Continues from page 3

How would you describe the Gang Of Four live experience?
JK: It’s similar in the stylistic sense to Washington Go-Go music, where they never stop playing. It’s challenging to the band and its performance –there’s a very quick turnaround between songs, it’s really full on the whole time, we don’t really stop. In an ideal world we’d probably never stop playing at all, just go continuously for the entire time.

How does playing in Gang Of Four now compare to back in the day?
HB: At the beginning we were doing Gang Of Four because we wanted to - then it moved into doing Gang Of Four because we had to. It was more than just four people getting together to have fun. There was something there – a very compelling, strange and driving force emotionally. After the second album a whole new thing came in. People were depending on us and our business was depending on us. That really brought a horrible element into it all. It’s part of what destroys a lot of groups, and it certainly destroyed us and our relationships. We’re not relying on each other for our careers now. The way we play, what we play, where we play and how we play is not dependant on ‘well, you need to make this sort of money’ or ‘you need to be able to make sure you get another record deal’. That’s gone. This is entirely fun right now.

Why did you re-record some old songs for ‘Return The Gift’?
JK: Within jazz music and with blues music people endlessly record and re-record their works over and over and over again. I don’t know how many versions of Thelonius Monks ‘Round Midnight’ were made or how many times Miles Davis or Muddy Waters and BB King re-recorded tracks. But in rock music you make an album and that’s the only time you’re allowed to record it - unless you make a live album. We said we wanted to do it like a live studio record – it’s the songs we most love with a sound that represents how we are live. The template for it was actually the recording of ‘To Hell With Poverty’. Back then it was the track that we all thought sounded most like us live.

What has been the main motivation behind the Gang Of Four through the ages?
JK: We are proper artists. We actually make music because we want to make music. So many bands have an invisible fifth member – an accountant. They’ll say ‘Is this chord progression into the next chord progression commercial? Does it sound enough like something that’s already sold?’ you would never write a song like ‘At Home He’s A Tourist’ with a disco-referenced bass line and a disco referenced four-to-the-floor drum beat with a tonal slashing guitar that cuts across the rhythm and then the lyric which has no melody to it. You’d never do that. It’s full of ideas though, it’s packed with ideas. It hasn’t hugely surprised me people enjoy what we’ve done because you can’t move for ideas. Most people say ‘Jesus Christ, you could have sold it on one’.

Words_Jonny Tiernan

This article first appeared in AU 22, November/December 2005

Continues from page 3

How would you describe the Gang Of Four live experience?
JK: It’s similar in the stylistic sense to Washington Go-Go music, where they never stop playing. It’s challenging to the band and its performance –there’s a very quick turnaround between songs, it’s really full on the whole time, we don’t really stop. In an ideal world we’d probably never stop playing at all, just go continuously for the entire time.

How does playing in Gang Of Four now compare to back in the day?
HB: At the beginning we were doing Gang Of Four because we wanted to - then it moved into doing Gang Of Four because we had to. It was more than just four people getting together to have fun. There was something there – a very compelling, strange and driving force emotionally. After the second album a whole new thing came in. People were depending on us and our business was depending on us. That really brought a horrible element into it all. It’s part of what destroys a lot of groups, and it certainly destroyed us and our relationships. We’re not relying on each other for our careers now. The way we play, what we play, where we play and how we play is not dependant on ‘well, you need to make this sort of money’ or ‘you need to be able to make sure you get another record deal’. That’s gone. This is entirely fun right now.

Why did you re-record some old songs for ‘Return The Gift’?
JK: Within jazz music and with blues music people endlessly record and re-record their works over and over and over again. I don’t know how many versions of Thelonius Monks ‘Round Midnight’ were made or how many times Miles Davis or Muddy Waters and BB King re-recorded tracks. But in rock music you make an album and that’s the only time you’re allowed to record it - unless you make a live album. We said we wanted to do it like a live studio record – it’s the songs we most love with a sound that represents how we are live. The template for it was actually the recording of ‘To Hell With Poverty’. Back then it was the track that we all thought sounded most like us live.

What has been the main motivation behind the Gang Of Four through the ages?
JK: We are proper artists. We actually make music because we want to make music. So many bands have an invisible fifth member – an accountant. They’ll say ‘Is this chord progression into the next chord progression commercial? Does it sound enough like something that’s already sold?’ you would never write a song like ‘At Home He’s A Tourist’ with a disco-referenced bass line and a disco referenced four-to-the-floor drum beat with a tonal slashing guitar that cuts across the rhythm and then the lyric which has no melody to it. You’d never do that. It’s full of ideas though, it’s packed with ideas. It hasn’t hugely surprised me people enjoy what we’ve done because you can’t move for ideas. Most people say ‘Jesus Christ, you could have sold it on one’.

Words_Jonny Tiernan

This article first appeared in AU 22, November/December 2005

Continued from page 2

People always highlight the lyrical content as a factor that set you apart from other groups, both then and now. Why do you think that is?
JK: It’s a funny thing. We took on different subject matters from the established nonsense of ‘I was going out with this bird or this bloke, but I’ve broken up with them and my life’s a mess’ or ‘I’m going out to a club for a dance, to pick up someone and get laid’. There are a few subjects – the presence of being in love or the absence of love - that dominate ordinary song writing. Katie Melua is a classic example the lyric “There are nine million bicycles in Beijing, that’s a fact, it’s a thing we can’t deny, like the fact I will love you till I die” – that’s so sad, you know, give it up. We took on different subjects, and it was and continues to be an affront ‘How dare you write about something else?’ Dylan is God as far as I’m concerned. People said ‘how dare you write stuff that doesn’t quite make sense? What’s that about?’ I think there is a strong element of that in Gang Of Four.

What do you think of the overall state of the UK music scene?
JK: So much of the music coming out of the UK is in decline. Back when we started you were able to sign on. We were a typical bunch of students studying Art. Art Students – from The Kinks, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, whatever - had got time on their hands to play. That’s why we had such a successful creative thing within the whole of Britain - people were able to explore their creativity. Nowadays young people are criminalised - you just have to wear a hoodie to be a suspect.
HB: It’s worse in the States. In Shopping Malls they’re now putting a curfew on under 18’s – they can’t come in after six at night or at weekends unless accompanied at all times by their parents. It’s like ‘oh great, there’s no playgrounds, there are no places to gather but at least the Malls will be safe’ but then they kick them out because some of their older customers find them ‘unsettling’.
JK: That is – they hang around, and they lope about…
HB: …and they make stupid jokes and they smoke…
JK:… but still they’re the victims of oppression. The criminalisation and aggression to young people is to say ‘You must never slack! You must never spend a moment where you’re not being tested, looked at, observed, scrutinised, bullied, bossed around and all this kind of stuff. Yet creativity comes from being ignored, subsidised, whatever it is. I’m a big believer in people being able to lope around and waste their time. Creatively.

Do you get many young fans at your shows?
JK: An amazing amount, we reckon about two thirds of our audience are aged between 15 and 25.

What about the widely touted reggae influence, how did that have a bearing on the music of Gang Of Four?
JK: We all loved black music – Funkadelic, Parliament, Chic – all hugely unfashionable too. That was the big difference between us and other bands - we wanted to play stuff that somehow or other recognised our love of black music and reggae music. We weren’t going to play reggae but using a melodica wasn’t an ‘art rock’ thing. It wasn’t so people could say ‘he’s so crazy’ it was because of a love of Augustus Pablo - we all loved Augustus Pablo. We didn’t use it like Augustus does but it was part of that deconstruction which had black music at its core. Hugo and Dave’s heavy kind of remixing came from the love of black music, it didn’t come from punk. You couldn’t dance to punk - and if you can’t dance to something you can’t fuck to something - therefore it’s not funky, because funky music is all about sex. Curiously Gang Of Four was non-sexy music which people went home and got off to, and still do. I’m sure that’s why bands like Franz Ferdinand are successful - they do that thing and do it well. They’re like a pop version of us.

Continue to page 4

Continued from page 2

People always highlight the lyrical content as a factor that set you apart from other groups, both then and now. Why do you think that is?
JK: It’s a funny thing. We took on different subject matters from the established nonsense of ‘I was going out with this bird or this bloke, but I’ve broken up with them and my life’s a mess’ or ‘I’m going out to a club for a dance, to pick up someone and get laid’. There are a few subjects – the presence of being in love or the absence of love - that dominate ordinary song writing. Katie Melua is a classic example the lyric “There are nine million bicycles in Beijing, that’s a fact, it’s a thing we can’t deny, like the fact I will love you till I die” – that’s so sad, you know, give it up. We took on different subjects, and it was and continues to be an affront ‘How dare you write about something else?’ Dylan is God as far as I’m concerned. People said ‘how dare you write stuff that doesn’t quite make sense? What’s that about?’ I think there is a strong element of that in Gang Of Four.

What do you think of the overall state of the UK music scene?
JK: So much of the music coming out of the UK is in decline. Back when we started you were able to sign on. We were a typical bunch of students studying Art. Art Students – from The Kinks, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, whatever - had got time on their hands to play. That’s why we had such a successful creative thing within the whole of Britain - people were able to explore their creativity. Nowadays young people are criminalised - you just have to wear a hoodie to be a suspect.
HB: It’s worse in the States. In Shopping Malls they’re now putting a curfew on under 18’s – they can’t come in after six at night or at weekends unless accompanied at all times by their parents. It’s like ‘oh great, there’s no playgrounds, there are no places to gather but at least the Malls will be safe’ but then they kick them out because some of their older customers find them ‘unsettling’.
JK: That is – they hang around, and they lope about…
HB: …and they make stupid jokes and they smoke…
JK:… but still they’re the victims of oppression. The criminalisation and aggression to young people is to say ‘You must never slack! You must never spend a moment where you’re not being tested, looked at, observed, scrutinised, bullied, bossed around and all this kind of stuff. Yet creativity comes from being ignored, subsidised, whatever it is. I’m a big believer in people being able to lope around and waste their time. Creatively.

Do you get many young fans at your shows?
JK: An amazing amount, we reckon about two thirds of our audience are aged between 15 and 25.

What about the widely touted reggae influence, how did that have a bearing on the music of Gang Of Four?
JK: We all loved black music – Funkadelic, Parliament, Chic – all hugely unfashionable too. That was the big difference between us and other bands - we wanted to play stuff that somehow or other recognised our love of black music and reggae music. We weren’t going to play reggae but using a melodica wasn’t an ‘art rock’ thing. It wasn’t so people could say ‘he’s so crazy’ it was because of a love of Augustus Pablo - we all loved Augustus Pablo. We didn’t use it like Augustus does but it was part of that deconstruction which had black music at its core. Hugo and Dave’s heavy kind of remixing came from the love of black music, it didn’t come from punk. You couldn’t dance to punk - and if you can’t dance to something you can’t fuck to something - therefore it’s not funky, because funky music is all about sex. Curiously Gang Of Four was non-sexy music which people went home and got off to, and still do. I’m sure that’s why bands like Franz Ferdinand are successful - they do that thing and do it well. They’re like a pop version of us.

Continue to page 4

Continued from page 1

How was your relationship with EMI?
JK: It was unusual for the time. We didn’t technically sign to EMI as a band - we made records that we then licensed to EMI. In most record contracts there are clauses that say that you have to provide ‘X’ of a commercially viable product, but ours was just ‘technically’ viable. The deal we took with EMI was actually a third of the value in money terms of the deal we’d been offered with CBS and Virgin, who’d offered a six-figure deal. But then what about a song like ‘Anthrax’, is it commercially viable? I don’t think so. It’s not going to get played on Radio One. We set it up so they had to accept the material we’d give them on the basis that it was technically viable. That was one of the things we did that now means we have distribution rights of our whole back catalogue.
AG: They were a bit mystified by us. We’d deliver the record, then we’d deliver the artwork, then they’d put it out.

They gave you a lot of free rein then?
JK: They mess around a lot with commercial acts. They can hear when a single is gonna be Top Five or Top Ten. They think ‘if we tweak it, it’ll go Top Five in France and Belgium, let’s go back in the studio.’ Look at The Dandy Warhols - they presented two entire albums the record company rejected. It was the third set of ten songs that was finally accepted.
HB: EMI never really saw us as a hit-making machine so it wasn’t difficult for them to have a hands off approach. The weird thing came when we got onto Top Of The Tops and it looked like ’my God, maybe they are a hit band!’ When we walked off TOTP it really mucked up a lot of support that had been building within the record company. They were like ‘Crikey, don’t walk away from Top Of The Pops!’ then they just changed to ‘Oh well, screw it, we’ll go with this other little band we’ve signed called Duran Duran, maybe they won’t walk off’.

You’re now with V2 – do you prefer the backing of a larger label over a smaller indie outfit?
AG: People thought we ought to be on an independent label that seemed to be somehow untainted by commerce. We thought that was a bit of a cop out. The whole idea that small, cottage industries are somehow more honest or pure is nonsense.
JK: We had been signed to an indie for our first single – Damaged Goods. The record cost £70 to make, it sold a hundred thousand copies and we never got any money. We were ripped off and the guy was a crook – he never paid us a penny.

What brought the band back together this year?
HB: We just talked about it. The idea had been pushed backwards and forwards a few times, and I think the time came where not only were all four of us able to do it, but we had the desire to do it properly.
AG: There’d been a flurry of emails back and forth with our manager, taking the idea very seriously, mulling it over. I said to the manager ‘what do you think of this idea of things back together with all four of us?’ He was immediately on the phone, booking all the flights, saying ‘just get a rehearsal and try it’. I’m like ‘Hold on a second!’ but sometimes it takes a bit of a push to just try it, and that’s what we did. I very much felt then that this could work.

Were you shitting yourselves?
JK: There was a certain element of ‘supposing we cock up and it’s not as good as it was before?’ We just can’t contemplate doing it unless it’s gonna be great.
HB: It was weird because the four of us hadn’t worked together, or even been in the same room, for 23 years. It was very much ‘can we all do this again?’ I’d been the one longest away from it. Just speaking for myself there was a month or so that I thought ‘fuck, what am I doing?!’ The preparation before we came back to actually start rehearsing was… hard. And I know it was for everyone on different levels but it became easier within a matter of hours from the first time we met. When we actually started playing together physical and mental memories starting kicking in and the dynamics that drove us the first time were still very much prevalent – musically and emotionally it became exciting again.

Continue to page 3

Continued from page 1

How was your relationship with EMI?
JK: It was unusual for the time. We didn’t technically sign to EMI as a band - we made records that we then licensed to EMI. In most record contracts there are clauses that say that you have to provide ‘X’ of a commercially viable product, but ours was just ‘technically’ viable. The deal we took with EMI was actually a third of the value in money terms of the deal we’d been offered with CBS and Virgin, who’d offered a six-figure deal. But then what about a song like ‘Anthrax’, is it commercially viable? I don’t think so. It’s not going to get played on Radio One. We set it up so they had to accept the material we’d give them on the basis that it was technically viable. That was one of the things we did that now means we have distribution rights of our whole back catalogue.
AG: They were a bit mystified by us. We’d deliver the record, then we’d deliver the artwork, then they’d put it out.

They gave you a lot of free rein then?
JK: They mess around a lot with commercial acts. They can hear when a single is gonna be Top Five or Top Ten. They think ‘if we tweak it, it’ll go Top Five in France and Belgium, let’s go back in the studio.’ Look at The Dandy Warhols - they presented two entire albums the record company rejected. It was the third set of ten songs that was finally accepted.
HB: EMI never really saw us as a hit-making machine so it wasn’t difficult for them to have a hands off approach. The weird thing came when we got onto Top Of The Tops and it looked like ’my God, maybe they are a hit band!’ When we walked off TOTP it really mucked up a lot of support that had been building within the record company. They were like ‘Crikey, don’t walk away from Top Of The Pops!’ then they just changed to ‘Oh well, screw it, we’ll go with this other little band we’ve signed called Duran Duran, maybe they won’t walk off’.

You’re now with V2 – do you prefer the backing of a larger label over a smaller indie outfit?
AG: People thought we ought to be on an independent label that seemed to be somehow untainted by commerce. We thought that was a bit of a cop out. The whole idea that small, cottage industries are somehow more honest or pure is nonsense.
JK: We had been signed to an indie for our first single – Damaged Goods. The record cost £70 to make, it sold a hundred thousand copies and we never got any money. We were ripped off and the guy was a crook – he never paid us a penny.

What brought the band back together this year?
HB: We just talked about it. The idea had been pushed backwards and forwards a few times, and I think the time came where not only were all four of us able to do it, but we had the desire to do it properly.
AG: There’d been a flurry of emails back and forth with our manager, taking the idea very seriously, mulling it over. I said to the manager ‘what do you think of this idea of things back together with all four of us?’ He was immediately on the phone, booking all the flights, saying ‘just get a rehearsal and try it’. I’m like ‘Hold on a second!’ but sometimes it takes a bit of a push to just try it, and that’s what we did. I very much felt then that this could work.

Were you shitting yourselves?
JK: There was a certain element of ‘supposing we cock up and it’s not as good as it was before?’ We just can’t contemplate doing it unless it’s gonna be great.
HB: It was weird because the four of us hadn’t worked together, or even been in the same room, for 23 years. It was very much ‘can we all do this again?’ I’d been the one longest away from it. Just speaking for myself there was a month or so that I thought ‘fuck, what am I doing?!’ The preparation before we came back to actually start rehearsing was… hard. And I know it was for everyone on different levels but it became easier within a matter of hours from the first time we met. When we actually started playing together physical and mental memories starting kicking in and the dynamics that drove us the first time were still very much prevalent – musically and emotionally it became exciting again.

Continue to page 3

The Gang Of Four really needs no introduction. They are one of the most name-checked bands of all time - every journalist, reviewer and hack in-between has dropped and referenced the Gang Of Four at some point. They are also one of the most influential groups in history. Strains of their sound can be heard everywhere – from rock giants like REM and Red Hot Chili Peppers to new guns like Bloc Party, Franz Ferdinand and countless others. Yet nobody has matched the sheer intensity, energy and power that Gang Of Four possessed. There is an indefinable quality to their music - a magic and chemistry - the difference between the great and the good. Their legacy has stretched from the seventies to the present day without any dilution or loss of potency.

This year the original line-up of Andy Gill, Jon King, Hugo Burnham and Dave Allen reformed to play a series of special shows. It had been 23 years since all four founder members had even been in the same room together. A collective nerve was touched. More shows followed and then at the end of this year the decision was taken to re-record the best tracks from their early records – an effort to do justice to the original material and capture the essence of what Gang Of Four are truly like live.

AU met backstage with the Gang ahead of their extra-special Don’t Look Back performance of their seminal debut album Entertainment! in the Barbican Conference Centre, London. The surroundings are plush, the venue is luxurious. The Gang Of Four have came a long way. We’re glad to be here with them.

AU: How come people were labelling you post-punk while punk was still happening?
Andy Gill: Before punk broke Jon and I lived in a squalid bed-sit in Essex. That was where the first germs of what was to become Gang Of Four originated. We used to sit around with an acoustic guitar - playing chess and coming up with ideas. When the punk explosion came along we loved it - the ‘anything goes’ message that it gave us. You weren’t restricted by having to sound a certain way. We married that ethos with our own ideas and it made all our experimentation feel validated. It meant that by the time we hit the ground and started playing around we were already something different from the wave of punk that came before.

What effect did living in Leeds have on the band?
Jon King: The main effect was that we just got left alone - we didn’t even get a review for two years. It’s a mixed blessing living in a place like London where everyone got a review the first time they played a gig. We had the chance to move from our starting position and absorb a lot of musical vocabularies. From gig one to ten we moved from writing R’n’B songs to writing ‘Anthrax’. The progression was really fast - like a hyperdrive. We were able to drop early material we were doing and move on. It was only two years later in 1978 that we got our first review.

‘Entertainment’ is now recognized as a classic album and touted by countless bands as a major influence. Did you realize the significance of what you were doing at the time?
JK: There must have 10 000 albums released in 1978. I don’t know how many are classics but we really thought we’d done something at the time. We all really cared about it. Each of us are our own worst critics. On that record every time we got to a point where we thought ‘oh this is exactly it’ we’d always try to take it a bit further. We were all totally determined to extract every last little thing out of each song. The whole thing became a mix, even the album cover became a part of the music.
AG: I thought it was really good and I thought it was very powerful, but you have no way of knowing what the future will bring.

You have a clear and distinct sound many have attempted to recreate but few have matched. Was this sound a deliberate creation?
JK: Andy used to always say ‘it’s not that we disapprove of life, but we don’t think that it should be shrouded in mystery’. You want the guitar to sound like a guitar, the bass to sound like a bass and so on. It sounds obvious but the focus was to create this dry, crystalline, brittle thing. It was part of the desire to tell the truth and be authentic. We did not want to do something that was fake. Most music is fake, insincere and irritating.

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