The Crunch have been one of the more
promising bands I’ve seen in the past year, but with their pedigree (ex-Diamond
Dogs, ex-Sham 69 / LOTNC, Cockney Rejects, ex-Clash) we really should have been
expecting good things. Music-wise, these guys know what they’re doing and, in
most of their cases, they’ve all remained active over the years. But the one
member who made an unexpected return with this band was Terry Chimes, who
returned to his place behind the drums for the first time in over 20 years. As
some of you may know, in the early Nineties, Terry became a fully-qualified
Chiropractor and has since been devoting most of his time to that calling.
Fortuitously, his return to playing music has also coincided with the
publication of his autobiography, ‘The Strange Case of Doctor Terry and Mr
Chimes.’ As you can probably expect, it’s not the usual rock’n’roll biography,
and whilst Terry has certainly played with some legendary bands and musicians,
there’s just as much space discussing the other aspects of his life. It makes
for a very interesting read, so, when I was offered the chance, I readily
jumped at the opportunity to interview Terry.
Meeting up at the 100 Club shortly after The Crunch had completed their soundcheck, we head down to a small café in Soho and over a couple of cold drinks, I started by asking why Terry had decided to write his book now ?
‘I started writing bits of it eight years ago, and it’s taken me since then to do it ! I think I’d got to an age where I felt I’d done enough to talk about things, but you also need the time to do stuff to promote it, and that’s now.’
Had you ever seriously thought of writing a book before then ?
‘No, not really. I’d always thought that I’d write books, one day, but prior to this, I’d always been too busy, running around doing whatever was in front of me.’
The way it’s worked out has quite a nice balance between your earlier involvement with music, and your later years as a Chiropractor…
‘It’s funny because, now, for the first time in my life, I’ve realised that I can do both of those things, when and how I want. Prior to this, I was always chasing things down, like, I’ve got to do this now, and then I’ve got to do that…’
The book does give the impression that, whatever you’ve been involved-in, you’ve dived into it in a very full-on manner…
‘Yeah… I think one of the stories in the book is about when I was doing this seminar, and I had this idea to get, like, two or three hundred drums and get everybody, all the doctors in the audience, to bang a drum. I phoned-up my old drum-sponsors, Remo, and told them about my great idea but hey turned around and said, Are you taking the piss ? It turned out that they’d had the same idea about eight years before, and they’d approached me, thinking I’d be the right person to organise it, and I’d said that I was just too busy at the time. But I truly had no memory of that, just because I had been so busy back then, and when I got involved in the Health thing I decided, I can’t get involved in any other nonsense, I’ve just got to concentrate on this ! That screwed everything else…’
The one thing that people might not expect, especially as you’ve been involved with such supposedly volatile bands, is that you don’t seem to have any hard feelings or resentments about your times with those bands…
‘Well, I think that hard-feelings kill people, you know, that lack of forgiveness. I say that in the book, because I think it’s very important to be able to forgive things and move on. I mean, we’ve all got dozens of things that we need to forgive for other people, and I’m sure there are things that we’ve done that need to be forgiven. At the end of the day, we just need to do it and move on. I was recently reading about Steve Jobs, who was only about my age, but he died pretty young. When I read his life story, there was one guy who worked with him who gave away a lot of secret information to one of their competitors, and Steve Jobs said something like, ‘With every minute I’ve got, I will get even with him !’ I just thought, that’s the kinda thing that’s gonna kill you, and of course, he died from cancer. That comes from stress, and it could be chemical stress like smoking, or emotional stress, but it will kill you.’
Do you think your book would’ve been very different had you written it ten or twelve years ago ?
‘Oh yeah, I don’t think it would’ve been much good. I think it’s better to have some sorta distance and perspective on things, plus, all of my more spiritual experiences didn’t really start until maybe ten years ago. That’s changed my outlook on everything, and informed everything I do now. Everything in the book, even though it might be about things I did when I was 19 or whatever, is now from that point of view. I’ve changed my whole perspective on things and that makes it a better read, I think.’
Meeting up at the 100 Club shortly after The Crunch had completed their soundcheck, we head down to a small café in Soho and over a couple of cold drinks, I started by asking why Terry had decided to write his book now ?
‘I started writing bits of it eight years ago, and it’s taken me since then to do it ! I think I’d got to an age where I felt I’d done enough to talk about things, but you also need the time to do stuff to promote it, and that’s now.’
Had you ever seriously thought of writing a book before then ?
‘No, not really. I’d always thought that I’d write books, one day, but prior to this, I’d always been too busy, running around doing whatever was in front of me.’
The way it’s worked out has quite a nice balance between your earlier involvement with music, and your later years as a Chiropractor…
‘It’s funny because, now, for the first time in my life, I’ve realised that I can do both of those things, when and how I want. Prior to this, I was always chasing things down, like, I’ve got to do this now, and then I’ve got to do that…’
The book does give the impression that, whatever you’ve been involved-in, you’ve dived into it in a very full-on manner…
‘Yeah… I think one of the stories in the book is about when I was doing this seminar, and I had this idea to get, like, two or three hundred drums and get everybody, all the doctors in the audience, to bang a drum. I phoned-up my old drum-sponsors, Remo, and told them about my great idea but hey turned around and said, Are you taking the piss ? It turned out that they’d had the same idea about eight years before, and they’d approached me, thinking I’d be the right person to organise it, and I’d said that I was just too busy at the time. But I truly had no memory of that, just because I had been so busy back then, and when I got involved in the Health thing I decided, I can’t get involved in any other nonsense, I’ve just got to concentrate on this ! That screwed everything else…’
The one thing that people might not expect, especially as you’ve been involved with such supposedly volatile bands, is that you don’t seem to have any hard feelings or resentments about your times with those bands…
‘Well, I think that hard-feelings kill people, you know, that lack of forgiveness. I say that in the book, because I think it’s very important to be able to forgive things and move on. I mean, we’ve all got dozens of things that we need to forgive for other people, and I’m sure there are things that we’ve done that need to be forgiven. At the end of the day, we just need to do it and move on. I was recently reading about Steve Jobs, who was only about my age, but he died pretty young. When I read his life story, there was one guy who worked with him who gave away a lot of secret information to one of their competitors, and Steve Jobs said something like, ‘With every minute I’ve got, I will get even with him !’ I just thought, that’s the kinda thing that’s gonna kill you, and of course, he died from cancer. That comes from stress, and it could be chemical stress like smoking, or emotional stress, but it will kill you.’
Do you think your book would’ve been very different had you written it ten or twelve years ago ?
‘Oh yeah, I don’t think it would’ve been much good. I think it’s better to have some sorta distance and perspective on things, plus, all of my more spiritual experiences didn’t really start until maybe ten years ago. That’s changed my outlook on everything, and informed everything I do now. Everything in the book, even though it might be about things I did when I was 19 or whatever, is now from that point of view. I’ve changed my whole perspective on things and that makes it a better read, I think.’
Going right back to your earliest days as a
musician, why was it that drums first appealed to you ?
‘Well, I read a theory that everyone has their own basic nature. When you think of that, you can’t really imagine someone like John Bonham being a harpsichord player, can you ? Or you couldn’t imagine Tiny Tim being a bass player in a rock band… Basically, you are what you are, and the important thing is to find out what you are and then do it. I was lucky because my Dad was a music-nut and he had every instrument in the world, in our house, so I tried them all… guitars were fiddly things, you know, fiddling around with strings and chords… piano’s were also too fiddly, but drums, you get just smack them ! As soon as I found that, I was hooked, that was it ! Why would I want to mess around with all that other nonsense ? Luckily, my parents were really good about it, and just said, if he wants to do it, let him do it. They were very much like that, which was lucky because I practised a lot. I used to make the TV jump when I was banging on the drums, but they were great about it.’
You mention in the book that you were already interested in medicine while you were at school, but of course, your musical career took over. When you started to devote your time to music, did you ever consciously intend to only do it for a set period of time, before switching over to a different career ?
‘Well, there was part of me that thought I was going to become a millionaire in the first year, and then I’d be able to go and do some other things, but obviously, that didn’t work. But I did, very nearly, go to Medical School when I was 18, instead of joining a band. I could’ve easily done that and my whole life would’ve been completely different, but there was also this other part of me that wouldn’t let go of wanting to be in a band. I remember when I was a kid at school, a girl told me about when the police searched Mick Jaggers’s room for drugs, but instead they found a naked lady. I just thought, well, that’s not a bad job to be doing ! The nude lady did it for me, I just thought, that’s what I want to be doing.’
The first band of any note that you were involved with was London SS, together with Mick Jones and Tony James. From what I’ve read about them, it seems that drummers didn’t really last very long with them…
‘Yeah, neither did I. I don’t know exactly where I came in the order of things for them. But I only really came up, played a bit, called them a bunch of naffers and went away again. And that was it until I heard from Bernard again, a few months later, when he called up and told me he’d been working really hard since I last saw him and he now had a really good group of people. I thought that sounded like a good idea so he talked me into trying out again.’
What do you remember of the music that London SS was trying to play ?
‘It was very musical and they knew what they were trying to do. It sounded interesting and exciting straightaway, but they couldn’t make their minds up about which way they were going to go. It was like, everyone in the band thought they were the boss, and it can’t work like that. I think that was the thing that Bernard really had to sort out. I mean, it was still all a bit experimental and seeing how it goes, but I liked the way they were playing.’
I know a few people who were briefly involved with London SS have said one of the main reasons they didn’t stay was because they didn’t like Bernie Rhodes involvement…
‘I wouldn’t say he bossed everyone around, but he would try to intimidate people by being cleverer than them, or cooler than them, or staying one step ahead of them. I thought of it like a little game with him, but other people got really irked by it.’
London SS in itself never really amounted to anything, but Mick and Bernie kinda used it as a basis from which to form The Clash…
‘Well, Bernie once said to me, Mick had passed his apprenticeship, but the others hadn’t. Which I suppose was fair enough…’
The usual story is that The Clash pretty-much came together fully-formed and ready to go, but if you listen to really early live tapes, especially of the 5-piece line-up, it really wasn’t as focused as it would eventually become…
‘Oh yeah… I think the working parts were still settling down, and Keith could always be a bit of a problem because he was quite a stroppy guy. I mean, I like him, but he could often be like that… He was too much into the whole sorta Stalinist Regime, as our roadie Baker used to call it, and that was really hard work. Also, Paul had only just started to learn how to play, so he was still catching up. He actually managed that pretty quickly, but it wasn’t really until a bit later on that it became a proper band. As a five-piece, I don’t think anyone really knew what they were supposed to be doing. In fact, I remember the day that Keith walked out in a huff after being told he wasn’t in the band anymore, and when we started playing the songs together as a four-piece, we just realised that we didn’t need another guitarist. Joe was always strumming away, even though he didn’t do anything fancy on the guitar, and Mick could play the solo’s, so why did we need anyone else ?’
‘Well, I read a theory that everyone has their own basic nature. When you think of that, you can’t really imagine someone like John Bonham being a harpsichord player, can you ? Or you couldn’t imagine Tiny Tim being a bass player in a rock band… Basically, you are what you are, and the important thing is to find out what you are and then do it. I was lucky because my Dad was a music-nut and he had every instrument in the world, in our house, so I tried them all… guitars were fiddly things, you know, fiddling around with strings and chords… piano’s were also too fiddly, but drums, you get just smack them ! As soon as I found that, I was hooked, that was it ! Why would I want to mess around with all that other nonsense ? Luckily, my parents were really good about it, and just said, if he wants to do it, let him do it. They were very much like that, which was lucky because I practised a lot. I used to make the TV jump when I was banging on the drums, but they were great about it.’
You mention in the book that you were already interested in medicine while you were at school, but of course, your musical career took over. When you started to devote your time to music, did you ever consciously intend to only do it for a set period of time, before switching over to a different career ?
‘Well, there was part of me that thought I was going to become a millionaire in the first year, and then I’d be able to go and do some other things, but obviously, that didn’t work. But I did, very nearly, go to Medical School when I was 18, instead of joining a band. I could’ve easily done that and my whole life would’ve been completely different, but there was also this other part of me that wouldn’t let go of wanting to be in a band. I remember when I was a kid at school, a girl told me about when the police searched Mick Jaggers’s room for drugs, but instead they found a naked lady. I just thought, well, that’s not a bad job to be doing ! The nude lady did it for me, I just thought, that’s what I want to be doing.’
The first band of any note that you were involved with was London SS, together with Mick Jones and Tony James. From what I’ve read about them, it seems that drummers didn’t really last very long with them…
‘Yeah, neither did I. I don’t know exactly where I came in the order of things for them. But I only really came up, played a bit, called them a bunch of naffers and went away again. And that was it until I heard from Bernard again, a few months later, when he called up and told me he’d been working really hard since I last saw him and he now had a really good group of people. I thought that sounded like a good idea so he talked me into trying out again.’
What do you remember of the music that London SS was trying to play ?
‘It was very musical and they knew what they were trying to do. It sounded interesting and exciting straightaway, but they couldn’t make their minds up about which way they were going to go. It was like, everyone in the band thought they were the boss, and it can’t work like that. I think that was the thing that Bernard really had to sort out. I mean, it was still all a bit experimental and seeing how it goes, but I liked the way they were playing.’
I know a few people who were briefly involved with London SS have said one of the main reasons they didn’t stay was because they didn’t like Bernie Rhodes involvement…
‘I wouldn’t say he bossed everyone around, but he would try to intimidate people by being cleverer than them, or cooler than them, or staying one step ahead of them. I thought of it like a little game with him, but other people got really irked by it.’
London SS in itself never really amounted to anything, but Mick and Bernie kinda used it as a basis from which to form The Clash…
‘Well, Bernie once said to me, Mick had passed his apprenticeship, but the others hadn’t. Which I suppose was fair enough…’
The usual story is that The Clash pretty-much came together fully-formed and ready to go, but if you listen to really early live tapes, especially of the 5-piece line-up, it really wasn’t as focused as it would eventually become…
‘Oh yeah… I think the working parts were still settling down, and Keith could always be a bit of a problem because he was quite a stroppy guy. I mean, I like him, but he could often be like that… He was too much into the whole sorta Stalinist Regime, as our roadie Baker used to call it, and that was really hard work. Also, Paul had only just started to learn how to play, so he was still catching up. He actually managed that pretty quickly, but it wasn’t really until a bit later on that it became a proper band. As a five-piece, I don’t think anyone really knew what they were supposed to be doing. In fact, I remember the day that Keith walked out in a huff after being told he wasn’t in the band anymore, and when we started playing the songs together as a four-piece, we just realised that we didn’t need another guitarist. Joe was always strumming away, even though he didn’t do anything fancy on the guitar, and Mick could play the solo’s, so why did we need anyone else ?’
How did you feel about the way the image of
the Clash was coming together, at the same time that you were still developing
musically…
‘Bernard used the expression, ‘work on all levels’, meaning the way you look, the clothes, what you’d say in interviews… I thought that was fair enough. I think Wagner said the same thing about his music, the whole aesthetic of it. That made sense to me.’
How did you feel about the more political aspects ?
‘I think I said in the book that I found it odd that the others all seemed to be so miserable and angry, where I wasn’t. But it’s only been more recently, when I’ve been looking back, that I realised that they were all from broken homes, in some ways. So when Bernard said things like, We’ve got to fight for every little thing, they’d all say ‘Yeah’, but I couldn’t see it that way. They’d say that I was being smug by saying that everything was alright, but when I look back on things now, it all seems so obvious. They were from broken homes and they were angry, even if they didn’t know why they were angry. But I wasn’t very angry at all because I’d felt very loved as a child.’
Of course, the biggest contradiction in The Clash, which became more apparent as their career progressed, was that there was a desire to stay true to their street-level roots, but at the same time also a strong ambition to become a very successful rock’n’roll band…
‘Well, I said that to Joe right from the beginning, but they ended up getting themselves into a real mess. By the end of the band, he was saying, they’d become what they tried to destroy. I’d say to him, no you haven’t, you haven’t become Pink Floyd. You’re playing big venues because people like you. That’s not the same as being Pink Floyd and releasing concept albums or hanging around in the First Class lounge all day, or whatever they do. So it was kinda naïve, but they said those things when they really were angry young men. If you worry about what other people think about you, you’re always going to be tortured. I mean, I don’t worry about what people think of me because I realised a long time ago, there’s just no point.’
You also mention a band conversation about the Sex Pistols, trying to figure out if they should be considered comrades or competition…
‘I never got anything from the Pistols that they felt we were the competition. They were always very generous and happy to have us on the bill. But they were ahead of us… the first few gigs we played, we were very amateurish, while they’d already been playing around a lot and were very honed-down. I’m not sure if they really knew where they were going from there, but they were very good at what they did. We were very shaky at first, and the Pistols really helped us a lot. But I kinda saw them as the people to beat… I said that to Joe, and he said, he thought so too, but Mick was more like, Nahhh, they’re our comrades ! But Mick’s a bit like that, you know, all the bands together !’
You say in the book that you originally decided to leave The Clash because you were unhappy with what you were doing… is there anything in particular or was it a general dissatisfaction ?
‘It had become a 24/7 thing and everyday it just seemed to be me arguing with everyone else. The band, Bernard, the roadies… because they all bought into that Stalinist-nonsense and I didn’t. When I said I wanted to leave because of that, they said I was performing a valuable function as a foil for the rest of them, because once they finished arguing with me they were ready to face everyone else ! That may have been true, but it still wasn’t very nice for me.’
I’m intrigued to know what, if any, regrets you had about leaving The Clash. Not so much about missing out on their eventual success, but more from an artistic point of view, in that you’d been a vital part of the bands’ formative period, but then you missed out on the subsequent musical development…
‘In one sense, I suppose I knew they were going to be successful even before I left, but the idea of sitting there arguing with Bernard every day for the next five years, was just too much. But funnily enough, when I came back in 1982, it was quite nice to realise that I was going to find out how it would’ve eventually been. Of course, the trouble then was that other things had changed and they were all arguing with each other in different ways. But it was still nice to go back and do it again, and it was fun. So I think it all worked out the way it was meant to be. I left, which allowed Topper to come in and do what he did, and that diversified the music a bit more. I probably wouldn’t have been as diverse as him, because he was always more into his funky, jazzy stuff and it probably wouldn’t have been able to go that way with me. I think that’s why I was glad to play on the first album, because that meant I was able to put down all the stuff we’d done together and say, There it is. That meant it would be there for ever and that’s nice. But I don’t like trying to hold-on to everything. Something like that is a very fleeting thing, really. You’re there in the moment, you play the concert, you record the album and then, bang, it’s gone. So you just move on to another thing. You’ve got to see it that way. Perhaps I always knew that I was going to go on to medicine eventually, so I just felt, I’ll do this now and it’ll be great. I’ll give it what I’ve got, but I don’t think I’ll still be here in twenty years’ time. I think that’s a lot more realistic than thinking, I’m going to be a pop star forever. There’s so many people who just try to hang on to that as if they just desperately want to be famous. Too many people think that, if they’re famous, all their problems will disappear, but that’s certainly not true. It’s just another set of problems.’
‘Bernard used the expression, ‘work on all levels’, meaning the way you look, the clothes, what you’d say in interviews… I thought that was fair enough. I think Wagner said the same thing about his music, the whole aesthetic of it. That made sense to me.’
How did you feel about the more political aspects ?
‘I think I said in the book that I found it odd that the others all seemed to be so miserable and angry, where I wasn’t. But it’s only been more recently, when I’ve been looking back, that I realised that they were all from broken homes, in some ways. So when Bernard said things like, We’ve got to fight for every little thing, they’d all say ‘Yeah’, but I couldn’t see it that way. They’d say that I was being smug by saying that everything was alright, but when I look back on things now, it all seems so obvious. They were from broken homes and they were angry, even if they didn’t know why they were angry. But I wasn’t very angry at all because I’d felt very loved as a child.’
Of course, the biggest contradiction in The Clash, which became more apparent as their career progressed, was that there was a desire to stay true to their street-level roots, but at the same time also a strong ambition to become a very successful rock’n’roll band…
‘Well, I said that to Joe right from the beginning, but they ended up getting themselves into a real mess. By the end of the band, he was saying, they’d become what they tried to destroy. I’d say to him, no you haven’t, you haven’t become Pink Floyd. You’re playing big venues because people like you. That’s not the same as being Pink Floyd and releasing concept albums or hanging around in the First Class lounge all day, or whatever they do. So it was kinda naïve, but they said those things when they really were angry young men. If you worry about what other people think about you, you’re always going to be tortured. I mean, I don’t worry about what people think of me because I realised a long time ago, there’s just no point.’
You also mention a band conversation about the Sex Pistols, trying to figure out if they should be considered comrades or competition…
‘I never got anything from the Pistols that they felt we were the competition. They were always very generous and happy to have us on the bill. But they were ahead of us… the first few gigs we played, we were very amateurish, while they’d already been playing around a lot and were very honed-down. I’m not sure if they really knew where they were going from there, but they were very good at what they did. We were very shaky at first, and the Pistols really helped us a lot. But I kinda saw them as the people to beat… I said that to Joe, and he said, he thought so too, but Mick was more like, Nahhh, they’re our comrades ! But Mick’s a bit like that, you know, all the bands together !’
You say in the book that you originally decided to leave The Clash because you were unhappy with what you were doing… is there anything in particular or was it a general dissatisfaction ?
‘It had become a 24/7 thing and everyday it just seemed to be me arguing with everyone else. The band, Bernard, the roadies… because they all bought into that Stalinist-nonsense and I didn’t. When I said I wanted to leave because of that, they said I was performing a valuable function as a foil for the rest of them, because once they finished arguing with me they were ready to face everyone else ! That may have been true, but it still wasn’t very nice for me.’
I’m intrigued to know what, if any, regrets you had about leaving The Clash. Not so much about missing out on their eventual success, but more from an artistic point of view, in that you’d been a vital part of the bands’ formative period, but then you missed out on the subsequent musical development…
‘In one sense, I suppose I knew they were going to be successful even before I left, but the idea of sitting there arguing with Bernard every day for the next five years, was just too much. But funnily enough, when I came back in 1982, it was quite nice to realise that I was going to find out how it would’ve eventually been. Of course, the trouble then was that other things had changed and they were all arguing with each other in different ways. But it was still nice to go back and do it again, and it was fun. So I think it all worked out the way it was meant to be. I left, which allowed Topper to come in and do what he did, and that diversified the music a bit more. I probably wouldn’t have been as diverse as him, because he was always more into his funky, jazzy stuff and it probably wouldn’t have been able to go that way with me. I think that’s why I was glad to play on the first album, because that meant I was able to put down all the stuff we’d done together and say, There it is. That meant it would be there for ever and that’s nice. But I don’t like trying to hold-on to everything. Something like that is a very fleeting thing, really. You’re there in the moment, you play the concert, you record the album and then, bang, it’s gone. So you just move on to another thing. You’ve got to see it that way. Perhaps I always knew that I was going to go on to medicine eventually, so I just felt, I’ll do this now and it’ll be great. I’ll give it what I’ve got, but I don’t think I’ll still be here in twenty years’ time. I think that’s a lot more realistic than thinking, I’m going to be a pop star forever. There’s so many people who just try to hang on to that as if they just desperately want to be famous. Too many people think that, if they’re famous, all their problems will disappear, but that’s certainly not true. It’s just another set of problems.’
After The Clash, you went on to work with
Johnny Thunders and The Heartbreakers for a while. Was there an opportunity for
you to join them fulltime, or was that only ever intended as a temporary job ?
‘I enjoyed playing with them very much. It was nice to be able to just play the music and not have to worry about all the other things. I also liked Johnny a lot, as a person, and I went on to work with him again, later on. But at the time, I didn’t really understand him. They’d be close to getting a good record deal and then, just as they were about to do it, Johnny would get out of his head and throw up over the record company, so it would fall apart. Looking back, I think he was afraid of success, but I didn’t understand that at the time. I’d just think, What the Hell is he doing ? I mean, there’s probably other people like that as well, but he was definitely one of them. So it all just fell apart.’
As you were saying, you re-joined The Clash on rather short-notice in 1982, after Topper’s departure. Did you find it easy to fit-in with them again ?
‘Well, the unfortunate thing was that they had this idea that they’d play a different set every night, so instead of having to learn twenty songs and play them, I had to learn fifty songs because I didn’t know which twenty we were going to play ! It was typical that they wanted to do this, as any other band would’ve just learned twenty songs and played them. I didn’t know a lot of the songs… I remember Mick saying, I bet you haven’t got these albums, and I said, Well, you never sent them to me ! But on a personal level, I got on with them fine. A lot of it was the same, Bernard was there again… the only thing was that Topper had done all of his stuff and some of that was very different to the way I play. Obviously, the old stuff I could still play with my eyes shut and some of the newer stuff was quite similar to the way I played. Even things like ‘Magnificent 7’ were fine, but some of the things I couldn’t get my head around. There was a song on ‘Combat Rock’, I think it was ‘Red Angel Dragnet’, and I just thought, what the Hell is that ? Topper played some kinda little flick on the high-hat and I couldn’t even figure out what he was doing. So we had to bin a few things, but apart from that, it was alright.’
It’s also interesting that your two stints with The Clash kinda book-end their career, for all intent and purposes. You were there right at the beginning, and you were there directly before Mick left the band… Having been involved in such a way and then returning to it, did you realise that the end of the band was only a short distance away ?
‘Oh yeah… I mean, as a doctor, or a healer, you aim is to try to fix things for people. So re-joining the band, I was thinking, maybe I can fix this, perhaps I can make it all alright. So I tried to figure it out, like, I’d ask them, can’t you work together and work it out, but they’d just say, You don’t understand, you’ve been gone for five years, you don’t know what’s been going on… I couldn’t really argue with that because it was true. When Joe and Paul started talking about getting rid of Mick, I couldn’t get my head around that at all. I thought they were joking when they first mentioned it ! But they started getting serious about it and I just thought, this doesn’t make sense. But they decided it was the good thing to do…’
Joe and Paul carried on for a while with the ‘Cut the Crap’ line-up, but that seemed pretty ill-fated…
‘I always think of that ‘Clash 2’ line-up as something else, really. It was doomed from the start. And when I heard that Bernie was producing the album, I thought they’d gone raving mad. I thought it was one step away from when Brian Wilson had his album produced by his psychiatrist. Bernie always liked to have total control, so I wouldn’t have put it past him.’
After your second stint with The Clash, you again went to play with Johnny Thunders, and through that met-up with Hanoi Rocks…
‘I got asked to play with Johnny again, and he was doing a joint tour with Hanoi Rocks. Every night, at the end of the gig everyone would get up on stage together for a bit, so I kinda played with Hanoi Rocks every night during that tour. Then, when their drummer, Razzle, died in a car smash, which was a real tragedy, they called me because they already had some stuff booked and they knew that we already got along well. I thought it would be fun because they had so much energy, so I decided to do it.’
And then, perhaps the most unlikely step in your career, you joined Black Sabbath… In a way, they were the most unusual band you’d played with, as everything else had always been quite upbeat, whereas Sabbath are more renowned for their downbeat riffing…
‘It’s funny, because I remember going to rehearsal and playing the song ‘Black Sabbath’ for the first time, which is very slow. I started playing it, and the bass player was telling me, No, you’ve gotta play this really slow. This is beyond slow !’ So I followed him and it worked… But I remember listening to Black Sabbath even when I was still at school, and Tony Iommi’s guitar playing was always so immense. Also, they were into great big drum kits onstage, and drum solo’s, and I’d never done any of that, so I thought, this will be fantastic ! Of course, in the punk thing, there was none of that. You weren’t supposed to do those things ! But what I found out was that people love drum solo’s, they really love them ! I don’t know what it is, but something really connects with them.’
‘I enjoyed playing with them very much. It was nice to be able to just play the music and not have to worry about all the other things. I also liked Johnny a lot, as a person, and I went on to work with him again, later on. But at the time, I didn’t really understand him. They’d be close to getting a good record deal and then, just as they were about to do it, Johnny would get out of his head and throw up over the record company, so it would fall apart. Looking back, I think he was afraid of success, but I didn’t understand that at the time. I’d just think, What the Hell is he doing ? I mean, there’s probably other people like that as well, but he was definitely one of them. So it all just fell apart.’
As you were saying, you re-joined The Clash on rather short-notice in 1982, after Topper’s departure. Did you find it easy to fit-in with them again ?
‘Well, the unfortunate thing was that they had this idea that they’d play a different set every night, so instead of having to learn twenty songs and play them, I had to learn fifty songs because I didn’t know which twenty we were going to play ! It was typical that they wanted to do this, as any other band would’ve just learned twenty songs and played them. I didn’t know a lot of the songs… I remember Mick saying, I bet you haven’t got these albums, and I said, Well, you never sent them to me ! But on a personal level, I got on with them fine. A lot of it was the same, Bernard was there again… the only thing was that Topper had done all of his stuff and some of that was very different to the way I play. Obviously, the old stuff I could still play with my eyes shut and some of the newer stuff was quite similar to the way I played. Even things like ‘Magnificent 7’ were fine, but some of the things I couldn’t get my head around. There was a song on ‘Combat Rock’, I think it was ‘Red Angel Dragnet’, and I just thought, what the Hell is that ? Topper played some kinda little flick on the high-hat and I couldn’t even figure out what he was doing. So we had to bin a few things, but apart from that, it was alright.’
It’s also interesting that your two stints with The Clash kinda book-end their career, for all intent and purposes. You were there right at the beginning, and you were there directly before Mick left the band… Having been involved in such a way and then returning to it, did you realise that the end of the band was only a short distance away ?
‘Oh yeah… I mean, as a doctor, or a healer, you aim is to try to fix things for people. So re-joining the band, I was thinking, maybe I can fix this, perhaps I can make it all alright. So I tried to figure it out, like, I’d ask them, can’t you work together and work it out, but they’d just say, You don’t understand, you’ve been gone for five years, you don’t know what’s been going on… I couldn’t really argue with that because it was true. When Joe and Paul started talking about getting rid of Mick, I couldn’t get my head around that at all. I thought they were joking when they first mentioned it ! But they started getting serious about it and I just thought, this doesn’t make sense. But they decided it was the good thing to do…’
Joe and Paul carried on for a while with the ‘Cut the Crap’ line-up, but that seemed pretty ill-fated…
‘I always think of that ‘Clash 2’ line-up as something else, really. It was doomed from the start. And when I heard that Bernie was producing the album, I thought they’d gone raving mad. I thought it was one step away from when Brian Wilson had his album produced by his psychiatrist. Bernie always liked to have total control, so I wouldn’t have put it past him.’
After your second stint with The Clash, you again went to play with Johnny Thunders, and through that met-up with Hanoi Rocks…
‘I got asked to play with Johnny again, and he was doing a joint tour with Hanoi Rocks. Every night, at the end of the gig everyone would get up on stage together for a bit, so I kinda played with Hanoi Rocks every night during that tour. Then, when their drummer, Razzle, died in a car smash, which was a real tragedy, they called me because they already had some stuff booked and they knew that we already got along well. I thought it would be fun because they had so much energy, so I decided to do it.’
And then, perhaps the most unlikely step in your career, you joined Black Sabbath… In a way, they were the most unusual band you’d played with, as everything else had always been quite upbeat, whereas Sabbath are more renowned for their downbeat riffing…
‘It’s funny, because I remember going to rehearsal and playing the song ‘Black Sabbath’ for the first time, which is very slow. I started playing it, and the bass player was telling me, No, you’ve gotta play this really slow. This is beyond slow !’ So I followed him and it worked… But I remember listening to Black Sabbath even when I was still at school, and Tony Iommi’s guitar playing was always so immense. Also, they were into great big drum kits onstage, and drum solo’s, and I’d never done any of that, so I thought, this will be fantastic ! Of course, in the punk thing, there was none of that. You weren’t supposed to do those things ! But what I found out was that people love drum solo’s, they really love them ! I don’t know what it is, but something really connects with them.’
Unfortunately, our time had run-out, so we
finished-up and headed back to the 100 Club, just in time for the evenings’
opening band, The DeRellas. Similar to FNL favourites The Phobics (though not
as good-looking, of course !) they play a loud, brash set of rock’n’roll, with
their single ‘She Kissed The gun’ proving to be a real highlight. I’m glad
there are bands like this around, not following trends but putting everything
into what they’re doing.
The Crunch play a great set tonight, featuring almost every track from their debut album, plus choice covers from the band members’ earlier careers, including ‘Russian Roulette’, ‘Bad Man’ and ‘Borstal Breakout’. But although these might be more recognisable than the newer material, they fit in well with the set and songs like ‘Down By The Border’ or ‘Gangster Radio’ stand up as highlights just as well. The encore gives Terry a couple of minutes to thrash out a quick drum solo (and, yeah, everyone loved it !) before they finish the gig with ‘Runaway Son’ and a final cover of ‘Garageland’. I’m looking forward to hearing new material, because the band are clearly getting better every time I see them. If all goes according to plan, the next album is going to be even better.
***Colour photos of Terry + Crunch band photo by Luke Billing***
The Crunch play a great set tonight, featuring almost every track from their debut album, plus choice covers from the band members’ earlier careers, including ‘Russian Roulette’, ‘Bad Man’ and ‘Borstal Breakout’. But although these might be more recognisable than the newer material, they fit in well with the set and songs like ‘Down By The Border’ or ‘Gangster Radio’ stand up as highlights just as well. The encore gives Terry a couple of minutes to thrash out a quick drum solo (and, yeah, everyone loved it !) before they finish the gig with ‘Runaway Son’ and a final cover of ‘Garageland’. I’m looking forward to hearing new material, because the band are clearly getting better every time I see them. If all goes according to plan, the next album is going to be even better.
***Colour photos of Terry + Crunch band photo by Luke Billing***