SIMON HOUPT
The Globe and Mail
Tuesday, November 2, 1999
Joe Strummer is running behind schedule, but that's not going to stop him from talking as much as he wants, to whomever he wants. Out on the 18th-floor terrace of his hotel suite, he is in the middle of an interview with Guitar World magazine, but Strummer -- spotting a Canadian waiting patiently on a sofa inside -- gallops forward yelping, "Hey, you hoser, you! That's Canadian, right?! Oh, Bob and Doug, they kill me sideways! Okay, there's a beer, take it and I'll be with you soon."
The Corona from the hotel minibar is declined and Strummer, being the type of fellow who likes to make his guests feel at home, responds with an offer of vodka. This is also declined: It's only midafternoon. How about cigarettes? Strummer asks. The cigarettes, you see, were illegally imported from Canada and purchased in Times Square earlier in the day. They were a gift to Strummer from an MTV VJ who was speaking with the former Clash leader about his new album, the entertaining, full-on, Rock Art and the X-Ray Style.
"I was remarking that I hate the taste of cigarettes so this DJ [sic] bought me a pack of these Export A Extra Lights," explains Strummer, while the Guitar World team (reporter, photographer) drums their fingers on the terrace's cement floor outside. "Extra Light? I'd say extra heavy."
Strummer eventually dispenses with Guitar World and returns. He's thirsty. Few people in history have the intestinal fortitude and stamina to say no to Strummer who, even at 47, retains his manic punk edge. He beats you down with a wall of energy and lunky charisma. So that's it: There's nothing to do but go up the street to a nearby SoHo pub for a couple of drinks.
"The trouble with Joe is he puts lines on the face of everybody else," says Strummer's wife, Lucinda, a pretty, petite blonde to whom he has been married for seven years. "You try and keep up with him, you're the one that gets the lines. He is totally tireless. He loves life, relishes life. He doesn't want to miss anything.
"When we go to another city I just want to sleep and he's like, 'Wake up, babe, we're in Boston!' Or 'We're in Madrid! C'mon, we gotta' go out, check it out, let's walk the streets, let's see what people are doing, let's go and talk to some people in the bars!' "
You can't blame him. From the public's perspective, Strummer has been all but speechless for the last 10 years, a hard stance for a man not previously known for his monastic silence. In his heyday, he was a wild and notoriously voluble conversationalist, a politically opinionated fighter whose tongue could often be found loosened by alcohol or other substances. Oh, wait a minute. Did we imply those days are over?
"I'm really upset because magic mushrooms grow in England at this time of year and we're missing the first crop. That's a great drug because it comes straight out of the earth," Strummer says before going on about the benefits of marijuana and occasional hits of acid.
The guitar-playing Strummer (birth name: John Graham Mellor) was a co-founder of The Clash, one of the most influential bands to come out of the British punk explosion of the mid-seventies. Along with Paul Simonon (bass) and Nicky (Topper) Headon (drums), Strummer and Mick Jones created a unique fusion of reggae, rockabilly, machine-gun guitars and pure pop that was heralded, after a self-titled debut in 1977, as a one-band rejuvenation of rock 'n' roll. By 1980, Billboard noted that "many consider [The Clash] to be the best rock band in the world," which, in retrospect, should have been seen as the kiss of death.
They certainly put on a show. Early on, the band encouraged fans to spit at them on stage, a practice aborted when Strummer intentionally caught some phlegm and came down with hepatitis. In 1980, Strummer was arrested in Hamburg, West Germany for smashing his guitar over the head of an unruly fan.
The band gained mainstream North American acceptance in 1979 with the release of London Calling, with the hit song Train in Vain; and grabbed a few Top-40 spots with 1982's Combat Rock, including the infectious singles Rock the Casbah and Should I Stay or Should I Go? By this point, the foursome was not only inspiring hundreds of bands to reinvent their approach to music, it was also influencing untold thousands with spirited, revolutionary- minded politics.
In a recent issue of The Irish Times, Michael McCaughren wrote, "The first time I heard mention of Nicaragua's Sandinista revolution was on the cover of the 1980 Clash album of the same name, bought with Christmas pocket money. Five years later I found myself lying in bed with dengue fever in a dusty village in rural Nicaragua, a punk-rock political journey inspired by the Clash's magnificent triple album."
For the band, though, things went downhill from there. After Jones split in 1983, the Clash released one more album and disbanded.
"When the Clash collapsed, we were tired. There had been a lot of intense activity in five years," says Strummer, settling into the bar with a vodka and coke. "Secondly, I felt we'd run out of idea gasoline. And thirdly, I wanted to shut up and let someone else have a go at it."
In the 15 years since he broke up the Clash, Strummer has acquired a second family. After breaking up with his first wife and the mother of his two children, his marriage to Lucinda has led to responsibility for three more children (she brought one into the marriage). This time around, he wanted to spend more time with the kids as they were growing up.
"I tried to kid myself that we could half go on the road, maybe tour in the school holidays, but the reality is if you've got a crew together, you've got a band together, you've got a bus together, you gotta get out there and make it pay."
Strummer moved to the country, entering what he self-effacingly calls his "wilderness years." But just because you haven't heard much about him doesn't mean he hasn't been busy. After composing the theme song for filmmaker Alex Cox's punk love story Sid and Nancy, Strummer was hired by Cox to play opposite Courtney Love in the director's failed 1987 spaghetti western Straight to Hell. He also turned in small roles in a couple of other films, like Jarmusch's Mystery Train.
Strummer is finding some of the changes in the intervening years easier to deal with than others. On Rock Art and the X-Ray Style, for example, he pays tribute to some of the new sounds in music, with the song Diggin' the New. But don't make the mistake of calling his new album a CD.
"No! Don't say the word! CD?!" Strummer juts his chest forward and lowers his chin. "Retract that filthy, stinking word!" he says.
"Can I just interject this?" he asks rhetorically, surely knowing no one would stop him. "I learned this in London two days ago. It's the most interesting fact that I've heard in 10, 12 years. I knew CDs were crap, but [according to a study in a high-end hi-fi owner's magazine] in Texas they put tape cassettes into the barns to play music for the cows. They found they got 20 per cent more yield, more milk. Eight years ago, they thought, hey, let's switch our systems, go all modern, so they installed CD players. The yield went back down to where it was before they played any music! So to experiment, they got out the cassettes and put them back in again -- and the yield's gone up. You gotta put that in The Globe, because that shocked the hell out of me, because I knew that. But cows know it! It means we're daft!"
He lets forth a boozy, fake Halloween laugh that might almost be sinister if it were coming from someone else -- it sounds something like "Wooo-hoohoo-hoo- hahahahahahaaaa!" He uses it on occasion when he's pleased with an idea he's just stumbled upon.
Musically, The X-Ray Style is going to please a lot of Clash fans. Strummer has teamed up with a group of young desperadoes known as The Mescaleros to conjure up a good chunk of the old Clash sound, with a newish spin. The reggae, rockabilly and nuclear-powered caterwaul is still there, tempered by a more melodic approach. Strummer says his term for it is "acid punk, but only because I can't think of what else to call it. I have been asked . . . what kind of music is it? I wanted to say, 'Well, it's the same old shit,' but it doesn't sound good, does it? This is show biz."
Speaking of show biz, Strummer won't kill the rumours of a Clash reunion, but he's not just being coy. It would be a good time for the band to reunite: an album of live material was just released to hungry fans, and Strummer's recent touring has lots of critics saying the old material is as vital as ever. (Strummer does a number of Clash standards with The Mescaleros.) Problem is, there are some vestiges of show biz that the band can't shake, like Topper Headon's drug problem. Strummer says Headon is fighting his addiction, but the battle is still in the early stages.
For his part, Strummer swears his use of marijuana is what keeps him looking and feeling young.
"I'm 47 and people seem to think, I'm [much younger]," he says and, yes, he could pass for mid- 30s. "I've done nothing to be the way I am. I take no moisturizer. Just a lot of spliff."
"It slows your mind down," he says, with another manic laugh. Strummer's eyes dance around the room at the fun he has promoting marijuana use. "Now we're crossing into beyond biophysics or biochemistry, we're crossing into the new frontier here!"
He chucks back the rest of his drink.
"Wooo-hoohoo-hoo-hahahahahahaaaa!"
Rock Art and the X-Ray Style
goes on sale today. Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros visit The Guvernment in
Toronto on Nov. 20.
Article contribution by Steve Mereu
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