The Wasps originally formed in early 1976 and were up and running in plenty of time to be able to play at early punk venues like The Roxy and The Vortex. Their first single, ‘Teenage Treats’, was released in 1977 on their own label, ‘4 Play’ and met with a positive response. After the initial pressing sold-out, the single was picked-up by Illegal records who gave it a much wider distribution. The band also appeared on the ‘Live at the Vortex’ album and on the single released to promote it (both on the NEMS label.). Their songs had all the energy of Punk Rock but also included catchy melodies which would have sounded great on the radio. However, for some reason things didn’t come together and they wouldn’t get the chance to release another single, ‘Rubber Cars’, until 1979. It remains bewildering that they didn’t get signed-up by a bigger label during 1977-78, as I’m sure that if they had released an album at the time they would have become a lot more widely-known and respected. As it is, the few records that they did release are still popular amongst fans of the early UK punk scene, but they really deserved a lot more.
In 1979, they signed to RCA and released the ‘Rubber Cars’ single, which had a more ‘New Wave’ sound but was also very catchy and seemed destined for the Charts. But fate (and bad management) conspired and the band fell apart. Singer Jesse Lynn-Dean briefly tried to keep the band going, but no more would be heard from them until 2003, when the album ‘Punkryonics’ was released by Overground Records. Featuring the original singles and other previously-unreleased recordings, the record gave fans the chance to hear what an album could have sounded like had it been released in 1977/78. However, there was another long hiatus before Jesse (who has been living in Spain for many years) decided to put together a new version of The Wasps to play a few gigs and record an album of new material called ‘Punk Prayer’. With their new-found enthusiasm, the band also decided to play live in the UK again, for the first time in over 40 years! I decided that an interview had to be done, which is why I found myself at The Water Rats in Kings Cross, preparing to interview Jesse. Whilst the rest of the band are setting up for their soundcheck, we find a table out in the bar and start our conversation.
In 1979, they signed to RCA and released the ‘Rubber Cars’ single, which had a more ‘New Wave’ sound but was also very catchy and seemed destined for the Charts. But fate (and bad management) conspired and the band fell apart. Singer Jesse Lynn-Dean briefly tried to keep the band going, but no more would be heard from them until 2003, when the album ‘Punkryonics’ was released by Overground Records. Featuring the original singles and other previously-unreleased recordings, the record gave fans the chance to hear what an album could have sounded like had it been released in 1977/78. However, there was another long hiatus before Jesse (who has been living in Spain for many years) decided to put together a new version of The Wasps to play a few gigs and record an album of new material called ‘Punk Prayer’. With their new-found enthusiasm, the band also decided to play live in the UK again, for the first time in over 40 years! I decided that an interview had to be done, which is why I found myself at The Water Rats in Kings Cross, preparing to interview Jesse. Whilst the rest of the band are setting up for their soundcheck, we find a table out in the bar and start our conversation.
The original line-up of The Wasps had been based in East London, so I began by asking if that’s where Jesse had grown-up?
‘I grew-up in Islington originally, but when I was about 16 my parents ‘emigrated’, as I called it, to Enfield, which was a very different place. But I would still come back into London whenever I was going out. I didn’t used to hang about in Enfield, even though there was stuff going on around there. I would always come back into London because I was already familiar with it…’
What were your first interests in music?
‘I’d have to say that my first real interest in music was probably Bob Dylan. I was still pretty young, but one day some friends told me, you’ve got to hear this guy, his records sound like he’s in the same room as you! So, I went to a record shop with the two girls who had told me about him, and we went into the listening booth, which most record shops used to have in those days. We asked to hear the Bob Dylan record and it was exactly how they said it was… just him and his guitar, sounding as if he was right there with you. I really liked it, so I went straight out and bought a harmonica and started to learn a bit of music. But apart from Bob Dylan, I liked a lot of pop music, things like Dion and the Belmonts, The Four Seasons… This was still back in the Sixties and I just liked things that were catchy.’
How did you first get interested in Punk Rock?
‘I went to a gig in Finchley which I think was at a school or something like that. There were a load of bands there with their mates, but most of them hadn’t really played that many gigs by then. But there were a lot of the early Punks there, like Catwoman and Siouxsie, and I think Slaughter and the Dogs were playing… It all felt like a breath of fresh air to me. I was already looking to join a band at that time, so when I found the right guys to work with, I started writing new songs and they just seemed to go more that way. It just felt right at that time. I never sat down and decided that I wanted to write a ‘punk song’, it was just that there seemed to be something in the air and I got caught-up in it.’
Had you already been in any bands before The Wasps came together?
‘Yeah… I’d been in a couple of bands but it seemed like all they wanted to do was play like the Rolling Stones and 12-bar blues. I liked that stuff but I really wanted to do something of our own. I was also doing a lot of busking around that time, going down to Brighton with my guitar… It was funny, because I’d been living with this guy who’d been playing sax in the Crazy World of Arthur Brown and when he moved-on, he said ‘thanks’ for letting him stay at my place and decided to give me his guitar! I thought that was great and started trying to learn how to play it. I taught myself to play Jackie Wilson’s ‘Higher and Higher’ just by playing on one string! I gradually figured out that I only needed two chords, but then I was round at another mate’s house and I tried to show him what I could play on his guitar. I couldn’t understand why I couldn’t play it, until I realised that the guitar I’d been given was for a left-handed player and I’d been learning to play it upside-down! Once I realised that, I had to start learning all over again! Luckily, I’d only been trying to learn one song at that point, so it only set me back a couple of days…’
‘I grew-up in Islington originally, but when I was about 16 my parents ‘emigrated’, as I called it, to Enfield, which was a very different place. But I would still come back into London whenever I was going out. I didn’t used to hang about in Enfield, even though there was stuff going on around there. I would always come back into London because I was already familiar with it…’
What were your first interests in music?
‘I’d have to say that my first real interest in music was probably Bob Dylan. I was still pretty young, but one day some friends told me, you’ve got to hear this guy, his records sound like he’s in the same room as you! So, I went to a record shop with the two girls who had told me about him, and we went into the listening booth, which most record shops used to have in those days. We asked to hear the Bob Dylan record and it was exactly how they said it was… just him and his guitar, sounding as if he was right there with you. I really liked it, so I went straight out and bought a harmonica and started to learn a bit of music. But apart from Bob Dylan, I liked a lot of pop music, things like Dion and the Belmonts, The Four Seasons… This was still back in the Sixties and I just liked things that were catchy.’
How did you first get interested in Punk Rock?
‘I went to a gig in Finchley which I think was at a school or something like that. There were a load of bands there with their mates, but most of them hadn’t really played that many gigs by then. But there were a lot of the early Punks there, like Catwoman and Siouxsie, and I think Slaughter and the Dogs were playing… It all felt like a breath of fresh air to me. I was already looking to join a band at that time, so when I found the right guys to work with, I started writing new songs and they just seemed to go more that way. It just felt right at that time. I never sat down and decided that I wanted to write a ‘punk song’, it was just that there seemed to be something in the air and I got caught-up in it.’
Had you already been in any bands before The Wasps came together?
‘Yeah… I’d been in a couple of bands but it seemed like all they wanted to do was play like the Rolling Stones and 12-bar blues. I liked that stuff but I really wanted to do something of our own. I was also doing a lot of busking around that time, going down to Brighton with my guitar… It was funny, because I’d been living with this guy who’d been playing sax in the Crazy World of Arthur Brown and when he moved-on, he said ‘thanks’ for letting him stay at my place and decided to give me his guitar! I thought that was great and started trying to learn how to play it. I taught myself to play Jackie Wilson’s ‘Higher and Higher’ just by playing on one string! I gradually figured out that I only needed two chords, but then I was round at another mate’s house and I tried to show him what I could play on his guitar. I couldn’t understand why I couldn’t play it, until I realised that the guitar I’d been given was for a left-handed player and I’d been learning to play it upside-down! Once I realised that, I had to start learning all over again! Luckily, I’d only been trying to learn one song at that point, so it only set me back a couple of days…’
After that auspicious start, how did The Wasps actually get together?
‘Well, I heard about these three guys who were looking for a singer. I was looking for a band, so I arranged to meet them and we just started playing together. That was it really. We met and became a band. Two of them came from Walthamstow and one of them was from Leytonstone… John, our drummer, had actually played in an early version of Iron Maiden! A lot of the people in bands used to hang-out at the Bridgehouse in Canning Town, so we were all inter-connected in some way. If there was a band we knew and they needed a stand-in for a gig, one of us might help them out… We got to know a few East End venues so we were able to get some pub-gigs to get started. We’d play a few covers, like ‘Jean Genie’ and ‘Hi Heel Sneakers’ at first, but mostly we were playing our own songs.’
Did you start playing live pretty soon after you’d begun rehearsing?
‘I think we rehearsed for about six months before we decided we were ready to play live. We were a pretty musical band, even though it probably looked like we were playing like lunatics… Steve and John, our bass-player and drummer, took it pretty seriously. If we played a gig and one of them decided they’d made a mistake, they’d go in to the rehearsal room the next day, just the two of them, to sort it out! They were very intent on getting things right, especially John. He was what you might call ‘a drummers’ drummer’ and it was great to watch him.’
When you began playing live, was it easy to find places that would let you play?
‘Well, we were lucky because I rang an agency in the West End and I explained to them that I was in this band and we wanted to get some gigs… I told him all about us and the bloke I was talking to said, ‘Okay, I’ve got your number, so if anything comes up or we need someone to fill-in somewhere, I’ll call you.’ But I didn’t think he sounded very enthusiastic and just thought, well, that’s the end of that. But then, only about an hour later, he rang me back and said, ‘Someone has just had to cancel at short-notice, can you get to the Marquee in an hour?’ I told him, yes we could, but you know, this was a long-time before mobile phones! God knows how I managed to get in touch with the others in time to get there, but somehow we did it. We were thinking that playing the Marquee was too much of a good opportunity to miss, but when we got there it turned out we were replacing Georgie Fame! His fans tended to be very middle-class, yuppie-types, so they were not very impressed when they saw us walking-in. I think most of them took one look at us and wanted to get out of there! But the agent was impressed that we’d been able to get there on time and play the gig, so he started getting more dates for us. We did a little tour with The Troggs and he ended-up getting us quite a few gigs around London. In the end, we got a manager and started to get a lot of gigs in London, particularly at places like The Roxy and The Vortex…’
‘Well, I heard about these three guys who were looking for a singer. I was looking for a band, so I arranged to meet them and we just started playing together. That was it really. We met and became a band. Two of them came from Walthamstow and one of them was from Leytonstone… John, our drummer, had actually played in an early version of Iron Maiden! A lot of the people in bands used to hang-out at the Bridgehouse in Canning Town, so we were all inter-connected in some way. If there was a band we knew and they needed a stand-in for a gig, one of us might help them out… We got to know a few East End venues so we were able to get some pub-gigs to get started. We’d play a few covers, like ‘Jean Genie’ and ‘Hi Heel Sneakers’ at first, but mostly we were playing our own songs.’
Did you start playing live pretty soon after you’d begun rehearsing?
‘I think we rehearsed for about six months before we decided we were ready to play live. We were a pretty musical band, even though it probably looked like we were playing like lunatics… Steve and John, our bass-player and drummer, took it pretty seriously. If we played a gig and one of them decided they’d made a mistake, they’d go in to the rehearsal room the next day, just the two of them, to sort it out! They were very intent on getting things right, especially John. He was what you might call ‘a drummers’ drummer’ and it was great to watch him.’
When you began playing live, was it easy to find places that would let you play?
‘Well, we were lucky because I rang an agency in the West End and I explained to them that I was in this band and we wanted to get some gigs… I told him all about us and the bloke I was talking to said, ‘Okay, I’ve got your number, so if anything comes up or we need someone to fill-in somewhere, I’ll call you.’ But I didn’t think he sounded very enthusiastic and just thought, well, that’s the end of that. But then, only about an hour later, he rang me back and said, ‘Someone has just had to cancel at short-notice, can you get to the Marquee in an hour?’ I told him, yes we could, but you know, this was a long-time before mobile phones! God knows how I managed to get in touch with the others in time to get there, but somehow we did it. We were thinking that playing the Marquee was too much of a good opportunity to miss, but when we got there it turned out we were replacing Georgie Fame! His fans tended to be very middle-class, yuppie-types, so they were not very impressed when they saw us walking-in. I think most of them took one look at us and wanted to get out of there! But the agent was impressed that we’d been able to get there on time and play the gig, so he started getting more dates for us. We did a little tour with The Troggs and he ended-up getting us quite a few gigs around London. In the end, we got a manager and started to get a lot of gigs in London, particularly at places like The Roxy and The Vortex…’
You released your first single, ‘Teenage Treats’, in 1977, on your own label, ‘4-Play’…
‘Yeah, that was self-released initially and 4-Play was our own label, basically, but it was put-out through Step Forward records, which was one of Miles Copelands’ labels. They were distributing it for us and then they reissued it again on Illegal Records, after the first pressing had sold-out. We didn’t really know too much about that... It’s quite funny, really, because we did that deal for ‘Teenage Treats’ in the UK only, but a little while later I went to the States with one of managers and the first record shop we walked-into, there it was on Illegal Records… I found out later on that after the first pressing on ‘4-Play’ sold-out, it was re-pressed twice by Illegal. But they never discussed it with us and we never found out how many copies were actually sold…And it’s not something we’re ever likely to find out, now. I suspect that sort of thing probably happened to quite a few bands around that time… and probably still happens even now.’
But it seems that the single got a really positive response…
‘It was in and out of the various ‘new wave’ charts, or whatever they called them in those days, for quite a while. John Peel played it a lot and we actually got to know him quite well. At one point, a bit later on, I’d said to him that our drummer was thinking about leaving and he mentioned it on his next radio show. About a week later, a van turned-up to my place in Enfield and they gave me a sack full of letters that had been sent for us, via the BBC. The first one I opened was from a girl who said that she was working as an assistant-buyer at the Peter Robinsons Department store in Oxford Street but she had always wanted to be a drummer, so she was asking if she could join The Wasps! Once I realised it was all going to be like that, I bought a bottle of whisky, got in bed and read through the whole pile of letters! Peel was a lovely bloke like that. We mainly spoke on the phone, but sometimes it would be for hours and we’d end up talking about everything… Sometimes, he’d even play new records down the phone for me! I’ve always thought that what he did was so brave and he gave so many bands a chance to be heard. He played so much new stuff that would never have been on the radio otherwise, so what he did was brilliant. I think that’s why so many people were upset when he died.’
‘Yeah, that was self-released initially and 4-Play was our own label, basically, but it was put-out through Step Forward records, which was one of Miles Copelands’ labels. They were distributing it for us and then they reissued it again on Illegal Records, after the first pressing had sold-out. We didn’t really know too much about that... It’s quite funny, really, because we did that deal for ‘Teenage Treats’ in the UK only, but a little while later I went to the States with one of managers and the first record shop we walked-into, there it was on Illegal Records… I found out later on that after the first pressing on ‘4-Play’ sold-out, it was re-pressed twice by Illegal. But they never discussed it with us and we never found out how many copies were actually sold…And it’s not something we’re ever likely to find out, now. I suspect that sort of thing probably happened to quite a few bands around that time… and probably still happens even now.’
But it seems that the single got a really positive response…
‘It was in and out of the various ‘new wave’ charts, or whatever they called them in those days, for quite a while. John Peel played it a lot and we actually got to know him quite well. At one point, a bit later on, I’d said to him that our drummer was thinking about leaving and he mentioned it on his next radio show. About a week later, a van turned-up to my place in Enfield and they gave me a sack full of letters that had been sent for us, via the BBC. The first one I opened was from a girl who said that she was working as an assistant-buyer at the Peter Robinsons Department store in Oxford Street but she had always wanted to be a drummer, so she was asking if she could join The Wasps! Once I realised it was all going to be like that, I bought a bottle of whisky, got in bed and read through the whole pile of letters! Peel was a lovely bloke like that. We mainly spoke on the phone, but sometimes it would be for hours and we’d end up talking about everything… Sometimes, he’d even play new records down the phone for me! I’ve always thought that what he did was so brave and he gave so many bands a chance to be heard. He played so much new stuff that would never have been on the radio otherwise, so what he did was brilliant. I think that’s why so many people were upset when he died.’
The Wasps also appeared on the ‘Live at the Vortex’ album and the accompanying single, both released by NEMS in 1977. How did you get involved with that?
‘The bloke who was putting it together, Robin Turner, just asked us if we’d like to be on the album. He said they would record some tracks at one of the gigs that we were already going to play, so we said, okay, let’s do it. We knew we were never going to get anything out of it, but at least we’d be heard by more people. So we did one of my songs, ‘Can’t Wait ‘til ‘78’ and a Lou Reed song, ‘Waiting for my Man’… Although we played that more like our version of it rather than a straight-forward cover. And that was it, as far as our involvement was concerned. On the night, they had a mobile recording studio parked outside on the street and had all the wires and cables going down into the club. A lot of people have claimed since then that it wasn’t really recorded live, but the reason they say that was because they started the recordings during the day, when a lot of people who would normally have been in the audience were still at work. The bands that played early in the day had to do it while there was hardly anyone in there. They all just had to plough through and do it, but we were lucky because we played later in the evening so it was more like a regular gig. Anyway, the next day, all the bands were invited to go down to a studio to listen to the tapes and maybe drop bits out or whatever they wanted. In our case, we didn’t bother with that because we thought, well, live is live so we shouldn’t really mess around with it. The gig had sounded alright to me, so I was sure they’d be able to mix-it without any problems. It’s funny, really, because although we only released one single in 1977, that compilation has been re-released a bunch of times and ‘Teenage Treats’ itself has been on loads of different compilations, so we’ve continued to get exposure for the stuff we did back then, even though we didn’t actually release that much…’
‘Can’t Wait ‘til ‘78’ was an interesting song because the lyrics were talking about what people were going to do next, now that Punk had opened-up so many possibilities. It seems a very positive stance, especially as you had written it right in the middle of the so-called ‘first-wave’ of punk…
‘Well, 1977 seemed to be going on forever and in a way, I couldn’t wait to see what was going to come out of it. I wanted to see what was going to happen and how people were going to work it out, because basic three chord ‘punk’ couldn’t improve by nature of what it was. I mean, obviously you’d like some bands more than others, but if they wanted to carry on, they were going to have to decide how they wanted to develop and do it. I wanted to see which bands were going to sell-out, which bands were going to go on and continue what they were doing and what was going to happen to all this energy. I was waiting to see what would happen in 1978 because some of the bands in ’77 were already treading water and didn’t seem to know what they were going to do next.’
‘The bloke who was putting it together, Robin Turner, just asked us if we’d like to be on the album. He said they would record some tracks at one of the gigs that we were already going to play, so we said, okay, let’s do it. We knew we were never going to get anything out of it, but at least we’d be heard by more people. So we did one of my songs, ‘Can’t Wait ‘til ‘78’ and a Lou Reed song, ‘Waiting for my Man’… Although we played that more like our version of it rather than a straight-forward cover. And that was it, as far as our involvement was concerned. On the night, they had a mobile recording studio parked outside on the street and had all the wires and cables going down into the club. A lot of people have claimed since then that it wasn’t really recorded live, but the reason they say that was because they started the recordings during the day, when a lot of people who would normally have been in the audience were still at work. The bands that played early in the day had to do it while there was hardly anyone in there. They all just had to plough through and do it, but we were lucky because we played later in the evening so it was more like a regular gig. Anyway, the next day, all the bands were invited to go down to a studio to listen to the tapes and maybe drop bits out or whatever they wanted. In our case, we didn’t bother with that because we thought, well, live is live so we shouldn’t really mess around with it. The gig had sounded alright to me, so I was sure they’d be able to mix-it without any problems. It’s funny, really, because although we only released one single in 1977, that compilation has been re-released a bunch of times and ‘Teenage Treats’ itself has been on loads of different compilations, so we’ve continued to get exposure for the stuff we did back then, even though we didn’t actually release that much…’
‘Can’t Wait ‘til ‘78’ was an interesting song because the lyrics were talking about what people were going to do next, now that Punk had opened-up so many possibilities. It seems a very positive stance, especially as you had written it right in the middle of the so-called ‘first-wave’ of punk…
‘Well, 1977 seemed to be going on forever and in a way, I couldn’t wait to see what was going to come out of it. I wanted to see what was going to happen and how people were going to work it out, because basic three chord ‘punk’ couldn’t improve by nature of what it was. I mean, obviously you’d like some bands more than others, but if they wanted to carry on, they were going to have to decide how they wanted to develop and do it. I wanted to see which bands were going to sell-out, which bands were going to go on and continue what they were doing and what was going to happen to all this energy. I was waiting to see what would happen in 1978 because some of the bands in ’77 were already treading water and didn’t seem to know what they were going to do next.’
It’s always struck me as strange that The Wasps never got to release an album during the 77/78 era. With the positive response for ‘Teenage Treats’ and the tracks on the Vortex album, plus the support that Peel was giving the band (including two sessions during 1978) it’s very odd that you didn’t get signed-up to record a full album?
‘We’d got involved with a manager, Adrian Miller. who worked with some big names, even a few bands in America. He decided that we shouldn’t go out on the road but instead, he just wanted to showcase the band at special, one-off gigs. He persuaded us to do that and, to his credit, he did spend a lot of money on us, trying to set-up deals and do things that way. But for a band like us it really wasn’t the best way to promote what we were doing and it really wasn’t what we wanted to do. We got rid of him in the end and I found out around the same time that people at RCA were interested in us. I set-up a deal with them, but then I found out that everyone in the band seemed to be signed to different managers! You know, maybe they’d signed something a few years before when they were in a totally different band… Now that it looked like we were going to sign a deal and might be getting somewhere, all of these managers were popping-up and making their demands. RCA were being really good and even got us on a couple of TV shows, but having to deal with all these different people was getting really difficult. RCA paid-off a couple of these managers to try and make things easier, but there was one guy, Nigel Thomas, who was very awkward to deal with. In fact, later-on, he was involved in that plot to kidnap Ronnie Biggs from Brazil, so you can imagine, he was also mixed up with some pretty tough characters. He definitely wasn’t someone you wanted to argue with!’
As things moved-on, The Wasps also had a lot of support from the journalist Giovanni Dadomo…
‘Yeah, he was working for Sounds at the time and I always liked his writing. I got in touch with him early on, told him we had a band and he liked what I was telling him, so he came down to our next gig and reviewed us. He was very enthusiastic about what we were doing and later on, one of our managers employed him as our PR man. His girlfriend also wrote for Time Out, so that was very handy. I really liked Giovanni and I loved the stuff he did with the Snivelling Shits… ‘Et Moi, Et Moi, Et Moi’ is still one of my favourite songs!’
‘We’d got involved with a manager, Adrian Miller. who worked with some big names, even a few bands in America. He decided that we shouldn’t go out on the road but instead, he just wanted to showcase the band at special, one-off gigs. He persuaded us to do that and, to his credit, he did spend a lot of money on us, trying to set-up deals and do things that way. But for a band like us it really wasn’t the best way to promote what we were doing and it really wasn’t what we wanted to do. We got rid of him in the end and I found out around the same time that people at RCA were interested in us. I set-up a deal with them, but then I found out that everyone in the band seemed to be signed to different managers! You know, maybe they’d signed something a few years before when they were in a totally different band… Now that it looked like we were going to sign a deal and might be getting somewhere, all of these managers were popping-up and making their demands. RCA were being really good and even got us on a couple of TV shows, but having to deal with all these different people was getting really difficult. RCA paid-off a couple of these managers to try and make things easier, but there was one guy, Nigel Thomas, who was very awkward to deal with. In fact, later-on, he was involved in that plot to kidnap Ronnie Biggs from Brazil, so you can imagine, he was also mixed up with some pretty tough characters. He definitely wasn’t someone you wanted to argue with!’
As things moved-on, The Wasps also had a lot of support from the journalist Giovanni Dadomo…
‘Yeah, he was working for Sounds at the time and I always liked his writing. I got in touch with him early on, told him we had a band and he liked what I was telling him, so he came down to our next gig and reviewed us. He was very enthusiastic about what we were doing and later on, one of our managers employed him as our PR man. His girlfriend also wrote for Time Out, so that was very handy. I really liked Giovanni and I loved the stuff he did with the Snivelling Shits… ‘Et Moi, Et Moi, Et Moi’ is still one of my favourite songs!’
At some point in 1978, you were taken over to America to try and secure a record deal…
‘That was while Adrian Miller was our manager. He came up with this plan of starting a bidding war between different record companies. But the more we found out about him, the more we realised that he was some kind of Simon Cowell-type, maybe even more over the top. He decided to take me to America to talk to these different labels because he thought it would impress the labels back in London. At the same time, he was also thinking it would impress that American labels that we were so confident about the band that we were already looking for an American label, even before we’d finished signing with a label in the UK! He knew Don Arden, who was managing the likes of the Small Faces, ELO and Black Sabbath… his daughter is Sharon Osbourne, who was still Sharon Arden back then… So he arranged for us to stay with them in LA for a week or so and I loved it for about three days, but then realised that a lot of what I was being told to do had nothing to do with music and I started to just want to go home and play music with the band. I think it was straight-after that when we got rid of Adrian and got the deal with RCA by ourselves…
You recorded the single ‘Rubber Cars’ for RCA and, although it was a lot more ‘new wave’ than your earlier material, it was still very catchy. But just as things seemed to be working out, the band split-up…
‘There were still a lot of problems, even though we now had a record deal. Adrian was still working with the other guys, making it difficult to agree on anything and in the end I decided to break it up. I got some other guys in and I think it could’ve worked out alright, but then RCA wanted us to change the name… first of all, I thought about moving the ‘S’ so that we’d be called ‘The Swaps’, but no-one seemed to be keen on that. And then we were offered a gig supporting Tom Petty, so we decided to change the name of the band for that night to ‘The One’. It actually went well and we met Tom… He’d enjoyed our set so he gave me one of his guitars! I seem to have made a habit of being given guitars… We were sound-checking and he was watching us. After one song he came over and started talking about the guitar I was playing. I was having a few problems with it at the time, so he offered to loan me one of his. I used it for our gig and afterwards he came over and asked what I thought of it. I had to admit that it felt good to play it, but I wasn’t entirely sure about its’ sound. He nodded and said, ‘Keep it, I’m sure you’ll get used to it!’ That was the only time I ever met him, but he seemed to be a genuinely nice guy… I’m not sure, but I think we may have got that gig because we sometimes played one of his songs live, ‘American Girl’ and maybe he’d heard about us. That said, we obviously didn’t play it that night!’
Depending on where you read about it, there’s some confusion about who actually played on the ‘Rubber Cars’ single…
‘Yeah, it was initially recorded by the original line-up, but when we split-up, RCA decided that we should drop some of the tracks out of the recording so we could add the new guitarist on there. I think the original drummers’ recordings were left as they were, but to be honest, I’m still not entirely sure about who was playing on it in the end. But it was definitely a mixture of old and new members. Of course, that caused more trouble yet again, but they released the record and a week later, they sent me a message, which I still have, saying that it had sold more copies than all their other records put together during that week. They started to get excited and began talking about it going to Number One! They suddenly realised that they needed to start making deals with the old band members and their managers, but by that point it was too late and before the single went any further, they had to pull-it. It was such a disappointment… I remember one morning, I put the radio on and the next thing I heard, they were playing our single! I had big expectations for it after that, but then it all just fell apart.’
‘That was while Adrian Miller was our manager. He came up with this plan of starting a bidding war between different record companies. But the more we found out about him, the more we realised that he was some kind of Simon Cowell-type, maybe even more over the top. He decided to take me to America to talk to these different labels because he thought it would impress the labels back in London. At the same time, he was also thinking it would impress that American labels that we were so confident about the band that we were already looking for an American label, even before we’d finished signing with a label in the UK! He knew Don Arden, who was managing the likes of the Small Faces, ELO and Black Sabbath… his daughter is Sharon Osbourne, who was still Sharon Arden back then… So he arranged for us to stay with them in LA for a week or so and I loved it for about three days, but then realised that a lot of what I was being told to do had nothing to do with music and I started to just want to go home and play music with the band. I think it was straight-after that when we got rid of Adrian and got the deal with RCA by ourselves…
You recorded the single ‘Rubber Cars’ for RCA and, although it was a lot more ‘new wave’ than your earlier material, it was still very catchy. But just as things seemed to be working out, the band split-up…
‘There were still a lot of problems, even though we now had a record deal. Adrian was still working with the other guys, making it difficult to agree on anything and in the end I decided to break it up. I got some other guys in and I think it could’ve worked out alright, but then RCA wanted us to change the name… first of all, I thought about moving the ‘S’ so that we’d be called ‘The Swaps’, but no-one seemed to be keen on that. And then we were offered a gig supporting Tom Petty, so we decided to change the name of the band for that night to ‘The One’. It actually went well and we met Tom… He’d enjoyed our set so he gave me one of his guitars! I seem to have made a habit of being given guitars… We were sound-checking and he was watching us. After one song he came over and started talking about the guitar I was playing. I was having a few problems with it at the time, so he offered to loan me one of his. I used it for our gig and afterwards he came over and asked what I thought of it. I had to admit that it felt good to play it, but I wasn’t entirely sure about its’ sound. He nodded and said, ‘Keep it, I’m sure you’ll get used to it!’ That was the only time I ever met him, but he seemed to be a genuinely nice guy… I’m not sure, but I think we may have got that gig because we sometimes played one of his songs live, ‘American Girl’ and maybe he’d heard about us. That said, we obviously didn’t play it that night!’
Depending on where you read about it, there’s some confusion about who actually played on the ‘Rubber Cars’ single…
‘Yeah, it was initially recorded by the original line-up, but when we split-up, RCA decided that we should drop some of the tracks out of the recording so we could add the new guitarist on there. I think the original drummers’ recordings were left as they were, but to be honest, I’m still not entirely sure about who was playing on it in the end. But it was definitely a mixture of old and new members. Of course, that caused more trouble yet again, but they released the record and a week later, they sent me a message, which I still have, saying that it had sold more copies than all their other records put together during that week. They started to get excited and began talking about it going to Number One! They suddenly realised that they needed to start making deals with the old band members and their managers, but by that point it was too late and before the single went any further, they had to pull-it. It was such a disappointment… I remember one morning, I put the radio on and the next thing I heard, they were playing our single! I had big expectations for it after that, but then it all just fell apart.’
‘Rubber Cars’ was very catchy and certainly deserved to be successful in it’s own right, but it was rather different to the records that you’d released before then…
‘Well, I was beginning to change as a song writer. I’d always liked people like David Bowie, who would adopt different styles as they moved along. I found that I enjoyed taking a new idea and finding a way to energise it. In this case, one of my family members had been killed in a car accident, which was why I found myself inspired to write the song…
“Tons of painted metal moving round on wheels,
Strips of iron back and front dangerous it kills,
Strange I know but made to go at twice the lawful speed.
And every day’s a day that someone, loses someone, someone needs.”
It was about the senselessness of driving about in a chunk of metal that could kill people. I was saying, you ought to be able to invent a car that, if it collided with someone, they would still be alright. But instead, all the designers seem to do is think-up unnecessary gimmicks to sell more cars, which is ridiculous.’
By this time, was your live set changing completely or were you still playing any of the older songs?
‘It was still a mix. I wanted to introduce the new songs because they were more of a challenge for us. I’d always liked good pop songs so I didn’t want to drop older songs just for the sake of it. But it’s nice to have a challenge, so I liked it when I came up with a new song and realised, this is good, because then I’d want to see if I could push myself a little bit more. I always wanted to take it further away from the obvious, so I think that’s the way it was going.
I’ve always thought that was the important thing about Punk… Bands got up and played regardless of their musical abilities, but after a while you’d want to try and create something that was more of your own thing…
‘Yeah, there was a point when, if you only knew three chords you could still get up there, it didn’t matter. But six months later we knew four or five chords and we had a bit more to work on. It was a breath of fresh air when you realised that you could do something more, just as it had been in the first place.
‘Rubber Cars’ had received another good response and seemed destined to be a hit, if not for the problems it encountered. However, instead of continuing to work with The Wasps (or The One), RCA unceremoniously dropped the band…
‘Actually, it wasn’t so much that we were dropped, rather that we pretty-much disintegrated as a band. I would have been happy to carry on with the new guys, but to be honest, after four years of writing the songs, driving the van, problems with managers, and not seeing any of the success that people said we would have, I was both physically and mentally exhausted. RCA had told me that they wanted us to record an album, but things just became too complicated. I’d also realised that the biggest selling artists on RCA were Jim Reeves and Elvis Presley… and they were both dead! I wasn’t feeling great anymore and decided that I’d had enough. I needed a break, so I decided to go to Spain. It was only meant to be for six months or so, but I ended-up staying there. I thought I’d take a year-off, but it turned into a lifetime!
‘Well, I was beginning to change as a song writer. I’d always liked people like David Bowie, who would adopt different styles as they moved along. I found that I enjoyed taking a new idea and finding a way to energise it. In this case, one of my family members had been killed in a car accident, which was why I found myself inspired to write the song…
“Tons of painted metal moving round on wheels,
Strips of iron back and front dangerous it kills,
Strange I know but made to go at twice the lawful speed.
And every day’s a day that someone, loses someone, someone needs.”
It was about the senselessness of driving about in a chunk of metal that could kill people. I was saying, you ought to be able to invent a car that, if it collided with someone, they would still be alright. But instead, all the designers seem to do is think-up unnecessary gimmicks to sell more cars, which is ridiculous.’
By this time, was your live set changing completely or were you still playing any of the older songs?
‘It was still a mix. I wanted to introduce the new songs because they were more of a challenge for us. I’d always liked good pop songs so I didn’t want to drop older songs just for the sake of it. But it’s nice to have a challenge, so I liked it when I came up with a new song and realised, this is good, because then I’d want to see if I could push myself a little bit more. I always wanted to take it further away from the obvious, so I think that’s the way it was going.
I’ve always thought that was the important thing about Punk… Bands got up and played regardless of their musical abilities, but after a while you’d want to try and create something that was more of your own thing…
‘Yeah, there was a point when, if you only knew three chords you could still get up there, it didn’t matter. But six months later we knew four or five chords and we had a bit more to work on. It was a breath of fresh air when you realised that you could do something more, just as it had been in the first place.
‘Rubber Cars’ had received another good response and seemed destined to be a hit, if not for the problems it encountered. However, instead of continuing to work with The Wasps (or The One), RCA unceremoniously dropped the band…
‘Actually, it wasn’t so much that we were dropped, rather that we pretty-much disintegrated as a band. I would have been happy to carry on with the new guys, but to be honest, after four years of writing the songs, driving the van, problems with managers, and not seeing any of the success that people said we would have, I was both physically and mentally exhausted. RCA had told me that they wanted us to record an album, but things just became too complicated. I’d also realised that the biggest selling artists on RCA were Jim Reeves and Elvis Presley… and they were both dead! I wasn’t feeling great anymore and decided that I’d had enough. I needed a break, so I decided to go to Spain. It was only meant to be for six months or so, but I ended-up staying there. I thought I’d take a year-off, but it turned into a lifetime!
It wasn’t until 2003 that we heard from The Wasps again, when the album ‘Punkryonics’ was released featuring tracks from the original singles plus previously-unreleased songs recorded by the original band back at the time. It was probably as close as fans would get to hearing the album that should have appeared back in 1977/78…
‘Yeah, that all came together through John Esplen at Overground records… It was all old stuff that had never been released back in the day. It seemed like a good idea to record and release those songs before they were lost forever and I think it came out really well. Actually, we’ve just re-released that album with two extra tracks, because once I decided that this new version of the band was going to start gigging, it didn’t seem right that we’d be playing these songs again but you couldn’t go out and buy them anywhere. So we decided to reissue that album and at the same time, we started work on a new album, ‘Punk Prayer’… Once we had finished those two albums, Cherry Red got in touch with me and said that there was a record label who wanted to do a vinyl version of ‘Punkryonics’, so I’ve given them permission to do that and there’s also a Spanish label who want to do a vinyl version of ‘Punk Prayer’, so they should both be available soon…’
While you’ve been living in Spain, did you get involved with any other bands or music?
‘I’ve been involved with a lot of people who play music in Spain and I’ve tried to help people that were looking for deals. I’ve been writing my own songs and a couple of them have been used, incognito, by some Spanish bands. But most of my time has been devoted to running a couple of music-pubs. That’s been pretty successful and I’ve enjoyed it, so I suppose I’ve been channelling my musical energy into that. But I’ve always been writing songs, even if they’ve never been heard by anyone else.
Apart from yourself, the current line-up are all new members. How did you all come together?
‘Actually, it wasn’t until quite recently that I bumped into the boys who make-up the current band. I met Martin first, as he was playing in a band called The Reinfected, who mostly played covers. He asked me if, next time they played, I’d get up and sing ‘Can’t Wait ‘til ‘78’ and ‘Teenage Treats’ with them. I was happy to do that and the songs went down really well, so we got talking and Martin said, ‘Why don’t we go for it?’ He already knew our songs and the others knew of them, even if they didn’t already know how to play them. So we decided to put it all back together and that’s what we’ve been doing.’
‘Yeah, that all came together through John Esplen at Overground records… It was all old stuff that had never been released back in the day. It seemed like a good idea to record and release those songs before they were lost forever and I think it came out really well. Actually, we’ve just re-released that album with two extra tracks, because once I decided that this new version of the band was going to start gigging, it didn’t seem right that we’d be playing these songs again but you couldn’t go out and buy them anywhere. So we decided to reissue that album and at the same time, we started work on a new album, ‘Punk Prayer’… Once we had finished those two albums, Cherry Red got in touch with me and said that there was a record label who wanted to do a vinyl version of ‘Punkryonics’, so I’ve given them permission to do that and there’s also a Spanish label who want to do a vinyl version of ‘Punk Prayer’, so they should both be available soon…’
While you’ve been living in Spain, did you get involved with any other bands or music?
‘I’ve been involved with a lot of people who play music in Spain and I’ve tried to help people that were looking for deals. I’ve been writing my own songs and a couple of them have been used, incognito, by some Spanish bands. But most of my time has been devoted to running a couple of music-pubs. That’s been pretty successful and I’ve enjoyed it, so I suppose I’ve been channelling my musical energy into that. But I’ve always been writing songs, even if they’ve never been heard by anyone else.
Apart from yourself, the current line-up are all new members. How did you all come together?
‘Actually, it wasn’t until quite recently that I bumped into the boys who make-up the current band. I met Martin first, as he was playing in a band called The Reinfected, who mostly played covers. He asked me if, next time they played, I’d get up and sing ‘Can’t Wait ‘til ‘78’ and ‘Teenage Treats’ with them. I was happy to do that and the songs went down really well, so we got talking and Martin said, ‘Why don’t we go for it?’ He already knew our songs and the others knew of them, even if they didn’t already know how to play them. So we decided to put it all back together and that’s what we’ve been doing.’
As there’s such a long gap between The Wasps’ original material and the new songs you’ve written for ‘Punk Prayer’, how do you think the new album compares to the style of the older songs on ‘Punkryonics’?
‘Well, it’s a bit of a mixture of all the different styles. Just because I’ve moved on, it doesn’t mean I don’t like that older stuff anymore. It’s a little bit more modern and a little bit less angry, but it’s not completely passive either. I’ve still kept the Punk element, but it’s difficult to explain really. I’m still a fan of the Buzzcocks and The Four Seasons, so what am I supposed to do? I like songs about teenagers and I enjoy films like ‘American Graffiti’, so what else am I going to do?’
These gigs are the first time The Wasps have played in the UK for forty years… What else are you planning or hoping to do with this line-up?
‘We’ve playing a few gigs when we get back to Spain and then we’re going over to Portugal to play a few more there. There’s already a few other things that we’ve been offered, but I think we’re going to see how we feel about it after these gigs. At the moment, I think there will be more dates and I hope we’ll be coming back to the UK again, but I think it’ll be a case of seeing how we can fit things in.’
Finally… after more than forty years, are you surprised that people are still interested and enthusiastic about what you did back then?
‘Yeah, a bit… I mean, I can’t really compare myself to Lou Reed, but I look back to when I first heard of him and he wasn’t very well known back then, in the same way that the Beatles looked towards Chuck Berry at a time when he wasn’t all that well known… In a funny way, in Spain at the moment there’s a lot of young bands that really know all about the UK Punk scene from 1976/77, in the same way that back then, I was paying attention to Lou Reed. I think that people who really enjoy music will always find out about these things. Others might tell you these things aren’t that great, but somehow you connect with them and once you’ve heard them, anything else sounds boring. It’s like an abstract painting… you might not like it at first, but somehow it sticks in your mind and everything else that you see suddenly becomes less impressive. That’s how these things work!’
‘Well, it’s a bit of a mixture of all the different styles. Just because I’ve moved on, it doesn’t mean I don’t like that older stuff anymore. It’s a little bit more modern and a little bit less angry, but it’s not completely passive either. I’ve still kept the Punk element, but it’s difficult to explain really. I’m still a fan of the Buzzcocks and The Four Seasons, so what am I supposed to do? I like songs about teenagers and I enjoy films like ‘American Graffiti’, so what else am I going to do?’
These gigs are the first time The Wasps have played in the UK for forty years… What else are you planning or hoping to do with this line-up?
‘We’ve playing a few gigs when we get back to Spain and then we’re going over to Portugal to play a few more there. There’s already a few other things that we’ve been offered, but I think we’re going to see how we feel about it after these gigs. At the moment, I think there will be more dates and I hope we’ll be coming back to the UK again, but I think it’ll be a case of seeing how we can fit things in.’
Finally… after more than forty years, are you surprised that people are still interested and enthusiastic about what you did back then?
‘Yeah, a bit… I mean, I can’t really compare myself to Lou Reed, but I look back to when I first heard of him and he wasn’t very well known back then, in the same way that the Beatles looked towards Chuck Berry at a time when he wasn’t all that well known… In a funny way, in Spain at the moment there’s a lot of young bands that really know all about the UK Punk scene from 1976/77, in the same way that back then, I was paying attention to Lou Reed. I think that people who really enjoy music will always find out about these things. Others might tell you these things aren’t that great, but somehow you connect with them and once you’ve heard them, anything else sounds boring. It’s like an abstract painting… you might not like it at first, but somehow it sticks in your mind and everything else that you see suddenly becomes less impressive. That’s how these things work!’
Jesse has to return to the stage to complete the bands’ soundcheck, so we end there. Meanwhile, the bar itself is starting to fill up and there seems to be quite a few people turning up that I haven’t seen for a while, so it’s becomes a social occasion as well as a gig! Monkish are the first band onstage but I only get to watch a few songs as I’m distracted by various friends turning-up. But they still play through their set of raucous, pub-punk with their usual, irreverent humour. The main support band are Picture Frame Seduction, who I once saw at the 100 Club, supporting English Dogs in around 1984! Not that I’ve been avoiding them, but they did break-up in 1987 and didn’t reform until a lot more recently. Coincidentally, several current members are currently based in Spain and their guitarist, Martin, is also playing in The Wasps… I remember enjoying their set at the 100 Club, although I never had any of their records so I can’t recall any specifics. Tonight, they play a good set, strangely starting with a Ramones’ cover, but filling the rest of their set with their own songs. Musically, they have an early 80’s UK hardcore sound although they also include some great melodic hooks among their riffs to keep things surprisingly catchy. I wish I knew more about them so I could give you details of which songs they played… hopefully I’ll be better-informed next time! Finally, The Wasps take to the stage, their first appearance in London for more than four decades! There’s a good turn-out for this gig, some who have loved the band for years but never got the chance to see them, some who actually did see them and are pleased to get another opportunity, and others who are merely curious. But I think the audience are all impressed with the bands’ performance tonight. Mixing together both old and new songs, they start with a ‘Free Country’ and ‘He’s Back’ from the ‘Punkryonics’ compilation, before playing the opening track from ‘Punk Prayer’, ‘It Don’t Matter to Me’. Thereafter, it’s a pretty even mix of old and new, played with plenty of energy. A great PA sound allows all the tunes to come through to full effect and, even though I hadn’t heard the ‘Punk Prayer’ album at this point, the songs sound good and fit-in well alongside the older ones. The best response is held-back for older favourites like ‘J-J-Jenny’, ‘Teenage Treats’ and ‘Can’t Wait ‘til 78’, but the whole set is met with well-deserved enthusiasm. I think most would agree that the long-wait had been worthwhile and, after this event, I can only hope that they don’t keep us waiting another forty years for their next appearance! If you weren’t able to catch them this time around, keep your fingers crossed that you’ll get another chance in the not-too distant future.
