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UK Subs
Maximum RocknRoll magazine
1997

THE UK SUBS. Undoubtedly one of the pioneers of modern punk, and a great influence on many of the people who went on to define hardcore, such as Ian MacKaye of Minor Threat and Henry Rollins of SOA/BlackFlag. Recently, the Subs reunited in one of their earlier forms to record two new albums and tour, and we thought it was a good time to catch up with them and talk about the last twenty years. Interview of Charlie Harper and Nicky Garratt by Allan McNaughton.

MRR: I guess we should start with a brief history, maybe talk about the last time you two played together in the Subs...
CH: I'd say it was about five years ago in Long Beach when Nicky just came on stage and sparks were flying... we all went a bit crazy and he fell off the stage...
NG: That was just an encore though.
CH: Yeah, it was just for an encore though, he wasn't actually in the band at the time.

MRR: So what about before the break-up or whatever...
NG: Well, the last official gig that we played was in Poland, in Warsaw, in April 1983. It was a huge stadium, two sets...
CH: We were told afterwards that 25,000 people saw us that night, two lots of about 12,000 people, and it was frightening 'cos I don't get stage fright so often, but if you can imagine, we were up, it was in the National Skating Arena, and it just went up and up and up and we were about six floors up and we could see the people coming in at the other side of the stadium and they looked like ants, you know...
NG: Charlie they were ants, we hadn't got off the bus yet...
CH: So at that point I just thought, well this is a bit frightening you know... It was on a scale that I'd never. ..

MRR: That was the biggest you ever played?
CH: As far as us headlining and playing with just one other band.
NG: Who happened to be the number one band in Poland!
CH: Yeah, the band who came on tour with us, warming up for us were an exceptionally good band, and at the end of the tour they put a record out and they were like number one in the charts.

MRR: What were they called?
NG:. Republika.
CH: Yeah, and they had a great thing, they all dressed in just black and white, and the lead vocalist also played keyboards - did he play the keyboards all the time or was he...? Anyway he was brilliant, you know he was one of these brilliant musicians and he had a great voice, he was like a modern-day Tchaikovsky or something...(Disbelieving laughter) Well, no, you know not on that kind of level but you know, they were kind of a punk band, all dressed in black and white...

MRR: And he was Tchaikovsky???
CH: Well, no, but we got those kind of bands in Europe, we got a band called The Cardiacs, who were a kind of punk rock Beethoven, vou know, they take like five years to make a record, and they're working on it, and it comes out and you just go "Wow!" y'know, "What is that!"!! Yeah, you get all these kind of odd things in Europe. Well you know all about that, you're almost in Europe (being from Scotland)!

MRR: I'm European! What I was going to say was that a lot of people don't even realize that you've been keeping it going all these years, most people probably think that '83-'84-'85, that was it...
CH: Yeah well, you do get a lot of that, people coming up and saying "What are you doing these days, you still in the Subs' or whatever but we ve had a few different people thought we actually lived in San Francisco, actually thought the UK Subs were from San Francisco.
NG: Well there’s so many punk rock bands In San Francisco that there's a good chance...
CH: And the New Red Archives thing...

MRR: So is there another line up, back home?
CH. Yeah, it's funny, we've always had a Scottish contingent In the Subs, there's always been one or two Scots...
NG: After I left... I wouldn't stand for it.

MRR: So right now there's two versions of the UK Subs?
CH: Yeah. a European version and an American version. There has been ever since Pete Davis told the band never to play In the U S cos they can't earn any money, which is basically true. you know. you don't earn any money. It's a shame, you have to get a work permit to work here but you don't earn anything, it's criminal, what a con... so one by one the band just stopped coming over, the whole band were over one year, then it was just like three of us, the next year it was two of us, and the last time I came over I came completely by myself. But there's easily enough former UK Subs in the US to not bother about getting- new musicians.

MRR: So the people lover there don't feel as they've been replaced?
CH: Naah, it was their choice not to come.
NG: Well one thing you've got to remember is it's a different situation... it's not like he's replacing them with... put it this way, the last time I went to the Subs on tour, they were playing all the songs that were written while I was in the band. I mean I know that they do one or two others or whatever, but, if they're touring round, playing songs that I wrote, I don't see how they could be upset, I mean basically the way I see it, I'm writing some more material for them. They can tour for another ten years on this!
CH: The thing is, it's all down to what the guitarist can do. Once the guitarist has got it off everyone else can like, just play or whatever. So we had a guitarist from the Exploited, who more or less learnt from Nicky, and our present day European guitarist learnt to play from listening to Nicky, and then we've just had all these guys who've just learnt from Nicky, you know; so that's all the UK Subs stuff they knew.

MRR: So now you've got Nicky back?
CH: Yeah, the real thing, ha ha!
NG: The worst thing is they're getting all the women now, you know, I kinda feel like I missed out...

MRR: Well, you know, play a few shows... So, what was the reason for the breakup in the first place?
NG: Well, it was a difficult time... we lost the record label, that was all in flux, we didn't trust our manager, we'd come to the conclusion that they weren't looking after our best interests, and I won't go into that because it's a long story, er, the record company that we were on went bust...

MRR: Was that Gem?
NG: Well they actually went bust a bit later on. What happened to Gem was we were the only successful band they ever had,
CH: They put all their money on this Eurovision Song Contest thing where they could've hit the big money, but they came second.
NG: So they put all their money into advertising a bunch of nobodies and we were the only thing they had, and they were backed by RCA Records so like, we were on RCA worldwide and Gem in the UK, and I think the money dried up, so then we got picked up by Nems, and they put one album out and then they went bust, so we were in a real term of flux, the agency just did a really terrible tour of Scandinavia for us, it was just completely disorganized, there was tension in the band, the drummer dropped by the wayside about six months beforehand because of his drinking problem, and although punk rock is an alterative, there's still a lot of work involved, and we came to the conclusion, the three of us, that there's no way we can do a major US tour with this guy in the band, you know, he's going to get us thrown off planes, which happened by the way, in Europe, he got us thrown off a plane Actually, as it tums out Alvin ended up getting us thrown of a plane, remember that? it was here, it was Milwau- kee, wasn't it,< the cops all came on the plane, somebody goosed the stewardess, it was us and the Anti-Nowhere League on tour together, so you can imagine, it was just pretty crazy and when the cops came, Alvin got in their faces, "And I bet your mother's proud of you!" etcetera, and the next thing they said was "Alright, all off!". So we had a temporary drummer, and I don't think the spirit of the band after Steve had gone was ever quite the same.
CH: Everyone just went, like, "pack it up". It just so happened that the very same week someone called me up to do a... well we had a little thing about how the guys didn't wanna do pub gigs any more. NG: Well I don't think, yeah, that's true, but not for the reasons that we didn't want to play pub gigs, but particularly, Alvin and I wanted to concentrate on making a really good record, and we felt that when we got back to England, the next day we'd be playing in some bar... and I don't think the differences between us, in retrospect, were as serious as it seemed at the time. It was all the other stuff with the label and pressure and being tired..
CH: It was like we, before then and ever since then we've had so much work that we're always booked up to the middle of the next year, and we just saw that we could get out of it, suddenly, it was a way out. But the thing is the very next week someone called me up and said "Look, can you do a benefit, for children with cancer?", and you can't refuse that. So I lust got some of the old band together, and we played in what was the Greyhound which was then a pretty major music club, and Jungle Record just happened to be there, and they picked us up and it all started again. So it's like I never had any time off, you know! Oh yeah, so the label picked us up, we went down great, we had our original bass player from '77,'76 in fact, Steve Slack. Steve Jones on drums, and Captain Scarlet or, guitar He played with one finger, but he looked great' And It was kind of like another magic starting of the Subs, you know, record company signed us up, and the crowd were amazing, the band wanted to stick together.

MRR: (to Nicky) So you guys didn't have any interest in playing that benefit?
NG: It's the first I'm hearing about it!
CH: No, they weren't asked!!!
NG: I don't think, I mean even in the periods when Charlie's been off with his touring bands and stuff, there's never been any animosity between us, it's not like, well at least I don't think so...
CH: No, no not at all, no...
NG: And also with Alvin, whenever I've spoken to Alvin, It wasn't one of these things where the band broke up...
CH: There was no bitching or backbiting or whatever...
NG, Considering how many hours we lived together in that van, it was very, I can't say it was amiable but it was very gentlemanly. And you gotta remember, I think it was about a thousand shows I played with the Subs, and as far as I can remember I think we canceled one show in six years. Bands these days, if one of them has to get up early the next morning they'll cancel the show. They'll cancel a show for any reason. And I guess you could call it old school ethics or whatever but we were never like that. So when Charlie says we weren't asked, while I might complain that Charlie booked us into a little pub, I would play it, and I would do a good show, I wouldn't go on there and be all "why have I gotta be here?", I would give 100% if it was one person in that thing. It was more a case of what are we gonna do with this band, where is it gonna go, where's our career going to go. It was just a matter of opinion how we should approach it, I think, y'know. I mean I've missed it a lot, I've missed playing on stage a lot.
CH: There’s a message for all bands here, because when your on tour you get really tour fatigued, after like a month or two on the road there's a lot of times you wished you were at home, shagging your girlfriend or whatever, and then when you're not on the road you wish you were on the road.
NG: I can second that, cos many many times I've been on the road, and I've wished I wasn't home shagging his girlfriend.
CH: Get in line Nicky!

MRR: (To Nicky) But at this point, with them playing this benefit and signing to jungle and putting out records, you must have known that was happening?
CH: No, it happened that quick...
NG: Well you see we also started a band...
CH: They didn't know anything until we had an album out, months later...

MRR: I would think they would see a poster on the wall saying "UK Subs"...
CH: Naa, they lived in a posh part of London, there was no rock n roll up there...
NG: We were doing our thing as well, Alvin and I and our drummer at the time, who was John Tow, who was in the original Chelsea with Billy Idol, and he was also in the original Generation X, so the three of us started a new band. And we got the singer for, it used to be the Tickets, a punk rock band from '77 called the Tickets, and then the two of them, two brothers, were in the English Wasted Youth. So we had the singer and drummer from Wasted Youth and me and Alvin... well first it was just the singer for Wasted Youth and John Tow, and we had TV Smith's keyboard player. So we started this little band but john dropped out pretty quickly to be replaced by the singer's brother. And we got interest from Capitol Records, well EMI in the UK, they put us in to make demos but the bottom line is that those two guys from Wasted Youth were junkies. And it took us quite a while to realize that we were banging our heads against a wall.
CH: The singer went and stole his brother's drum kit to buy drugs...
NG: This guy...
CH: It's bad luck... they had everything going for them,
NG: Great voice, great front man, I mean we had serious interest from EMI, they put us in with a producer, into the studio, the first session, I think the drummer didn't show up, or that might have been when he sold the drum kit, so first session we had to use a drum machine. So they booked us in for this session, and we're talking about with a producer in Manchester Square at the EMI Studios, we did another session and the singer was shooting up in the toilet and he came out and he couldn't sing, and it was just a mess. And basically we wasted a year of our lives waiting for a junkie to get clean, y'know. They ended up in jail for possession or something... So anyway, that's the story...

MRR: that's not the first time or the last time that's happened...
CH: Not only that, but it was a time when punk had finished. I mean punk had really finished in England. And what kept us going, somehow, I dunno how, but we went to Europe, someone wanted us in Europe, so we went to Europe in the back of a Transit, an ordinary little van, getting French leaves from Supermarkets and just eating sandwiches, y'know,

MRR: Well that's the way everyone does It now...
CH: And we actually toured like that!

MRR: But that's how everyone does it! No one has tour buses or stuff like that, unless you're NoFX!
CH: But the UK Subs were darlings in England , you know that, for a long time, for the first five years, but we somehow, when things got really dire in England, we just happened to go over to Europe, and we found that there was a big thing in Europe, and every time we went over, every year, it just got bigger and bigger, until every night we were playing to about 600 to a thousand people. Which for us, when you're playing in England to 200, 300 people, is colossal. And basically we just sold a lot of T- Shirts, and survived. Here's to T-Shirts! (Clinks his glass). So in the lean years in England we just went to Europe. It wasn't like,'Oh there's a marker or anything, we didn't know that until we'd been there a couple of times, we just had fun there. People were like "Oh, great, English punk rock coming to town!" it was just starting, you know? By'84, things were dead in England, and it was like Europe was just getting into it (Talk about Europe in general, and the Fabriek in Hamburg in particular. blah blah blah...)

MRR: So what prompted this whole thing, the two records, let's face it: people are cynical and people are going to think, "Aw yeh,Green Day makes it big and, then the Sex Pistols get back together and, tour" and so people are going to say Charlie and Nicky know there s money to be made here..
CH: Nah Nah Nah, that happened on the last album ,

MRR: How long ago was that?
CH: We did that in 1988, "Killing Time"... if they think that fuck 'em cos it never came into our heads. I mean the Sex Pistols have been getting together for 10 years, but Johnny Rotten's always...

MRR: Yeah he said he'd never do it...
CH: But I'm really pleased that they did, you go and see the Sex Pistols, it's just another show, it's a great show!

MRR: You went to see them?
CH: Yeah, at Rnsbury Park. And it was brilliant.

MRR: Yeah?
CH: Oh yeah, I'II tell you what, right, Iggy Pop was on before them, and I love Iggy Pop, but they made Iggy Pop look third rate. Really, they were that good,
NG: The thing is, me and Charlie got back together in'88 ahd did the Killing Time" album, which came out kind of rushed, it was alright, then we got back together in '94 and did the split 7" with Swingin' Utters, and then in '95 we did that other 7". "Betrayal"

MRR: Well these are little 7"s here and there but now you're doing two whole albums...
NG: A lot of that is because Alvin isn't in Cheap And Nasty anymore, he was in the Iggy Pop band, he had all these commitments with that, and then after Iggy Pop he was in Cheap And Nasty with the guys from Hanoi Rocks, and he was on tour with them, and he had a schedule where it made it impossible for him to do this. Now his schedule has worked out, Charlie's schedule has worked out, and my schedule's worked out, that's the biggest reason
CH: Also, we were planning this before the Pistols got together as well... this has actually been planned since last year,
NG: Since we did the last 7"...
CH: Was that two years ago or what...? So yeah, it's been planned...

MRR: Well this is your chance to say all that because people are going to say, when they see that there's a new UK Subs record...
NG: We were going to do one album, but I called them a bunch of sissies, I said let's do TEN albums! But we settled on two. But to me, songs are like a reservoir, and when we were doing two albums a year all that water was being siphoned off, but since I haven't been doing this for thirteen years, or actually since '88 when we did "Killing Time", I've got all this anger inside me, and all these fast riffs, in fact if you listen to these albums, most of my parts are fast riffs almost like the first album.
CH: In fact we had to tell Nick, look, we can't get off on all this fast stuff anymore, so we told him actually to slow down... but the album's still pretty fierce.
NG: But Alvin's songs, are more, like, old school you know, he was in the Users and stuff.
CH: It's almost pre-punk...
NG: Yeah, like Iggy or something, it's got that kind of rock-punk element in it, which is a good contrast with what I do..but that's the reason I think we've got all this nervous energys not like we had a lot of things worked out, most of it we wrote in the three weeks.
NG: Now if I was writing the lyrics it would be a very different story! Much less interesting and the,lyrics would be pretty sappy but I would make it all about the flaky New Age element of San Francisco. People who believe in psychic ability, people who believe in palm reading, or auras and stuff, that's what I would write about.
CH: That fits into the "Flat Earth Society" kind of thing
NG: Oh, he's done it already, see!
CH: Yeah, we've got a song called "Flat Earth Society" about people with that kind of outlook. Yeah, we virtually cover everything that is relevant to todays living, basically like Nicky said, those hippy, new age people don't really bug me, y'know, I really believe in live and let live, but things that aren't fair at all, I mean we hate the army, you know, join the army, get yourself killed, everyone knows that, but these people join the army because they think it could lead to a career, it's gonna further their life or whatever, and they get poisoned and raped,.. We want to expose those kind of things. It's closer to home than a lot of people think... Oh wait, you've gotta print this - I just found this out in Europe... you Know that basketball player Dennis Rodman, well he's a big Subs fan! He was interviewed in Germany and they asked him about where he gets his hairstyles from and that, and he was like "Hey, man, there's this punk rock band called the UK Subs, I think they're really radical man!"

MRR: No way, that's funny!
NG: We should send him a T-shirt!
CH: He also likes Pearl Jam as well, so we're on pretty shaky ground.

MRR: I wanted to talk about that Blackpool three day thing (see cover of MRR #159)...
CH: Did you see the NME? (Major UK music paper)

MRR: No, I saw an ad for it...
CH: Did you not see NME? I mean I'm amazed that the NME covered a thing like that, but the guy stayed for all three days, and he just interviewed all the kids ! I mean there were people from Japan, the US, lots from the US,

MRR: Some of those bands though, it just seems like they came out of nowhere..,
CH: Slaughter And The Dogs though! It was worth it just to see them!

MRR:Zounds though!
NG: Some of them were not the original bands though, were they? Like X-Ray Spex wasn't even Poly Styrene, was it?
CH: But it was all like, ail the kids, what the kids were doing... but I was the only artist in the whole article to have my Picture There, live on stage...
NG: That's because most of the kids they're Interviewing, you're their dad!
CH: But it was really funny because we weren't one of the big bands.

MRR: But look at this thing (brandishing the ad for the festival), I mean ATV?
CH: ATV are brilliant! They're a little bit too lame for kids now, they want in-your-face stuff. punk rock.

MRR: No, I loved ATV, but they're back together?
CH: Yeah. It s not just a one-off thing, they're back together and touring around and he's just written a book.

MRR: Splodgenessabounds?
CH: Been playing forever.

MRR: Seriously?
CH: They've never split up. It's only when he's in detox that he's not playing.

MRR: I just couldn't believe some of the bands that were playing this show.
CH: Yeah, but I think it's Incredible. I mean I'm a punk rock fan, so I see that and it's like Christmas for me! And I sold thousands of T-Shirts! It was brilliant. It went better than anyone could have dreamt. And then we all went to this club afterwards and it was silly, there was a UK Subs copy band, the something Submarines, and so there were three little bits of article about the UK Subs. and one was me getting up on stage at three o`clock in the morning with this copy band!
NG: Talking of which, we wrote to the Fastbacks, they did a bunch of our songs, they did an EP of all Subs songs, and then they did another one on that Home Alive compilation... so we wrote to them but maybe they were on tour cos they didn't write back... not that they have to, I mean...

MRR: They probably will... (A short discussion ensues about Charlie's beer smelling like Skunk... then Tim arrives with refreshments... well a half-eaten bag of chips. Charlie tells me about a two day event in Bath with Stiff Little Fingers, the Buzzcocks, and a bunch of other bands, in a huge place, that was such a success that it led to the Blackpool thing.)

MRR: It just seemed weird to me to see the line up for that show at this time...
CH: Well if you've been over here it must've seemed yeah like, if you're in England punk's everywhere...

MRR: Really? Right now?
CH: But the really side thing about it is that all the media are taking punk graphics and stuff - that's everywhere, it's on buses... Jimmy Pursey (Sham 69) is on London buses posing for jeans adverts!

MRR: Shit! No way! See; I haven't been back for two years so ...
CH: It's funny to come here and see all these mums : on talk shows with their daughters, and the daughters are dressed sort of semi-kind of punk, almost hippy-punky, and they're like "Look, my daughter dresses like she's getting all her stuff from thrift shops" and then they dress these girls up to look "normal"... but it's nothing like what it is in Europe, I mean you should know that coming from Scotland, very hardcore punks in Scotland... and they're Ripping out on this show 'cos their daughters are dressing in Army boots or something.

MRR: But there are people here who dress punk, obviously... (and it doesn't necessarily follow - that the more "punk" you dress the more hardcore you are, either!)
CH: But the point is, on these shows they should be setting an example.., these young people getting all their stuff from thrift shops are basically recycling, where these mothers basically want to use up more of the world's resources. Someone should tell them that they're wrong!

MRR: Those talk shows are terrible though.
CH: I know! They've got the whole thing totally wrong. These talk show hosts, where are their brains?

MRR: Selling commercials!... Maybe we should talk about the records a bit...
CH: Well I didn`t think it was a good idea. I didn't think any record company would buy it, doing two records at once.

MRR: So is one album going to be the punk album and the other ballads or something?
NG: No, it's completely balanced, because couldn't do that, Brian at Cleopatra's a friend of mine, I couldn't give him anything less than an album that's as good as the album I'm putting out, that would be unethical. Basically, it's the twentieth anniversary of the band, and that's why we wanted to do two albums. for people who aren't aware, all the albums are alphabetical (Nick recites all their album titles, finishing with the two new ones. "Quintessentials" and "Riot", omitting "P'. . )

MRR: Wait a minute, where's "P"?
NG: Shit' The UK, Subs don't know the alphabet!
CH:'Peel Sessrons'! That's right, the Peel Sessions are coming out on Jungle in the UK.
NG: Which is our old sessions, the three sessions we did back in I think '78... So Q and R are the two new albums, we're releasing them simultaneously.

MRR: So do you have a date set for it to come out?
CH: That'd be interesting, I'd Like to know that!
NG: It'll probably be next year(i.e. It's probably out by the time you'll see this! - MRR) We're also doing a tour to support it.
CH: We're making it up as we go along now, but I'll probably dismiss my UK band when I get home, and this will be the band and we'll tour Europe.
NG: Something else people might want to know is that over the years we've toyed with the idea of Steve Roberts (second drummer?) drumming on it.
CH: Steve is toying with detox I think...
NG: Yeah, Steve went round to Alvin's house for dinner with him and Charlie, and on the phone he said ''I'm completely changed, I'm sober now..." and he turns up rat-arsed, tell into the spaghetti!

MRR: So if he eventually cleans up his act, you'll have him on tour?
CH: Naah, we've had him over here before and he was Like crying, Wanting to go home to his mummy
NG: At the moment we've yet Dave from Samiam, and he did an amazing job learning all those songs, in three weeks. (They discuss the hectic period they just had of writing and recording 33 songs)
NG: It must De said that on the last weekend of doing backing tracks, the last couple of songs, their titles are 'Last Ditch Attempt'', "Desperation''...
CH:'·Clutching At Straws·!! But they're almost the truest punk, cos they're just all the energy without the finesse...
NG: You Know, the funny thing is, it's 20 years later and It's come full circle. cos when Charlie and I were first putting the set together,
CH: We had like six songs, and we had to write a set.., we wrote a set on Wednesday night and Friday night we had to play it'
NG And now you've got bands like Henry Rollins' old band SOA, they covered "Disease', that's a song that we wrote in two minutes. Corrupted Ideals did Telephone Numbers'', Fastbacks did "Live In A Car'', so all these early songs, and now we've done these albums in the same fashion that we did those early albums! so it's a lot of fun really.
CH: there's some songs that we still play, like this one song that when women want to hear it we play it, cos it's not very PC, called "All I Wanna Know", some of these songs weren't ever written down, they were just made up as someone was jamming off something, so for as long as it took to play, one and a half minutes, that song was written! That was a full song.
NG: That kind of thing is an indication to the chemistry of your band. There's bands out there, they've all got talent, but just for some reason those people don't gel. It's like,` it sounds real corny, but when we were in the studio, within 30 seconds, those years between us just vanished. We were making the same jokes we were 13 years ago! We used to always joke about Aivin being from the south of England, that it was so far south it was practically France. so we'd always speak to Alvin in a French accent. Just stupid things that keep you sane while you're on tour, but after 30 seconds it was like no time had passed between us. Oh, here's a story, we were down at the Bottom Of The Hill (rock club here in SF), we just went to see Down By Law, and Alvin was here, and the bass player from Down By Law jumped off stage and rushed over to Alvin and said, "Ohhh, I love your stuff," pumping his hand, saying, "I'm a huge fan, I've got everything you ever did!" and Alvin's trying to stay cool, "Well, thanks dude," y<'know, and he's going "No, no I mean it, god, it's unbelievable, can I buy you a drink, Steve?"... He thought he was Steve Diggle!
CH: He is Steve Digglels double.
NG: Then he brought over the woman from Live 105 (Commercial radio station) to introduce her to Steve Diggie from the Buzzcocks!
CH: The funny thing is, when Alvin's been playing the Subs over recent years, whenever we get a big stage like Brixton Academy, he comes on stage dressed in white, I think he loves looking like Steve Diggle! But he is just about the best bass player we've ever had.
NG: It's not even to do with how good you are or anything, it's just chemistry.

MRR: It's really hard to find...
CH: Oh Yeah. I mean ifs not like winning the lottery or anything but the way Nicky writes music, it's like this big ball of excitement, but I try and get him tp calm down a bit like let's have a quiet part here and follow It up with some excitement...
NG: But Charlie and me have completely opposite tastes, we come up with music from completely different ways, and I have a feeling that's how it always worked... Charlie goes back to his roots a lot to R&B and rootsy stuff
CH: We've used a lot of that on these records, It's got this punk energy. but it's got a lot of this pre-punk stuff that me and Alvin love. We come from the Velvet Underground and Iggy Pop, New York Dolls and Hollywood Brats even. This is what the whole punk thing was about.., a club called the Roxy that played all that stuff, and we all went ''Wow!'' and got into it, and suddenly there was all these bands forming. The Damned were playing all these hardcore numbers .
NG: I can see that in you and Alvin. I, on the other hand...
CH: We don't wanna hear about your roots now, Nicky. .

MRR: So when they were listening to the HC, what were you listening to?
NG: Magma.

MRR: Budgie and stuff like that',
NG: No... but you see my musical roots didn't have much to do with what I was doing in Punk Rock, I just had this anger, and this energy, and I just wanted to catch as much air, to get as far off the stage as I could!
CH: We still do that actually; try and see who can jump the highest ... (At this point Nicky starts showing us pictures of him leaping in the air at early Subs gigs and challenging Charlie's "new guys" to match his prowess)

MRR: (pointing to one particularly high shot) you can tell he's off the monitor there...
CH: Yeah, or the drum riser or something...
NG: But I liked some of the punk rock bands, not all them but some of them, I liked Wire, The Pack, I loved This Heat, they were probably my three favorite punk rock bands...

MRR: Now I think there's a revisionist view of history, bands that sound like that aren't considered punk..
CH: Have you heard of the New Wave of the New Wave? All those bands were like, nicking Wire riffs...

MRR: Yeah, there's that one Elastica song that's total "3 Girl Rumba",.,
CH: Yeah, Elastica, they were one of the main ones, they got everything from Wire,.. but they're good, they do it good.
NG: But yeah, Charlie and Alvin approach it from one direction, and I approach it more from this anger of thing, and what I actually listen to, at night, I mean I've got very eclectic tastes, classical, Burt Bacharach, Dionne Wanrvick, Doris Day, y'know... I like all that stuff but that's got nothing to do with getting on stage, you know, but if I see a band, a punk rock band, who can get on stage and deliver, there's nothing as exciting as that.

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