Smash hit

Although the group had dropped one surrogate father, London Calling was made with the help of another, Guy Stevens. The producer can be seen on The Last Testament documentary stirring up mayhem during recording sessions at Wessex studios, creating the tension of a live show.

“He did bring an electric energy with him,” grins Jones. “He would really talk us up to believing that we were the band who could bring rock’n’roll forward.”

“His history was phenomenal,” adds Simonon. “He got Chuck Berry out of prison and introduced the Rolling Stones and The Who to American R&B. He was the human conductor and we were the means by which he was going to transmit his energy through the recording studio on to vinyl.”

For all its swagger, London Calling was a cautionary album. Heroin, the drug that would become a scourge of the inner cities in the 1980s, makes several appearances.

Simonon: “Before the Anarchy in the UK tour the UK punk scene was innocent and focused. Then the Heartbreakers came to Britain.”

Jones: “They brought something that we didn’t know anything about.”

Simonon: “Certain characters fell for it, and Sid Vicious was the main contender.”

Headon, the powerhouse drummer, would also become an addict. His sacking, followed later by Jones’s dismissal in September 1983, would spell the end for the Clash. To the familiar culprits — drugs, personality and musical differences — must be added the phenomenal work rate.

The group did manage to outlive the differences that pulled them apart, and Strummer spent his final years as tightly bonded to his compatriots as he had been when they made their greatest music. Like thousands of others, what first drew me to the Clash was that Strummer seemed like an idealistic older brother. Years later, he told me not a day went by when he didn’t think of his older brother, David, who had been involved with the National Front and had committed suicide when Strummer was 18.

“It was obviously a painful memory for Joe,” says Simonon. “But I think what helped was that in a way we became his brothers. When we came together it was like dysfunctional human beings getting together and making a family. That’s what you can hear on London Calling.”

London Calling: 25th Anniversary Edition is out on Monday on Columbia Records

Punk icons

The photos were taken by Pennie Smith during the Clash’s first major tour of the US. Towards the end, fatigue and frustration led Paul Simonon to smash his bass, the iconic cover of London Calling. “I didn’t want that image,” Smith remembers. “I thought it was too grainy to blow up. But that’s one of the reasons I loved working with the Clash — they were so visually literate.”

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