The Wall are, in my opinion, one of the most under-rated punk bands that emerged in the late-Seventies. They released a string of consistently great singles and two albums between 1979 and 1982, before finally calling it a day in 1983. Although they received much support from John Peel and even had a short period of time signed to Polydor records, they were never able to break through to a wider audience. The closest they came was when they supported Stiff Little Fingers on the 1981 ‘Go For It’ tour. The response they received as the opening band was remarkable and should have set them up to properly establish themselves, but lack of support from Polydor foiled what should have been their next step. That being said, I know plenty of people who saw them on that tour and still remember them enthusiastically. Indeed, it was on that tour, playing in Canterbury, that I saw them for the first time. (Actually this means they’ve set a record… the longest gap between the first time I saw a band and the second… 35 years !) They were amazing, bursting onto the stage with so much energy that the crowd erupted into the kind of chaotic melee that was usually reserved for the headliners. I wasn’t really familiar with their material at that time, but I remember them playing ‘Remembrance’ and being called back for a well-deserved encore of ‘Uniforms’. Stiff Little Fingers were also great that night and I thoroughly enjoyed the whole gig, but in many ways it was The Wall who had made the biggest impression. The following weekend, I took my pocket money to the local record shop, intending to buy the new SLF album, but when I spotted The Walls’ ‘Remembrance’ and ‘Ghetto’ singles in the rack, I bought them instead.
In 2007, The Wall reunited for an appearance at Rebellion Festival. Shortly afterwards, a gig was announced at the 100 Club, but then mysteriously cancelled. Over the next few years, no further activity was heard from them and I began to doubt that I would ever get to see them again, until earlier this year when I found out they were due to play Rebellion again, plus, more importantly for me, they were finally going to appear at the 100 Club to launch a brand new single. At last, I was going to see them again, plus, after a few quick emails, I was able to set-up an interview.
The line-up at present includes three original members (Andy ‘Andzy’ Griffiths) guitarist Andy ‘Heed’ Forbes and bass player Al Gregg, joined by new bassist Day Raven and drummer Mark Gibson. After watching their soundcheck, we retire to the dressing room and the interview takes place, liberally-aided by a fridge-full of beer…
In 2007, The Wall reunited for an appearance at Rebellion Festival. Shortly afterwards, a gig was announced at the 100 Club, but then mysteriously cancelled. Over the next few years, no further activity was heard from them and I began to doubt that I would ever get to see them again, until earlier this year when I found out they were due to play Rebellion again, plus, more importantly for me, they were finally going to appear at the 100 Club to launch a brand new single. At last, I was going to see them again, plus, after a few quick emails, I was able to set-up an interview.
The line-up at present includes three original members (Andy ‘Andzy’ Griffiths) guitarist Andy ‘Heed’ Forbes and bass player Al Gregg, joined by new bassist Day Raven and drummer Mark Gibson. After watching their soundcheck, we retire to the dressing room and the interview takes place, liberally-aided by a fridge-full of beer…
I assume The Wall originally formed in early 1978 ?
Andzy ; Well, it was 1977 when the first line-up really came together, but we were all still in other bands at that point. There were a lot of bands around at the time and we were all playing with other people, but gradually we came together. I think Sticks from the Angelic Upstarts was our drummer right at the beginning, but people kept moving around until we ended up with the line-up that recorded the original demo, ‘New Way’, ‘Suckers’ and ‘Uniforms’, which became the first single. But by then, we’d really been going for about 18 months in different forms.
Had you already known each other before the band ?
Andzy ; Yeah, I’d already been sharing a flat with Ian, and we all knew each other from the bands that we were messing about with.
I think most people assumed that you named the band as a reference to the Berlin Wall…
Andzy ; No, actually, it wasn’t. It was named after Wallsend on Tyneside. The reason was because we had a roadie called Kevin who got knocked-over by a dumper-truck and got a chunk of compensation, so he paid for us to record the first demo and we just called ourselves ‘The Wall’, from Wallsend…
Since you were living on Tyneside, how did you get involved with Small Wonder ?
Andzy ; We’d already done the tape and we came down to London for the big Rock Against Racism gig in Victoria Park. While we were down, me and Ian went to Polydor Records. You could just walk in the door and give them a tape back then ! Someone listened to it and said they weren’t interested, but suggested that we try Rough Trade so we went down to their shop. They suggested Pete at Small Wonder so we got a bus up to Walthamstow, played the tape for him and he said, Yeah, I’ll release it as an EP ! The thing I always remember is that he was just about to put out ‘Feeding of the 5000’ by Crass, and he gave me a white label copy to listen to… I’ve still got that at home. But it’s incredible to think we did all of that in one afternoon and that we could just walk into all of these record labels. But that was the way that Pete liked to work, so we signed with him and then a week later, he got us to play at a Small Wonder gig at the Music Machine with Bauhaus. We were still living in Sunderland but suddenly, we were getting reviews in the music papers,so me and Ian just decided, that’s it, we’ve got to move down to London…
It’s actually quite amazing when you consider all the different bands that released their first records on Small Wonder…
Andzy ; Yeah, it was fantastic ! He released ‘Killing an Arab’ by The Cure, the first Crass record, the first Bauhaus record... And he also released records by the Cockney Rejects, Angelic Upstarts and Patrik Fitzgerald. Funnily enough, I think he was kind of agoraphobic and he didn’t seem to like leaving the shop, but everyone knew about Small Wonder and they were quite a big deal if you were in a band like us. But when you went to the shop, you’d just meet this little bloke in a bobble-hat who’d listen to your tape and say, ‘oh yeah, I’ll release your record…’
Andzy ; Well, it was 1977 when the first line-up really came together, but we were all still in other bands at that point. There were a lot of bands around at the time and we were all playing with other people, but gradually we came together. I think Sticks from the Angelic Upstarts was our drummer right at the beginning, but people kept moving around until we ended up with the line-up that recorded the original demo, ‘New Way’, ‘Suckers’ and ‘Uniforms’, which became the first single. But by then, we’d really been going for about 18 months in different forms.
Had you already known each other before the band ?
Andzy ; Yeah, I’d already been sharing a flat with Ian, and we all knew each other from the bands that we were messing about with.
I think most people assumed that you named the band as a reference to the Berlin Wall…
Andzy ; No, actually, it wasn’t. It was named after Wallsend on Tyneside. The reason was because we had a roadie called Kevin who got knocked-over by a dumper-truck and got a chunk of compensation, so he paid for us to record the first demo and we just called ourselves ‘The Wall’, from Wallsend…
Since you were living on Tyneside, how did you get involved with Small Wonder ?
Andzy ; We’d already done the tape and we came down to London for the big Rock Against Racism gig in Victoria Park. While we were down, me and Ian went to Polydor Records. You could just walk in the door and give them a tape back then ! Someone listened to it and said they weren’t interested, but suggested that we try Rough Trade so we went down to their shop. They suggested Pete at Small Wonder so we got a bus up to Walthamstow, played the tape for him and he said, Yeah, I’ll release it as an EP ! The thing I always remember is that he was just about to put out ‘Feeding of the 5000’ by Crass, and he gave me a white label copy to listen to… I’ve still got that at home. But it’s incredible to think we did all of that in one afternoon and that we could just walk into all of these record labels. But that was the way that Pete liked to work, so we signed with him and then a week later, he got us to play at a Small Wonder gig at the Music Machine with Bauhaus. We were still living in Sunderland but suddenly, we were getting reviews in the music papers,so me and Ian just decided, that’s it, we’ve got to move down to London…
It’s actually quite amazing when you consider all the different bands that released their first records on Small Wonder…
Andzy ; Yeah, it was fantastic ! He released ‘Killing an Arab’ by The Cure, the first Crass record, the first Bauhaus record... And he also released records by the Cockney Rejects, Angelic Upstarts and Patrik Fitzgerald. Funnily enough, I think he was kind of agoraphobic and he didn’t seem to like leaving the shop, but everyone knew about Small Wonder and they were quite a big deal if you were in a band like us. But when you went to the shop, you’d just meet this little bloke in a bobble-hat who’d listen to your tape and say, ‘oh yeah, I’ll release your record…’
The single got a really good response, almost as soon as it was released…
Andzy : Oh, yeah, it was amazing. And because we’d played at that gig at the Music Machine, a lot of people were interested in hearing the single, so it was really good for us. I think it was just at the right time, as well, because it was early enough for us still be part of the Punk explosion, while six months later the whole thing was being flooded.
Al : John Peel championed it as well…
Andzy ; He always played our records on his show, but we never got to do a session for some reason. I mean, he even invited us into the studio one evening, I think it was after our third or fourth single. We went to meet him and he was very enthusiastic about us, so I don’t know why we never got asked to do a session. But then, we never really had a manager and we never pushed for things like that. We just got on with it and let things happen. I think that was one of our possible failings… we never looked at it as a career, we just enjoyed playing the music, going on tour and having a great time. We never thought, we need to get a Peel Session or we need to get on TV… There were programmes like Revolver or Something Else that we may have been able to play on, if we had pushed for it, but we just never pursued that kind of thing. We just got on with what we were doing. Looking back, it’s easy to think we really should have done that, but at the time I think we just took it all for granted, in a way.
One thing about the single is that, although ‘New Way’ was the A-side, just as many people loved the songs on the B-side, particularly ‘Uniforms’…
Andzy : I don’t think we ever really saw it as an A-side and a B-side. When we recorded the tracks as a demo, we just picked three of the best songs we had at the time. I think ‘New Way’ sounded quite different because it had that sort of reggae influence to it… Reggae still wasn’t very mainstream back then, but there were a few bands, like The Clash and The Ruts, maybe even Bauhaus, who were mixing it in with their own music. And I don’t mean that horrible ‘white reggae’ stuff that ended up being pretty successful for some bands, but the way in which some people took the ideas and mixed them into what they were doing.
As you were saying, you and Ian decided to move down to London soon after the release of the single…
Andzy ; Well, Pete said that we really needed to move down to London just in order to be in touch with the music scene and what was going on, so that’s what we did. Again, looking back, I’m not so sure that we did need to do that because there were these new music scenes starting up, with bands deciding to stay in Manchester or Newcastle or wherever. So I think we could have stayed where we were, but at the same time, moving down to London probably seemed quite glamorous to us. Plus, there was also the advantage that people could call us at short notice and ask us, like, there’s a support spot opened up for The Jam tonight – can you play ? Obviously, if we were still in Sunderland, we wouldn’t have been able to do something like that. Anyway, me and Ian moved down to London, but the guitarist and drummer didn’t want to move so they stayed behind and we started to go through various different line-ups…
Andzy : Oh, yeah, it was amazing. And because we’d played at that gig at the Music Machine, a lot of people were interested in hearing the single, so it was really good for us. I think it was just at the right time, as well, because it was early enough for us still be part of the Punk explosion, while six months later the whole thing was being flooded.
Al : John Peel championed it as well…
Andzy ; He always played our records on his show, but we never got to do a session for some reason. I mean, he even invited us into the studio one evening, I think it was after our third or fourth single. We went to meet him and he was very enthusiastic about us, so I don’t know why we never got asked to do a session. But then, we never really had a manager and we never pushed for things like that. We just got on with it and let things happen. I think that was one of our possible failings… we never looked at it as a career, we just enjoyed playing the music, going on tour and having a great time. We never thought, we need to get a Peel Session or we need to get on TV… There were programmes like Revolver or Something Else that we may have been able to play on, if we had pushed for it, but we just never pursued that kind of thing. We just got on with what we were doing. Looking back, it’s easy to think we really should have done that, but at the time I think we just took it all for granted, in a way.
One thing about the single is that, although ‘New Way’ was the A-side, just as many people loved the songs on the B-side, particularly ‘Uniforms’…
Andzy : I don’t think we ever really saw it as an A-side and a B-side. When we recorded the tracks as a demo, we just picked three of the best songs we had at the time. I think ‘New Way’ sounded quite different because it had that sort of reggae influence to it… Reggae still wasn’t very mainstream back then, but there were a few bands, like The Clash and The Ruts, maybe even Bauhaus, who were mixing it in with their own music. And I don’t mean that horrible ‘white reggae’ stuff that ended up being pretty successful for some bands, but the way in which some people took the ideas and mixed them into what they were doing.
As you were saying, you and Ian decided to move down to London soon after the release of the single…
Andzy ; Well, Pete said that we really needed to move down to London just in order to be in touch with the music scene and what was going on, so that’s what we did. Again, looking back, I’m not so sure that we did need to do that because there were these new music scenes starting up, with bands deciding to stay in Manchester or Newcastle or wherever. So I think we could have stayed where we were, but at the same time, moving down to London probably seemed quite glamorous to us. Plus, there was also the advantage that people could call us at short notice and ask us, like, there’s a support spot opened up for The Jam tonight – can you play ? Obviously, if we were still in Sunderland, we wouldn’t have been able to do something like that. Anyway, me and Ian moved down to London, but the guitarist and drummer didn’t want to move so they stayed behind and we started to go through various different line-ups…
Was it difficult to make that decision when you realised it meant you’d be losing half of the band ?
‘Not for me and Ian… but Bruce was studying at College and wanted to complete his Degree, while Joe just wanted to stay in Sunderland. Although he did actually end-up moving to London later on, and even played with Ian in one of his later bands… the Folk Devils, I think…
Your second single, ‘Exchange’ was produced by Steve Jones. How did he get involved ?
Andzy ; He’d turned up at one of our gigs in West London, at a pub called the Warwick Castle, I think. He was in the audience with some of his mates, so we went up to him afterwards and asked what he thought. We got talking and we mentioned that we were going to be recording our new single the following day, so he offered to come down and produce it. We thought that was great, but Pete at Small Wonder didn’t like it at all. Steve Jones was that sort of famous side of Punk, which Pete didn’t like at all, so it ended up causing a bit of a rift between us and Pete. I think he got quite upset about it, because he was really into the independent side of things and he felt that people like the Sex Pistols or The Clash were just a part of the big, corporate thing. And he possibly felt that we were perhaps trying to use Steve’s fame to promote our band, and didn’t feel comfortable with that at all. It’s sad that it happened, because we’d always got on so well with Pete, and that wasn’t why we did that with Steve.
He did get a great guitar sound on that single, though…
Andzy ; Yeah, which is what we wanted ! I remember he was sitting at the mixing desk and told us he just wanted to do guitars and guitars and guitars… We must’ve recorded about thirty takes of guitar and rammed it all together to get that massive sound. He did that and the single had a much better sound than the first one, which as I was saying, was really just the demo tape.
‘Exchange’ was well-received again, but you ended-up moving from Small Wonder to Fresh Records…
Andzy ; I think things had become a bit awkward because of the way Pete felt about us after we recorded the single with Steve Jones. I don’t think he was happy with us anymore and perhaps thought we were just trying to get popular, which he didn’t really care about. It caused a parting of the ways, which was sad, but he was always very specific about what he liked and what he would or wouldn’t do, which I always respected. Good for him ! But, anyway, we were offered a deal with Fresh and by then we also has a publishing deal with Signatune, who also worked with Angelic Upstarts and Cockney Rejects, so we were getting some good gigs. By the time we went to Fresh, we pretty much had the whole album already written and rehearsed, so we were able to record the whole thing in two days ! We just went straight in and did it, which is incredible. That being said, the one thing I have to say is that I don’t think we ever really managed to capture our live sound on record. People would see us live and tell us that we sounded great, but when they heard the records they’d tell us they didn’t come across in the same way. We started working with Pete Wilson at that point and he’d been working with people like The Jam, so he always went for a very clean sound. He always asked us what kind of sound we wanted, and we’d say we wanted loud guitars, but it seemed as if it was just against his nature to record those big power chords. It just wasn’t his sound.
‘Not for me and Ian… but Bruce was studying at College and wanted to complete his Degree, while Joe just wanted to stay in Sunderland. Although he did actually end-up moving to London later on, and even played with Ian in one of his later bands… the Folk Devils, I think…
Your second single, ‘Exchange’ was produced by Steve Jones. How did he get involved ?
Andzy ; He’d turned up at one of our gigs in West London, at a pub called the Warwick Castle, I think. He was in the audience with some of his mates, so we went up to him afterwards and asked what he thought. We got talking and we mentioned that we were going to be recording our new single the following day, so he offered to come down and produce it. We thought that was great, but Pete at Small Wonder didn’t like it at all. Steve Jones was that sort of famous side of Punk, which Pete didn’t like at all, so it ended up causing a bit of a rift between us and Pete. I think he got quite upset about it, because he was really into the independent side of things and he felt that people like the Sex Pistols or The Clash were just a part of the big, corporate thing. And he possibly felt that we were perhaps trying to use Steve’s fame to promote our band, and didn’t feel comfortable with that at all. It’s sad that it happened, because we’d always got on so well with Pete, and that wasn’t why we did that with Steve.
He did get a great guitar sound on that single, though…
Andzy ; Yeah, which is what we wanted ! I remember he was sitting at the mixing desk and told us he just wanted to do guitars and guitars and guitars… We must’ve recorded about thirty takes of guitar and rammed it all together to get that massive sound. He did that and the single had a much better sound than the first one, which as I was saying, was really just the demo tape.
‘Exchange’ was well-received again, but you ended-up moving from Small Wonder to Fresh Records…
Andzy ; I think things had become a bit awkward because of the way Pete felt about us after we recorded the single with Steve Jones. I don’t think he was happy with us anymore and perhaps thought we were just trying to get popular, which he didn’t really care about. It caused a parting of the ways, which was sad, but he was always very specific about what he liked and what he would or wouldn’t do, which I always respected. Good for him ! But, anyway, we were offered a deal with Fresh and by then we also has a publishing deal with Signatune, who also worked with Angelic Upstarts and Cockney Rejects, so we were getting some good gigs. By the time we went to Fresh, we pretty much had the whole album already written and rehearsed, so we were able to record the whole thing in two days ! We just went straight in and did it, which is incredible. That being said, the one thing I have to say is that I don’t think we ever really managed to capture our live sound on record. People would see us live and tell us that we sounded great, but when they heard the records they’d tell us they didn’t come across in the same way. We started working with Pete Wilson at that point and he’d been working with people like The Jam, so he always went for a very clean sound. He always asked us what kind of sound we wanted, and we’d say we wanted loud guitars, but it seemed as if it was just against his nature to record those big power chords. It just wasn’t his sound.
Although you did get a really good sound on the ‘Ghetto’ single…
Andzy : But that was more down to Jimmy Pursey. We recorded that at Polydor with Pete Wilson and Pursey just walked in… I don’t know if it was set-up for that to happen because none of us knew he was going to be there, but he ended up standing next to Pete while we were recording and nudging him to turn the guitars up !
Al : He was on Polydor at the time and was also starting to produce bands like the Upstarts and the Rejects, so he knew how to get that bigger guitar sound which we wanted.
Andzy : He also suggested that we added the ‘Barbed Wire’ bit to the chorus… He said that if we were shouting ‘Ghetto’ in the chorus, there ought to be a reply, so that’s what we came up with and it did sound great. But it was basically his suggestion and I think it was him sitting next to Pete Wilson that gave us the great sound on that single. Pete was an amazing producer and a lovely bloke, but I have to say, he never really managed to get the same energy that we could produce as a live band.
I read that you initially recorded ‘Ghetto’ while Ian was still in the band ?
Andzy : Yeah, that’s right. We recorded the whole thing, but then Ian left, so when we found another singer we just put his vocals over the top of it. There’s probably still a tape of the version featuring Ian down in the depths of Polydor. He was an incredibly powerful character but he could be a real ego-maniac. There were certainly times when he wasn’t easy to get along with, but he was also a fantastic lyricist. Even those early songs he wrote with us were really amazing. He was incredibly talented, but he just didn’t fit into what we were trying to do.
Your first album, ‘Personal Troubles & Public Issues’, featured Ivan Kelly on vocals, who had previously been in Rueffrex. He certainly did a fine job, but he only remained in the band for a short while. Did you only intend for him to be a temporary vocalist ?
Andzy : No, not at all. I think Rab already knew him from when he was in Rueffrex, so when Ian left, Rab told us that he knew someone who would probably fit-in. Nick and I were sharing a flat at the time, so we were writing all of the music and fitting his lyrics to that, which seemed to work well. But after a while he went a bit loopy and disappeared. We would have been happy to continue with him because he was a good singer…
Andy : And he was a great front-man. He was an absolute lunatic on stage, but he also seemed to carry that over into his personal life as well. When you read the lyrics he wrote, you can see that now. He was a lovely bloke, but for some reason he just lost it.
Andzy : I think he really did have personal issues with various things and he was quite a complicated character.
Anyway, we were going to play a gig in Hull and he didn’t turn-up, so we decided that I should sing…
Andy : We still had two guitarist at that point, so I was handed the bass and Nick covered the guitars. I’d never played bass for the band before, so I didn’t really know what I was doing. It was my first and only time playing bass for the band !
Andzy : But that was more down to Jimmy Pursey. We recorded that at Polydor with Pete Wilson and Pursey just walked in… I don’t know if it was set-up for that to happen because none of us knew he was going to be there, but he ended up standing next to Pete while we were recording and nudging him to turn the guitars up !
Al : He was on Polydor at the time and was also starting to produce bands like the Upstarts and the Rejects, so he knew how to get that bigger guitar sound which we wanted.
Andzy : He also suggested that we added the ‘Barbed Wire’ bit to the chorus… He said that if we were shouting ‘Ghetto’ in the chorus, there ought to be a reply, so that’s what we came up with and it did sound great. But it was basically his suggestion and I think it was him sitting next to Pete Wilson that gave us the great sound on that single. Pete was an amazing producer and a lovely bloke, but I have to say, he never really managed to get the same energy that we could produce as a live band.
I read that you initially recorded ‘Ghetto’ while Ian was still in the band ?
Andzy : Yeah, that’s right. We recorded the whole thing, but then Ian left, so when we found another singer we just put his vocals over the top of it. There’s probably still a tape of the version featuring Ian down in the depths of Polydor. He was an incredibly powerful character but he could be a real ego-maniac. There were certainly times when he wasn’t easy to get along with, but he was also a fantastic lyricist. Even those early songs he wrote with us were really amazing. He was incredibly talented, but he just didn’t fit into what we were trying to do.
Your first album, ‘Personal Troubles & Public Issues’, featured Ivan Kelly on vocals, who had previously been in Rueffrex. He certainly did a fine job, but he only remained in the band for a short while. Did you only intend for him to be a temporary vocalist ?
Andzy : No, not at all. I think Rab already knew him from when he was in Rueffrex, so when Ian left, Rab told us that he knew someone who would probably fit-in. Nick and I were sharing a flat at the time, so we were writing all of the music and fitting his lyrics to that, which seemed to work well. But after a while he went a bit loopy and disappeared. We would have been happy to continue with him because he was a good singer…
Andy : And he was a great front-man. He was an absolute lunatic on stage, but he also seemed to carry that over into his personal life as well. When you read the lyrics he wrote, you can see that now. He was a lovely bloke, but for some reason he just lost it.
Andzy : I think he really did have personal issues with various things and he was quite a complicated character.
Anyway, we were going to play a gig in Hull and he didn’t turn-up, so we decided that I should sing…
Andy : We still had two guitarist at that point, so I was handed the bass and Nick covered the guitars. I’d never played bass for the band before, so I didn’t really know what I was doing. It was my first and only time playing bass for the band !
Do you think, as your music developed, that audiences were sometimes confused with what you were doing ? You obviously came from a Punk background, but at the same time were trying to approach it in different ways. You were almost caught between the more straight-ahead Punk bands and what is now called Post-punk…
Andzy : Yeah, in a way… we saw ourselves more aligned to bands like The Pack, who were still a Punk band but their songs were more broken-up and had different sections… Or even Stiff Little Fingers, as they were writing intelligent lyrics and were interested in a lot of different things. We liked bands that were a bit different and I don’t think we ever thought that we should just go for one particular type of audience.
Andy : We hadn’t written a business plan !
Andzy : We never discussed things like, what we wore or how we looked… When we turned up for a tour, we’d all just be wearing what we wore the rest of the time. We never had an image and we never thought about looking or sounding a certain way, just so the audience would know who or what we were.
Andy : That sort of thing just wasn’t who we were. We didn’t have a manager so we were never strategising, we were just being a band.
Andzy : We were always just a bunch of friends playing music that we enjoyed rather than some sort of manufactured band, out to conquer the world. We just wanted to play high energy music with some sort of political message.
But you did use very distinctive artwork, which was another thing that set you apart from a lot of the more regular punk bands…
Andzy : They were usually just ideas that I had, and I just ran with them. I’d show them to the rest of the band and they always seemed to think they were great, so that’s what we used. I’m not sure who actually designed the bands’ logo, which we used right from the first single, but that wasn’t me. I designed the cover for the first single but someone else did the type, because I couldn’t do that. But after the first one, I just used to cut the logo out from the previous single to use in the design for the next one… which is why all of my singles have holes in the sleeves !
The first album, ‘Personal Issues’, was released with two different sleeves. Why did that happen ?
Andzy ; The true story is that, just after we’d finished recording the album, I went away for a while, just for a break. I think Nick just had to go in and finish some of the guitar bits… Anyway, our drummer, Rab, had a mate who had painted that image of the screaming head, so they handed that in to Fresh to use as the artwork. By the time I came back, Fresh had rushed the album out with that cover. Up until then, I had done all the artwork and covers for the band, so I felt that was my thing. But the album came out really quickly and they hadn’t even show the cover to us. We had no chance to discuss it or change it, so, when it came to the point that it was going to be repressed, I took the opportunity to use the artwork that I was originally intending to use.
Andzy : Yeah, in a way… we saw ourselves more aligned to bands like The Pack, who were still a Punk band but their songs were more broken-up and had different sections… Or even Stiff Little Fingers, as they were writing intelligent lyrics and were interested in a lot of different things. We liked bands that were a bit different and I don’t think we ever thought that we should just go for one particular type of audience.
Andy : We hadn’t written a business plan !
Andzy : We never discussed things like, what we wore or how we looked… When we turned up for a tour, we’d all just be wearing what we wore the rest of the time. We never had an image and we never thought about looking or sounding a certain way, just so the audience would know who or what we were.
Andy : That sort of thing just wasn’t who we were. We didn’t have a manager so we were never strategising, we were just being a band.
Andzy : We were always just a bunch of friends playing music that we enjoyed rather than some sort of manufactured band, out to conquer the world. We just wanted to play high energy music with some sort of political message.
But you did use very distinctive artwork, which was another thing that set you apart from a lot of the more regular punk bands…
Andzy : They were usually just ideas that I had, and I just ran with them. I’d show them to the rest of the band and they always seemed to think they were great, so that’s what we used. I’m not sure who actually designed the bands’ logo, which we used right from the first single, but that wasn’t me. I designed the cover for the first single but someone else did the type, because I couldn’t do that. But after the first one, I just used to cut the logo out from the previous single to use in the design for the next one… which is why all of my singles have holes in the sleeves !
The first album, ‘Personal Issues’, was released with two different sleeves. Why did that happen ?
Andzy ; The true story is that, just after we’d finished recording the album, I went away for a while, just for a break. I think Nick just had to go in and finish some of the guitar bits… Anyway, our drummer, Rab, had a mate who had painted that image of the screaming head, so they handed that in to Fresh to use as the artwork. By the time I came back, Fresh had rushed the album out with that cover. Up until then, I had done all the artwork and covers for the band, so I felt that was my thing. But the album came out really quickly and they hadn’t even show the cover to us. We had no chance to discuss it or change it, so, when it came to the point that it was going to be repressed, I took the opportunity to use the artwork that I was originally intending to use.
The final release with Fresh was the ‘Hobby For a Day’ single, which also had very distinct artwork and is probably the image most-often associated with The Wall…
Andzy : The cover image was actually a selfie of me !
Al : Years before selfies had been invented !
Andzy : I had a dark-room set up in my bathroom, so I used to take photos and then get under these covers and develop them myself.
Andy : The artwork on the second cover of ‘Personal Troubles’ is you as well, isn’t it ?
Andzy : Yeah, it’s from the same set of photos that I developed. It’s me wearing all that combat gear, just kind of curled up… I used to buy all this stuff from Army Surplus shops, like gas masks and things, and I’d use that in the photos I was taking.
The band were then, finally, signed by Polydor. As they’d originally shown no interest, how come they changed their minds ?
Andzy : I think Rab was mostly responsible for that. He did such a lot of wheeling and dealing and he was such a forceful character… We’d already been recording at Polydor studios with Pete, which had been set-up through our publishers, so we got to know a few of the people there. One of the A&R mean, Dennis, really got on well with Rab, so Rab kept pestering him for a deal and in the end, he gave in !
Andy : I remember one afternoon, when we were all hanging around at Rab’s place in Clapham, he suddenly said, let’s go and see Dennis. Somehow, Rab had got his address, so we just went around there. It wasn’t pre-arranged or anything, we just turned-up. Dennis was just trying to have a quiet weekend with his girlfriend and we all turned-up. I remember the look on his face and I’m sure he wasn’t happy, but Rab had told us it would be fine. That may have been the point when our relationship with Polydor started to go sour.
The first release with Polydor was the ‘Remembrance’ single. It had a much bigger production and sounded really powerful…
Andzy : I think that was due to us having Andy on the guitar, because Nick was more into a sort of Bluesy guitar sound…
Andy : He was a Fender man, while I played a Gibson. I liked a bigger guitar sound, like early AC/DC or something… Both Rab and I were really into harder Rock music, so we wanted to inject a bit more power into our studio sound.
Andzy : Andy also wrote the music for that single, so it really was about his guitar sound, especially that big finale. It was all about that big, distorted, chugging guitar sound !
Andzy : The cover image was actually a selfie of me !
Al : Years before selfies had been invented !
Andzy : I had a dark-room set up in my bathroom, so I used to take photos and then get under these covers and develop them myself.
Andy : The artwork on the second cover of ‘Personal Troubles’ is you as well, isn’t it ?
Andzy : Yeah, it’s from the same set of photos that I developed. It’s me wearing all that combat gear, just kind of curled up… I used to buy all this stuff from Army Surplus shops, like gas masks and things, and I’d use that in the photos I was taking.
The band were then, finally, signed by Polydor. As they’d originally shown no interest, how come they changed their minds ?
Andzy : I think Rab was mostly responsible for that. He did such a lot of wheeling and dealing and he was such a forceful character… We’d already been recording at Polydor studios with Pete, which had been set-up through our publishers, so we got to know a few of the people there. One of the A&R mean, Dennis, really got on well with Rab, so Rab kept pestering him for a deal and in the end, he gave in !
Andy : I remember one afternoon, when we were all hanging around at Rab’s place in Clapham, he suddenly said, let’s go and see Dennis. Somehow, Rab had got his address, so we just went around there. It wasn’t pre-arranged or anything, we just turned-up. Dennis was just trying to have a quiet weekend with his girlfriend and we all turned-up. I remember the look on his face and I’m sure he wasn’t happy, but Rab had told us it would be fine. That may have been the point when our relationship with Polydor started to go sour.
The first release with Polydor was the ‘Remembrance’ single. It had a much bigger production and sounded really powerful…
Andzy : I think that was due to us having Andy on the guitar, because Nick was more into a sort of Bluesy guitar sound…
Andy : He was a Fender man, while I played a Gibson. I liked a bigger guitar sound, like early AC/DC or something… Both Rab and I were really into harder Rock music, so we wanted to inject a bit more power into our studio sound.
Andzy : Andy also wrote the music for that single, so it really was about his guitar sound, especially that big finale. It was all about that big, distorted, chugging guitar sound !
It was also another single where all three tracks were really outstanding, with both ‘Hsi Nao’ and ‘Hooligan Nights’ on the b-side... but I’ve always wondered what ‘Hsi Nao’ meant ?
Andzy : It means ‘brainwashed’, in Chinese…
Andy : I doubt that many people knew what it meant… even the rest of us didn’t know ! We used to call it ‘Hissy Nawo’ because we didn’t have a clue about it…
Andzy : Actually, I’m not even sure if that’s the right pronunciation of the words that I’m singing… I just came across the phrase when I was reading a book about the CIA. It was about the time in the Fifties and Sixties when they were giving people things like LSD to try and brainwash them. That’s what the song is all about, that government-sponsored brainwashing scheme that ended up with people jumping out of windows and all these awful things that they were doing to their own people.
The cover artwork was very striking…
Andzy ; Actually, that was one of the few that I didn’t design, because Polydor wanted their in-house designers to do it. But I talked to the design-team and I had recently seen this Japanese Butoh dance-troupe and they were all bald and covered in white make-up… I was interested in trying to get a sense of someone that was dead but wasn’t actually gone, so I suggested they should use that kind of bald, pale figure. They just added those mad eyebrows. So the actual images on the sleeve were by the design team, but I can claim they were from one of my initial ideas…
Andy : It was also a sort of echo of the cover for ‘Ghetto’, which had that bald figure with its’ mouth open, almost like ‘The Scream’…
Andzy : It means ‘brainwashed’, in Chinese…
Andy : I doubt that many people knew what it meant… even the rest of us didn’t know ! We used to call it ‘Hissy Nawo’ because we didn’t have a clue about it…
Andzy : Actually, I’m not even sure if that’s the right pronunciation of the words that I’m singing… I just came across the phrase when I was reading a book about the CIA. It was about the time in the Fifties and Sixties when they were giving people things like LSD to try and brainwash them. That’s what the song is all about, that government-sponsored brainwashing scheme that ended up with people jumping out of windows and all these awful things that they were doing to their own people.
The cover artwork was very striking…
Andzy ; Actually, that was one of the few that I didn’t design, because Polydor wanted their in-house designers to do it. But I talked to the design-team and I had recently seen this Japanese Butoh dance-troupe and they were all bald and covered in white make-up… I was interested in trying to get a sense of someone that was dead but wasn’t actually gone, so I suggested they should use that kind of bald, pale figure. They just added those mad eyebrows. So the actual images on the sleeve were by the design team, but I can claim they were from one of my initial ideas…
Andy : It was also a sort of echo of the cover for ‘Ghetto’, which had that bald figure with its’ mouth open, almost like ‘The Scream’…
The single also got the boost of you going on tour with Stiff Little Fingers, which brought you to the attention of much bigger audiences.
Andzy : Polydor paid for us to go on that tour, because they were just about to release ‘Remembrance’ and realised it would be great publicity if we could play on a big tour. Stiff Little Fingers thought we’d be a good band to support them, so it was perfect for us. We were playing to 2000-3000 people every night and getting called back for encores at every gig, which is pretty unusual for a support band. I remember when we played at the first gig on the tour, somewhere like Milton Keynes I think, and right from the start we had a great response from the audience. Stiff Little Fingers even came out of their dressing room to see what was going on, because they thought there was a big fight going on ! They’d never seen a support band get that kind of reaction from their fans before, so they ended-up watching us from the side of the stage and they couldn’t believe it. The whole tour was brilliant for us, and the ‘Remembrance’ single did really well. We got fantastic reviews for it and almost made it into the Top Forty. When we finished the tour, we realised that we ought to go out on tour again straight away, by ourselves, to build on the new fanbase. But when we went to Polydor and said we ought to go on tour headlining smaller clubs, they just weren’t interested and wouldn’t back us. They didn’t want to spend anymore money on us, but in hindsight, that was probably the moment when we possibly could have attracted a much bigger audience as a lot of people had seen us supporting Stiff Little Fingers and there was a good chance that a lot of them would have come to see us again on our own.
Andy : There was also a weird thing going on, which I can’t imagine a record company would even allow today, in that ‘Hobby For A Day’ actually came out at the same time as ‘Remembrance’. They were like, parallel releases. Fresh already had that single ready to release when we signed to Polydor, and as they then released ‘Remembrance’ really quickly, both came out at the same time. That made things a bit weird with Polydor because they didn’t like paying for us to be on a tour that was also promoting ‘Hobby For a Day’ as well. But both singles did really well as a result of it and we certainly had some momentum at that point, so it’s sad that we couldn’t follow up on it.
Andzy : It had been really good for us because, before then, we’d only really played in much smaller clubs. We did get the support on one of the Upstarts tours, but that would still mostly smaller venues and a lot of their gigs got cancelled because of all the trouble that was happening with skinheads. We actually didn’t get many gigs of our own after that tour, because of the trouble that had happened at the Upstarts gigs, which was really nothing to do with us. But we’d been connected with that, and it sort of set-us back for a while.
Andzy : Polydor paid for us to go on that tour, because they were just about to release ‘Remembrance’ and realised it would be great publicity if we could play on a big tour. Stiff Little Fingers thought we’d be a good band to support them, so it was perfect for us. We were playing to 2000-3000 people every night and getting called back for encores at every gig, which is pretty unusual for a support band. I remember when we played at the first gig on the tour, somewhere like Milton Keynes I think, and right from the start we had a great response from the audience. Stiff Little Fingers even came out of their dressing room to see what was going on, because they thought there was a big fight going on ! They’d never seen a support band get that kind of reaction from their fans before, so they ended-up watching us from the side of the stage and they couldn’t believe it. The whole tour was brilliant for us, and the ‘Remembrance’ single did really well. We got fantastic reviews for it and almost made it into the Top Forty. When we finished the tour, we realised that we ought to go out on tour again straight away, by ourselves, to build on the new fanbase. But when we went to Polydor and said we ought to go on tour headlining smaller clubs, they just weren’t interested and wouldn’t back us. They didn’t want to spend anymore money on us, but in hindsight, that was probably the moment when we possibly could have attracted a much bigger audience as a lot of people had seen us supporting Stiff Little Fingers and there was a good chance that a lot of them would have come to see us again on our own.
Andy : There was also a weird thing going on, which I can’t imagine a record company would even allow today, in that ‘Hobby For A Day’ actually came out at the same time as ‘Remembrance’. They were like, parallel releases. Fresh already had that single ready to release when we signed to Polydor, and as they then released ‘Remembrance’ really quickly, both came out at the same time. That made things a bit weird with Polydor because they didn’t like paying for us to be on a tour that was also promoting ‘Hobby For a Day’ as well. But both singles did really well as a result of it and we certainly had some momentum at that point, so it’s sad that we couldn’t follow up on it.
Andzy : It had been really good for us because, before then, we’d only really played in much smaller clubs. We did get the support on one of the Upstarts tours, but that would still mostly smaller venues and a lot of their gigs got cancelled because of all the trouble that was happening with skinheads. We actually didn’t get many gigs of our own after that tour, because of the trouble that had happened at the Upstarts gigs, which was really nothing to do with us. But we’d been connected with that, and it sort of set-us back for a while.
Again, there was another line-up change and you had a stand-in bass-player for the SLF tour…
Andy ; Yeah we did… Soapy Joe ! I don’t even know what his real name was ! His first name was Joe, but that’s all I ever found out. I think that was another of Rab’s nicknames…
Andzy : He came in at the beginning of the tour and then left right at the end. He was a rockabilly and probably didn’t really like Punk…
Andy : And he didn’t use a plectrum, which we thought was very weird. Playing bass with your fingers just wasn’t the way you were supposed to do it in a Punk band ! But he was a great bass player and stood in really well on the SLF tour. But I don’t think he would’ve fit-in for the longer term.
Andzy : But it did give me a chance to concentrate more on my vocals, because before then I’d been trying to sing and play bass. I wasn’t clever enough to do that properly !
Straight after the tour, you found another new bass-player in the form of Claire Bidwell, who had previously been in The Passions…
Andzy : I think she actually approached us when we were looking for a bass-player to come with us on the Stiff Little Fingers Tour. She came for an audition but when she found out how soon the tour was going to be, she couldn’t do it because she had to finish the things she was doing with The Passions. After we finished the tour, she was able to come on board with us, just in time for the album. And she fitted-in really well. She was a great bass-player and she really loved the music we were doing, so it was good for all of us.
‘Dirges & Anthems’ came as a bit of a surprise to a lot of people, though. There were a lot of great songs on there, but the material was a lot more diverse. That wouldn’t necessarily have been a problem, but the production didn’t sound as strong as it should have been, which seemed to put people off…
Andy : It ended up with a really strange mix. I remember hearing a vinyl copy for the first time and it just sounded really quiet compared to what we heard in the studio. I think the songs were great, but the mix just seemed to lose everything.
Andzy ; I think we probably tried to put too many songs on there. After we recorded everything, we didn’t edit it very much. We should’ve really listened to the whole thing and decided what we needed to put on there, rather than just including everything. I think we were always guilty of that… we’d have all of these songs so we wanted to chuck all of them on the record. Instead of doing that, we should have concentrated on putting the best tracks together and making sure the final mix came out properly. But we weren’t really interested in that side of things,so someone else did that and it came out sounding really weak. It was just too toned-down.
Andy : I think there were also tensions in the band about which direction we were going in, because I wanted to go for the heavier sound while other people wanted to include more melodic stuff. The album has both kinds of songs on it, which in retrospect I think is great, but at the time it wasn’t what I wanted to be playing. I don’t think the album had a real focus and it wasn’t saying, this is who we are and this is what we’re doing. I’d write a song and have a certain sound in mind for when we recorded it, but Pete Wilson would take all the power away from it when he mixed it. The songs became too nice and clean and that wasn’t the way I wrote them, so I think there were creative tensions going on. I think you can hear that when you listen to the album. There were lots of different things going on and that could’ve been good, but we didn’t have the vision that we needed to put them altogether as a solid album.
Andy ; Yeah we did… Soapy Joe ! I don’t even know what his real name was ! His first name was Joe, but that’s all I ever found out. I think that was another of Rab’s nicknames…
Andzy : He came in at the beginning of the tour and then left right at the end. He was a rockabilly and probably didn’t really like Punk…
Andy : And he didn’t use a plectrum, which we thought was very weird. Playing bass with your fingers just wasn’t the way you were supposed to do it in a Punk band ! But he was a great bass player and stood in really well on the SLF tour. But I don’t think he would’ve fit-in for the longer term.
Andzy : But it did give me a chance to concentrate more on my vocals, because before then I’d been trying to sing and play bass. I wasn’t clever enough to do that properly !
Straight after the tour, you found another new bass-player in the form of Claire Bidwell, who had previously been in The Passions…
Andzy : I think she actually approached us when we were looking for a bass-player to come with us on the Stiff Little Fingers Tour. She came for an audition but when she found out how soon the tour was going to be, she couldn’t do it because she had to finish the things she was doing with The Passions. After we finished the tour, she was able to come on board with us, just in time for the album. And she fitted-in really well. She was a great bass-player and she really loved the music we were doing, so it was good for all of us.
‘Dirges & Anthems’ came as a bit of a surprise to a lot of people, though. There were a lot of great songs on there, but the material was a lot more diverse. That wouldn’t necessarily have been a problem, but the production didn’t sound as strong as it should have been, which seemed to put people off…
Andy : It ended up with a really strange mix. I remember hearing a vinyl copy for the first time and it just sounded really quiet compared to what we heard in the studio. I think the songs were great, but the mix just seemed to lose everything.
Andzy ; I think we probably tried to put too many songs on there. After we recorded everything, we didn’t edit it very much. We should’ve really listened to the whole thing and decided what we needed to put on there, rather than just including everything. I think we were always guilty of that… we’d have all of these songs so we wanted to chuck all of them on the record. Instead of doing that, we should have concentrated on putting the best tracks together and making sure the final mix came out properly. But we weren’t really interested in that side of things,so someone else did that and it came out sounding really weak. It was just too toned-down.
Andy : I think there were also tensions in the band about which direction we were going in, because I wanted to go for the heavier sound while other people wanted to include more melodic stuff. The album has both kinds of songs on it, which in retrospect I think is great, but at the time it wasn’t what I wanted to be playing. I don’t think the album had a real focus and it wasn’t saying, this is who we are and this is what we’re doing. I’d write a song and have a certain sound in mind for when we recorded it, but Pete Wilson would take all the power away from it when he mixed it. The songs became too nice and clean and that wasn’t the way I wrote them, so I think there were creative tensions going on. I think you can hear that when you listen to the album. There were lots of different things going on and that could’ve been good, but we didn’t have the vision that we needed to put them altogether as a solid album.
To add to this, Polydor then decided to release ‘Epitaph’ as a single. While it certainly wasn’t a bad song, it really wasn’t very representative of the band or the rest of the album…
Andzy : That was their decision, we didn’t have any say in it being released as a single…
Al : I always thought that ‘Barriers’ would have been a much better single…
Andzy : Polydor wanted to release something with a more poppy sound, which was nothing to do with us. I think it was their last-ditch attempt to try and shoe-horn us into a different thing, but that was never going to work.
The album ends with the track ‘Anthem’, which was dedicated to Alex Harvey…
Andzy : Yeah, he was one of my heroes. I used to go to see the Sensational Alex Harvey Band whenever I could. They were absolutely amazing. I think he had only recently died when we were recording the album so we decided to do that as a tribute. I don’t think they get the credit they deserve when people talk about all the pre-punk influences. To me, they were certainly on a par with Dr Feelgood and bands like that. They had that Gibson SG sound and there were a lot of people listening to them who went on to form the early Punk bands.
The band left Polydor soon after ‘Dirges & Anthems’ was released. It must have been disappointing that things hadn’t gone better, especially after it had started so well with ‘Remembrance’ and the Stiff Little Fingers tour…
Andzy : It was, yeah. But I think it was like the thing that Andy was saying… We were starting to lack a sense of identity in the band and we were drifting a bit. Nobody was really sure what we wanted to do next and I think we’d all been unhappy with the lack of control we had with Polydor. They seemed more interested in the New Romantic thing that was just coming along and it started to feel like they weren’t bothered with us anymore.
Your final release was the ‘Daytripper’ EP, which came out on No Future records, both as a four-track 7” and a 10-track 12”… was that another attempt to release everything that you’d recorded ?
Andzy ; Yeah, they were all the new songs we’d been writing since we left Polydor. We were at a point when we were trying to decide if we wanted to keep going or if we were going to split-up… We weren’t touring and not really playing anywhere, so it all seemed a bit grim. All of the New Romantic stuff started doing really well, which was pretty depressing for us, so I think that EP was our last gasp. That being said, I think it was a good record and it sold pretty well. We were back to our heavier sound and we really had fun making it. Like the cover of ‘When I’m Dancing’ - I really enjoyed singing that and I think my vocals were getting pretty good by then. I also think we could enjoy ourselves because we didn’t have the pressure from Polydor anymore. But that being said, we really didn’t know what we wanted to do next... We carried on for a while but it was as if we were running out of fuel. There was never any kind of car-crash ending to the band, but it was more as if we just ran-out of things that we wanted to do. I remember thinking, this just isn’t for me anymore. We were doing such a small amount of work with the band that we all just started to drift away.
Andzy : That was their decision, we didn’t have any say in it being released as a single…
Al : I always thought that ‘Barriers’ would have been a much better single…
Andzy : Polydor wanted to release something with a more poppy sound, which was nothing to do with us. I think it was their last-ditch attempt to try and shoe-horn us into a different thing, but that was never going to work.
The album ends with the track ‘Anthem’, which was dedicated to Alex Harvey…
Andzy : Yeah, he was one of my heroes. I used to go to see the Sensational Alex Harvey Band whenever I could. They were absolutely amazing. I think he had only recently died when we were recording the album so we decided to do that as a tribute. I don’t think they get the credit they deserve when people talk about all the pre-punk influences. To me, they were certainly on a par with Dr Feelgood and bands like that. They had that Gibson SG sound and there were a lot of people listening to them who went on to form the early Punk bands.
The band left Polydor soon after ‘Dirges & Anthems’ was released. It must have been disappointing that things hadn’t gone better, especially after it had started so well with ‘Remembrance’ and the Stiff Little Fingers tour…
Andzy : It was, yeah. But I think it was like the thing that Andy was saying… We were starting to lack a sense of identity in the band and we were drifting a bit. Nobody was really sure what we wanted to do next and I think we’d all been unhappy with the lack of control we had with Polydor. They seemed more interested in the New Romantic thing that was just coming along and it started to feel like they weren’t bothered with us anymore.
Your final release was the ‘Daytripper’ EP, which came out on No Future records, both as a four-track 7” and a 10-track 12”… was that another attempt to release everything that you’d recorded ?
Andzy ; Yeah, they were all the new songs we’d been writing since we left Polydor. We were at a point when we were trying to decide if we wanted to keep going or if we were going to split-up… We weren’t touring and not really playing anywhere, so it all seemed a bit grim. All of the New Romantic stuff started doing really well, which was pretty depressing for us, so I think that EP was our last gasp. That being said, I think it was a good record and it sold pretty well. We were back to our heavier sound and we really had fun making it. Like the cover of ‘When I’m Dancing’ - I really enjoyed singing that and I think my vocals were getting pretty good by then. I also think we could enjoy ourselves because we didn’t have the pressure from Polydor anymore. But that being said, we really didn’t know what we wanted to do next... We carried on for a while but it was as if we were running out of fuel. There was never any kind of car-crash ending to the band, but it was more as if we just ran-out of things that we wanted to do. I remember thinking, this just isn’t for me anymore. We were doing such a small amount of work with the band that we all just started to drift away.
You all went on to other things, mostly away from music, but fans have always maintained a healthy respect for, and interest in, the band. Is that why you decided to reform in 2007 to play at Rebellion Festival ?
Al : What happened was that, in 2006, I set-up a Myspace site, just as a way of getting in touch with all the old members again. I was gradually starting to get back in touch with everyone, and then Darren from Rebellion got in touch. It turned out that he had always been a fan of the band, so he asked if we would be interested in playing again.
Andzy : We hadn’t been in touch at all for quite a long time, so it was good just to see everyone again.
Al : We agreed to play at Rebellion but we decided to do it in a really strange way. We didn’t just have one line-up playing the whole set, we had different people from the different versions of the band coming onstage and playing the songs that they had originally played on. Logistically, it was mental, but it worked because it brought everything and everyone back together. But it was a bit bonkers, with people coming on midway through the set and having to plug-in to someone else’s amp. The sound is a bit challenging at Rebellion anyway, because you only get a line-check before you play, just to make sure that everything is working, and we’d only played one warm-up before then, in Stockport, which had been completely different as it was just in a pub and we’d had all afternoon to sound-check.
Andzy : The best thing about it was when we all met-up to rehearse for the first time. We all live all over the place, so we arranged to meet-up in London. Some of us hadn’t even seen each other for 25 years, but we all walked-in and it was as if we’d never been apart. Someone asked, What shall we play, and someone else said ‘Uniforms’, so we went into it and everyone played it great !
Al : We had a bit of trouble with some of the different arrangements, but everyone still knew how to play the songs.
Andzy : I think, because we used to play the songs so often onstage, we were able to just tear through them again.
After that first reunion at Rebellion, did you have any intentions to do anything further with the band ? I think you were supposed to play a gig in London, but it didn’t go ahead in the end…
Al : Yeah, we were actually going to play here together with Honey Bane, who we knew from years ago when she was on Small Wonder. She was also at the studio when we they recording the ‘Ghetto’ single and, according to Rab, Jimmy Pursey spent more time trying to get-off with her than he did producing The Wall ! She had got in touch with us again through Myspace and it turned out that she was thinking about putting a new band together, so we suggested that we play a gig together in London, after Rebellion. But for some reason she wasn’t able to get her band together so it didn’t happen. That was a shame as I think it would have been really good, but I think that was all we intended to do at that time. We’d come back and played at Rebellion, which was great, but I think we all felt that would be it. It was almost like reaching the end of the sentence, in a way.
Andzy : I think most of us felt it would be the last hurrah for the band. We all came back together and played those songs one more time. It was good fun, but we just thought that would be it.
Andy : But, again, Rebellion proved to be the catalyst for us. In fact, I think he booked us to play at the 2016 Rebellion before we had even decided if we wanted to do it !
Al : What happened was that, in 2006, I set-up a Myspace site, just as a way of getting in touch with all the old members again. I was gradually starting to get back in touch with everyone, and then Darren from Rebellion got in touch. It turned out that he had always been a fan of the band, so he asked if we would be interested in playing again.
Andzy : We hadn’t been in touch at all for quite a long time, so it was good just to see everyone again.
Al : We agreed to play at Rebellion but we decided to do it in a really strange way. We didn’t just have one line-up playing the whole set, we had different people from the different versions of the band coming onstage and playing the songs that they had originally played on. Logistically, it was mental, but it worked because it brought everything and everyone back together. But it was a bit bonkers, with people coming on midway through the set and having to plug-in to someone else’s amp. The sound is a bit challenging at Rebellion anyway, because you only get a line-check before you play, just to make sure that everything is working, and we’d only played one warm-up before then, in Stockport, which had been completely different as it was just in a pub and we’d had all afternoon to sound-check.
Andzy : The best thing about it was when we all met-up to rehearse for the first time. We all live all over the place, so we arranged to meet-up in London. Some of us hadn’t even seen each other for 25 years, but we all walked-in and it was as if we’d never been apart. Someone asked, What shall we play, and someone else said ‘Uniforms’, so we went into it and everyone played it great !
Al : We had a bit of trouble with some of the different arrangements, but everyone still knew how to play the songs.
Andzy : I think, because we used to play the songs so often onstage, we were able to just tear through them again.
After that first reunion at Rebellion, did you have any intentions to do anything further with the band ? I think you were supposed to play a gig in London, but it didn’t go ahead in the end…
Al : Yeah, we were actually going to play here together with Honey Bane, who we knew from years ago when she was on Small Wonder. She was also at the studio when we they recording the ‘Ghetto’ single and, according to Rab, Jimmy Pursey spent more time trying to get-off with her than he did producing The Wall ! She had got in touch with us again through Myspace and it turned out that she was thinking about putting a new band together, so we suggested that we play a gig together in London, after Rebellion. But for some reason she wasn’t able to get her band together so it didn’t happen. That was a shame as I think it would have been really good, but I think that was all we intended to do at that time. We’d come back and played at Rebellion, which was great, but I think we all felt that would be it. It was almost like reaching the end of the sentence, in a way.
Andzy : I think most of us felt it would be the last hurrah for the band. We all came back together and played those songs one more time. It was good fun, but we just thought that would be it.
Andy : But, again, Rebellion proved to be the catalyst for us. In fact, I think he booked us to play at the 2016 Rebellion before we had even decided if we wanted to do it !
But the main difference this time is that you’ve also recorded and released a new single, ‘Damnation Disco’.
Andy : I think we had a different vision for what we should do. It was great that first time, hooking-up with so many different people that had been involved in the bands’ history, but this time we thought we’d like to have a more cohesive unit to play the songs and give it one overall sound. We didn’t want to do it with all the walk-ons again, so that’s what we decided to do. But it wasn’t until a friend of mine asked if we’d have any new songs this time that I started thinking about it. I mean, last time we didn’t even have any t-shirts for sale, but we started to think about it and decided that we ought to do it properly this time. I still play guitar and write songs all the time, anyway, and I came up with a couple of new ones that seemed to suggest themselves for The Wall, so we tried them out in rehearsals and they seemed to work. Our new drummer, Mark, had some connections with a studio, so we set everything up and did it. It’s good because it makes it feel like a new project rather than just a reunion and it gives us more options. The whole ethic of the Punk movement was ‘do-it-yourself’ and the thing is, it’s easier to do that now than it ever was back then. You can go online and advertise yourself, you can make and sell your own merch, and connect with people who remember us from the first time around or who have maybe just come across us. We’re really enjoying doing that and just exploring what else we can do. I think we’re just going to see how it goes and then we’ll decide after Rebellion what we want to do next.
Al : We have been getting emails offering us gigs in different places and we’d definitely be open for that, but we’ll just have to see if we can work it out.
Andzy : We never got the chance to play abroad, originally, so that might be something that could happen this time. We did once get an offer to go and play at the SO36 Club in Berlin, but someone - Rab ! - wasn’t able to get a passport for some dubious reason. And the first album was released in Portugal so we were asked to play some dates over there, but we couldn’t do those for the same reason. That was one of my regrets about the band, I think. It would’ve been great to play abroad and we even had the offers to do it. But maybe we can put that right this time around…
Andy : I think we had a different vision for what we should do. It was great that first time, hooking-up with so many different people that had been involved in the bands’ history, but this time we thought we’d like to have a more cohesive unit to play the songs and give it one overall sound. We didn’t want to do it with all the walk-ons again, so that’s what we decided to do. But it wasn’t until a friend of mine asked if we’d have any new songs this time that I started thinking about it. I mean, last time we didn’t even have any t-shirts for sale, but we started to think about it and decided that we ought to do it properly this time. I still play guitar and write songs all the time, anyway, and I came up with a couple of new ones that seemed to suggest themselves for The Wall, so we tried them out in rehearsals and they seemed to work. Our new drummer, Mark, had some connections with a studio, so we set everything up and did it. It’s good because it makes it feel like a new project rather than just a reunion and it gives us more options. The whole ethic of the Punk movement was ‘do-it-yourself’ and the thing is, it’s easier to do that now than it ever was back then. You can go online and advertise yourself, you can make and sell your own merch, and connect with people who remember us from the first time around or who have maybe just come across us. We’re really enjoying doing that and just exploring what else we can do. I think we’re just going to see how it goes and then we’ll decide after Rebellion what we want to do next.
Al : We have been getting emails offering us gigs in different places and we’d definitely be open for that, but we’ll just have to see if we can work it out.
Andzy : We never got the chance to play abroad, originally, so that might be something that could happen this time. We did once get an offer to go and play at the SO36 Club in Berlin, but someone - Rab ! - wasn’t able to get a passport for some dubious reason. And the first album was released in Portugal so we were asked to play some dates over there, but we couldn’t do those for the same reason. That was one of my regrets about the band, I think. It would’ve been great to play abroad and we even had the offers to do it. But maybe we can put that right this time around…
By the time we’ve finished the interview, the first band are due onstage. An odd looking bunch called the Legendary Characters, they prove themselves to be a pretty intriguing combo, playing a mixture of garage punk (both Sixties and '77 versions) plus healthy chunks of psychedelia and krautrock. There were certain similarities with Swell Maps, I thought, although I doubt they were a direct influence. I spoke to their singer afterwards and he gave me a copy of their first CD which, he explained, was recorded a while ago and doesn’t really represent what they’re doing now, but this is certainly a band that I would like to check-out further.
The main support comes from The Morgellons who are really on form tonight. An appropriate support for The Wall, as they also come from a punk background but are intent on pushing it forward with their own character and ideas. They also play a great version of ‘Blank Generation’ that really sounds effective, even compared to the classic original !
With two guitarists, bassist and vocalist across the front of the stage, The Wall don’t have that much room to move but from the opening song, ‘Kiss The Mirror’, they sound superb. They’re still as powerful and in-your-face as I remembered, but they also have great tunes and a unique approach that make songs like ‘New Way’, ‘Hobby For a Day’ or ‘Career Mother’ unique and instantly recognisable. ‘Ghetto’ is played surprisingly early in the set but still sends a tingle down my spine. One of the best punk singles ever ? Certainly in my book… The tracks from the new single, ‘Damnation Disco’ and ‘The Antagonist’, fit in well alongside the older material, while songs like ‘Barriers’ temper the proceedings with slower, though no less powerful, rhythms. ‘Remembrance’ remains as glorious as when I first heard it and then, finally, ‘Uniforms’ ends the encore, just as it did at Canterbury Odeon all those years ago. This was an outstanding gig and it really didn’t feel as if it had been so long since the first time I saw them. Originally, their music wasn’t embraced by a wider audience possibly because they were unafraid to cross genres and didn’t fit in to any convenient pigeon-hole. But now, that’s the reason why their music still sounds fresh. It isn’t pinned-down to any particular movement or moment in time. It’s just damn-fine music whenever you hear it. While it’s unclear if or how they intend to continue performing, after seeing this gig, I certainly hope that we get the opportunity to see them again. And trust me, it will really be something you won’t want to miss it.
www.facebook.com/thewallpunk
The main support comes from The Morgellons who are really on form tonight. An appropriate support for The Wall, as they also come from a punk background but are intent on pushing it forward with their own character and ideas. They also play a great version of ‘Blank Generation’ that really sounds effective, even compared to the classic original !
With two guitarists, bassist and vocalist across the front of the stage, The Wall don’t have that much room to move but from the opening song, ‘Kiss The Mirror’, they sound superb. They’re still as powerful and in-your-face as I remembered, but they also have great tunes and a unique approach that make songs like ‘New Way’, ‘Hobby For a Day’ or ‘Career Mother’ unique and instantly recognisable. ‘Ghetto’ is played surprisingly early in the set but still sends a tingle down my spine. One of the best punk singles ever ? Certainly in my book… The tracks from the new single, ‘Damnation Disco’ and ‘The Antagonist’, fit in well alongside the older material, while songs like ‘Barriers’ temper the proceedings with slower, though no less powerful, rhythms. ‘Remembrance’ remains as glorious as when I first heard it and then, finally, ‘Uniforms’ ends the encore, just as it did at Canterbury Odeon all those years ago. This was an outstanding gig and it really didn’t feel as if it had been so long since the first time I saw them. Originally, their music wasn’t embraced by a wider audience possibly because they were unafraid to cross genres and didn’t fit in to any convenient pigeon-hole. But now, that’s the reason why their music still sounds fresh. It isn’t pinned-down to any particular movement or moment in time. It’s just damn-fine music whenever you hear it. While it’s unclear if or how they intend to continue performing, after seeing this gig, I certainly hope that we get the opportunity to see them again. And trust me, it will really be something you won’t want to miss it.
www.facebook.com/thewallpunk
