Fingers Doing The Talking

“WE’D GONE back to the hotel. Myself and Paul were having this bloody silly row about lyrics and, all of a sudden, our roadie picked Bruce up and threw him headfirst over the bar. It was like a scene from a John Wayne movie – Spud’d asked what he was drinking, Bruce had slurred ‘a triple vodka’ or something and he went ‘right, go get it your fucking self!’. I remember him lying there laughing and thinking to myself, ‘well he’s alright. Better than the boring git I’m talking to, anyway!’”

A disgustingly well-preserved Jake Burns is reminiscing about the somewhat inebriated night that Stiff Little Fingers first ran – well, lurched – into The Jam after a live TV appearance in Germany.

Punk’s second wave was beginning to surge and both bands were at their angst-ridden best.

“To be honest,” reflects Bruce Foxton who emerged from the aforementioned bar-room brawl unscathed, “Paul was a little bit too angst-ridden in those days. He took what he was doing incredibly seriously, which in itself wasn’t a bad thing, but he didn’t know how to let go. That night, for instance, we were all trying to unwind and let our hair down after the gig and he had to go and take Jake to task over his lyrics. Jake’s an intense sort of a person too but the difference between him and Paul is he knows when to back off.”

No matter how hard you try to avoid the ‘J’-word, there’s no way any self-respecting former punk rocker can sit down in the same room as Bruce Foxton and not at least mention The Jam. Wonderful nostalgia of course but a bit of a bore, surely, for Bruce who must have trotted out the same answers to the same questions a zillion times.

“Well, yes and no. Aside from the fact that we were a very successful group, the main reason I think people want to hear about The Jam is that it all ended so dramatically and, you could say, unsatisfactorily. That’s why myself and Rick (Buckler) decided to write Our Story – there were points we wanted to make and stories we wanted to tell but it’s hardly a ‘warts and all exposé’. If we were going to crap on Paul, we’d have done it at the time of the split and made a few bob by dishing the dirt to The Sun.”

So was Bruce Foxton The Jam’s very own Bill Wyman?

“Well, I never went to bed with a 13-year-old, so I can’t be. It’s just as well I didn’t because the divorce settlement would have ruined me.”

The more cynical elements of the music press had a field day when it was announced that Bruce Foxton had joined Stiff Little Fingers. No matter that the album which consummated the relationship was the best thing they’d done in years, the knives were out and sharpened and looking for backs to stab.

“It’s funny,” resumes Jake, “everyone we knew was outraged we got a slagging but it didn’t bother us in the least. Dolphin, our drummer, had been in the Tom Robinson Band, so the ‘punk dinosaur’ tag was only to be expected. What I did find disappointing is that most journalists didn’t even bother listening to Flags & Emblems before putting the boot in. Okay, maybe it wasn’t a classic, but I think it answered most the critcisms that were levelled at us and proved we weren’t just going through the motions.

“What’s not generally known,” Bruce reveals, “is that after The Jam and Stiff Little Fingers split in 1983, myself and Jake talked about putting a band together and even went as far doing some recording. For a variety of reasons – me getting a solo publishing deal and Jake starting The Big Wheel – it didn’t happen but we kept in touch and when he offered me the gig in ‘91, it seemed only natural to accept.”

Apart from the live version of ‘Smithers-Jones’ which appears on the CD version of SLF’s current ‘Can’t Believe In You’ single, Bruce rarely delves into his illustrious musical past. Has this been a conscious decision or does he just prefer playing new material?

“Yes and yes on that,” he laughs. “The difference with ‘Smithers-Jones’ is that I wrote it myself and it’s a song I’ve always been rather proud of. I wouldn’t feel comfortable doing, say, ‘That’s Entertainment’ or ‘Down In The Tube Station’ though. They’re Paul’s babies and Stiff Little Fingers adopting them would be a bit tacky.”

And what of these scurrilous rumours that he’s gifted a collection of previously unreleased Jam songs to American tribute band All Mod Cons?

“It’s bizarre them coming from America because, as you know, The Jam did fuck-all over there. I spoke to the bass player on the ‘phone and he did broach the subject of recording some of our unreleased stuff with me producing but I’m not too keen. The reason they never saw the light of day in the 70s and 80s is that they weren’t much good and the intervening years haven’t changed that.”

Lest we forget, the reason I’m sitting here being plied with a very passable bottle of Châteaux de Plonk and a Cajun salad that’s big enough to feed an entire family of four for a month is that Stiff Little Fingers have just released a new album. Get A Life may not be the product of angry young men but with titles like ‘The Road To Kingdom Come’, ‘Forensic Evidence’ and ‘The Night That The Wall Came Down’, you can rest assured that they remain pretty pissed off thirtysomethings. The songwriting’s come a long way since those first youthful bursts of adrenaline but this is still straight down the line white boy rock ‘n’ roll. Considering the Stiffies’ past flirtation with reggae and Bruce’s well documented love of 60s soul, I’m surprised that they’ve gone for such a resolutely purist approach.

“That’s us,” agrees Jake taking a liver-threateningly large slurp of wine, “predictable to the last! I remember, at around the time ‘Alternative Ulster’ came out, being asked ‘why don’t you write love songs?’. My reply to that, was if you’re going to write a love song you’re up against ‘When A Man Loves A Woman’ and a hundred more which are just as good. But if you’re writing about being bored in Belfast, you’re number one in a field of one.

“It’s the Tranmere Rovers route to success – be good at what you know. The difference between then and now is that I’ve left Northern Ireland and discovered there are other places where people get shat on on a regular basis.

“As for getting in Paul Oakenfold to do a club mix, that’s not us. I was talking to our ex-manager recently and he was enthusing about U2 and how it was brilliant they were using dance beats and after 10 minutes or so he asked, ‘what’s your new stuff like?’. I couldn’t lie, so I told him ‘same old shite!’”

Was Jake disturbed by the murmurs of disapproval which accompanied their decision not to participate in the Peace Together initiative?

“There were a lot of very dodgy factors in the background to that which is not to say I don’t admire Ali and Robert for having a go. Bottom line is we consulted with the Peace People in Northern Ireland, who were supposed to be the main beneficiaries, and they advised us not to get involved because they knew the whole thing was going to fall apart.

“To be honest,” Jake adds, “my appetite for grand gestures disappeared after we did the Brixton Rock Against Racism festival in 1980. There were a hundred National Front boneheads rioting down the front and this git from the council, who sounded not entirely dissimilar to John Major, was whinging, ‘if you can’t control the crowd, we’ll have to cut the power’. Anyway, the PA goes down and as we walk off – reluctantly, I might add – a nouveau hippie from the organising committee shouts, ‘you’ve sold out. You’re as bad as the racists. You’re a fucking fascist!’ I’m not a violent man but, whomp, I smashed the bastard in the face!”

And has he hit anyone recently?

“Apart from the odd journalist, nah!”

• Can I just say, under absolutely no physical duress whatsoever, that the extremely warm, talented and lovable Jake Burns will be joining the rest of Stiff Little Fingers at the Dublin Tivoli on March 4th and 5th. They’re a hell of a band and, hey, see you there!