that I call the band ‘Crisis’, I think that’s fair enough. This is as close as you’re ever likely to get to Crisis now. If I thought it might sound like shit, then I just wouldn’t do it, but the songs are being played by people who all love the music and it will certainly be played properly.’
Has there been any reaction from Doug about you playing the Crisis material again ?
‘If there has, I don’t know. I’m not really in touch with him these days, but I don’t think it’s something he would want to do, so I can’t see that he would have any reason to object to it. All the songs are registered in both of our names, so if there is any money due via the PRS, he’s still going to get it. I’ve never objected to Death in June performing any of the songs that I was involved in writing, so I doubt if he would object to this.’
Have you kept in touch with any of the other former members of Crisis ?
‘Apart from Luke, I hadn’t been for a long time. He actually lives near me. But I did see Dexter quite recently as he turned up at one of the gigs and we had a good chat. I also tried to contact Lester when we started playing again, but I never got a reply.’
You announced recently that ‘1984’ would be playing their final gig, but it seems that you do have plans to continue with a different line-up…
Well, I was talking to Luke about the current band and he said that he’d like to play again. Dave (Morgan) wants to continue playing with us, but he’s got a lot of work coming up as he also plays in Alternative TV and Subway Sect, which means he can’t really commit to too much. So it looks as if Luke is now on board and will be taking over on drums. Hopefully, if there’s something we get offered that Luke can’t do, Dave will still be able to step-in if he isn’t already busy. Clive (Giblin) also has a lot of difficulties if we get asked to play abroad as he’s self-employed, so even if we only play at weekends, he loses a couple of days work. But he still wants to carry on playing with us, which I’m very glad about as he’s a great guitar player. Mark Geraghty from The Morgellons will now be playing rhythm guitar and I’ve also found a guy called Keith Fordham to take over vocals. He was originally part of the Whitton Crew, who used to come to most of our original gigs, and he was briefly in a punk band called something like The Dirty Toilets… that has to be the worst name ever, but I’ll try not to hold it against him !’
‘That’s right. If the gigs are promoted as Crisis, at least I’ll be able to pay the other musicians for the gigs and cover the costs of rehearsals. I’ve always believed that musicians should be paid and I don’t expect people to rehearse, travel to the gigs and pay for their hotels all out of their own pockets. If I call the band ‘Crisis’, we should at least be able to cover the costs. If we had gone to Italy to play one gig just advertised as ‘1984’, we would have had a much smaller audience and we would have gone all that way to play a gig for nothing. So if the sacrifice I have to make to ensure that everyone gets paid something is that I call the band ‘Crisis’, I think that’s fair enough. This is as close as you’re ever likely to get to Crisis now. If I thought it might sound like shit, then I just wouldn’t do it, but the songs are being played by people who all love the music and it will certainly be played properly.’
Has there been any reaction from Doug about you playing the Crisis material again ?
‘If there has, I don’t know. I’m not really in touch with him these days, but I don’t think it’s something he would want to do, so I can’t see that he would have any reason to object to it. All the songs are registered in both of our names, so if there is any money due via the PRS, he’s still going to get it. I’ve never objected to Death in June performing any of the songs that I was involved in writing, so I doubt if he would object to this.’
Have you kept in touch with any of the other former members of Crisis ?
‘Apart from Luke, I hadn’t been for a long time. He actually lives near me. But I did see Dexter quite recently as he turned up at one of the gigs and we had a good chat. I also tried to contact Lester when we started playing again, but I never got a reply.’
You announced recently that ‘1984’ would be playing their final gig, but it seems that you do have plans to continue with a different line-up…
Well, I was talking to Luke about the current band and he said that he’d like to play again. Dave (Morgan) wants to continue playing with us, but he’s got a lot of work coming up as he also plays in Alternative TV and Subway Sect, which means he can’t really commit to too much. So it looks as if Luke is now on board and will be taking over on drums. Hopefully, if there’s something we get offered that Luke can’t do, Dave will still be able to step-in if he isn’t already busy. Clive (Giblin) also has a lot of difficulties if we get asked to play abroad as he’s self-employed, so even if we only play at weekends, he loses a couple of days work. But he still wants to carry on playing with us, which I’m very glad about as he’s a great guitar player. Mark Geraghty from The Morgellons will now be playing rhythm guitar and I’ve also found a guy called Keith Fordham to take over vocals. He was originally part of the Whitton Crew, who used to come to most of our original gigs, and he was briefly in a punk band called something like The Dirty Toilets… that has to be the worst name ever, but I’ll try not to hold it against him !’
Will there be any difference to the set that you’ll be playing with the new line-up ?
‘We won’t be playing any new stuff or anything like that, but it will be the whole Crisis set, with one or two tweaks, and not just the songs that I wrote. If we’re going to play as Crisis, we have to include some of Doug’s songs, things like ‘On TV’, ‘Alienation’ and ‘Afraid’. If we didn’t play them, I think people would be disappointed and I’ve always liked them so it should be fun to play them again.’
Have you considered writing or recording anything new with the recent line-up ?
‘We were approached by an Italian record label to do a single so we recorded a couple of the old songs (‘Nothing Changes’ and ‘Back in The USSR’) which sounded good with that line-up, but the label messed-about and weren’t able to do it in the end. So I still have the tracks and I’m thinking about what to do with them. I may just make them available as a download on Bandcamp, so that people can hear them if they want to. We also talked about re-recording the tracks from the first two singles, live in a studio, and issuing them as limited editions with slightly updated artwork. But that’s as far as we could go in regards to any new releases. I wouldn’t be comfortable trying to write anything new as ‘Crisis’ and I doubt that anyone would want to hear a Sol Invictus-style lyric trying to be a punk song. I’m sure that the ‘1984’ line-up could have written new material together, but I wouldn’t want to do that under the name ‘Crisis’. To me, Crisis was always me and Doug together, so if I tried to do something new without his involvement it just wouldn’t be right. Also, after a gap of 35 years your ideas will obviously move on, so I couldn’t write lyrics along similar lines anymore. On top of anything else, Crisis were very involved with left-wing politics and I can’t say that I still support those values anymore. But I still think the old material stands-up well and I don’t feel ashamed of any of the things we said. Some of the lyrics may be a bit ‘of-their-time’ but musically, as we developed I think the songs were very unique and I’ve enjoyed playing them again. I’m just happy to carry-on playing them with people who want to play the stuff and for anyone who still wants to hear it.’
‘We won’t be playing any new stuff or anything like that, but it will be the whole Crisis set, with one or two tweaks, and not just the songs that I wrote. If we’re going to play as Crisis, we have to include some of Doug’s songs, things like ‘On TV’, ‘Alienation’ and ‘Afraid’. If we didn’t play them, I think people would be disappointed and I’ve always liked them so it should be fun to play them again.’
Have you considered writing or recording anything new with the recent line-up ?
‘We were approached by an Italian record label to do a single so we recorded a couple of the old songs (‘Nothing Changes’ and ‘Back in The USSR’) which sounded good with that line-up, but the label messed-about and weren’t able to do it in the end. So I still have the tracks and I’m thinking about what to do with them. I may just make them available as a download on Bandcamp, so that people can hear them if they want to. We also talked about re-recording the tracks from the first two singles, live in a studio, and issuing them as limited editions with slightly updated artwork. But that’s as far as we could go in regards to any new releases. I wouldn’t be comfortable trying to write anything new as ‘Crisis’ and I doubt that anyone would want to hear a Sol Invictus-style lyric trying to be a punk song. I’m sure that the ‘1984’ line-up could have written new material together, but I wouldn’t want to do that under the name ‘Crisis’. To me, Crisis was always me and Doug together, so if I tried to do something new without his involvement it just wouldn’t be right. Also, after a gap of 35 years your ideas will obviously move on, so I couldn’t write lyrics along similar lines anymore. On top of anything else, Crisis were very involved with left-wing politics and I can’t say that I still support those values anymore. But I still think the old material stands-up well and I don’t feel ashamed of any of the things we said. Some of the lyrics may be a bit ‘of-their-time’ but musically, as we developed I think the songs were very unique and I’ve enjoyed playing them again. I’m just happy to carry-on playing them with people who want to play the stuff and for anyone who still wants to hear it.’
Further information about Crisis and 1984 can be found on their facebook page ;
https://m.facebook.com/one98four/
https://m.facebook.com/one98four/