God Save The Sex Pistols - Keith Levene: Interview - I Was a Teenage Guitarist 4 the Clash!

Keith and Phil Singleton get together via Skype for a chat July 2014.

Part One: I Was A Teenage Guitarist 4 The Clash

Phil: I Was A Teenage Guitarist 4 The Clash. You’ve had to jog the memory a bit going all that way back. How does it feel?

Keith: This all came about through doing my “this is not an autobiography” book Diary of a Non-Punk Rocker. The idea had come up a lot. People kept asking “when are you doing an autobiography?” I said I’m not, why would I do one? Well, that all changed and I started doing a ton of interviews with Kathy DiTondo, talking about the times, the people, the places and it was quite fucking heavy therapy.

She’d be asking me questions and some of it would be the same old story, and I’d think I’ve told this story a million times, boring, but I’m telling her because she wants to know genuinely and she thinks its important. Then I’m realising, fuck – this is heavy duty, this hurts.

So what it evolved into was quite good for me. We were doing Diary of a Non-Punk Rocker, we were zooming in on areas of my life, we had to realise Diary of a Non-Punk Rocker is good but maybe it shouldn’t come out as a book quite yet 'cos there's so many stories that warranted closer attention and it could be a great series.

We didn’t plan it this way, it fell into place this way. We were doing this Commercial Zone 2014 campaign, and offered previews from Diary. Kathy DiTondo came up with "I was A Teenage Guitarist 4 The Clash" and I said “fucking good”. Then I said “let’s do it Commercial Zone style” hand made and with the covers and so on.

Commercial Zone was made 1982/83. I left PiL over it and I’m sure everyone knows the story who is interested. I tried to put it out myself. I did a deal with this indie company called Important. They pressed 10,000 records (which wasn’t very many for then) then they backed out saying they were worried they'd get sued by Branson. I said "it's not a problem, let's conference call him and sort it." They still wanted out so I gave them the money back. This meant it had gone wrong again 'cos there were endless problems with this fuckin' project. So by the time I’d pressed it myself – apart from the fact there were probably 10,000 copies out there, they backed out for sure but when they saw me selling them all over Manhatten they dropped 10,000 more on the world, those bastards.

By the time I’d pressed it myself that’s when I started to appreciate what had happened, where the fuck I was. I was this kid, with a skateboard, on the street with a load of records. I was a bloke that used to be in The Clash, used to be in PiL, but it didn’t matter, or it wasn't going to matter 'cos I knew that's what people were like. So getting through all that and concentrating on selling the records I hadn't really gotten the measure of my situation. I was on the other side of the whole process. I was selling boxes of Commercial Zone. You have to bear in mind I'd been seeing Metal Boxes everywhere for a long time, 2 or 3 years in New York where I was, in all the record shops which are not there now, like Bleecker Bob’s. They all had Metal Boxes for 50 bucks which was dough then. Believe me, I wasn’t getting any money from that 50 bucks. So I started making these custom covers. By hand. One offs, Commercial Zone came out as a dub-plate so it was easy to customise. People just loved these custom covers & it wasn't too difficult to make 'em all unique. People lapped them up. It was great, it made money as well. I could deliver what I believe was the John Martin promise, individual records made for the individual.

Back to The Clash book, when we went to make the prototypes we wanted to make a campaign issue, we wanted it to be physical, because of the precarious nature of downloads we didn’t want it to get out, we wanted it to be special, worth having much like an album cover, hence we started making this… (Keith holds custom made copies to the Skype camera. They are amazing).

Wow! Good grief!

They are all different, they are all hand printed. They are all put together by me. I sign them to order. I’ll write whatever you want, if you want me to write something stupid, or make something up, fucking great.

So it was quite painful looking back to those early days?

I didn’t know how talking about The Clash and the times in-between… I hadn’t realised I didn’t even understand what I was going through. I’m fucking pissed off. I’m a pissed-off person. It’s not a sour grapes thing. It’s stuff you just push aside to carry on. You have to continue at certain times. There was a lot of stuff I hadn’t taken stock of. Some of it was about self-recognition, realising who I was and who I am as well. So a highly emotional couple of years I’ve had.

The Clash meet the Ramones 1976 (Tommy, Dee Dee, Keith, Paul, Johnny)

How do you view that period in The Clash?

I was a kid, I was into all sorts of music, The Beatles, reggae, and at the time, prog rock. I’d just finished a tour with Yes as a roadie, which is another story also explained in the book. So basically you’re hanging out with me from when I was about 15 when I got a job with Yes, and then I didn’t get kicked off the tour, but I kinda got told not to come back on another one.

It was amazing for me and then, unplanned I started making this migration to West London and I tell you what happened, I take you there. Like when I met Mick Jones and how I talk about the scene that was emerging: The Pistols weren’t around, but they were, they were just around as I was making this migration. At this time it was more Patti Smith, Eddie and the Hotrods, Dr. Feelgood, The Stranglers.

The Pistols were probably around by then and had done a couple of gigs. I talk about how it came together, simply from my point of view. I don’t start talking about so and so did this and so and so was like this, none of that bollocks. It was fucking great, it was magical and I knew when I went home that weekend something really significant had happened in my life. I didn’t know what it was but I could feel it. All I wanted to do was get a band together so The Clash for me was to become this magic. The magic band that me and Mick wanted and I’m not saying it all fell apart and went sour, but I’m saying a 17 year old kid who probably became 18 by the time he made the decision to leave the band and score a win-win; and thinking he was young enough to be able to pull that off.

You know what I went on to do afterwards, I did some good stuff, but at the time it meant The Clash could be The Clash without any problems like me being difficult every 5 minutes about an idea they wished I wasn't even suggesting. It’s like if I didn’t like it, why be here. Get the fuck out. So I did get out, all this stuff's in the book, I was always open to different ideas or alternatives. That was a big thing at the beginning with Bernard Rhodes and me along the lines of what the band could be...... I knew The Clash were going to make it.

Recently I was challenged by the writer (Kathy DiTondo) with an interesting question. "Why did you help form “the only band that mattered” simply to leave it?" Well....what was I to say? Hence we now have an array of books and we're starting here. Essentially, or in this case - I Was A Teenage Guitarist 4 The Clash. It’s a lot of fun.

The books are all handmade, it’s kinda the spirit of punk rock. It’s about now, using stuff that’s around, not using plastic; the joys of getting and holding the thing in your hand whether you’re going to read it or not. You get a record cover out and you can imagine the music just looking at the cover.

Part Two: Keith talks further about The Clash/Teenage Guitarist book, what happened with the original Commercial Zone LP, Commercial Zone 2014, television, working in Prague, and more...

Keith Levene
Keith at work in Prague

Phil: If you could have your time again, would you leave The Clash when you did?

Keith: Obviously that’s what this book is about. I knew what I was doing when I did it, I knew they were going to make it. I should have made it a bit more – because they made it. If I had to do it all again – yeah, I’d do everything I did. I’m saying it a bit reluctantly because I haven’t had the easiest time but I think I knew at the time I was choosing the less travelled path every time I made a decision. The fact I’m sitting talking to you means that I’m OK and the fact I’m still here means that I can.

I’ve got great music, I’ve got enthusiasm, I’m learning; I’m more useless at guitar than when I’d been playing for a year. I’m looking forward to this Commercial Zone release. I’m probably going to do a rendition of What’s My Name – it’s part of the therapy course.

You’re credited on the LP with co-writing that. Are there any others you had a hand in or feel you didn’t get the credit for?

If you want to be just cold light of day, down to earth, realistic, I should’ve been credited for all of What’s My Name. If I wasn’t going to have a credit in any of the others, I should have been credited for a third of the album as a whole.

I’m not going to pretend for a second I wrote Protex Blue or Janie Jones or I’m so Bored with You. I’m not going to say I had anything to do with writing – ‘cos Mick came to me with tunes - but I had a lot to do with how The Clash are and were, and definitely the way we sounded initially.

I remember at the time we were kids and we were up against the Ramones, James Honeyman-Scott who was someone to be reckoned with, and the Pistols who may not have been the most musical band in the world but Steve Jones knew what guitars were supposed to sound like. Glen’s like a laser, he’s amazing. So they had it. I knew. So from my point of view, we were up against all that even in The Clash and PiL.

I’m just telling my story. I’m just saying what happened and it’s fun. And at this stage of the game I should do what I fucking like. I know I can deliver and I’m going to give What’s My Name and a couple of other things a shot. Who knows? I like the I Was A Teenage Guitarist thing. We didn’t over plan it, we knew we wanted to try it.

There’s some other stuff we’ve got on the drawing board to do with an audio book which will either encompass a kind of live event or a show. London ‘76 Live is the idea. I Was A Teenage Guitarist came from that. We’ve got stuff in mind we’re going to do if it’s worth the time and energy and if it’s working.

We want to get the book out there. We’ll certainly make a more user friendly release of the book but that will be much further down the line at the end of the Diary series, when we’ve settled on what the Diary series really is. There’s the Prague Diaries coming up – we’re just flying by the seat of our pants to be honest!

In the right direction though. You’ve started at the very beginning, people tend to forget that period of The Clash before they actually made a recording. It’s almost air-brushed out.

There’s other stuff in there. Me and Mick both wanted to get a band together. How we got the band together initially, how Joe was drafted in. When you think of The Clash, who do you think of first? Joe or Mick?

It’s close, but Joe followed by Mick.

Essentially it was Mick and mine’s band. We put the band together. We got Joe in. This is all covered in the book. It’s told in a funny style. We didn’t make it funny, it just is funny. When we were 85% through the book, I did get the little feeling; I could make this a bit spicier. But once you do that you’re fucked! So, it’s not spicy, it’s real.

Do you cover your first meeting with Sid and so on?

It’s all in The Clash book! Jump online and get one!

Where I met Sid, where I kept seeing him, what he said to me when I came up to him. I talk about John being there, when I finally got together with Sid. John was there with various people who ended up in PiL. People like Dave Crowe, John Gray. Meeting Patti Smith.

When I’m talking about The Clash days I’m talking about the Davis Road squat where Viv Albertine from The Slits lived. That’s why I taught her to play guitar, because we lived together. I knew her anyway. Mick Jones was pretty much resident there. Paul Simonon was officially there after The Clash formed, suddenly he was homeless, it was a case of “guess you’re in”. It wasn’t a shit hole, it was nice. It wasn’t a mansion, it was just the top of a Shepherds Bush two storey house. Really simple, but fucking great. Not the kind of thing you get these days, you have to pay rent. Amazing, magical times.

As much as we were punks, we weren’t smashing the place up. I don’t know how old you are Phil, if you remember those days?

I’m 50. I was 13 in 1977 and had grown-up loving all the Glam Rock stuff on Top Of The Pops; those records seemed to have the same energy as punk.

Punk would never have come along without Slade, Sweet, Marc Bolan, and Bowie. The fact that punk could happen on a fashion and musical level was because of those guys. They had the elements; look at Marc Bolan, look at the New York Dolls, look at Sweet, look at Gary Glitter even. All these elements counted for punk. For me, I’m not a big punk fan. Punk was a big excuse for being useless in the end. But the spirit of it in the beginning was fantastic.

I remember Steve Strange from Visage started opening all those clubs in London, I was thinking fucking hell, didn’t we just go through a punk revolution for the last 2 and a half years? I liked Bowie 7 years ago; this should have happened before punk rock. Then you got the whole Duran Duran thing. Interesting, but for a bloke who was on the scene trying to smash down doors, I felt “fucking hell, don’t do this” I think my perspective is different to a lot of people’s. I miss Top Of The Pops though.

Top Of The Pops and The Old Grey Whistle Test was all you had growing up in the 70’s.

That’s right. Those were the big two. The only thing that was on telly at night without adverts. What’s this? I’m watching a band I like on telly, in colour!

I never watch telly now though. The telly I’ve got here is all hooked up to my Mac. It’s all for making music. I’ve synthesizers, guitars all around, and they all go through the telly one way or another. I never watch it anymore. I’d rather be looking at a spreadsheet and doing something more productive than looking at those endless channels, with 20 minute commercials every ten minutes. I like the classic TV we grew up with. Now YouTube is that classic TV. We have classic YouTube. I don’t know what it’s going to be like in 7 years. Can you imagine life without YouTube?

How did you feel seeing The Clash and other friends such as Sid having success in 1977? Did you wish you were a part of the action? Your own success came a little later with PiL.

I was having action! (laughing) It was a really good time. There were lots of funny little conflicts that happened in The Clash. Bernard Rhodes said you have to lose all your old friends. No-one was doing it but he certainly tried to. Friends got a whiff of this and could tell there was something a bit exclusive going on. This is referenced in the book. I was on the bus going somewhere and it was maybe 4 days after this thing happened in Rehearsal Rehearsals that I wasn’t going to be in The Clash very soon. I was with Stuart, who is the guy with me in that picture with the Ramones outside Dingwalls, he said something then added, “But you won’t be able to do it because you’ll be in rehearsals with The Clash” and I said to Stuart that I’d left and he said “Oh, welcome back!” There’s one example of friends responding. But I never really went anywhere, I was obviously trying out my new band but I didn’t blow anybody out.

Then I ended up in Pinner, hanging out with my old mates I used to hang out with in Southgate, just sitting around playing guitar and doing what you do when you’re not even 20. The other thing I was doing was working with Ken Lockie. That’s when I ran into Paul Jones but that’s at the end of that period because 3 days later, PiL was conceptually in the bag. It goes into it in the book exactly what happened with me and John way before that and The Clash. But then it goes into the consolidation of that. I really don’t want to give away too much of what’s in the book!

You must be quite pleased the way Commercial Zone is still regarded as a PiL album in its own right? You put it out independently.

Yeah, but I made it with PiL. I made it with John. It fell short in that we thought, oh fuck, we’ve got to finish it now, we had to deliver it to these Japanese guys and personally the whole thing was not going well and the thing with me and John was really at the end of it. An attempt was made to save it, even if it didn’t feel saved, to just try it, and that lasted about a day and a half.

There was gonna be no more record. I had Richard (Branson) saying “Keith, I like it, I wanna release it.” I’d mixed it. I had to take vocals from elsewhere and fly them in. I’m not slagging John off, I’m just saying this is what it was and this is what I did with it. Not “this is what you want, this is what you get” but “this is what it was and this is what I did!”

Essentially that was the record they put out as This Is What You Want, This is What You Get. They changed the names, like Young Brits (to Solitaire). I wasn’t crazy about this record, if I could have put two more tunes on it I just think it would have been a much more powerful record. But it didn’t matter, it was where it was.

I was happy for it to be a PiL record. Richard: “Oh, now John wants to re-record it.” “Do you want him to re-record it, Richard?” “Well, no.” “Then that shouldn’t be a problem, just say no.” But I could tell there was something really political going on, I was about to get blacklisted. I wasn’t sure what was happening.

Then he gave me some more dough for publishing which told me he gave me my blessing on that release, so I released it legally, properly. Then they put out This Is What You Want, This is What You Get. Essentially they changed the cover and they changed the names. They didn’t remix anything. They said I’d erased tracks from the multi-track. I said “That’s my point. We haven’t enough shit on the multi-track. We could pull this off as a PiL album, but we better get better, quick.” That’s one side of it. The other side is “fuck you guys, I ain’t coming to Japan, this is done.”

I don’t know how you pulled that out of me, what I just said!

It’s all about Commercial Zone, and that’s what you current project is, Commercial Zone 2014.

Commercial Zone 2014 is a bit like, what if you could have a real PiL fourth album? It’s the spirit of that. Really, it’s Keith making an album now, doing his stuff now, hence books like Teenage Guitarist with Commercial Zone custom covers. You’re gonna get these great CDs with 12” artwork. I didn’t want it to be hokey, like here’s the T-shirt and the video, I wanted to make it a little more interesting. Trying to make music less worthless. I don’t think my music is worthless, but it’s hard to get it to people. I believe there is more people interested than I’m getting.

All I’m doing is what I can, making it in a way I want it to be. If there’s more interest, I’m not sure how I’ll fucking keep up with it anyway! But I’m willing to give it a shot and find out.

You’re in Prague at the moment. Is there a reason you’re in Prague, is that where you are based?

It turned out that was the place I originally got studio time for and when I got here I really, really upped the game and the guy went for it, which lucky for the backers, I’ve got almost unlimited studio time now within a certain window. I have to get this thing out now in 2014. Obviously I’m going to be doing other stuff here so I’ve ended up basing myself here, again by the seat of my pants, because the opportunity is right and the support is here. I like the fact I’m in CZ.

When it comes to making the stuff, I couldn’t be in a better place. I’m in the white room up here which is my studio, I’ve got an old school studio downstairs with a giant drum room called Hell and another studio, and they’re at my disposal. They do cut into budget but if you want all that, they’re reasonable. That was the original way I budgeted doing CZ2014. It’s much more extensive. You know, I haven’t recorded for ages, well not a whole project. I’ve done this and that and gone along but I haven’t been faced with having to do this type of thing and it’s much bigger. I guess it’s because I’m older now and I’ve got all my memories of great studios and all these digital studios in between.

This project is one of those things. Every time you try to do something the project expands which means it’s going to be a bigger project. I wanna wrap it up and I guess I’m gonna wrap it up. When I do this release, that’s it. I think Commercial Zone is wrapped up but I’ve yet to find out myself.

What would you consider doing after that? Are you still full of inspiration?

I’m working with Ken Lockie and we’re doing More Hits More. He’s doing Pnuma Music. 1% Music, More Hits More. We’re doing stuff towards that. He’s got this amazing dance trance stuff out which actually is really good. I’ve got 2051 which is just going to be a super Magical Mystery Tour / Sgt Pepper version of Commercial Zone. It’s gonna be all the stuff I didn’t put on Commercial Zone. I’ve been doing 2051 for ages. It’s a whole visual theme. The music is great, the theme tune is great, everything. I was doing 2051 when the CZ2014 box did seem to need to be ticked. I’ll do it right, I’ll get it right. I reckon there will be stuff coming. I’ve got to say there’s not too much reward for making music so it just makes it difficult to keep making it possible and to give it the right energy. But I know me. I’ll do it. I’ve got nothing else to do.

You must still enjoy it though?

It takes up a great deal of my time. I endeavour to practise or to play 3 hours a day on my acoustic. I’m very strict with myself and like I said, there’s so much stuff I can’t do - even my own stuff. I’ve been learning Search for Absolute Zero and I still can’t play it. It’s been out for 13 months and I’m still learning the track so I can do the whole thing on acoustic. I made that up to tape and that’s why I call myself a talented person because when I nail it, I nail it. It’s taken me ages to learn that tune and how to play it. I made up that technique as I was recording it. But you can’t always do that, so I am enthusiastic, yeah.

Part Three: Keith discusses guitar technique and practising, Death Disco, 1970s "quaint" UK and magical TV, the Web, downloads, and more...

Keith at work in Prague

Phil: Were you self-taught originally?

Keith: I’ve never had any music lessons. I had a lesson during that campaign. I did it with my nylon string guitar ‘cos I’d just got a classical guitar my mate sold to me for £100. They’d take me through the music and everything and I knew in my head I was rejecting it. I knew I could do it, I can read the notes, I know what the notes are, but what I learnt is this hand technique – holding your hand over the guitar. It’s very difficult when you can play and you’ve got technique anyway, to change it.

You’re asking me if I’m self-taught? Yeah, totally. I kinda rejected the lead. I sat there playing a few licks and whatever. I can sit there for 3 days and practise really boring lead and be able to play it but I never had the need to do that. In fact, I think my biggest inspiration was “don’t play lead because everyone else can play it and it’s only cocking off”. I was always very serious about music, I used to listen to the Beatles, the Stones and every other band in the 60s. That was just how I was brought up. I didn’t know I was gonna be in bands. Everyone wanted to be in a band but I didn’t know I was actually going to be in bands. The actual boyband element of it never really impressed me, I never really took that seriously. I could see people chopping themselves off dead, making a wrong choice. I never did that.

I do my music in a 60s way; Brian Wilson, Traffic, psychedelic Beatles, Mike Oldfield type of way. People often asked if I didn’t put vocals on a track on purpose, and I tell them it just didn’t come up. People have listened to Search for Absolute Zero, got so far through it before they realised there was no vocals. ‘Cos it doesn’t matter.

It’s interesting that you are self-taught, because most great musicians are. You can either do it or you can’t with music.

Here’s a great example. In 2009 I decided my favourite guitarist was Merle Travis. He uses a finger style that’s quite common with Country players, but he uses his thumb and one finger. He hits all the notes and does stuff I can’t do in any way, shape or form. Technically that’s plain wrong. It’s amazing what he created and the people that followed him, Chet Atkins, Tommy Emmanuel and so on, all have amazing technique.

You’re saying all the best musicians are self-taught. It’s really difficult to choose between ability and composition, but I think composition always wins out. I think a lot of the early 20th Century classical composers, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, a lot of their work is like musical exercises, and is really tedious because there are too many notes. That comes from ability, knowing too much. As you get older in life that’s the stuff you need to learn. It never hurts to challenge yourself with the stuff you can’t do, because if your ability is better, your natural expression is going to be better.

You must have been dedicated as a teenager to get to the level of ability where you were confident enough to get up on stage and perform.

I never thought about that, performing. I’d never performed. I remember one of the first times I went on stage, crossing over the stage. There is a big buzz. But I was always concentrating on my playing. When I was 16/17 I used to think playing an hour and a half was a long time, but a year later I met this American guy who had to play for 8 hours a day to his Mum and Dad – that was his gig. He wanted to be a guitarist. I used to play rhythm with him, and I was glad I was playing rhythm! I was watching him cock-off playing lead all the time. For me it was like being at the gym – eventually I will learn this stuff!

So from age 17-19 I was playing 7-8 hours a day. You can’t do it in one go. I knew it was on a par with the way classical players practised but I wished I knew more about what to try, because it was really boring playing these fucking tunes. I was always really serious about it. I used to do things that were audacious because I was a kid; that I didn’t even imagine that I could pull off.

Here’s an example – no big ability thing here, but when we did Death Disco in PiL, we had this tune, Wobble played the bass and we knew how the drum would go. I was familiar with this bassline, but I didn’t even know Swan Lake, and I got it wrong! I was audacious to think “I like the way I got it wrong and I’m keeping it the way I do it” because it fit with the way I thought about guitar. That’s a very teenage guitarist thing to do. I look at it in retrospect and I like what I did. These memories can affect what I’m doing now.

I’m really serious about composition now, and I’ve got the confidence to recognise that this is what I should be doing.

Do you see yourself in the future as a composer for other people?

I like the idea of doing stuff for movies. I’ve lost the plot with movies, going out, IMAX and everything! So much was possible then it turned into this world we have now. When it comes to working with other people, I’ll be perfectly honest, I can’t work with anyone right now. I’m working with Ken Lockie, but I’ve always worked with Ken. I don’t see how I could realise something for someone else, even though I did do that a year ago, but it was so easy and because it made this guy so happy, I did it. If someone comes to me and I get on great with them, maybe.

I was thinking, if you had written a piece of music and had ever wondered what someone else could do with it? Maybe gave it to a couple of people and see how they interpreted it.

That sounds great. As long as it’s not some fucking DJ re-mixing it. I’ve a few things I’d be happy to be re-realised. I’d love to give Search for Absolute Zero to someone who wanted to re-realise it, whether digitally or with a real choir or orchestra.

I’m trying to fucking realise an album here without anyone and it’s hard enough!

The last couple of days I’ve been doing a website and it was hell at first but then I got right into it and I thought “right, I need to do this, this is part of making the album”. I realise what I have to do now. It’s all part of making the album, being here and sucking this area up. I’m really lucky being in Prague. I’d been here a year ago and it was in my mind. It wasn’t planned but this is the place to do 2051, the visual thing. I was very welcomed and facilitated. It’s a good scene and I hope it’s going to yield really good things.

When you look back on when you were young, you now know what could be achieved with that youthful energy. Youth is wasted on the young as they say.

No doubt. By the time you’re 80 and you’ve got it all together, you can’t do a fucking thing!

But at least if you re-visit even the painful stuff maybe you could use some of that energy or ideas when you’re 50.

The template for that is I started playing Theme-style in 2008/9. I was sitting around and people were making me various offers: can you do this for $300, this for $1000, and we discussed them and some were insults, not because of the money but because of what they were asking me to do – re-record Public Image or This Is Not A Love Song. What about my time and material? It led me to trying to value myself and get paid for stuff. Then I got very depressed but then I realised you have to do this, so what’s the thing that’s bugging you most? And it was “where is that fucking magic?”

So I accessed myself. Now I’m seeing myself on YouTube. I never put up anything of myself or PiL on the internet until I got my own YouTube channel in 2011. I kept seeing more and more stuff about me so I was having it thrown in my face, it was like I was a different guy. I accessed him and that led to me realising I had to do this, and that’s cool because I want to do this. And if I’m going to do this, I’ve got to be getting better all the time. If I looked at me I’ve got to be able to say “he’s fucking cool and I like what he does”. I started playing Theme-style and spending a lot more time on the guitar. I did about 1000 hours, 7 or 8 hours a day. It took several months but it’s still paying off. Now I do 3 hours, which is a lot when I’m so busy but I integrate it into recording.

So it was great to be playing Theme-style, but it had to be like I couldn’t play. There were lots of little pay-offs really quickly that told me to keep doing it. I’m playing with these weird little neighbourhood people on YouTube, I didn’t give a fuck about music, albums, or anything. I’m doing 3-D stuff, research and so on. I’m doing music but I’m not counting it. It’s just about me in my bedroom.

Then, at a level higher, I’m doing Metal Box in Dub – that was the first time I got to try it out live and it worked. The material stood-up. The material I’d done from ’76 until now, it all stood up, and I’d done it all live with my old band mate Wobble. And people loved it. When someone has travelled from Australia to London and has to go back the next day, and they are holding you and crying and telling you it was worth it… and we had a few like that at different shows. We only played a limited number of shows which I liked, because if you weren’t there you fucking missed it.

Accessing and appreciating your youth. On Twitter, people are posting links to ’79, ’80, ’81, and I’m looking at them and I can see why. I’m not trying to copy that, but I can see why these boxes need to be ticked.

When we came up with the idea of re-doing Commercial Zone, it was therapy for me, it was a really good idea for an album, and it gets the time frame right. It’s right in-between the heavy weighing area of ’76-’84. Everything changed anyway. We’ve got this platform of now, and now’s the time for punk rock! It was so quaint in the 70s, there was no McDonalds in ’77. The people were different, the buses were different, the Tubes were different, the police were different, the ‘phones were different. There was no internet. It was like before the War. Everyone was unemployed. Now there’s so much fucking money around, no one’s making enough, everyone’s got everything, it’s fucking insane, we’re all talking with each other in 2 seconds.

It’s nothing new under the sun really though. It’s just the way things are. My best reference is Health & Safety. It’s very ill-defined, the doors to smash down. When we were kids we knew what to do, go into the record company and tell them to “fuck off” and make them pay us for it. And it worked.

The model was so old school and came from before the 50s. It still plagues the music industry. Right now is the time for new frontiers and opportunities. The internet is actually in place. Web 2.0 is going to upgrade it. The Web 2.0 tools – the surface hasn’t been scratched. It’s weird being over 50, I’m talking like I’m 17, 18, 19, but with a little more wisdom and experience. I still feel the same way.

Young bands in those scenes don’t exist now – everything is so remote. It’s not about the latest screaming sensation or special effect. But we all know special effects aren’t ideas. Everything, in every shape, form or colour, that can be done, has been done and is out there. No one is saying “We’ve got trains, planes and automobiles, we’ve got it all, but we’re not happy.” There’s a lot of bollocks out there. If I watch the TV I need medication! I don’t feel good. I get a lump in my throat, it’s an insane reaction. I used to love telly.

But they’ve got to fill 24 hour news channels with something. If there’s no news, they’ll make it up.

But once you’re over 32 you don’t care how it’s presented. They always get these really hot news presenters, who aren’t men! You don’t give a fuck about the news, you’re just looking at the presenter. I haven’t got enough life left to be watching some hot bird on TV!

I loved it when all the big screens were coming your way and all the technology was coming your way, and now I hate it. Now I only use a wide screen to view a music interface or to watch an old school movie.

It’s hard to impress with TV now. Back in the 70s when they used awful effects on Top Of The Pops, it was all experimental and still made you think “wow.”

That shit was magical. Every time you saw it you thought TV is just going to get better. Then MTV came along and turned into an endless stream of video wallpaper. I said to Bob McGear at the time, - one of the old school guys at Warners - “MTV is going to make it, it’s going to be successful, it’s going to be worthless artistically, and it’s going to sell you records.” But video was still interesting then, it was still largely unobtainable. I wasn’t like, let’s make a movie to sell my single. It was more like, let’s make a video – yippee! That’s all gone down the pan now.

It started in the 60s. I want a smash sensation, I want it now, I want the cure, the magic bullet, instant soup, instant everything. Then you got the space station, MacDonalds, KFC and all these Walmart type of places. This is the world we live in.

I’m here in Prague and it’s like an art deco dream. All the store fronts are copper, like the Tube which was fantastic when you were a kid. It just gets older and trippier in Prague, these buildings are real. We’ve got the internet in place, it’s all here. I guess when you get older you appreciate old things, you appreciate things being simple. Instant sucks and there is nothing new under the sun. We’ve always been able to talk to each other, all this stuff is life emulated digitally. That’s why writing a letter, waiting to get a letter, reading it, and not being able to instantly communicate could be saving relationships. Now it’s knee jerk reactions, being too quick on the button. That’s a problem.

It’s very superficial now. It’s a means to an end. If I need you, I send you an email. Cool. Pretty functional. But when it comes to the deeper things in life, that’s different.

I’m really going off downloads. It depletes the experience on both sides.

I don’t like downloads, I only download when I’ve no other option.

I have to think of it from both sides. I like downloads when I really want to hear something. I go on iTunes and I want to buy it ‘cos I dig it so much. Very often, if it’s not on iTunes I go on YouTube and it’s going to be there, and you can rip anything from YouTube. But from my point of view, I’m the guy who has to make music and sell it in downloads.

It’s a crazy situation, especially as some people want physical releases. All those people who ask if you’re going to release it on vinyl, only 10% of those people really want it on vinyl. It’s so difficult. I think this digital domain is now capable of reproducing the sound; it didn’t used to be.

Like The Clash book, the reason they look like they do is that I’m not putting out big album covers, I’m putting out books. When you read the book you’ll see there’s another side to me. It’s accurate from my point of view. It’s not accurate in history. It is what happened. If you are outside the situation or looking at it in hindsight, it’s probably not accurate. But everything in there is factual, that’s how it happened to me.

It’s exciting, because it’s about a band coming together, it’s not about a band splitting up. It’s about how a band came together that didn’t even have a name. And they became “the only band that mattered.” It’s about the band, it’s about the time, it’s about me, and it’s about the scene. The stuff I talk about really happened.

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