Not stictly Stranglers, but related. And apt for the uncertain times we are once again living through. In the early 1980's there was much talk of 'The Four Minute warning' - the time that it would take for an inter-continental ballistic nuclear missile launched from the Soviet Union to reach the UK. The Government of the day kindly put leaflets through our doors instructing us how to be have when the warning was sounded... it went by the name of 'Protect and Survive', and it didn't make for very encouraging reading. As the decade progressed an unexpected thaw occured in terms of East/West relations as Mikhail Gorbachev's 'Perestroika' and 'Glasnost' policies began to change the world. The Cold War that had dominated global politics for more than 40 years was at an end and with it the spectre of 'Mutually Assured Destruction' evaporated.
Within the last 12 months there had been more talk of the possibility of deployment of nuclear weapons by the Russians, and more recently, and equally alarmingly, by India and Pakistan, that there has been in the last 40 years. So, it seems fitting to put this interview up at this time.
In the early 1980's the New Musical Express made a conscious decision go beyond music and to be more engaged with the issues of the day that affected the lives of its adolescent readership. Articles concerning animal rights, spiralling unemployment, the rise of the far right and the arms race filled pages at this time. Of course, music was intertwinned to a greater or lesser extent with most of these issues.
In late 1981, a number of British bands contributed to a fund raising album called 'Life In The European Theatre', with the proceeds from sales going to a number of anti-nulear organisations. The Stranglers were one of the bands involved, offering up 'Nuclear Device' to the project. Hugh was heard to plug the album as the band touted the UK on the 'La Folie' tour.
Here is an interview with The Beat's Dave Wakeling and Paul, Bruce and Rick from The Jam talking about the album and the issue behind it's release.
THERE’S A GREAT poster out now. It's done old movie-style, titled Gone With The Wind, and it shows Margaret (Scarlett O'Hara) Thatcher in a passionate clinch with cracked actor Ronald (Rhett Butler) Reagan. The caption reads something like: "She promised to follow him to the end of the earth ... He promised to organise it."
Brilliant. But let's forget the lunatics who've taken over the asylum, and look at some individuals doing their modest bit to organize the planet's survival-via music.
Survival Music, for it is they, have organised a compilation LP (see News Page) entitled 'Life In The European Theatre'. It features (mostly-well-known) tracks by one of the strongest line ups of British acts you could imagine, who've all donated their music free. Proceeds from the album go to four causes: CND, Friends Of The Earth, Anti Nuclear Campaign and European Nuclear Disarmament (END) - and then 50% to a fund set up jointly by the four campaigns, plus the musicians, plus Survival Music.
A young guy called Chas Mervyn is the driving force behind Survival Music. It was when he was working as tour manager for The Beat that the idea of an album came up- one that would raise funds, get some sort of message across, and demonstrate the strength of feeling on the nuclear issue among musicians of this generation.
Chas left The Beat to work full-time on the project. Months of planning, negotiation and arm-twisting later, the record's ready - to be put out world-wide, through WEA, with sleeve-notes by E.P. Thompson (the great writer / campaigner) and musical contributions from such as The Undertones, the Bunnymen, Stranglers, Au Pairs, Clash, XTC, Dury and Gabriel. Their record companies all co-operated, in the end, but the groups' enthusiasm was total. (Linx were keen too, but found out just too late).
So I met Chas Mervyn to talk about it all. Madness, Terry Hall of The Specials / Fun Boy Three, and Bad Manners - who are all on the LP - hoped to come.along but TOTP commitments wouldn't allow. But The Jam ~ Rick Buckler, Paul Weller, Bruce Foxton were there, taking a breather from recording, and so was The Beat's Dave Wakeling (fresh off the Birmingham Inter-City and a married man of just 24 hours' standing).
So… this is what we sat round and said. Except that my bits have been re-written to make me seem witty, pithy and articulate.
CHAS MERVYN: ALL along it's been the groups pushing. If they hadn't been so keen it would never have happened, because we're asking people to give away something for free. The bands' response has amazed me right from the start.
Paul Du Noyer: The Beat were in on the idea at the beginning, weren't they Dave?
Dave Wakeling: Yeah, we met people from the various organisations when we did 'Stand Down Margaret' (proceeds of which went to the anti-nuclear movement). When they saw there was money to be shared out, they lost their differences, whereas before they never trusted each other. So we thought it'd be a good idea to extend it.
PDN: Chas, how did you decide who to approach?
CM: It was obvious that certain groups were concerned, just by the material they were writing,
and then musicians would suggest others.
DW: There was hardly anyone who said 'No'.
Paul Weller (sharply): Who was the ones that did? Give us the names.
CM (diplomatically): Later.
PDN: What was The Jam's reaction, Paul?
PW: We'd obviously do it. It-was the first time we'd got involved with anything like this – not because we're lazy, but. dunno, it was only the other week that I actually even sent off for a CND membership. There must be thousands of people who are against it but don't know now to get involved. Same with us.
DW: It's a fear of joining organisations. As soon as they get well-organised they end up in-fighting, over who's gonna be social secretary or something. But here, the thing we're talking about is so important, even if that bickering does go on, it's still worth taking a chance on it.
PW: It's the thought of having a card as well it's like joining the Boy Scouts. But it's what it achieves in the end, that's what really counts... The follow-on from all this would be getting people like Sheena Easton and The Nolans involved.
DW: Yeah, MOR Against The Bomb. Probably the majority of people who like groups on this LP already hold that view anyway ... The Nolans were quite into doing it, but I don't know if they'd be allowed to.
CM: It's not as if it's a political issue, it's something that affects everyone's lives. It's just immoral to kill millions of people.
PW: It's a question of your future. At the root of it everyone's interested in their own future, so that'll get across to most people.
DW: It's funny, I think it is having an effect, cos I don't usually think that pop music does have any effect. But the fact that groups are involved has something to do with so many young people being willing to protest in England. Whereas before it used to be just Europe where they'd have big demonstrations and England'd be apathetic.
Rick Buckler: Young people have put it out of their mind in this country for a long time.
PW: But that applies to Britain politically anyway. Whereas you talk to people in Italy or France they've got definite political views.
PDN : Also they don't have this long-standing, complex emotional tangle that we have with America.
PW: But I think that feeling is changing in England now, that we're only like America's sub-let.
DW: We're just the fender on the front of the car: not an ally at all, just a cushion. One danger, though, now that people are thinking differently about America, you could easily fall into the trap of thinking Brezhnev's great- and he's just as uncaring as Reagan.
PW: That's what I liked in Tony Benn's speech at the rally, that you've got to resist American generals and Russian generals.
DW: Yeah, he did a good speech, really good.
PDN: This is the stigma, isn't it, that you're playing into the Russians' hands, that the Kremlin is rubbing its hands with glee at the demos in Western Europe.
DW: That you're not even consciously communist, that you're being duped. But every time America stands up for South Africa or whatever, the Kremlin rubs its hands with glee. They don't need a marketing budget of their own, just keep letting America make mistakes for them ...
Trouble is, neither system is working at the moment. Anyone in power can think, if they can expand that’ll make it look better: all of a sudden you've got plenty of coal, plenty of steel, plenty of uniforms. Put half the unemployed in an army and get them killed, put the other half in factories making weapons.
It's a quick, simple answer. Everyone can get a flag out and feel proud ‘cos they've got something to fight for again . ... We have to pretend that all the kids on the other side of the line really hate us, so we've got to get them or they'll get us first.
RB: As soon as the level of understanding comes up the better. And obviously one way of doing it is through the youth.
DW: The main way of communication among young people is music at the moment. There ain't a newspaper you can buy every day and find out what's happening. A lot of young people rely on music, not just as a way of forming opinions, but of keeping their spirits up ... We're trying to organise a festival in Austria next year -three day event, 50,000 people - half from the East and half from the West, with some bands from the East as well. That'd be good: just to sit in a field for three days with somebody from Poland. A real education.
PW: That is the only barrier, propaganda. It's not even language, you can always overcome that.
(Chas Mervyn explains how the LP's sleeve notes will be translated for each country of release, and all the vital contact addresses will also vary. Both Weller and Wakeling emphasise how travelling in groups has made them aware of what's happening around the world, and of how much we all have in common.)
PDN: This LP contrasts with the American 'No Nukes' release. This is directly political, and specifically anti-war, where that one was more narrowly environmental, rich West Coast dodos, an extension of Me Generation politics.
DW: We definitely learned some lessons from that. It made the whole thing really respectable and comfortable, something to stick on your coffee table and you don't have to think about it any more. In the end there was loads of American groups just dashing to get on that LP, when their record companies were saying, Do you realise your two biggest competitors are on this record?
CM: But I think all the bands who've been involved with this have made it very clear from the beginning how they feel. And instead of being some limp LP that happens to have its proceeds going to a cause, it has some points to make, with a real strength of feeling.
DW: Probably the best way to sell it in America would be the idea that if there's a nuclear war, record sales would plummet …
INTERLUDE
A BAD MANNERED phone-call from Louis Alphonso.
Direct from the Top Of The Pops studio, Bad Manners' guitarist Louis rang me to explain their involvement (namely offering the album's one previously-unreleased cut, 'Psychedelic Eric'). When they were approached, he said, they accepted.right away.
Although 'Eric' itself is not especially anti-nuclear in content, the move's a bit surprising from a group that likes to avoid politics.
"We have basic political beliefs," Louis replies. "But we don't like to preach them."
Much as he respects groups like The Clash and Specials, Bad Manners just don't feel it's them to get too serious in song. That said, they'll use an opportunity like this LP to make a gesture of support for something important.
And then the pips went.
PAUL WELLER: The biggest enemy is the media, especially the daily papers. Like the Right To Work march from Liverpool, that was put down in the papers as more communist infiltration and all this crap.
DW: I think this cause is good, because it's harder to discredit. You don't have to make a huge political decision to decide you don't want to be blown up. It's fairly common sense. . But yeah, it is dangerous when the media have a vested interest in the news and what people are meant to think. As the situation becomes more extreme then music becomes more and more important as means of communication.
PW: Well at the present time it's the only form of media without some sort of censorship.
DW: Yes,’cos the people in control think it's all a bleeding racket anyway. So you can get away with some fairly serious things in your songs and they pass totally un-noticed.
PW: Music is a communication system for young people, but for people in general it's the daily papers. Whatever you see splashed on the front page of the Sun, that's your topic for the day.
DW: And even if they don't totally believe it all, it's still depriving them of real information, so it works just as well. A lot of people go, Nay, I don't believe what I read in the papers, but it's what they don't read there as well.
PW: At the root of it, what I find the most frustrating is that it's the same thing it's always been: the majority, which is us, is ruled by a minority.
CM: And yet that minority are the only ones who are safe if there is a nuclear war.
DW:'I do sometimes think that it's a whole con, and the Americans and Russians know what the plan is for the next ten years, and they need to keep their populations in a state of fear to maintain their respective positions. And if it is that, then it's an even bigger waste of money ...
It's important that the LP's music is fairly different,’cos it's dangerous to have a fashion thing where it's 'in' this week to wear a CND badge. Then all of a sudden, if that type of group goes out of fashion, the people don't want to wear a CND badge because it's musically what was happening last week. It's important to show the issue as being bigger than its constituent parts. In a lot of ways it's a fairly fickle situation, the pop world. And stuff like wanting to survive should be more important …
It is embarrassing to think that we could destroy ourselves, y'know what I mean? You just feel a prat, for being part of a system that can 't do any better than that.
RB: It's like knowing something's gonna fall on you, and not bothering to get out the way.
DW: We certainly feel capable of more than that. Anyonee you talk to in a pub feels infinitely capable of better than that. And this nonsense of, Give us a future, they don't own your future : it's your future, just take it. The question is, are we responsible enough to take our own futures?
(A pregnant pause. We slurp our tea. Paul Weller criticises the insensitivity of all centralised authority. Chas Mervyn relates the year's riots to that same dogmatic lack of official imagination.)
DW: That's the problem with the system at the moment. They're trying to make this early 1950s suit fit somebody who's living in the 1980s. So they keep having to put tucks in it, and hems and darts to make it fit, rather than saying perhaps we should have a new jacket for the '80s. I think Margaret Thatcher was genuinely shocked when the riots happened, really surprised that people were that angry. I used to think she was dead callous, but I think she's just dead out of touch as well! Not a clue, and yet she's making decisions on our behalf.
PDN: It must have been embarrassing for her, if nothing else, when she meets all the other heads of state. Like going to a posh party when.Your own kids have just crapped on the front lawn ...
MEANWHILE, THE absurdities mount up. I mentioned the case of the man' - who spent thousands on a nuclear shelter for his back garden. When he went out to check it, it was flooded : it was letting the rain in.
"Sounds like an Irish bomb shelter," said Bruce Foxton. "One with a sun roof."
"Great!" laughed Dave Wakeling. '''Bomb Shelter With A Sun-Roof'. If you lot don't use that for a lyric then we will"
And, given The Beat' s dedication to this album project since the word go, maybe it's right the last word should go to Dave … Dave?
"Yeah, well, if it all goes wrong, could we just say it was The Jam's idea?"