Rise and Fall of The Clash, The (2012)

[bunniefuu]

All right, then. Here we are...

in the capital of the

decadent U.S. of A.

Now widely regarded as one of

the most important bands ever,

The Clash disintegrated

over a 12-month period

when the band were

actually at their peak.

Why was this?

And exactly what happened next?

This is the story.

People say to me, "What

happened to The Clash?

Why did they break up?"

I always say, "Well, they went

mad," and people think I'm joking.

I'm not.

Where you going?

Well, when I was hanging

around The Clash for so long,

I definitely felt like I was going

to "Rock'n'Roll High School. "

I wanted to figure out

what it was that

made them so special,

so I just observed.

And from what I learned,

the band has to have a few

things, and they had everything.

They were very ambitious and

very keen to make it happen.

First, you have to

have the great drummer.

If you don't have a great drummer,

you haven't got a great band.

Topper was the best drummer in

the whole world, according to me.

Just electrifying.

Exciting. Absolutely manic.

Bass player Paul- when he

first started, he couldn't play bass.

But Paul practiced

bass every single day.

He had a great style that

he influenced The Clash,

you know, and

their way of dressing.

And he was responsible

for, you know,

always making sure that

the visuals were good.

They had attitude.

They had politics.

Just everything you

wanted in a rock'n'roll band.

They were tremendous.

Then you have Mick Jones,

who is basically a rock'n'roll fan.

Really, like, you

know, like, the Stones...

His hero is Keith Richards,

like, Mott the Hoople...

They were an attractive,

sort of, Beatles-like

gadabout thing, you know?

So there was

Topper, the jazz-bo.

Paul mostly liked black music.

Then Mick's

rock'n'roll influence,

with not only the way he

looked but the way he thought.

At that time, they were, like,

the only band that mattered.

And then there's Joe.

Joe was basically

rhythm and blues.

Blues person. American roots.

The Clash are

basically number three.

I mean, you know, it's the Beatles,

the Rolling Stones, and The Clash.

So, there's four

different people

who liked four

different styles of music,

and they were all

really intelligent,

and they were all

really passionate.

And, so, if you

have all those things,

you have a great band.

He's in love

with rock'n'roll

He's in love

with gettin' stoned

He's in love

with Janie Jones

He don't like his boring job

No

Let them know

Let them know

How you feel.

The Clash are kind of

unique amongst all rock bands.

They kind of had

a higher purpose,

and I can't think

of one other band

that you can say that about.

What made The Clash really endure-

it's got to be down to the songwriting.

And I put that mostly down to Mick,

or the conflict between Mick and Joe-

the artistic conflict

between those two-

which have made so

many great, great songs.

Rock'n'roll meant an enormous

amount to young people in those days.

It was the process by

which attitudes changed,

and The Clash were the

next wave of revolutionaries.

So, in the political framework,

I saw them as t*rrorists

getting away with m*rder.

The thing about The

Clash, really, I think,

is that it operates on

a multiplicity of levels.

You know, it's like, on one

hand, it's performance art,

it's street theater.

It's the poetry of

satire, really, you know?

I mean, this whole thing about, kind

of, The Clash being a political group-

I never saw them

as a political group.

I thought they were a satirical

group. They were pointing fingers

at the things that needed

to have fingers pointed at.

I think we did something

good, and that just turned out,

probably a mixture of luck

and fortunate timing.

Timing was very important.

But nothing you could've

contrived in any way.

It just turned out that way.

I am punk.

Bernie would always

describe The Clash early on

as a very creative situation.

And I think he genuinely

did believe in that.

I think he believed in

the group very, very much.

Bernie was, I called it,

an intellectual of

fashion and the zeitgeist.

When I went to his house in

Camden, he had an empty room,

and in the room were

these piles of magazines-

Marxist Today, mainly-

and they were piled up high.

About two foot high. He

used those instead of chairs.

Compared to Malcolm

McLaren, Bernie was the real deal.

He was the one who was

kind of fueling McLaren,

who was a bit of a dilettante

and would flit onto the next thing.

But a lot of that was Bernie.

Bernie came up with the

name "the Sex Pistols. "

For a few months, he

had to sort of sit there

while McLaren took the Pistols

to become the most

notorious band in the country.

Bernie Rhodes, to me, is like

"The Emperor's New Clothes. "

He's just someone who's

pumped himself up into something

that he wasn't really as a

person, as a man, as a manager.

He was very much

always, sort of,

on the coattails of Malcolm

McLaren, trying to copy his way,

but without the finesse,

without the charm,

and without the artistic vision.

But he wanted a band that

would almost be his mouthpiece.

Joe and Paul

especially loved Bernie.

And he did bring so much

great stuff to the table

that I can't make fun of it.

He wound them up in the right

way. He told them not to be pussies.

He said, you know,

"Don't talk about love,

and don't talk about

cars, talk about politics. "

Bernard Rhodes is, like, really-

You gotta consider him

as a member of The Clash,

because he did put, obviously,

a lot of ideas into the band.

So it's a very unusual situation

where you get, like, a manager

who's not, like,

aloof from the band.

He's actually part of the

creative process of it, I suppose.

I would say he's

not a good manager.

He didn't understand how to keep

things together, how to solve problems.

He only understood this

sort of conflict management.

But having said that,

you wouldn't have The Clash

if Bernie hadn't done that.

Well, he's a very

intelligent guy.

He's always thinking

outside the box,

and always got something to say

in terms of what you should do,

which is very good

if you need to know

what you need to do.

You know, you should

always remain open to things,

and Bernie was

always very challenging.

And that's, like, kind of gets

your mind going, you know?

So it's like a big

part of things.

But it didn't-

The only trouble is, that

he wasn't sharing with us

as much as he

should've done, probably.

He didn't like telling you

about what he was organizing.

He liked to sort of surprise

you with things, you know?

He was an easy figure of

fun for the band to, you know,

plant a piece of cheese on his

head while you're talking to him

so that you're

collapsing laughing

when he's telling you

about the Paris riots.

But, on the other hand,

he had some brilliant ideas.

Bernie Rhodes would

arrive at the door.

I'd open the door, he'd

push past me, up the stairs,

and not speak a word to me,

not even look me in the eye.

He's a rude,

socially inept person.

as*h*le.

Sorry.

He's an as*h*le.

Bernie's managerial technique

as such, if it existed,

was something

which was obscured.

But I know that

Joe leaned heavily

on his opinion.

You know, like,

what do we do next?

What are we doing?

What does it all mean?

Bernie could always

reduce it to a simple

sort of political thing.

I think Bernie is one

of the unsung heroes

of music management.

I just think it was great

that he brought this

kind of mad anarchic

political energy to the band,

and that he ran

the band like it was

some kind of military operation

where people were expendable.

In the autumn of 1978,

the increasing conflict between

Bernard Rhodes and the band,

and in particular Mick,

led to the sacking

of the manager.

To see his face

so beaten in fear

Just around the corner

in the English Civil w*r

Still at the stage

of clubs and fists

Hurrah, hurrah

Well-known face

got beaten to bits

Hurrah

Your face was blue

in the light of the screen

Watched the speech,

animal scream

New party army

marching right over our heads

After two years with

Blackhill Management,

run by Peter Jenner

and Andrew King,

who had previously

managed Pink Floyd,

Bernie was reinstated

as the manager.

It is worth noting that

during the absence of Bernie,

The Clash produced some of their

most enduring and inspirational work:

London Calling and Sandinista!

Before Bernie came back,

they had Blackhill Management,

and they were all really

great people, as well.

It was a whole organization.

But I think they just-

The Clash felt they were

just too nice and safe for them.

Bernie had been sacked.

Then they'd come back,

probably cap in hand, you know?

"Please come back and save us. "

He wasn't gonna blow it

this time. He was going to-

He was going to assert himself.

Bernie Rhodes came along

and got them away from there

and took over.

I understand it was Joe

who insisted that Bernard

come back and sort it out,

to give them fresh impetus,

to give them new ideas.

Well, 'cause we were reeling

out of control completely, yeah.

And he was like- He sensed that.

It's not that we

wanted to be in control,

but we were just, like,

drifting in space, I reckon.

They weren't comfortable with

things running around smoothly.

And so, whenever

Bernie was around,

then things became

chaos and madness,

and that's what they liked.

Joe and Paul, that is.

I think Mick was a bit more

happy being comfortable.

He wanted to sack everybody,

all our crew and stuff.

But everybody seemed

to be going along with it,

and I didn't want

to go along with it.

All the guys that had been

working with us for so long,

and they wanted to sack them.

Mick hated the fact

Bernie was back.

Because he always thought

he was out to scam him.

I'm watching you.

He always knew that it was

something to do with his money,

or something like that-

that he was out to scam him.

But he had him sussed

from the beginning.

But to keep Joe sweet,

he went along with it.

Joe was the one who wanted

the edge put back in the band,

and he felt that with

Bernie you had that edge,

whereas the rest of the band

didn't really have much respect-

I mean, Paul did a big mural

that was on the wall of rehearsals

of a naked Bernie

getting shat on by pigeons.

I lived with Kosmo Vinyl,

who became The Clash publicist.

He was obsessed by The

Clash before he worked for them.

What do you do for The Clash?

Whatever needs doing.

Anything. Wash a pair of socks,

go out and see the

record company...

Kosmo was the press man.

He used to work with Ian

Dury before, as a press man.

And Kosmo couldn't

get anything done.

He influenced the

way the band looked,

with that kind of, you know-

"This is the stuff you

stick on your hair. "

He steamed in, basically.

Someone's really smart

Complete control,

that's a laugh

During 1981, at

Bernie's instigation,

and due to the financial

black hole the band were in,

The Clash had played

three sell-out residencies

in London, Paris, and New York.

We just went to New York to

play seven dates in a club there.

But when we got there,

the whole thing blew up,

and we made it onto, like,

the news at 10:00 and TV,

and that was something

that we hadn't done before.

The Clash were to do

eight shows at Bond's,

but when the disco packed

in more than 3,600 fans-

the club only

legally holds 1,800-

all the trouble began.

So it turned out that because

the police shut the club down-

And so we ended up

playing 17 shows there.

Well, that was really exciting.

Especially for me, too,

because it was three

weeks at Bond's.

It was like Beatlemania

in terms of fans screaming.

None of that sh*t

had ever happened.

Police everywhere.

And each show was

sold out to capacity,

and I was the deejay.

The Bond's residency

was possibly one of-

That was one of the greatest

things that The Clash did.

And it was so important

in breaking them,

for The Clash to bring

New York to a standstill

and get on the evening news.

And somehow,

Bernie managed to place

The Clash, from West London,

smack in the

middle of Manhattan,

and make them the center point

of the whole New York

expl*si*n going on at that time.

When they were going to New

York and Mick got into hip-hop,

I think that's when they started

really going in different directions.

Joe kicked back to rockabilly.

Joe wants to kind of,

you know, do, sort of,

really, probably just

straight rock'n'roll songs.

And Mick is much more

interested in hip-hop,

you know, in kind of

the emerging rap culture.

New musics, generally.

I used to get on their

nerves because of it a bit,

because I was so, you

know, enthusiastic about it.

One of the things

about Combat Rock

is that it's the first

album that's been made

since Bernie

Rhodes has returned.

So he wants a commercial record,

and he's very certain of this.

Mick is already being

reined in by his instructions,

and he's telling Mick, you

know, to write commercial songs.

But Mick does insist that the

record is made in New York.

Bernie- I remember him

coming in and making a criticism

that there was too

many things going on-

that there wasn't one direction.

'Cause he wanted to really get

back to a bit like the first album.

Mick started

experimenting again.

And then they go off on the

tour of Japan and Australia,

Hong Kong, Thailand.

And in Australia, they

have this crazy idea

they're gonna mix it after

they've done the shows.

When all their ears are shot.

A complete waste of time.

We ended up with a lot

of music, a lot of tapes,

and I wanted to boil it

down onto one album

and stop mucking

around, you know,

and refine it down

to the essence.

And Mick was into,

"Let's have a 12-inch or two

12-inches with the album. "

And I wouldn't have minded

if the tracks had merited it,

but I felt like they

were all too long.

It was becoming too self-indulgent,

and I felt like the opposite.

Yeah, that was the time

when we found out we couldn't-

I didn't know how to

mix records anymore.

We had to call Glyn Johns in at

the last minute to mix the album,

because we had made an

attempt to mix it ourselves

that we hadn't been able to do.

And Glyn Johns

mixed it in a week.

Bernie gets Glyn Johns to

remix the album, you know.

Joe is down there very early.

Mick, as is his tradition,

arrives rather late,

by which time- half of

his stuff's the first day-

some of his stuff's

been taken off already.

Mick Jones of The Clash.

He saved the album, really.

And Mick-

his view was that I ruined

his music and stuff like this.

He didn't like it.

But actually now

he does think that it

was the right way to mix it.

Combat Rock. On Epic

Records and cassettes.

I think it's a good job that it

came out as one- Combat Rock.

It was good after all that.

You know what I mean?

It was a bit

painful at the time,

but it's a much better

record than the other one,

I think.

That's another one of

those cymbal level things.

That was something that

went a bit wrong for Bernie.

Originally, they were

gonna start touring,

and it's commonly assumed

that tickets weren't going very well

and that they'd had to pull

some kind of publicity stunt

to sell more tickets-

i. e. make Joe disappear.

Yeah, I just dropped

out of a UK tour,

and I went to Paris

instead and got drunk.

And he did end up in

Paris, doing the marathon.

He went a lot longer

than everyone thought.

And Bernie, particularly,

who sort of encouraged

this little disappearing act

to shake up the band

and get some publicity-

I think he was rather surprised.

They had all agreed that they

were drinkers and smokers,

and so that was gonna

be what The Clash were.

They just smoked dope and drank,

and everybody

liked to drink a lot.

They loved to smoke, you

know, pot. California pot.

They go, "Where

can we get some?"

So, I call my friend Glenn up, and I go-

He's a big pot dealer in San Francisco.

I go, "Glenn, you

gotta get down here.

Come down to Monterey.

We're with these guys.

We're gonna have a great time,

you know? Bring some stuff. "

He goes, "How much you want

me to bring?" I said, "Bring it all!"

So in a couple hours, he's down there

with, like, a duffel bag full of stuff.

He couldn't work without

getting up in the morning

and having his first spliff.

So, anytime you hear him say

he's not going until spliff comes,

that is quite true.

You know, I think The Clash-

It wasn't a church picnic.

In Japan, you just

get loads of alcohol.

And somehow they would get

crushed aspirins and things like that.

Oh, yeah. Different-

Crushed aspirins and

everything, just to keep them going.

Like, I remember in

the recording studio,

you know, things like,

"Hey, where's Topper?"

And then you would know that he

was in the bathroom doing drugs.

And everybody

would roll their eyes.

He'd borrow any note off you

for approximately three minutes

and then hand it

back, rolled up, yeah.

Yeah, I'll manage, you know.

Give me some more of that.

Topper was marginalized

from the very beginning, really.

He was the drummer from Dover.

You know, he

wasn't a London boy.

All the press focus

was on the other three,

never on Topper, and he

was a big part of the band.

His f*cking drumming

held it together, you know?

So Topper started

to spend more time

on the road with the crew,

and some of the crew

were heavy drug takers.

And that's where his drug

habit really mushroomed.

In terms of new drummers

that had come

along in that decade,

Topper was the best.

Topper was the "Engine

Room," as Joe liked to call him.

Topper was a genius

at what he done, and I-

You know, I completely

applaud his energy.

He was a great performer.

Every show, he would come off

that stage completely exhausted.

They lost patience with him.

I wish they hadn't, 'cause

they knew that Topper

was the best drummer

in the whole world, too,

but they just couldn't

tolerate the junkiness stuff.

So that's what happened.

Topper was the only one who

was heavily into that sort of thing,

and it took me a

long time to find out.

I found out properly in New

Zealand when he started shaking,

and I didn't know what

was wrong with him.

And everybody realized.

Then, really, they

should have said,

"Topper is ill.

Let's get him some

treatment, some help,

and we'll step back for six

months or however long it takes. "

But, instead, he was sacked.

That's not very good, is it?

I thought we could

work something out,

but the times were like,

you needed it, you need it now.

We needed it now, and

we didn't have it then,

and so that's what happened.

But I didn't want

that to happen.

Not at all. But that did happen,

and probably that

was inevitable, as well.

You can't run a thing if you're-

So, yeah, you're

a drug band, sure,

but it just gets too

much after a while.

Joe and Paul and Mick were,

you know, really sad about it,

but they felt they

had no choice.

And I think Topper was

really shocked and hurt

and was hoping that, "Hey,

give me another chance,"

but they didn't feel like

giving him another chance.

If you can't do

it, you can't do it.

You get to a point where

you can't do it anymore.

And so, you're too messed up.

I thought he was in

fantastic shape as a musician.

It was more the fear of a

dependent drug getting into the band

than what it was

actually doing to Topper.

It was more of a mental thing

that particularly Joe had,

that if heroin came in,

it would be destructive.

Would you please say hello

to Mr. Terry Chimes on drums.

Terry's great. It was, like, a

good thing Terry came back.

You know what I mean?

'Cause it was still like-

He was with us originally, and

so he's still part of the same thing.

There's, like, continuity to

that that was really good.

There was this sort of poetry

about the flow of The Clash

and, you know, the

people around them.

There was a synchronicity

about the actions of The Clash

which suggested that they were a

pure, intuitive art movement, really.

I liked playing with Terry, as

well. Yeah, I liked playing with-

Both of them are fantastic

drummers, you know.

So I liked it. I did enjoy it.

I still enjoyed playing

the numbers and stuff.

There was still-

Most of the time, it

was still pretty good

when we were on the stage.

I'm runnin'

Police on my back

I've been hidin'

Police on my back

There was a sh**ting

Police on my back

And the victim,

well, he won't come back

You could tell the

music changed.

The beat wasn't there.

You could tell.

And Topper had a certain

way of bashing the drums.

You knew it was somebody else.

There was no other

drummer like him.

You could tell from the

crowd's reaction and all.

This is how The

Clash worked, right?

They had a week to

find a new drummer.

And as far as I understand it,

they didn't even have any

rehearsals- full band rehearsals-

before they started

the American tour,

because Paul had already

left to go to America.

We had to rehearse without Paul,

with Mick playing the

bass, and then Joe.

So it was all very chaotic.

But I kind of liked

that chaos in my life.

I enjoy chaos. You know, it's

kind of uplifting and exciting.

Terry was a professional enough,

you know, player to

just slot in with that.

And, you know,

they sounded good.

I mean, you know, he

was a great drummer.

I think the problem would've been

if they had tried to record with him.

In some ways, it was

good getting Terry back.

But I think it was hopeless no

matter who they would've got then,

because Topper had

gone, and it wasn't the same.

And after Topper had gone,

Mick's days were numbered.

It was kind of interesting

to see how far we'd got

and what it was like to

play that kind of thing,

and how strange it

was with our numbers

and what we were about.

To be in that kind

of arena-style thing-

it was a really interesting,

memorable thing.

The band were really happy.

Because how can you

not be in your twenties

and be really happy

that you're succeeding,

and that people like it, and

you're getting all this dough?

They were best when

they were small and angry

and not the stadium rockers.

You know, they were still

a great stadium rock band,

and, you know, the American

audiences love that and everything.

But for me and for

British audiences,

they were at their best when

they were hard and angry and poor.

We haven't ate since

we've been here.

We've been here three days.

We haven't had a thing to eat yet.

But the dough

can be the problem,

because, you know,

it's kind of a clich

to say that, you know,

people write their best music

when they're starving.

Well, people say

that for a good reason.

And, you know, when they

had all their angst and energy

and were rebelling because

everything was f*cked up with them-

they had no money

and blah, blah, blah-

you know, the

fight was for real.

When they cracked it,

really, with Combat Rock,

everything seemed

a bit frenetic,

and everyone seemed to be a

bit generally stressed, actually.

It felt to me like, in

the first time around,

they were all arguing with me,

and now they're

arguing with each other.

That's the first thing.

Bernie's role had changed.

He was less in

control. He was more...

getting orders from Joe

rather than giving the orders.

That was kind of reversed.

And I think during that year,

'82, we did an awful lot of touring.

We went everywhere

and did loads of work.

Probably worked

too hard, I think.

And there was a tension

developed between Mick on one side

and Joe and Paul on the other.

And so, I was under

immense pressure.

And so, Bernie said to me, "Mick,

why don't you give your lawyer

power of attorney, and

then I'll work it out with him?"

You know what I mean? And

so, I felt under pressure at the time,

and I said okay for that period.

Then he went to

the others and went,

"Look what Mick's done. He

doesn't want to talk to you anymore.

He wants you to

talk to his lawyer. "

And it f*cked everything up.

And so, that was what was

happening backstage, you know.

But backstage, it was

always, like, a bit chaotic.

It was, like,

manipulative, because-

Also, we weren't really

told what was going on.

And so, by that time,

we'd stopped talking to

each other a bit, you know?

Well, more than a bit.

We'd stopped pretty

much talking to each other,

because we just were

off on our own trips,

and we didn't know

what we were doing.

We were just like a

bunch of idiots thrust into-

into the spotlight, you know?

The more they

cranked up the heat

and made us work harder and

harder, the more that tension-

It was like a hothouse, you

know? It just got hotter and hotter.

Really, it was so much work

that it was k*lling Joe.

It was just work, work, work.

When you're working at that

pressure, you know, no one's thinking.

There's no time for yourself

to sit down and think about

what's going on with your life,

and what's going on with what you're

doing, with your art, with your creativity.

And I think they did-

They kind of, you know-

They really kind of imploded

through a sort of

madness that took over.

Maybe everyone

was infected with it.

But Joe certainly was.

Now they had it,

everybody started

taking liberties.

Darling, you

gotta let me know

Should I say or should I go

If you say that you are mine

I'll be here till

the day I die

Come on and let me know

Should I stay or should I go

It was like an

unstoppable monster.

And it was gonna

become, at that point-

That they were gonna become

the biggest band in the world.

And I later found out

that by this time, I think,

Joe and Paul and Bernie

were already

plotting the right time

for Mick to be sacked.

Should I stay or should I go

I always heard various

discussions about that,

but I didn't really think

it would ever happen.

I knew they were

disgruntled with him.

It had a lot to do with

them being successful,

and Joe and Paul

wanted to carry on

and just keep

rocking and rolling

and not caring about the

money and not buying things,

whereas Mick wanted to buy

a nice house and a nice car.

He got a girlfriend who

was a model, you know.

He started living the pop star

life that they were making fun of,

and so that became

sort of dangerous.

Oh, yeah, I'm absolutely

sure that Joe was frightened

of the success that he got.

Oh, I think that was the case

right from the very first day,

because we used

to argue about it.

You know, I think it was Joe that

said, "We don't want any money. "

I said, "What the hell you talking about-

don't want any money? Don't be silly. "

Because I said, "If you want to be

successful, the best band in the world"-

he always wanted to be

the best band in the world-

"you're gonna sell millions of

records, and millions of pounds come in,

so what are you

gonna do with it?"

You know, the contradiction

of, kind of, his upbringing,

his squatting background,

what he was supposed

to be, plus money,

is really a complex

issue for him.

'Cause he's a bit naive,

as well. Joe is a bit naive.

That's an important

point, you know?

I mean, you know, he's

developed in many ways-

creatively, artistically-

but he has a few basic things

he hasn't really

figured out about life.

I think if you're a band and

you've got a set of ideals,

you're bound to be a bit-

kind of concerned if, like,

suddenly what you're doing

is the opposite of

what you kind of set out

and said you were

gonna do in the first place.

I mean, some people

say doing the Who dates

was the beginning of the

end, because they'd suddenly

hit the roof that they were

trying to avoid when they started.

They were playing stadiums.

To be touring

stadiums with them-

in a way, it was traumatic,

because it was like seeing

where we might end up.

Because we were sort

of supporting the Who,

and they were

pulling the crowd in.

And I could see that in

order to get to that position,

you'd have to become

a travesty of yourself.

It really got to me, thinking that

your whole life would be one long-

like, doing a photo

sh**t in the morning,

and then sh**ting some

crap video in the afternoon,

and then doing some interview,

and the amount of

promotion needed to drive-

You know, it would

just destroy a person.

It was becoming too

much for us, in a way.

We didn't know how to handle

all that tension or something.

We didn't really know

how to handle it all.

We never really thought about

it when we were going for it-

what it would actually be like.

We didn't have any plans.

In any decent group,

there's always tension.

That's how it works.

No one gets anywhere

by being nice to each other.

Mick can be really laid back.

And everybody's ready to go,

but Mick would take

about another hour

to get to the tour

bus, you know.

While we're all

sitting on the bus,

then Mick would come

along, spliff in mouth.

He's ready to go now.

Everybody was

pissed off about it.

Joe- he would go,

especially on his own,

not to be with Mick.

Like, he would take a car.

Everybody else

would be on the coach.

Joe would take a car

and travel on his own,

'cause he was

pissed off with him

just doing his own thing.

Never wanted to be on time.

He just didn't care.

He didn't see the reason

why he had to be on time.

We all had to wait on Mick.

That was going on every day.

Every day, every night.

Even to go to the sound

check, to go to the show,

to catch the plane...

Every day, we

leave at Mick's time.

And it was two

camps, really, wasn't it?

It was Joe and Mick.

And you've got Kosmo's

influence, as well.

I think he more or

less stamped his flag

in the ground at Joe's feet.

And Mick was looked

upon as this camp,

you know, rock'n'roll star.

He was a rock'n'roll star.

But the Strummer camp

didn't like him to make it obvious

that he was prepared to

enjoy the fruits of their success.

Mick was good at dealing

with the music business,

and he wanted to join it,

but he didn't see that necessarily

as being against his principles.

Mick was like, "Hey, we

just made some money.

We haven't made

any money forever.

We've just been working

hard. Let's take a break. "

Which is reasonable.

But to Joe and Paul and

Bernie, it was unreasonable.

They're such different people.

In a way, it was

quite a paradox.

So you had Mick, who,

from what I know when I met him,

he was in a tower block,

and you had Joe from a

relatively privileged background.

It was funny how they took on

the almost opposite characters

to what they really-

You see, like, Mick was

the working-class guy,

and then Joe was sort of trying

to cover up his background,

as if anyone gave

a sh*t, basically.

I think we were

becoming more successful,

which was making Joe

more tense, generally.

And I think Mick was kind

of enjoying the success,

and Joe was feeling

more pressure from it.

Yeah, I was out on my

own, I suppose, yeah.

I was, like, pretty

difficult to get along with,

'cause things

weren't going my way,

so I was in a bad

mood all the time.

These frictions reminded me of

Mick Jagger and Keith Richards.

I mean, you could not be more

poles apart than their personalities.

But for a while, it

worked in The Clash.

Gave them an

edge. But in the end,

it drove too big a

wedge between them.

And then there were

other factors coming in,

like the Bernie Rhodes factor.

Towards Christmas,

there was serious conversations

about what's gonna happen next.

And this idea came up that, you

know, Joe and Paul were saying,

"We don't know if Mick

is gonna be involved. "

And, actually, looking back, I

didn't really take them very serious.

I thought, "No, that can't

be right. That's silly. "

I don't know. I didn't really-

I found it very odd to imagine

The Clash without Mick.

Wow. No, I never knew

anything about that. I don't know.

We were going really

fast, and so we don't really-

didn't have much

time for reflection

at that particular

time, you know?

You never know anything.

You never know what's

gonna happen the next minute.

Something could change.

I can understand that.

Early in 1983,

Joe decided to make

a home movie of sorts.

Perhaps in an attempt

to restore harmony

where there was now discord.

I was, like, cast

as the bad guy,

and...

we just acted out a part.

Mick, in the movie, was

really great, really funny,

and he's just his own

character, you know?

So, we all enjoyed

doing that film.

I did write some music for it.

It was, like, a hip-hop

symphony of the city,

and I think he didn't

like it very much.

And then he didn't

end up using any music,

'cause it was a silent film,

and so he kind of left it like that.

He didn't like the

music anyway, and so...

And then they put it on

afterwards, that music.

It's all right.

Which is fine, you

know what I mean?

You couldn't have any old music,

because it's a silent movie, isn't it?

So I was just at

a piano, playing...

I thought that would've been

good. But after they, you know,

canned my symphonic ambitions,

it just pulled us further apart.

I'd been through a very

tough year, and I've enjoyed it.

And we did all those things- all

this touring in America and so on.

But at that point, I felt

I'd been there and done it.

Yeah. There's a

new English bloke

on the drums here.

He's called Peter Howard.

Peter Howard's drumming

is obviously very different

to Topper's and

to Terry Chimes'.

He's a bit of a meat-and-potatoes,

sort of, almost John Bonham,

pound-those-drums

sort of merchant.

You know, I was into prog rock

and Yes and Genesis and stuff,

which is something I never

told them in the interview.

I liked Pete. I liked

Pete very much.

I wasn't really that involved in

the audition process by that time.

We'd drifted a little bit.

A lot of people

won't get no justice tonight

A lot of people

won't get no supper tonight

'Cause the battle

is getting harder

In this iration

Armagideon time

It's Armagideon

Paul always, I think, saw himself

as a bit of a mediator, you know.

He was always kind of trying to

get them to speak to each other.

There wasn't much tension,

'cause they didn't talk.

You know, it was very, kind of-

It wasn't much of an

atmosphere in the dressing room.

It really wasn't.

We got a lot of money

off of the US Festival-

a giant U. S. rock festival.

It's got something to do with the

guy that invented Apple Computers-

Steve Wozniak.

Anyway, so he must

have had a lot of money,

so he decided to

throw the concert.

He probably

lost his shirt on it.

Playing the US Festival, yeah,

The Clash got half a million dollars.

But Van Halen, who

topped the bill the next night,

get a million dollars.

But what was the great one-

The stroke that

Bernie pulls about,

you know, how they're

pulling the press conference-

that they are demanding, you

know, that the promoters give,

you know, $100,000

of whatever it is,

to, you know, the

dispossessed of East L.A.

You know, Bernie was,

like, really sloganeering,

almost, like, and

trying to use it.

And then we had just

a massive pressure.

Like a massive-

More- Even more so-

Even apart from the fact

that it was a really big gig.

And it was my last gig.

There was a punch-up

at the end, and then...

And then Paul jumped in,

and then it was, "Elvis

has left the building. "

Ladies and gentlemen,

your attention, please.

The Clash have

left the building.

The Clash have

left the building.

You needn't scream

anymore, I guess.

Bernie said, "Let's do

New Orleans music, "

and that was, like,

kind of a way, I think-

probably his way to kind

of get us back to refocusing.

But it was like, "Why

would we wanna do that?"

You know what I mean?

And so that was like-

We were really not on good terms

by the time we were trying to do

New Orleans music in Camden Town.

We were in rehearsal rooms trying to

do New Orleans music, and it was like-

Not that I've got anything

against New Orleans music,

but it just seemed ridiculous.

And it was, like, soon

after that, I was sacked.

Then I left.

One of the things about

Mick, and it's undeniable,

is that he's always late.

Mick, you're late. They're

waiting in there for you.

All right, Charlie.

And very significantly,

on the day that he's fired,

Mick turns up early,

and no one's there.

I was early for once,

and so then I went up-

I thought, "Sod this.

Is anybody else here?"

And they went "no. " So I

went up to the bookshop

up the road, and

then I came back.

And funny enough, Topper

was there as well that day,

and he'd already left the group.

Just shows you how

close we are anyway.

Mick just came up to me and he

went, "You're not gonna believe this.

They just sacked me

from my own band. "

And I said, "You're joking. "

And he said, "Yes.

I'm going now. "

Gone. Went to his guitar case,

packed his guitars up, and gone.

And Joe looked

around, looked around.

Then Joe looked at me and

went, "Well, that's your boy.

If you want to,

you can go as well.

That's your boy.

Follow him then. "

Basically, we were fed up

with each other by that time,

and so we'd had enough.

And we all got on our own trips.

Our own trips were,

like- It wasn't the same.

You know, when we were

all together at the start,

we were like, "Come on, guys,

we can do this," you know?

Blindly going forward.

And then we did do it,

and then...

we started to fall apart.

We had to change the team,

because the atmosphere

was too terrible to-

We've got so much work to

do that we can't waste time

begging people to play

the damn guitar, you know?

Bernie and Kosmo and

Joe and Paul all thought,

"If we do that, we've

solved all these problems. "

Actually, yeah, you

solve a problem,

but you throw the baby

out with the bathwater,

because the band is no

longer the band it was.

At this point, you know,

we were sort of grown men,

and, you know, as

it's been reported,

you know, Mick did

get a bit out of hand

in an Elizabeth Taylor way,

with his moods and whatever.

But, you know, at the

time, that's what we felt.

We felt, well, you

know, we'd had enough.

Let's just kick him out, and

to hell with the consequences.

After a while,

you work together,

and you live in each other's

pockets almost continually.

In our time, we didn't even have

holidays where we could have a break.

So we just continued

without any questions, so that-

Obviously, you know,

you get fed up with each other,

and then the group splits up,

even though there must've

been lots of other reasons,

you would think,

contributing towards it.

You don't really see it

happening at the time,

because you're going

too fast to notice anything.

And then the next thing

you know, it's like a car crash.

He always wanted

holidays, and it was terrible,

'cause we always wanted

to get on and do the job.

So, we had the tour set up...

And just about to start the

tour, Mick's off on holiday.

So, obviously, we didn't do the tour,

which is a bit of a pain in the neck.

They say I didn't want to

tour, but I wanted to tour.

But I wanted to play some

places that we hadn't played before,

or something like

that, you know?

So it wasn't that I

didn't want to tour,

but I wanted to play

some other places.

They say I didn't

want to tour, but I did.

But I wanted to

play in Eskimo land.

A lot of people

won't get no supper tonight

A lot of people

won't get no justice tonight

Choose your faction

The one final thing that made

me really go over the edge

was that he started to go

on about his lawyer a lot

and say, "Well, my lawyer

says this, my lawyer says that. "

And I didn't want that

to come between us,

because we're a team, you know.

We decide what we're

gonna do amongst ourselves.

We don't go and see lawyers about

it. What do they got to do with it?

And when he started to

say, "Well, my lawyer... "

"We can sign that publishing

deal if my lawyer says it's okay... "

"I'll do this if my lawyer... "

I just said, "Well, go

write songs with him then. "

Rock'n'roll history is

littered with errors, isn't it?

But that is one

that leaps out at you

as a mistake of poor management.

I mean, who was managing

The Clash that week

when the decision was

made to sack Mick Jones?

Bernie!

I was as sad as everybody,

but I did see it coming,

because they were

always talking about it.

Especially Bernie.

I don't think any other member of the

band was relevant to Joe at that point,

apart from Bernie,

because Bernie had a hold.

Asking Bernie back

meant that Bernie-

he had his band back.

And Joe was very easily

influenced by stronger personalities.

And Bernie was

like a father figure.

When he spoke to The Clash,

it was always Mick who was

the one that he sort of found

was the one who

spoke back to him.

Let Bernie sort out those...

The others tended to sort

of, like, more agree with him,

whereas Mick was

more of a sort of...

You know, more of

a strong individual.

Don't tell me to shut my mouth.

I just didn't understand

why it would happen,

and I said to Bernie,

"Did you try and stop him?"

And he said, "No. We're

gonna reinvigorate the band.

It's gonna be a new

thing, you know?

We're gonna go forward, and

we've been looking backwards. "

I just felt like he wanted

to go and do other things,

and so, eventually, I had to

give him a push in that direction.

Joe rang me.

He said, " I've got

rid of that w*nk*r.

Are you with me,

or are you with him?"

The first audition was up in

Camden, up in the Electric Ballroom,

and there were about 60

other guitar players there.

And then there was a second

audition at rehearsal rehearsals.

More of the same.

Playing along to a tape.

I was a punk, you know.

I was in the Cortinas.

I was a guy that was

playing in a band in 1976,

you know, and was

making records in 1977.

So my influences

were the same as theirs.

You know, hundreds of people

out there would give their right arm

to play the guitar

for The Clash,

and, like, that's where

Vince and Nick came in.

I took a day off work

and went up there to,

you know, audition for a band.

I don't know. I was just quite-

quite drunk.

Extremely drunk.

I was put in a room

with four initially-

four other guys who I knew of-

to learn a bunch of songs.

And then about five or

six weeks in, they said,

"Oh, and there's another guitar

player coming. He's coming in today. "

No warning, nothing.

So that was a bit of a shock.

Yeah, I thought I was

gonna be the main guy.

There was a little bit of a

conflict there, you know?

We both thought, "Who's

going to be the one?"

Oh, another guitar player?

What, you mean you're

not gonna play guitar, Joe?

Your name is Strummer.

What's going on? You know.

So it was explained to me...

You know, new look, new idea...

You know, two guitarists means

that there isn't one

person replacing Mick,

et cetera...

I don't know what

Vince likes musically,

because he didn't

discuss things musically.

And Vince, now and again,

when there was no one looking,

would play the chords

from a Yes song

or from a Genesis

song, just to kind of-

It was kind of winking

at me that he knew-

You know, it was like,

kind of, yeah, I know.

They seemed to me to be

the wrong choice at that time,

because what Bernie was saying was

that it was gonna reinvigorate The Clash.

Looking at it, I didn't see how

you were gonna reinvigorate it

by bringing in people who

were already enamored by it,

because all you were

gonna do was reproduce

what was going on before.

And I just got very

suspicious at that point

about what the

band was gonna do.

I couldn't see how it was

gonna break new ground.

Nick Sheppard was

great. He was the part.

But Vince, I think, they

could've done without.

It's just Spinal Tap, man.

You just turn it up

and just f*cking...

That's what I did.

Did Vince have a bad attitude?

Vince was hired

for his attitude.

I went down to the audition,

and Vince was the only person

who stood up and said-

In front of all the other

guitar players and went,

"This is f*cking crap!"

And "I'm not f*cking

playing this sh*t!"

"Oh, he's got attitude. "

And they practically

kind of went, "Right.

That's our man right

there," you know?

Without even really hearing

what he was like as a musician.

So they hired him for attitude.

What they maybe didn't get

was that when you hire

someone for attitude,

you get their attitude,

not the one you

think you're gonna get.

Which is, yeah,

again- Yeah, sure,

it's kind of a Bernie Rhodes

type thing, you know?

Especially when Bernie

became more established

and wants more back end,

and once Mick had gone,

it was about kind

of getting everyone

to kind of, you know,

live rough practically.

You know, so my wages went

down to practically nothing.

There was no means of support

any other way at all, you know.

Obviously, there was a great

deal of money around, you know,

but not for me

and not for Nick and

not for Vince either.

The new musicians are

all on 150 quid a week.

Well, of course it's a con.

The whole thing is a

con by then, isn't it?

Even rock'n'roll is a con.

100 pounds a week? I

can make that and more-

more money than that just by...

f*cking selling

my a*s, you know,

and make more money

than 150 quid a week.

You go around the planet,

making piles and piles

and piles of f*cking cash

for a bunch of people

who were supposed to

be going around, going like,

"Oh, we're so humanitarian.

We love the people.

We're so socialist.

We love looking

after the band. "

You know, blah-dee-blah.

And they're just "corporated"

into the bloody system.

You know, they'd been taken over.

They were "corporated," you know?

It's all about, kind

of, making life difficult

potentially to make great music.

It was like a corporation,

and you work with...

You got your guitar broom,

and you're walking around,

and you're sweeping the floor.

I've worked in a

lot of warehouses,

and they're all those

sort of jobs and crap.

And you don't have any say.

You don't have

any say in anything.

You just do what you're told.

And you do what you're

told to get the money

and keep the thing

moving along, you know?

I don't deal with this

drug-related culture anymore.

It's all hippie stuff.

And all of a sudden, nobody

was allowed to get stoned.

Nobody was

allowed to take drugs.

There was a real kind of,

you know, regime going on

about what people could

and couldn't wear, you know,

and it was pretty bad.

And the anti-drugs

thing really is also-

That's a kind of, you know,

back-handed way of criticizing Mick,

who everyone knows is a

big spliff-head, of course.

But so did Joe.

Just as much.

There was a lot of slagging and

public stuff going on from their side.

Mick never says a bloody word,

which I thought was

really cool, actually.

I didn't even like what

they were starting to wear.

They were starting

to wear sort of

commercially

produced punk outfits.

That was the moment in which I

felt that Joe was being exploited,

that The Clash was being

pushed forward for other reasons.

I think it mainly happened

not just for Bernie's

political reasons,

but for financial

reasons as well,

because it had become a monster.

We wanted to strip it down

back to punk rock roots

and see what's left and see

how it progresses from there.

I think Kosmo had

baked up this theory

that they would be

"the" punk rockers,

king punks,

and take it back

to basics almost.

Yeah, I just feel like

the blander the rest

of the music is getting,

the more it needs for

something that's raw again.

The trouble is, Joe is coming out

with all this stuff about, you know,

going back to

basics and whatever.

But if you look at him,

the state of his

soul is fairly evident,

and you don't really necessarily believe

what he's saying in those interviews.

Actually, you're not

convinced that he's convinced.

Punk was a rebellion

against self-indulgence.

Punk said, "To hell with

self-indulgence. It's meaningless. "

Well, he seems to be actually

behaving like a dictator, to be honest.

And he also seems

extremely angry.

Sometimes you think

it's just contrived anger,

probably for the

sake of the media.

But, actually, I think he's

imploding with anger, actually.

The message is, now is the time

to cut everything out

that's been wasting

all your time.

If you want to

be out of control,

now is the time!

It's The Clash!

Down the road

Came a junco partner

Boy, he was loaded

As can be

He was knocked out

Knocked out, loaded

We started playing in America.

Big gigs. 15,000 people.

Stadium rock, you know?

Songs they knew.

They all had a great time.

I did try to phone up all

the promoters in the world

and tell them I was coming

out with The Clash as well,

just to mess with

them a little bit.

But apart from that,

I was fine with it.

I was only kidding.

It was a complete

wind-up, you know,

just to make Bernie go crazy.

Touring America.

You're 24. You're single.

Everybody loves you.

Everybody wants to take you out

and show you the

town, buy you drinks.

Jeez, what a hard job.

We were driving massive drives,

and I don't think there was a toilet

on the bus, and it was uncomfortable.

You know what Greyhound buses

are like. They're for poor people.

It wasn't as much fun as the

early Clash tours, definitely.

Everybody tried.

And especially Joe and Paul,

you know, were

trying to make it work

and have a successful band,

but it was just

very, very difficult.

It's hard to replace people.

It's hard to replace your youth.

You can't have money

and pretend that you don't.

You know, all this stuff goes

into the whole punk rock picture.

It doesn't go into

every rock'n'roll story,

but it goes into punk rock,

'cause punk rock is supposed

to mean a certain thing.

You know what I mean?

It means youth and rebellion.

It wasn't a good band anymore.

You know, they did

the moves and stuff,

and you're hearing the

songs you want to hear,

but there wasn't a focus,

and nobody really knew

what they were doing.

Pete was a good guy.

You know, as it must've been

consequently the group after I left.

He must've found it very

difficult circumstances.

And it's, like, very difficult

if you're not actually

emotionally connected to the

songs that you're playing as well.

If you haven't lived the

songs, how difficult it must be

to try to play them and sing

them with any conviction.

Bernie Rhodes thought, you know,

that there's some more

guys he can tell what to do,

so he had full control.

Joe just sort of

decided to let Bernie

do whatever he wanted.

But Paul didn't say much.

He was happy just to

stand there, follow Joe.

But those guys- I felt

real sorry for them,

because they

could not handle it.

And then, you know, two

guys to play Mick's part?

And not only that, but the

audience would tell them

they're no Mick Jones.

And at times, they just-

you know, you could see

them crumbling on stage.

They tried their best, man,

but no way could they handle it.

They were just

playing the songs.

Mick used to play

different solos all the time.

He used to add things

or throw something away.

But these guys- it was just

like going through the motions.

It wasn't their fault.

Joe's dad passes on

in the autumn of 1984,

while they're on, you know,

the dodgy Clash tour of Britain,

and he just goes to the funeral.

There's a gig that night.

Leaves to go to the gig.

He doesn't have

any time to mourn it.

And from what I understand,

no one in the rest of the

group was really told about it.

He disappeared for two

days, and we didn't even know

he'd gone to his

father's funeral.

Then, at the same time,

you know, his mother is ill.

She's got cancer.

She was in a hospice.

He's going to

visit her regularly.

He's been in a crisis, really, ever

since Mick's kicked out of the group.

He was quite ripe to

be steered by Bernie.

He was quite vulnerable.

Very strong guy, but

he was very vulnerable.

He must have felt like he was

gonna take over the world with Bernie.

Bernie ran the band like it

was some military operation.

Yeah, I mean, we had a lot

of band meetings all the time,

and then there'd be a lot

of, "And you-", you know?

"And you- And you

wore a checked shirt.

What f*cking band do you

think this is, Big Country?"

Bernie, Joe and Kosmo

obviously had an agenda,

and Bernie wanted

that agenda to proceed,

and so he would

use what he thought

were the appropriate

tactics to get a result.

Kosmo, Joe and Bernie

all did an amount of bullying,

but Vince was probably

a lot more sensitive to it.

He might have taken

it a bit more personally.

I was bullied from the day one.

God, for f*ck's sake.

The guy f*cking

was laying into me

from the day I

joined, almost, isn't it?

Controlling them, telling

them who's the boss.

He's the boss. "Do what

I say. " That sort of thing.

But I wouldn't

call that bullying.

I just thought he wanted them

to get on with it, and don't slack.

The band was a band

for about four weeks,

and then Bernie jumped

in and started kicking butt

and pushing our f*cking asses.

And that was the

end of that, you know?

You just, like, become sl*ves

to The Clash machine.

I don't think Vince

was any more targeted

than anybody else.

I don't think that

Bernie succeeded

in what he was trying

to do with any of us.

But I know what they were

trying to do, and perhaps-

I don't want to be too positive

about anything Bernie did,

but perhaps, in

some kind of way,

it wasn't a terrible idea to

try and get five people to work

and bond, you know, and

make them into a g*ng.

So, in October 1984,

Joe goes down to

Granada, in Spain.

And it's kind of a bit

of a pilgrimage for him.

He needs to get away from things.

He needs a creative place to think.

He wanted to visit the grave

of Federico Garca Lorca,

the great surrealist

poet, dramatist,

who was m*rder*d in

the Spanish Civil w*r.

He meets this group called 091,

a Spanish group who

he wants to produce.

He said that he had

to fire Mick Jones

because Mick Jones

smoked too much joints.

And he said that

while he was preparing a joint.

We finished the American

tour, and we came home,

and there was, kind

of, some time off.

Obviously, the next job

was to make a record.

So the first idea was,

it would be Joe,

Norman Watt-Roy,

Pete and, I think,

Mickey Gallagher.

We got together with

Joe to do a bit of jamming

in the studio in Camden.

And what do you know?

I was playing a Hammond. Joe

wanted me to play a Hammond.

But when we went

in and listened to it,

it did sound a bit

Dylanish, you know?

So Bernie was in

the control room,

and he wanted to

change it, make it different,

so he put the organ out of

phase with everything else.

So I walk in the studio, and I go,

"What's going on? What's going on?"

And he was just, "Just trying to

make it different, make it different. "

And I heard them rehearsing,

and they sounded bloody awful.

They sounded like

pub rock. It was awful.

So that didn't happen.

That was the last I heard.

When I did that session,

I didn't get asked

back, so, you know...

I just took it that he

didn't like it, you know?

And Joe was doing everything

that Bernie said at the time.

Yeah, that was the

kind of thing I noticed

when I went out

to Munich with Joe.

Joe changed when

he was around Bernie.

He kind of, like, was,

"Yes sir, no, sir," to Bernie.

I don't think Joe became

a yes-man to Bernie.

I think that he decided

on a course of action

to take with Bernie

without realizing

Bernie's ulterior motive,

which was to become

a member of The Clash.

And I think by the time

we got to make the record,

he had realized that

that was going on,

and it didn't sit well with him.

But it was too late to go back.

He had to believe in what he

was doing, and he told me that.

He said to me in Munich,

"I have to believe that

this is the right thing to do. "

Joe deduces that Bernie Rhodes,

having seen the success

Malcolm McLaren has had,

actually globally, with

records like "Buffalo Gals"

and the Duck thing,

wants yet again to

emulate his former partner

and become a star himself.

The decision was taken

that they would

use this producer

called Jose Unidos,

who didn't actually exist.

It was basically Bernie Rhodes

and Joe.

I wasn't surprised that Bernie

was producing the record.

He's a megalomaniac.

He wanted to be in The Clash.

But it wasn't The Clash.

It wasn't really The Clash.

You know, it was Joe trying to

keep the thing going on his own.

He was obviously under an

immense amount of pressure

to come up with new

material that would fit the vein.

Once Mick had gone, that

took the music out of the band.

And who was gonna do it now?

Bernie, with his drum machine?

You know?

I was never privy

to the conversation

about using a drum machine on it

and getting Fayney

to program the drums.

In an attempt to make it more

contemporary? I don't know.

The new Clash album was

actually an electronic album.

I did, you know, the majority

of the drum programming on it.

And it was, I suppose...

It was supposed to

be a new departure.

It was supposed to be a

fresher, newer, bolder Clash.

That's what it was meant to be.

Well, the whole recording

is a farce, you know?

The band aren't on it. It was

done in different sessions.

You got session

musicians playing on it.

Songs aren't very good.

Well, the only thing I ever did was

to sit in a drum booth with the track

and told to play like I

was throwing the drum kit

down the stairs, or...

Yeah.

It was hard work in the studio.

It was harder than I

thought it was gonna be,

because the vibe wasn't there.

The busking tour

was a decision that me

and Joe made in Munich

at the end of the recording,

after a conversation with Kosmo

about taking the band and

doing something as a band.

Like, reconnecting as a band.

They seemed to think it was

the best tour that they ever did.

They kind of set off,

allegedly, with no money,

although Paul had a credit card.

We stood by the

side of the motorway-

all of us dressed in,

like, leather jackets

and leather jeans and T-shirts,

with our hair done

nice, you know?

They had guitars, and I

had a pair of drumsticks,

and I was supposed

to find something to hit,

which was invariably a

dustbin or a plastic chair.

That was really good fun.

Some really, really good fun.

It was really believable,

and Joe was fearless.

Absolutely f*cking

fearless about what he did.

And they kind of traversed

the country for a bit.

A couple of weeks or so. And

it seems to be quite successful.

By the time they get into

Scotland, people have heard of this,

and, you know, they're

getting quite big crowds.

Very quickly, as soon as

people knew who we were,

there were thousands of

people standing around.

We'd hand around the hat,

and you'd get phone numbers

and drugs and money

and, you know, sexual

invitations and stuff.

And it was all really good fun.

Eventually, I think that

Joe lost his voice, I think,

and they'd basically

come back to London,

much to Bernie's anger,

who felt that they should

have kept going much longer.

Eight months later, he

came from Munich, I think,

and he was really frustrated

with the new record and said,

"That f*cking Bernie Rhodes. I

don't want to be more his toy. "

I said, "What's happening?"

He said, "The Clash is over.

I don't want to know anything

about Bernie, the band"...

And no more comments.

This is when we

played in Roskilde.

We were on the bus

going to the festival.

Bernie was giving

it some at the front,

and I saw Joe sh**t

him a look of pure hate.

And that was kind

of when I first realized

that this sh*t

was gonna hit the fan.

Obviously Joe had

stopped believing.

In July that year,

I ran into Joe on the

street, and he said,

"Come have a drink

with me tonight,"

and I went to a place

called 192 in Notting Hill.

And about midnight, he

says, "I've got a big problem.

Mick was right about Bernie. "

Joe came up to me and said

what a stupid mistake he made

and he shouldn't have

never followed Bernie.

In tears. He just broke down.

He knew he'd made a mistake.

But by that time, Mick had

started Big Audio Dynamite.

And he goes around to see Mick,

and Mick is actually waiting for

a cab to take him to the airport,

'cause he's finished

the first B.A. D. album.

And he's exhausted.

He's going on holiday.

He's going to Nassau.

And so they have a spliff,

and then the cab comes

after about five minutes.

Then the next thing, Joe gets on

a plane and goes out to Nassau.

Doesn't know where he is.

When I arrived there, it

was about 11:00 at night.

And I turned up to their villa,

and there was a guy

in the swimming pool,

splashing around in the middle

of the night, completely drunk.

It was Joe Strummer,

and I learned

that he'd actually

hired a bicycle

and cycled around the

island for three days,

knocking on random doors,

trying to find Mick,

because he'd come

there with a mission

of asking him to

reform The Clash.

I mean, it was too late.

It was too late. You

know, B.A. D. had started,

and all these characters were involved

and up and running, and it was going,

and it was like, well, there was no

way that that was gonna happen.

And I could see that Joe-

He was in pain at

that point, you know?

He...

His life had gone out of kilter.

I'll tell you, the thing

about Cut the Crap

is that you gotta

put it in the context

of what was

happening in Joe's life.

I mean, Joe, at that

time was Bernie's foil.

I mean, he's the guy

who's got the opportunity

to take control of this,

but he was having to

deal with pretty bad issues

in his private life.

When Cut the Crap came out,

I listened to it

with an open mind,

but...

to be honest,

it was in the title.

"This is England"

was a good song.

I mean, it's really

hard to f*cking...

It's just really depressing,

because "This is England"

is just such a tremendous song,

because it just represents

what's going down, you know?

We don't have a

f*cking England anymore.

Everything is gone, is

down the tubes, you know?

And it...

I heard it when it first came

out, but I just couldn't stand it.

Considering the lyrical peaks

that Joe had reached

on Combat Rock,

I just thought,

"What's he done?"

Bernie thinks that, you know,

he's, like, spotted a genre,

which is sort of

electro, sort of hip-hop,

sort of cut-up stuff.

The idea hadn't worked-

the drum machine idea.

I don't know what

Fayney knew about it,

but it didn't exactly swing like a

drum machine does, you know?

That's why you use them.

Because they keep time.

It wasn't the intention to go in

and make a half-hearted record.

We genuinely wanted

to make something

that people would go, "Wow. "

The thing is, that

Joe and Bernie

were the kind of

guys that if you said,

"Let's go crazy and do

something completely off the wall,"

they'd go, "Yeah, let's do it. "

They needed someone to

say, "Hang on. That won't work. "

But there's no one there to say

that, 'cause without Mick there-

Mick would've said,

"Well, that won't work. "

But without him there,

they could do something

completely crazy,

and they wouldn't realize

what a mistake it was

until it was out in the shops

and, you know, too late.

I don't really remember,

like, the bad reviews came out,

and Joe went, "Aw,

f*ck it. I'm out of here. "

I don't remember it like that.

I think that he pretty

much was disgruntled

with the band and the record,

and then when the

bad reviews came out,

it was probably the

icing on the cake.

If there was a

mistake, I've made it.

So, it's, like, November,

December '85.

It finally disintegrates.

The last meeting that we had,

you know, like, as a group...

We went into Joe's house, and

he said, "I'm not gonna carry on,"

and he asked us

not to carry on either,

and we all said

that we wouldn't.

I think by that time, I don't think

anyone really, really could give a f*ck.

It was just flogging

a dead horse.

I remember Pete saying,

"You know, what you should do

is take out a retraction, if you

like, in the papers- an open letter-

and we should go and

record the album as a band. "

But, obviously, by the time

that Joe had called this meeting,

that wasn't an option as

far as he was concerned.

He was going to pay for a page

in every broadsheet newspaper

and all the tabloids to have it printed,

saying, "Crap-cutting

commencing,"

with this kind of

public broadcast

of how the band

had basically been hoodwinked

by a political dictator-

Bernie.

They gave us 1,000 pounds

in a sweaty envelope each,

and that was that, really.

That was the end

of it, you know?

It should've ended

considerably earlier than that,

but it just didn't.

I mean, I think everyone

was very reluctant to let it go.

Bernie then saw

The Clash as a brand-

brand Clash- which

meant that you wouldn't

even have to have any

members of The Clash in it.

When Joe said he was gonna leave,

Bernie was gonna get a new singer.

Brand Clash.

I witnessed the auditions.

I went to the auditions

for new singers,

because I thought I

might find someone

that I could work with

outside of that situation.

You know, or maybe have

something to do with that situation,

but not as The Clash.

I know for a fact that Paul would never

have been the lead singer of The Clash.

It was more Bernie,

and possibly Kosmo,

trying to say, "Look, let's

keep this going if you want to. "

"Do you want to do this?"

and "Do you want to do that?"

And then I think Paul

pretty much just said no.

The talk of the time

with Bernie and Kosmo,

when we were auditioning

for singers and stuff, was-

They were talking

about football teams

and how players left

and players came back.

That was the kind of

rationale that they were using,

but it was patently bullshit.

But does he own the

name "The Clash"?

He can't do it, 'cause otherwise he

probably would do that, wouldn't he?

He'd have a version

out there now, touring,

you know, if he owned the name.

Being in a band like The Clash,

you're in a situation that is

full of extreme contradictions.

Now, The Clash actually

were a manufactured band.

This is the paradox of it.

There can't be that

many manufactured bands

that go on to get not

just the recognition,

but to be considered one of

the bands with the most integrity.

So, they did pretty

well to survive.

The Clash that I played in

was a fabrication, you know?

It was this me, and it was this

guy, and it was this drummer.

But the school of thought is that

The Clash were always a fabrication.

They were a band that was

kind of made by, you know-

Well, if you'd listened to

Bernie, he invented the world,

but he certainly

takes this credit

for getting Joe and

putting him with Mick.

I think The Clash, as a band,

were doomed by virtue

of Bernie's interference

and Topper's drug problem.

I don't think there was

ever gonna be a way

that you would be able

to reconcile those things.

But I think that was the

band it was supposed to be.

I think the musical aspect

is key to the whole thing,

because, at the end of

the day, they were a band.

And I think once a bunch of guys

can't get into the same room together

and make the same sort of music

that everyone likes, you know,

it's gonna fall apart very quickly,

which is exactly what happened.

What happened, you

know, when Mick Jones left?

Not a lot. Just happened.

It was the same thing.

Running around onstage

like a f*cking monkey,

playing it, and making

a loud guitar sound.

Much later on,

you sort of think,

"Oh, yeah, I would

have done it different. "

You may have done it different,

but I don't think the outcome

would have been any different

even if you had,

'cause it's inevitable.

It's just a natural progression

that at the beginning,

it was brilliant,

and then at the end, they

were grabbing at different straws

to try to keep the band going,

'cause Joe and

Paul really wanted to.

And it didn't really

work, but they tried.

But I don't see it as

so much a mystery

that, you know, when a

new band, new movement-

punk was new-

that when you

get a little bit older,

you just can't be a

f*cking crazy-a*s punk

unless you're,

you know, a loser.

It's funny how society

takes something, absorbs it,

and sort of devalues it, and

takes all the sort of "oomph" out of it

and makes it banal.

And that kind of happened with

punk, and it had to happen with punk.

But I think you can see,

over the last 30 years,

that the sort of real core of it

has influenced a lot of people,

a lot of young people.

It's lasted because of the

great truths in that music,

and also, you know, the

wit with which those lyrics

and music is delivered.

And it kind of, you

know, makes you smile.

And great truths, you know,

told with a joke, tend to last.

The Clash, to me, was

the best rock'n'roll band-

live band- when they were hot.

They spoke for

the working class,

and they spoke for human rights.

Extraordinary group.

As Bernie Rhodes did say,

"This is a very creative situation,"

and it was.

They did what they did,

and I think people

should be grateful for that.

Most of the people I know will tell

you that that band changed their lives.

Yes, so we did

something good, obviously,

and that's why we

should leave it at that.

When groups break up,

it's often very difficult

for the various members,

and it often takes them

years to come down from it,

and sometimes they

don't succeed at all.

So, Joe certainly

has got that going,

but also his terrible guilt

for having kicked Mick out.

You know, "I was the one who

blew it through classic hubris. "

Plus, his parents have both

died in quick succession.

And he's prone to

depression anyway.

And, basically, he

really goes into one.

But Joe does still want, you

know, in his heart of hearts,

to get The Clash back together.

Three weeks before Joe died,

he played a benefit gig in

aid of the Fire Brigades Union.

It was at this show,

in Acton, West London,

that for the first time in 20

years, Mick joined him onstage.

Obviously the truth will always

remain an entirely subjective entity.

But, just perhaps, Joe

had it sussed when he sang,

"The truth is only

known by guttersnipes. "