The Stranglers interview

eFestivals caught up with Baz Warne frontman since 2000 of The Stranglers, probably the most enduring band of the UK punk/new wave era, while at the same time being the least celebrated. Being the only band out of the 'Four Kings' of the punk rock movement with a continuing successful recording career, The Strangers have achieved top 40 hits spanning 34 years and through 4 decades, the band has also charted 24 top 40 singles with cumulative worldwide sales of over 16 million. They continue to deliver an impressive and enrapturing live show, selling out across the UK.

Have you got any festivals penciled in for this summer yet?
What British ones? No, not at the moment. They generally start to appear in early March. We've got some nice ones out in Europe at the moment. We're doing Benicassim out in Spain, and a nice one in Greece, and Israel and places like that. So, the summer festival circuit is starting to look good abroad. But, at the moment, UK festivals are still being pieced together.

What do like most about playing festivals, when you're there?
I think the best thing about playing festivals is that you can play to a an absolutely whopping cross section oif the community all in one go. People who would never normally come and see the band, people who have come to see the band out of curiosity, people who haven't seen the band for x amount of years. There are huge cross sections in festival crowds. We did Glastonbury last summer, and played to 80,000 people on the Friday afternoon, and that was stupendous.

Festivals also give you the chance to catch up with people that you know but don't see very often, and get a chance to see the other bands, if you do get to hang around. We don't always get the chance to hang around, sometimes we're off, but if you get the chance to catch a couple of other groups, that you've heard about or happen to see, then that's all good as well.

Also, whilst I don't think, no matter who you are, anyone likes to play when it's pissing down with rain, but if you've got the weather it's even better.

Were you a Stranglers fan before you joined them?
Well, I think that's been pretty well documented, yes I was. Coming from a working class town, like Sunderland, which is where I'm from. We're stuck up in the North East of England and glimpses of bands like this in the Seventies, when they were in the heyday, were just too much for a boy to take.

You couldn't go on the internet or readily access the music, or anything like that. You had to wait until the music came out. Get on the bus, go down the town, queue up, get the record, sniff the sleeve on the bus on way home, and then play it, play it until you could almost see through the vinyl. You would get a tantalizing glimpse of them on Thursday night when Top Of The Pops came on, and those things make you a fan.

Couple that with the fact that they looked very edgy, and played that was not just extremely accessible and commercial but also quirky and left field at the same time. Yeah, I became a huge fan, and saw then three times in my youth before I joined them.

Imagine, standing in the crowd watching them, I was 16, and thirty years later here I am fronting the bands singing and writing songs, and living with JJ (Jean-Jacques) Burnel in a house in Bath.

The Stranglers have got some new tunes on the current 'best of' album, 'Decades Apart', did you write them yourself?
Yes I did, actually. I assume you're talking about 'Retro Rockets, and 'I Don't See The World Like You Do'. They were done in a frenzied, four day session whilst I was here on my own. I wrote both those songs in pretty much one sitting, and I think they turned out pretty good. Good enough to include them on a greatest hits album, so, yes I was pleased with them.

You're working on a new album at the moment, will they appears on that as well?
Well, we are currently writing songs, and we have two or three that we're going to road test, on the forthcoming ('Black & Blue') tour. We haven't had the luxury since 2004 when we made 'Norfolk Coast', and didn't in 2006 for 'Suite XVI' of road testing the tunes, and playing them before we recorded them. We're going to do that this time, and it all depends on how pleased we are with how they've developed, and that will determine how quickly we record them or not. We'll have to get out, play the songs, and see how well they go, and we'll be recording them in May. The album will be released in 2012, any more than that I can't say.

Will the set list on the 'Black & Blue' tour include 'Rockets', and 'See The World'?
No, not this time around, because the set on this tour is promoting nothing, we don't have any album to promote. we're just going out and touring, and so we've decided to get a lot more eclectic with this mix of songs. To keep the hardcore fans, and ourselves really interested, we've decided to dust off some real old stuff, that's no one heard for many years. We'll couple that with some brand new stuff that no one's heard either. Then once we throw in a smattering of hits, this bands not short of them with 32 top 40 hits, and the seven or eight tunes that we can't get away without playing, it's going to make for a pretty interesting set.

We've got ninety minutes but we could play for a day if we wanted to, so we're shaving the set down. The first two or three gigs on a tour are always used as yardsticks and we'll realise if something doesn't work or if it's in the wrong place, or whatever. Then after the maybe the fourth or fifth gig we'll settle down and find or stride and from then on it's great.

Which Stranglers song do you most like singing?
To be honest with you like singing them all, I just love to be there. I like 'Get A Grip Om Yourself' or possibly my favourite Stranglers song of all time, 'Goodbye Toulouse' from 'Rattus Norvegicus', I do like to sing that. But, as long as I'm there, singing in time and in tune, I don't care, as long as it sounds good.

Do you find the audiences a bit less up for it these days?
On the contrary, since we back down to a four piece again in 2006 the audiences have been absolutely rabid. They've come out of the woodwork and, and in fact in the last three tours the numbers have gone up significantly, 25% up on last one. People are coming out to re-discover the band again, or we find a lot of original fans from the first time around bringing their kids, who are now teenagers, or in some cases early twenties. We find a lot internet kids come along who have discovered the band through YouTube or websites, and people read about the band.

The Stranglers are the only band from that era who have never split up, and got back together again for the money, like a lot of people I could mention. This band formed in September 1974 and been together ever since. I think a lot of people find that a curio. They think, "Okay you've been together a long time, let's see if you're as good, as I've heard we are." Which of course we are, we're professionals and we take pride in what we do, and obviously we're modest as well. We kick arse as much as ever we did, and arguably in this four piece incarnation, which has been together five years, we're as good as ever it was.

When you're not working with the band, how do you like to chill out?
Good question, to be honest up until now we've been so busy, I haven't really had a chance to chill out. I didn't even really get much of a chance to chill out over Christmas or new year. I've been back dow here in Bath since the 2nd January. But when I do to chill out it's mainly with family, I've got two grown up kids, I'm a Grandfather, my son is 16 and he's very heavily into his football. He's a season ticket holder at Sunderland, I'm going to see Spurs with him this weekend. I like to ride my motorcycle, and generally try and switch off.

Although we're not in the public eye much of the time, it's still pretty intensive, and we work very hard. When downtime comes I like to switch off.

What motorbike do you have?
I have a Triumph, it's the re-issue of the 1969 Steve McQueen Scrambler. It's a 900cc, so it's a bloody big bike. We played the Triumph festival and they gave us all motorcycles, God love them, we've got an association with Triumph. JJ's ridden Triumphs for many years, in fact he's got three, he's ridden Triumphs ever since he was a teenager, and I think he rode one in the Hells Angels in the early 70s. We went across to the MCN London Motorcycle exhibition at the ExCel at the weekend and signed a few autographs on the Triumph stand. They're good pals of ours, a fantastic British company making iconic bikes.

What was the first festival you went to as a punter?
Probably Reading, where I come from there's not many festivals really, music and festivals in the outdoors in the North East don't go hand in hand. We were down in London in 1988, in the Small Town Heroes, the band I was in when I met The Stranglers, and we went to see The Ramones at Reading, with Iggy Pop, we only went for one day. It was fabulous, it was great to see such a wonderful band. I think a once day pass in 1988 was about £12. We didn't take too much notice of Iggy, he had The Psychedelic Furs, backing him, and that was interesting. The Ramones were phenomenal very loud and very tight, fantastic, as a 24 year old kid I was in heaven really. And they went off and did our own little stinky gig in London somewhere to around 30 person, living the dream.

What sort of music do you listen to?
Frankly, I've always stayed with my idols, people like Neil Young, and bands like The Ramones, and Leonard Cohen, Dusty Springfield, Killing Joke, Talk Talk, and The Pretenders. My tastes are pretty eclectic, if you looked at my ipod I think you'd get a headache.

New music, I don't really hear that much of. A couple of guys in our crew are young guys and they always keep my informed, so I've had things from bands like Cage The Elephant. I was quite a fan of the Kings Of Leon back in the early days when it was a bit more raw and a bit less MTV little girl knicker-wetting friendly. A lot of what I hear sounds very samey. I like Imelda May she's got a real sass about her, it's kick arse rock'n'roll. Someone else I like is the Jim Jones Review. Absolutely bollockingly loud, fantastic, that's about as recent as I get, and even that's a very retro sounding band, but done with a real modern attitude and approach.

Who is on support with you?
On the UK tour we've got a guy called Mike Marlin opening for us, and then we've got the legendary Wilko Johnson, and then it's us. It's going to be a very entertaining evening all round. It'll be fab to be on the road with those guys. Obviously JJ Burnel, and Norman Watt-Roy are no slouches, Wilko Johnson's no slouch, and I play a pretty mean guitar myself, so it'll be a nice one.

Last question, was 'Golden Brown' inspired by the perfect pie, and what's your favourite pie filling?
(Laughs) I think everybody knows what 'Golden Brown' was inspired by, and it wasn't a pie. My favourite pie filling would have to be good old fashioned mince and onion, if its down right. There's a firm up in the north east called Maws Pies and they shut at lunchtime because they've usually sold out by 12 o'clock. If you're lucky enough to get a Maws Pie it's a little slice of heaven.

The Stranglers play the following 'Black & Blue' tour dates in March:

4-March, Newcastle, O2 Academy
5-March, Glasgow, O2 Academy
6-March, Edinburgh, Picture House
8-March, Liverpool, O2 Academy
9-March, Nottingham, Rock City
11-March, London, Hammermsith Apollo
12-March, Leeds, O2 Academy
13-March, Leicester, O2 Academy
15-March, Oxford, Regal
17-March, Cambridge, Corn Exchange
18-March, Brighton, Dome
19-March, Birmingham, O2 Academy
21-March, Norwich, UEA
22-March, Portsmouth, Pyramid Centre
24-March, Bristol, O2 Academy
25-March, Sheffield, O2 Academy
26-March, Manchester, Academy

To buy tickets, click here.

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