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At the beginning of 1982 the Clash flew to Japan to begin a two-month tour of
the Far East and Pacific Rim. They hadn't taken a break from writing,
recording or touring in more than five years and the strain was beginning to
show.
Joe Strummer I can't remember what happened... Topper's health [Topper
Headon, the drummer] by this time was going downhill. He'd got addicted to
heroin. In the jazz days the saxophonist would be addicted to heroin, like
Charlie Parker. The nature of the instrument means it's much better to be
floating over the music, doing your thing, but it doesn't suit drumming,
which is like nailing a nail into the floor. It's a precise thing. The beats
have to be there and when Topper got addicted, he couldn't play any more.
When we got back to England we went to a studio in West London and began
working on the material that would become Combat Rock. Then we went back to
New York to record it, at Electric Ladyland studio. But by this time we were
all getting pretty tired because all this stuff had gone down in the space
of four or five years and we'd released hours and hours of long-playing
material at a rate that doesn't bear thinking about in this day and age. I
think we should have taken a year off, but we didn't think in those terms
then. If we'd recharged our batteries, the band would have still been going
today, perhaps.
Paul Simonon The Far East Tour was great, especially going to Japan for
the first time. It really was like landing on another planet. In Australia
we stayed at the Sheraton in the dodgy Kings Cross area of Sydney - Mick
[Jones] told me the Beatles had stayed there - and when we arrived I went
straight to my room to catch up on some sleep and there were cockroaches
everywhere.
I managed to get some sleep anyway, but was woken up by a knock at the door.
Three Aborigines were standing there wanting a chat. They asked if they
could come up on our stage to talk about their situation. So I got Joe and
we had a meeting and of course said “yes”. We realised the power that we had
'cos we could let these guys talk to people who wouldn't normally pay any
attention to them. But when we played New South Wales, while one of the guys
was on stage giving his talk, the police were at his house, beating up his
wife. I didn't really enjoy Australia, probably because of that.
I had a weird time in Thailand too because after the show I met my old history
teacher from school - he'd written the answers to our O-level questions on
the blackboard because he'd felt sorry for us. He was living in Thailand, so
he drove me around Bangkok while I was there and showed me the place. I
jumped into a puddle at one point and a swarm of flies covered me. Then I
got sick and had to lie in a hospital for a week. Joe would turn up with
these monks, which was odd.
When we'd started on Combat Rock. Mick did some mixing on the tapes but I
don't think any of us were particularly pleased with it. I think at that
stage Mick's guitar turned into a bassoon or something. I don't know, it
just wasn't a guitar any more and that was sort of odd. Maybe he got bored
with playing guitar - so he had various bits of equipment which would make
his guitar sound like a harpsichord or whatever he wanted it to sound like.
It was almost an orchestra but I don't know that he completely understood
how to use it.
When Rock the Casbah came out I think Mick might have been a bit annoyed 'cos
it was Topper's song. I might be wrong.
Mick Jones It was pretty crazy when we arrived in Japan. I'd flown
there from New York, having stopped off in Alaska, and when I got there Paul
was wandering around the foyer, Joe was upset and something had gone on with
Topper in the elevator. It felt very strange - we were chased around as if
we were the Beatles or something, with lots of screaming and people throwing
presents to us. It was beautiful.
On our way to New Zealand after Japan we stopped for an afternoon in Australia
and were all thrown out of the hotel for playing our music too loud. We'd
only stopped off there for a couple of hours, yet we managed to get banned
from the best hotel in Sydney.
In Thailand we only did one gig, but ended up staying for two weeks after Paul
got ill. It was on the photo shoot for the Combat Rock cover, and Paul
jumped in what he thought was a puddle but was actually some kind of black
mud with loads of flies in it. He was in an old colonial-style hospital with
a tropical disease. Joe and I got friendly with some monks who wore orange
robes and we took them to see Paul in hospital, and they were really excited
because he had a shower in his hospital room. Then the monks started coming
to the hospital to have showers, loads of them queueing up to get in the
shower.
We had a nice couple of weeks' holiday in Thailand and then went home. We
rehearsed in a kind of squat hall in West London and hired the Rolling
Stones' mobile studio to park outside. We ran leads out to it and recorded
the demos there.
While we were in Australia we tried to record a few songs after the shows, so
we'd be downing salt tablets 'cos we were so sweaty and then trying to play
and mix tracks. But I began to realise that I couldn't mix at all, then.
Well, the others said: “You can mix it”, and I was like: “Oh shit!” And it
was this big, sprawling mess at the time, so I was in a bit of a mood for a
while about it, but I think it worked out right for everybody in the end.
Should I Stay or Should I Go - it wasn't about anybody specific and it
wasn't pre-empting my leaving the Clash. It was just a good rockin' song,
our attempt at writing a classic. When we were just playing, that was the
sort of stuff we'd play.
Topper Headon I was out of control. I remember being sick on Buddy
Holly's grave, which didn't go down too well . I was a Keith Moon fan, you
know, live fast, die young, and I lost the plot completely. Mick, Joe and
Paul didn't like touring because they behaved as if they were businessmen. I
loved it because I'd misbehave and do all the mad stuff, usually with the
road crew. The band ended up banning me from hanging out with the road crew
because whenever they'd get a damages bill the crew would say: ‘Well, Topper
was with us...'
I wrote Rock the Casbah - the music, not the lyrics. One day I went into the
studio on my own because I don't actually know what notes I'm playing, so
rather than try to tell everyone what to play, I went and recorded piano and
then the drums and then the bass. I was thinking that it would just, you
know, show them the way it could go but they all said: “Great, let's keep
it.” Mick put guitar on it, Joe put the vocals on and it was done. After
recording Combat Rock and having played on it, written the song and been
involved from beginning to end - that's when I felt that I was really part
of the band.
But I lost it, really, on the tour of the Far East. I was standing in a lift
with Joe and he's saying: “How can I sing all these anti-drug songs with you
stoned out of your head behind me?” There was a
lot of friction building up over a period of time, which culminated in me
being sacked.
I could feel guilty about that because if I'd kept my act together I could
still see the band being together, but I lost the plot.
LIFE AFTER TOPPER
Joe Without Topper we'd have died with punk, no doubt about it. If your
drummer is falling apart, then no matter what you're putting on top, it's
going to fall apart, like a house without foundations. That was the
beginning of the end, really. It's the chemical mixture of those four people
that makes a group work. You can take one away and replace him with whoever
you like, or ten men: it's never gonna work, and you should be grateful if
even once in your life you get into a situation where there are groups such
as Booker T and the MGs, the Meters, Creedence Clearwater Revival, the Doors
or the Stones - or any great group. Perhaps when you're struggling, it holds
you together, because you're all heading towards the same point: “Come on,
boys, hang in there!” But then Rock the Casbah went Top Five and Combat Rock
went Top Five in America, which was unheard of for us, 'cos our records
usually placed around 198 or something, and suddenly it all blew up.
Everybody wanted control, wanted to steer the boat, and you couldn't fit us
in the control room any more, everybody had their own agenda.
It was the end of it when Topper got sacked; it was never any good after that.
We messed with the original four, it was limping to its death from the
minute Topper got sacked. Hopeless.
SHEA STADIUM
Joe We played Shea Stadium with The Who and it was fun to play Career
Opportunities in a place like that, when six years earlier we'd written it
in Camden Town. It's things like that, though, that make the world so
interesting. Playing Shea Stadium was weird because there are some 90,000
people in there but at least 10,000 of them are constantly on the move,
getting burgers or taking a leak, so it's like you're playing to loads of
people milling around. But fun, all the same.
I think it was the unexpected success of Rock the Casbah combined with the
fact that we were so tired; tired of each other, tired of the road, tired of
the studio. We were burnt out. It just blew us apart.
Paul During the Shea Stadium gig and on the other dates of that tour,
Pete Townshend would come into our dressing room and we'd have a game of
football. At Shea he said: “Come back to our dressing room,” so we did, and
there was Daltrey and all these miserable gits sitting around who wouldn't
talk to us. So Pete came back to our dressing room with us.
1983
Combat Rock had given the Clash the biggest selling album of their career.
They were booked to headline the US Festival in California in May 1983. The
Clash were finally on the verge of rock megastardom. And yet they were in
disarray.
Joe The US Festival was 250,000 people in a dustbowl in California, and
I don't recall playing too well that night. There was too much going on and
going off on that tour. I had stayed on the bus from Phoenix to LA, trying
to collect my thoughts about all the brouhaha going on between the band.
I've heard people say that there are some nice tapes of us playing that gig,
and we were OK, but I think it was an anticlimax because there were too many
expectations of what it was going to feel like to play to a quarter of a
million people in one go. Perhaps whatever happened couldn't possibly match
that expectation.
Paul At that point how we appeared on stage matched how we were
backstage. Mick was all the way over there and I was over here, with Joe in
the middle. We seemed to be going in different directions. I think we were
supposed to be going on a tour, but Mick wanted a rest. I think we should
have carried on touring, finished the job we'd started, because we were on
the verge of making a serious dent [in the charts]. But Mick wanted to go
home. That probably caused a lot of frustration for Joe and me.
Joe There was a power struggle between Bernie [Rhodes, the band's
manager] and Mick, and I was foolish enough to let Bernie have his way. If I
had any defence, I'd say that Mick was intolerable to work with by this
time. No fun at all. He wouldn't show up, and when he did it was like
Elizabeth Taylor in a filthy mood. Any man would have sacked him, but I
still regret that I was party to it.
Mick These things happen, groups split up all the time. I didn't think
they should have carried on using the name the Clash, but that was fine. I'm
surprised they put up with me for as long as they did, really.
WE DID OUR JOB...
Topper If I could do it all again, or not do it all again, the only
thing I would change is that I wouldn't take cocaine or heroin. Until I took
cocaine and heroin my life was brilliant, but since then it's been hard
work. It was absolutely the best time of my life and I'd like to apologise
for letting the side down, for going off the rails.
Mick It's almost like the song 1977 in that it ends in 1984. It was
always probably meant to, you know?
Joe There's something quite good about coming, saying your bit and then
going. I quite like that.
Paul If I could do it all again, I wouldn't change anything, I think
it's fine as it is. We did our job, that's the story, now we're gone and
that's it. Suits me fine.
© Joe Strummer, Mick Jones, Paul Simonon, Topper Headon. Extracted from The
Clash (Atlantic, £30), to be published on Oct 6. Live at Shea Stadium
CD/download and The Clash Live DVD are out on the same day.
