Click
here to read an interview with Joe Strummer: The Future is Unwritten
director Julien Temple
Chrissie Hynde
I was so happy to be in Joe’s world – being with him made me feel fantastic.
He was a serious person, but what he was most serious about was having fun
and making sure everyone else was having a good time. That was really
important to him.
He was a man-of-the-people guy, more than anyone else I know, and he seemed to
touch so many. Just last night, I was talking to the security guy, Solomon,
here at Real World Studios, where I’m recording, and he remembered seeing me
at Joe’s camp at Womad. When Joe went to a festival, it was Camp Strummer,
with flags waving and bonfires.
There was always something cooking with Joe. He had this gang mentality.
Wherever he went, he created this little community about him. If you walked
through a crowd with him, people always waved and said hello – he was a very
approachable guy, and I think the documentary [The Future Is Unwritten by
Julian Temple] reflects that. You really get a sense of his contradictions.
He loved being around ordinary people, and I dug him for that. He would
bring in a guy off the street and move him into his house.
He was like the Pied Piper around adults and kids. Once, someone had given my
daughter a scaled-down drum kit for Christmas, and Joe didn’t think it
sounded right. So he started taking it apart, attacking the drum head with a
pair of garden shears while she stood watching. When he was satisfied with
his modifications, he just stood back, nodded and said: “That’s better.”
I met Joe when I was trying to get a band together with Mick Jones [the
Clash’s guitarist] in 1976. I was always the odd one out. One day, Mick
brought in Paul Simonon [the band’s bassist], and I realised that was the
group. A week later, Joe was in there, and that became the Clash. I have so
many memories of that time. Everyone hung out at Sebastian Conran’s place on
Albany Street, and it was fantastic. Then I moved to Forest Hill, into a
flat with the guys who became the Basement Five, and later Joe moved in and
took over my room. I can remember, on the White Riot tour, crawling on my
hands and knees out of a student union with Joe, who was also on his hands
and knees, because we were so drunk, in the middle of the afternoon.
After the Clash, I lost touch with Joe for a bit. But before the Mescaleros,
there was a time when I was doing a show in Los Angeles, in 1994, and he was
hanging about with a mate of mine, so I said: “Why don’t you do a song with
us?” Joe said he would only sing if Brian Setzer [of the Stray Cats] joined
him, so they got up together and sang Brand New Cadillac. It was touching,
because Joe was nervous – I don’t think he had been on stage since the Clash
– and Brian Wilson was in the audience.
It’s creepy talking about a friend when they are gone, and I’ve always hated
talking about people behind their back, but the one thing I really noticed
about Joe in those last 10 years was that he was so obviously in love with
his wife. That was a big inspiration to me.
When I went to his funeral, and what I refer to as the “after-show party”, it
was upsetting to throw my handkerchief on his coffin. But for the next two
days, I had this feeling of elation. I was in such an uncharacteristically
good mood. I was just so happy to have been around this guy that I wasn’t
sad.
Damien Hirst
In many ways, the world is shit, run by people who don’t care in positions of
power. People need heroes, people need belief and people need hope. Joe
Strummer was a hero to me long before I met him. I was too young to be a
proper punk – I was 12 in 1977 – and I was too busy fighting my parents to
fight the system, so Joe was someone I wished I could be. Joe was one of the
few famous people I ever met who turned out to be more of a hero in real
life. Sadly, I’ve found most heroes are a letdown in the flesh, but not Joe
– even now, I miss him so much. His death was a real blow to me, and the
world got noticeably darker the day he died.
He represented something fundamental, but something incredibly important to
all living people: he represented freedom, infinite possibilities. He was an
outlaw, a maverick, a rebel and a believer. He made me feel that you had to
be prepared to die for what you believe; he fought injustice wherever he
found it. He loved the little people everywhere, and never gave up hope; he believed, and showed us a way that the smallest actions could change the
world. He never sold out: he had plenty of offers, and absolutely could have
done with the money, but he wouldn’t let that take any of the shine off his
art. He inspired me and gave me hell in equal measure, and kicked all my
soft options to death. When I was being arrogant and stupid, he wouldn’t
listen to me; when I foolishly told him that I could do anything in the art
world, because I had no fear, he said: “I know something you can’t do.” I
said: “What?” He said: “Go to your own next show opening wearing a fez.” I
didn’t do it.
I sometimes put London Calling on really loud when I’m in the house on my own,
and listen to it and think about him. What a voice. What a powerhouse of a
song. Unbelievable. And it’s a Joe that I sometimes took for granted when he
was alive – and that can’t be helped now. I miss him terribly; I wish I
could chat with him late at night. I f***ing hate death. The silence of him
now is awful. I guess when Joe died, I became a man.
John Cusack
There was nobody like Joe Strummer. There is a lineage, of course: Woody
Guthrie, Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan. I was always staggered by his voice. It
is like a shaman should sound. If Roy Orbison sang for the lonely, Joe sang
for the hungry. His voice was liquid desire and it ignited as it left his
mouth, his body shaking to contain the heat, like a rocket in the first
phase of liftoff. He was a pioneer who demanded that art and politics be
fused in the interests of humanity and truth. Often, the truth was painful;
just as often, it was liberating, transcendent and just plain fun. He was an
icon of unrivalled integrity. Billy Bragg said that if it weren’t for the
Clash, punk rock would be just a sneer, a safety pin and a pair of bondage
trousers. That sounds right to me. It has been said that he reinvented rock.
That sounds right too.
I know for certain he challenged, inspired and demanded us to think and feel
in ways we hadn’t before – demanded that we use rebellion and anger as fuel
for the journey to other, better worlds, never as an end in itself; demanded
that we reach for the transcendent in everything and everyone, and never
suffer those fools who will not think and feel their way home. He was a
guiding light and he got us out of many a tough jam. Knowing him, I was
always humbled by his grace and intelligence, his passion, the sheer
ferocity of his will – and Jesus Christ, that man could rock.
Keith Allen
Joe was a spokesman for a generation. I know it’s a cliché, but he was. And I
think he really did prove that you could get to the top without a singing
voice. He gave everyone hope, in more ways than one – though I guess you
have to thank Bernie Rhodes [the Clash’s manager] for making them sing about
what was important to them.
In the early days of the Clash, I used to go down and watch them rehearse in
Camden. We hung out in the same areas of west London, drank in the same pubs
– the Warwick, the Elgin – and I was involved in putting on one of their
earliest gigs, at the ICA in 1977, billed as A Night of Pure Energy. I even
opened for the Clash as a stand-up comedian on the Combat Rock tour, at
Colston Hall, in Bristol. Joe was a mate, but not a huge mate until after
the Clash. I think he became bored and got more pleasure from the
Mescaleros. He was not trying to reinvent himself with them. He felt more
comfortable, and I think he did some great songwriting, especially on that
first album. It’s really good folk music, and I loved watching Clash fans
coming along and getting off on it.
Joe was a mass of contradictions really, and the film illustrates that. There
are some very telling moments, like when he says he will steal your woman,
but not your money. That was so true.
It didn’t sit comfortably with him to be seen as a god, which he was to a lot
of people when he was in the Clash. I think it contributed to why he didn’t
go back on the road for so long: there was a sense in which he felt he was
not worthy. Beneath the bravado that people saw, he was full of self-doubt.
I got to know Joe much better after the Clash broke up, and I went to his
wedding. Our connection was through Glastonbury and the whole campfire
ethic. His idea was to keep a campfire going for five days and invite all
comers to it. Joe passionately believed that people can police themselves,
given the right circumstances, and that’s why he loved it. He loved watching
and observing.
The campfire thing really started at Womad. I introduced Damien Hirst to him;
Chrissie Hynde was there, and Donovan and Shaun Ryder. It took off from
there. It was such good fun that we did it every year, and it got bigger and
bigger. People would appear and disappear, and become friends. It was
brilliant. We used to put on karaoke and DJs.
You can’t overestimate the legacy of the Clash. My kids Lily and Alfie were
not born by the time they’d packed it in, but, when they were growing up,
they loved I Fought the Law and London Calling and White Riot. Lily’s first
public performance was on stage with Joe at Wembley Arena, when the
Mescaleros were supporting the Who. They did this jazz arrangement of White
Riot that Joe and Damien and I had come up with one drunken night in a pub
in New York. Joe did it at Wembley, with Lily holding an egg shaker and
singing backing vocals. She was 15 at the time. That’s testament to the man
– he gave her her first opportunity.
Julien Temple’s film, Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten, is out now on
DVD. Keith Allen and Chrissie Hynde were talking to Tim Cooper
