Honesty and passion are not commodities Pop culture has a truck with at the best of times, yet even in these days of illegal downloads,collapsing record companies and Pop Idols there are still a few such voices of integrity refusing to be silenced.
One such voice belongs to STIFF LITTLE FINGERS' singer/ guitarist Jake Burns. And it's this instantly recognisable, raw-as-sandpaper rasp of a vocal that has coated some of the angriest, most heartfelt songs ever recorded. The first thirteen made up his band's debut album 'Inflammable Material' was and it's still is rightly regarded as one of Punk's most important records. A vivid and impassioned portrayal of life in the war zone that was mid-to-late 1970s Belfast, it was released by Rough Trade in February 1979 and became the first Independently-released album to smash its' way into the 'proper' U.K charts on its' own terms. Ironically, it would first appear in the charts on February 21st 1979, the day of Burns' 21st birthday.
After this incendiary start, SLF have continued to spoil us with consistently fine albums , successfully morphing into the hard-edged punk-pop band Burns had envisaged they would become since 1981's excellent 'Go For It' album . The band's initial incarnation split at the end of 1982, but after a supposed one-off re-union for a feverishly successful 1987 Christmas Tour, SLF gradually reconvened and have been with us pretty much ever since.
The good ship SLF has maintained a steady course since 1999's under-rated 'Hope Street' album, with the only personnel change being the departure of ex-Jam bassist Bruce Foxton early in 2006 and original bassist Ali McMordie returning to join Burns, Ian McCallum (guitar/ vocals) and drummer Steve Grantley, much to the delight of the SLF faithful.
SLF celebrated their 30th anniversary in style with an extensive touring schedule during 2007 where they played 'Inflammable Material' in its' entirety (well, minus 'Closed Groove') and their much-vaunted performance from Belfast's Ulster Hall was captured on the Don Letts-directed 'Still Burning' DVD. All unmissable stuff for sure, yet it doesn't disguise the fact there's been no 'new' SLF album since 2003's arguable career best 'Guitar & Drum'.
Keen to chew the fat with Jake about any number of things, W&H can't resist bringing this subject up first.
“Well, I had lots of stuff written and ready to go and we'd started two years ago,” reveals Jake, who – as ever – is being his candid and big-hearted self even down the phone line from his home in Chicago.
“That period happened to co-incide with my 50th birthday, but while I don't normally pay much attention to such milestones, it did kind of bring me up short that time round.”
In what respect?
“Well, while the songs I had were OK, I felt a lot of them could have been written when I was 19,” he says. “They really weren't addressing things from the point of view of where I was as a human being at 50. They were Stiff Little Fingers by numbers, basically.”
With most of existing songs thus scrapped, Jake embarked on the process of calling up the rest of the band with the news that they actually WEREN'T about to start recording their new album.
“Yeah, that did cause a certain amount of consternation,” laughs Jake. “You know, I'd ring the band up and say, “you know we were going to record all these songs I had ready?...well, we're not doing it now,”” he chuckles.
“But to be fair when it sank in and when I explained why I wasn't happy, the lads could understand how I felt and why I wanted to start again.”
I ask Jake if he feels artistic pressure because of the across-the-board acclaim (rightly) doled out to 'Guitar & Drum'?
“Yes, 'Guitar & Drum' did set the bar high, which is possibly why I have been dithering a bit,” he admits.
“Plus, I'm not someone who writes on the road, I can't do that. I need to lock myself away in my basement for two months and come up with the songs.”
And you're not getting the dreaded record company pressure to deliver either?
“No, we don't even have a rolling contract as such,” says Jake. “Though I do feel I have a kind of moral obligation to give EMI first refusal – and to be fair, they do sporadically send me an e-mail asking how it's going (laughs). But really in this climate, do we even need a contract?”
Yeah, with people wanting to download their albums and so on.
“Absolutely,” Jake agrees. “At one time you really needed record companies to sort all the business and distribution out, but these days most of your distribution is via iTunes and Amazon. Most bands make more money from touring rather than selling records. These days, signing with a major label doesn't pay real dividends from a career point of view.”
That certainly seems to be the heart of the matter. Thankfully, SLF have no problem in setting shows up and organising their tours to counteract it.
“We're in a happy position of actually being able to turn down a lot of shows,” Jake admits.
“From the point of view of new material, we can bring new songs in gradually and road test them. That's what we're doing on this current tour, we're doing two new songs and seeing how they go down. Maybe it's old-fashioned, but a positive audience reaction is still the best gauge for whether a song's any good or not.”
Can't argue the toss about that one. Yet the last time this writer saw SLF – Dublin 2007 – he remembers a great new song called 'The Liars' Club' which eloquently takes Messrs. Bush and Blair to task. It was downloadable from SLF'S website (www.slf.com) for a while but has this one made the cut?
“Yeah, it has actually,” Jake replies, surprising me. “It's one of the one and a half that have survived from the original batch of songs, but I appreciate what you're saying. Even when I'd written it and played it for my wife for the first time she said “does this have a date stamp?” or words to that effect because she wondered if it would become obsolete. But I feel it's still totally relevant to the current situation. I mean, the world's still trying to sort out the bloody mess those bastards left us in!”
That's indisputable too. Jake, of course, has lived in Chicago for a number of years now. As it's the constitutional stamping ground of Mr. Obama, does Jake feel things are changing for the better in America as a result of his arrival in office?
“Certainly in the sense there's more optimism around now,” he considers.
“But I think that's pretty much a universal feeling. I mean, it had got so bad here that even hard line Republicans couldn't bring themselves to vote for McCain and like most people I've been impressed with what I've seen of Obama so far. I mean, on his first day he made a point of saying how Guantanamo would be closed down and he was going to promote stem cell research. That was an impressive start for his first day.”
“We're talking just as he's got through his first 100 days in office,” Jakes continues, “so it's early days, but I think the biggest obstacle he's got is simply that people expect change to come immediately and that's just not possible. I mean, however good a president he is, he;s not a miracle worker either and while I certainly hope he can cure a lot of ills, it's become so bad I'm not sure he can even achieve that in his first term. I just hope his ratings don't drop significantly because of the mountain he has to climb now.”
I second that emotion. But back to the songs. Jake is of course SLF'S primary songwriter, but is there a 'process' as such for writing a song? Plus, Steve (Grantley) and Ian (McCallum) also bring stuff to the table, don't they?
“It's very disorganised, most of the time,” Jake says, laughing heartily. “As I said, I can't write on the road, so it's a question of spending time at home in the basement for me, but yes, Steve and Ian do bring songs and ideas in as well.”
“Steve's already given me a couple of things, though not so much Ian this time round, though Ian tends to hide his light under a bushel where writing's concerned.”
How do you mean?
“Well, he's a bit reticent, y'know? I have to poke him with a stick and often he's got something really good hidden away as well. I'll be saying to him “what the fuck have you got?” or whatever...and then he'll say “oh, you don't really wanna hear this, do you?”...and I'll be like (sarcastically) Y-e-ss, I do!” and then it'll turn out to be really good.”
“I like to think I get the casting vote on the stuff they bring in, but after the ideas come in it's more like a game of verbal tennis really,” Jake continues.
“I'll listen to it, maybe add a bit or whatever and we mess around with it until it finally gets presented to the band – who promptly throw it out!” he laughs.
“No, seriously, though we'll have it all thrashed out and then someone else will say “are you really sure about this one?””
Perhaps you're just TOO democratic, Jake.
“Oh aye, we're too bloody democratic by far!” he finishes in gales of laughter.
Talking of song-writing, I watched the interviews with former SLF manager Gordon Ogilvie on the DVD with great interest. Gordon had a fair bit of lyrical input during SLF'S early years. Are we ever likely to see a Burns/ Ogilvie writing credit in future?
“That's an interesting question,” Jake muses.
“Actually, it almost happened with the song 'Walkin' Dynamite' on 'Guitar & Drum' because it was the last song that was completed for the album and I was stuck trying to finish it off. Around this time, we played the Astoria in London and Gordon came down and we had a chat.”
“I told him about the song and quietly suggested he might like to add something to it, which to my great surprise he thought would be a great idea. He was really keen, actually. Trouble was, I then got some more inspiration and ended up completing it myself and ringing Gordon to say, “sorry, mate, it's done now”, so it didn't quite happen.”
“But I wouldn't rule it out either,” Jake stresses.
“As far as I know, Gordon's not really working now and I don't think he's doing any writing. As for the new songs, I'm currently in a position where I have a lot of ideas and want to see them through, but you never know either. Working with Gordon was always great and I'd certainly never say never.”
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We'll keep watching this space, for sure. But let's talk about the 'Still Burning...The Story of SLF' DVD for a while. The DVD leads us through SLF'S history in a very candid, entertaining and engrossing way, opting for a 'talking head' style akin to The Clash's 'Westway To The World', also directed by long-term Clash acolyte Don Letts. I'm assuming you knew Don from way back, Jake?
“No, not really,” Jake says, surprising me a little.
“We only ever ran into each other back in the day, because Don lived in Notting Hill and I lived further out in London,” he reveals.
“I always had great respect for Don, of course, but we moved in different circles. He's a really sharp guy and I'd start going to clubs he'd got fed up with five years before, y'know(laughs). I mean, it was always very cordial between ourselves and The Clash, but weren't close friends either.”
Was it Don's work on 'Westway To The World' that directly influenced you to get him in to make 'Still Burning'?
“Yes, it was, because when the idea for the DVD initially came up, I was very much opposed to it,” says Jake.
“I wanted it done properly and it was only because I'd enjoyed 'Westway To The World' so much that I even entertained the idea, but it was only really when Alan (Parker) suggested he wanted to bring Don in that I was up for the idea. In fact, Alan had already contacted Don and Don was really great. Apart from being a consummate professional, he ended up doing it for way less than I'd imagined. Shame he never once gets a drink in!”
The 'Still Burning' DVD is essential viewing for anyone interested in the exploits of both SLF and the development of Punk and its' aftermath. Although it's not intended as a criticism, the only small disappointment is that it features precious little archival footage of SLF circa 1978-82. There's a very good reason for this, though, as Jake soon tells me.
“That was purely financial,” he says.
“We know people at the BBC and for that reason, we perhaps naively thought we might be able to get all that footage at something like 'Mate's Rates',” Jake says, not unreasonably.
“So much for that when it came to the crunch, though. They were demanding £1,000 per minute and bearing in mind we only had a budget of £45,000 to do the whole thing it was just a non-starter. It's especially ridiculous when you think you can get most of the footage we wanted to use on You Tube for absolutely nothing, but there you go.”
As you might imagine, 'Still Burning' tells the SLF story in truly democratic fashion, with substantial contributions from not only the current line-up, but also Gordon Ogilvie, original drummer Brian Faloon and more. Another former drummer, Jim Reilly, has been notoriously elusive since his days in the band, but the one person conspicuous by his absence is Jake's SLF co-founder, guitarist Henry Cluney.
Jake was put in the invidious position of asking Henry to leave the band after the making of the band's 1994 album 'Get A Life' as Cluney's commitment to the band was wavering at the time. Surely he was approached to appear in 'Still Burning'?
“Yes, we'd wanted Henry to appear in it, of course,” Jake confirms.
“The trouble is, he lives in the most inaccessible part of Minnesota you could imagine these days and the financial problems of either having him flown out to appear or pay to send a camera crew in was another substantial headache we couldn't afford. There was always the possibility he could have done something directly to video and then sent it on for editing, but then you're leaving yourself open to accusations of it being edited and him saying “no, that's not what I said” and all that sort of crap,” he finishes wearily.
'Still Burning”s main extra feature is the charged performance of the 'Inflammable Material' album given by the band at their 'homecoming' Belfast Ulster Hall date in March 2007. Having seen the band turn in a blinding show the following night in Dublin, this writer can attest to how brain-flayingly good SLF were on this tour, but what memories has Jake of that night now?
“The first thing I remember was that we'd actually had to convince the promoters we'd fill the place,” he says disarmingly.
“Usually when we play Belfast, we play the Empire Music Hall up the road and that's always packed to the rafters. But we had to convince the promoter we could pull a crowd under 18, which we can, even allowing for the demographic of our audience.”
“Anyway,” he continues, “out of the blue, Gerry Shepherd, the Ulster Hall's promoter came to Chicago on holiday during this time...”
Of all places....
“Yeah, right, of all places,” laughs Jake. “It's hilarious, because he had absolutely no idea I was even living in Chicago and that he was frequenting a pub I knew very well. Anyway, of course, the next thing he knows, I come in - “Shep! How are you doing? Fancy seeing you here!”
“So after about a week of me badgering him about us playing the Ulster Hall, that was pretty much sorted out! As to the venue itself, I remember standing next to the stage with Brian Young (Rudi) and Greg Cowan (The Outcasts) and saying to them “fuck me, it's bigger than I thought!””
As Jake predicted, SLF had no problem drawing a huge crowd and as the DVD footage shows us, the rest is history.
“Yeah, it was a very emotional night,” Jake recalls.
“I mean however much we love, say, our Glasgow audience, which is always unbelievable, Belfast is still our hometown show and playing there means such a hell of a lot.”
“All tours have their special moments, but we really did want to make a point of marking the occasion because it was the 30th Anniversary,” Jake continues.
“Everyone was really into it and with Ali (McMordie) coming back into the band, it was amazing. The only thing was, I hadn't played some of those songs for the best part of 30 years, so it was like learning another band's songs. It was really embarrassing, because in some cases I was 'phoning Ian (McCallum) and asking him what the chords were – to my own songs!”
Such is the bizarre world of rock'n'roll. But with W&H having already taken up a large portion of Jake's time, we should give him a break. Let's finish with an update of a question originally posed by a journalist speaking to Jake circa the release of SLF'S 'Tinderbox'. How – in the aftermath of 'Guitar & Drum”s success, the 30th Anniversary tour and GQ magazine's assertion that “in an ideal world Green Day would be paying this group royalties till Doomsday” - does Jake feel SLF are viewed these days? Does he feel they are finally being viewed as an influential band?
“Well, I do think we are viewed as having had some influence these days and obviously that's nice,” Jakes considers.
“Having said that, though, the last thing I want is for us to be considered a museum piece. I mean, our PR company suggested in 2007 that we could have got the MOJO Lifetime Achievement award and I had absolutely no truck with that at all. I basically told 'em it would be the last cheque they got off me if they put us forward for that.”
“So while it's been great that people liked the last album so much, we're looking to the future. As I said before, I've been taking my time over the follow-up to 'Guitar & Drum' because a lot of people have been suggesting it's our best work and I don't want the standard to slip this time either.”
What a magnificent attitude. Stiff Little Fingers: still burning, still passionate and still refusing to be silenced. That's the spirit.
(www.slf.com)
Stiff Little Fingers play the following tour dates:
May 14th - Northampton Roadmender
May 15th - Blackburn King George's Hall
May 16th - Bridlington Spa Hall (MUTINY FESTIVAL)
May 17th - Warrington Parr Hall
May 20th - Cork, The Pavilion** - please note this venue has been changed. The gig was originally scheduled for An Cruiscin Lan, but original tickets are still valid.
May 21st - Limerick, Dolan's Warehouse
May 22nd - Dublin, The Academy
May 23rd - Portlaoise, The Sky Venue.
Tickets available via:
www.slf.com
www.tickets.ie
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