The Rise and Fall of The Clash (2012) Movie Script

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 terrorists
getting away with murder.
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.
Asshole.
Sorry.
He's an asshole.
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 War
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 shit
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
explosion 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 fucking 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 shooting
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 fucked 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 fucked 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 killing 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
shoot in the morning,
and then shooting 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 shit, 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 wanker.
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 fucking...
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 fucking crap!"
And "I'm not fucking
playing this shit!"
"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...
fucking selling
my ass, you know,
and make more money
than 150 quid a week.
You go around the planet,
making piles and piles
and piles of fucking 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 fucking 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 fuck's sake.
The guy fucking
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 fucking asses.
And that was the
end of that, you know?
You just, like, become slaves
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 gang.
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 murdered in
the Spanish Civil War.
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 fucking
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 fucking 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 shoot
him a look of pure hate.
And that was kind
of when I first realized
that this shit
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 fucking...
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
fucking 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,
fuck 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 fuck.
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 fucking 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
fucking crazy-ass 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. "