You were born in Leeds in April 1952 and spent your childhood and early teens there. What were your major musical influences as a teenager?

All the records that my older sisters used to buy like Roy Orbison and all the rock n roll albums of the time. Of course the major one was The Beatles and in particular their "With The Beatles" album. I also used to like the Rolling Stones and the Small Faces. Apart from music I used to support Leeds United; they were a big influence!

What inspired you to become a musician?

I bought my first guitar from Woolworth’s and then I suppose it was meeting Matt because he was so much more advanced than I was on the guitar. I met Matt at Art School where we were on the same project together. Being a couple of years older than I was he was a major influence on me. You need someone to start you off on the guitar and he showed me a few licks and away I went. I was surprised how easy it was to write songs.

Did you join any bands while you were at school?

No. I always wanted to be in a band at school but never did anything about it until I went to Art School and met Matt. He was always playing in different line-ups and I realised that’s what I wanted to do.

Tell me about your days at Art School with Matt?

Well it was just parties, parties and even more parties. I moved out of my Mum’s house and hung around Matt’s flat. For me just having left school and being in a flat it was great because I didn’t have to answer to anybody. My Mum made sure I didn’t starve so she used to send me a big hamper and Matt loved that. So I lived in this flat in Leeds with Matt and Barry from the London Cowboys and Matt taught me the guitar as well as introducing me to all the naughty things in life!

So when did you move to London?

Well Matt, Barry and I all moved down together in 1970 or 71 and our first flat was in Maida Vale.

Matt said he came down for the weekend and never went back.

Yeah I suppose that’s about right. We came down to try it out and see what it was like and it was really easy, I waltzed into the first job I ever had. At that time you could get a flat anywhere so I moved from my Mum’s place which was very Coronation Street-ish to Warrington Crescent in Maida Vale. There were big white pillars everywhere and we really thought we’d made it. Matt then moved about two doors down from me where he built his recording studio and that’s where all the punk bands used to come and make demos.

Prior to joining the Boys I believe you were in London SS for a while and played drums?

Yeah I did for about one gig I think. I wasn’t a drummer but I played with London SS and I also played drums in the first ever Generation X line up, well in the rehearsals at least. At that time nobody knew where they were going but it was great fun. I was also in a band with Mick Jones where he was writing all these pre-Clash songs and I played drums on those demos as well. I remember one day Mick turned up and instead of having his MC5 stripy trousers and hair down to his waist he had a ripped up suit with safety pins in it and short hair. I asked him what had happened and he said "It’s punk init".

You mentioned that you played a gig with London SS?

I don’t know whether it was actually as London SS but it was certainly the same line up. There was Mick Jones, Kelvin Blacklock, Matt, Tony James and I was on the drums. We played near Turnham Green station at an Art College and it was the first big stage I’d ever been on. I’m pretty sure it was London SS but you’d need to check that with Matt. It wasn’t punk; we were very glam and very New York Dolls-ish.

Were you involved in recording any demos with London SS?

I’m not sure whether it was with London SS but I definitely played some guitar and some drums on Mick Jones’ first ever recordings. Mick Jones was really camping it up at that time in his pre-Clash days and we recorded some good stuff which was really interesting. I’m sure Matt must have them somewhere and they must be worth a fortune now.

How did you come to join the Boys?

Well Matt started working with Casino and Andrew Matheson from the Hollywood Brats and I was always there so I got drafted in as acoustic guitar player. Andrew liked the way I played acoustic guitar and that’s when the first line up of the Boys came together. Andrew Matheson on vocals, Geir Waade on drums, Wayne Manor on bass, Matt on guitar, Casino on keyboards and me on acoustic guitar.

So you originally joined the Boys on acoustic guitar then?

Yeah that’s right there were a lot of ballads then; "It Only Hurts When I Cry" and all that stuff. It then started to get to the stage where we realised that Andrew always wanted to be the "star". He wasn’t prepared to go out there and work and wanted everything on a plate so we decided to form a band ourselves and we then recruited Jack and Duncan. They both went to public school together, but I can’t remember how they got involved with the band.

You were the foreman in a T shirt factory where Jack and Duncan worked for you.

Yeah that’s right and I was a real bastard to them as well. I’d learnt about T shirts at Art School and that was one of my only ever on the card jobs in London. I noticed them listening to a few of the tunes being played which I liked. I remember Jack saying he played drums and that was it.

When the Boys were initially a beat band I’ve seen a fact sheet which refers to you as John-Boy Splain. Obviously Splain is your real name but where did John-Boy come from?

It was from the Walton’s I suppose. The only reason it got changed from Splain to Plain was that the first ever review they spelt my name wrong and had missed the "S" off. So we just kept the name Plain because there was no point going "you’ve spelt my name wrong". The "Honest" bit came from the Boys manager because I was always doing dodgy things like selling the equipment and putting all the money on a horse instead of buying new equipment.

Jack and Duncan were teenagers then whereas Cas, Matt and yourself were a few years older and more experienced. How did that affect the band?

Not really because there was no way that I was any older in the head than Jack or Duncan, I mean Duncan’s always been a lot older than I have. He only wrote three songs and he bought a house with it so he’s always been a lot more responsible than me. Duncan’s always been more mature than me and I still haven’t grown up; that’s why I’m like I am.

Tell me about your first few dates with the Boys as a beat band?

Great, we were always good live. We could always play and picked songs that it wasn’t natural to do like we played Cilla Black’s "You’re My World" and stuff like that. We were definitely a beat band at that time as the punk thing hadn’t started. I think the first proper gig we did was at the Brecknock where we played on a Sunday afternoon. If you could get through the Sunday afternoon without being bottled or booed off you could play again and we went down an absolute storm. We were very loud and trashy, a little like the Beatles in the Cavern but heavier.

Duncan told me that at one point you were going to play bass and he was going to be the singer/frontman.

I can’t remember that. Mind you I wouldn’t have done it, being a bass player is almost as bad as being a drummer!! I do remember considering the possibility of Duncan being purely a frontman and I was all for that but for me two guitars in a band is an absolute must.

When did you change from being a beat band to a punk band?

I think it was just a natural progression and we just became punk. We were associated with that movement but we still had our suits and our white shirts/black ties as well as our Beatle haircuts right up to the start of the Chartbusters album. We didn’t go out of our way to be any different; we just got labelled as punk.

Weren’t you the first punk band to wear ties?

Yes we were, even before the Jam. I remember the Jam coming up to us and asking us how to get a record deal because we’d just signed for NEMS at that time. I’m there telling Paul Weller what we did and of course the rest is history.

How long was it before record companies started paying attention?

It was probably at Dingwall’s around our fourth or fifth gig. NEMS came along and we signed the next day, we must have been crazy. It was the first company that came to see us, the first one to approach us and we signed straight away. Our manager really knew what he was doing!

I suppose the million dollar question is why did you sign for NEMS?

I’ve no idea. I never took any part in the business side of it at all. The people who ran the band were Ken Mewis and Matt. Jack and I always moaned about things and it got to the point where they thought that we were just doing it to be awkward. We disagreed with a lot of what went on but we never got a say because they thought we were just drunken bozos! I remember one of Matt’s ideas was no publicity and I’m thinking I’ve never heard of that one before. He told us that we were not going to do any interviews ever and that would make the fans really interested in us. Personally I thought that was absolute bullshit. I just seem to attract bad record deals; it’s been the story of my life. I’ve had lots of record deals with different bands and it’s always been the same story. They put money into you doing a recording. You do a good recording and they say how much they love it and then they don’t do anything about it. They put a few into the shops until they all sell and they say "Oh you’ve done really well" but they don’t follow it up. When I got involved with Ian Hunter I thought this is it, we were at Abbey Road recording and I thought it’s going to be massive but then same story it only gets released in Scandinavia.

How quickly did the band’s relationship with NEMS deteriorate?

Very quickly and it just got worse and worse. We used to slag them off at every opportunity, even my guitar case used to say "NEMS Suck" on the inside and I used to make sure that it was open on every photograph. They became known as Never Enough Money Supplied. I remember Casino got held out of a window on the top floor of their offices by his shirt collar because Jack and I had smashed up the toilet’s downstairs. We found out that they were pressing records in Ireland and shipping abroad; they were selling thousands of Boys albums that never got into the chart shops. We didn’t get the money and we didn’t get the recognition. It’s weird when you go anywhere in the world and someone’s always got your album but we didn’t have any success. They were just getting all the money and we weren’t getting any songwriting royalties or anything. They were just fucking gangsters! In the end the guy who owned our publishing sold it twice so when Die Toten Hosen had success with "First Time" and "New Guitar In Town" I couldn’t get any money. They got to Number 1 in Germany and I should have earned about £30,000 from it but the money was all tied up in legal wrangles. I never get a royalty statement for anything I’ve ever done and I never see any money. I don’t know why I carry on, I must be mad.

The fans love your music John.

Yeah I suppose so.

What can you remember about Polydor offering to buy out your NEMS contract?

Polydor wanted us real bad but NEMS said no. They weren’t interested in letting us go and so Polydor took the Jam instead and again the rest is history. If we’d have had a major record label like Polydor behind us we might have done something. Other bands always respected us and there were a lot of managers after us at that time but we were tied to Ken. To be fair he did a lot of good work as well as making some awful mistakes. He had some fantastic ideas but never quiet followed them through because he acted more like another member of the band than the manager. He was always partying with us whereas he should have concentrated on the business more. I can always remember Ken being summed up as having a bottle of wine hanging from his bag wandering round a gig with it all spilling out everywhere and he’s trying to get us dates. That was our manager with wine just following him around. Not a great representation of the band, I mean the band could do that but not the manager for God’s sake.

You went into the recording studio on 3 February 1977 and recorded "I Don’t Care" and "Soda Pressing". What can you remember about it?

Well it was done very quickly in Denmark Street. It was the first proper studio I’d been in and it was great. The producer couldn’t believe that it was our first time in the studio because we did it so quickly. Mind you we’d been doing the demos at Matt’s place so we knew what was going on. I remember feeling great thinking that’s it I’ve made it.

Your first single was due out on 14 February but didn’t actually come out until 12 April. Why?

NEMS! They were probably waiting for the cheapest way of pressing it, the cheapest way of printing the sleeves; just basically doing it on the cheap. Incidentally it came out on my birthday.

To promote "I Don’t Care" you did a national tour supporting John Cale. How did the tour go?

It was brilliant. We blew John Cale off every night and it was embarrassing, I mean he was embarrassed. It was even mentioned in a few reviews as well. It got to the point where the fans were chanting for us during his set and I particularly remember it happening in his home town in Wales. That was our biggest show and Duncan ran off and jumped into the crowd and didn’t realise he hadn’t a long enough lead! John Cale loved the band but he was very self conscious about himself because he’d put on about three stones and he actually told us that he couldn’t compete with us young guys any more. He was a bit low about it but he was sort of a hero in our eyes anyway through his involvement with the Underground. The tour was great but I don’t think the Boys ever did a bad show.

Before the tour you were slagging off John Cale and later regretted it when you became friends with him?

Yeah but we were slagging everybody off, it was the in thing to do wasn’t it. All the old bands were boring old farts and it was so pathetic because in the tour bus you’d secretly be playing the Stones and then be slagging them off to the press. Everybody was doing it.

You recorded your first album in two days in early May 1977. How did those sessions go?

It’s incredible isn’t it and if we’d got the sound right on the first day it would have been done in a day! I remember the mixing guy used to set fire to the mixing desk. He used to spray alcohol all over the desk and then set fire to it. We didn’t know about it and we would be just sat there waiting for the first mix and suddenly the whole desk would go up in flames! The other thing I remember was my guitar being edited off "First Time" which really pissed me off. I play the first chord and them Matt comes in with another chord and after that I was out because the producer didn’t like the sound of that particular guitar. Instead of asking me to play it again with a sound that he liked it was just taken out when I wasn’t there. I was really pissed off especially with it being my only song on the album.

You were obviously pleased it made it onto the album?

Yes I was surprised and very pleased as the songwriting was very much dominated by Matt and Cas. To this day I’ve never written a song with Matt.

"That’s Not Love"?

Yeah but that was only because I had to go to him and say that I’d changed the arrangement a little bit so I felt I deserved a bit of the credit.

"Schoolgirls"?

That was the whole band. I don’t consider myself a bad songwriter and Matt is definitely one of the great unknown songwriters so it’s weird that we never did write any songs together, apart from the Yobs and of course "Garden Gang". Matt and I wrote that together.

Didn’t Jack write that with Matt and yourself?

Well a little I suppose. I think it was more because he was sat in the room at the time! He’ll want the royalties though!

What did you think of the original Pete Gage mix of your first album?

Well I wouldn’t blame him because it sounded so much better when we were listening back to it than the final mix did. My main objection to the final mix is that you can’t hear the vocals but that was Matt’s idea. Matt felt that it should be rough rock n roll and you should strain to hear it so when you finally work out the lyrics you appreciate them more. Personally I thought that was bullshit, you could hear everything the Pistols, the Clash and the Jam were singing. However Matt was adamant about it and he convinced Ken and Duncan and Cas was happy to go along with it. Jack and myself were saying that it was stupid because the songs were so good and with great lyrics we just couldn’t understand why they didn’t want to hear them. I hated the final production of the first album. It was very rough and very raw but it could have sounded so much better if the vocals had been mixed higher. It was done on purpose like that and I could never understand it and it’s purely down to Matt. I’m certainly not slagging Matt off because I’ve got enormous respect for him and he is one of my oldest and closest friends. However I have to say that I disagreed with and still do disagree with the decision to produce the first album in that way.

What are your favourite tracks?

"First Time" as an out and out pop song but there’s loads of other really good songs on the album. There isn’t one I don’t like in fact I love them all.

I believe "First Time" was actually the first song you wrote?

No definitely not I’d written about a dozen songs or so by then. I suppose it was the first Boys song I had written. The first song I ever wrote is actually on the recently released Crybabys album "Rock On Sessions". It’s the third track on the album. The lyrics are different but the melody and the chord sequences are exactly the same and I remember writing that one at Matt’s place in Leeds.

How was "First Time" chosen as the bands second single?

Popularity. It was mentioned in reviews and it always received a great reaction live. It was the one that used to get everyone jumping up and down and gobbing!

Did you feel it had the potential to be a big hit?

Oh massive. As far as I’m concerned it was one of the most perfect singles ever. It says everything in that short space of time. As well as my guitar being edited out there was also another verse which was cut. At the time I agreed with it but I’d love to hear the long version now.

It was released by Captain Oi! Last year.

Was it? I haven’t got any Boys albums.

I’ll try and sort some out for you.

That’d be great. Do you prefer the longer version of "First Time"?

Oh definitely I think it’s much better and I also can’t believe it wasn’t a hit.

Well of course Elvis had one burger too many!

What impact did Elvis’ death have on The Boys chances of success?

I was a massive Elvis fan up until that date and the fat bastard just had one burger too many. As far as I’m concerned it ruined my life because we were straight in to the charts with a bullet. The album went to Number 50 and the single went to Number 84 and then no one could buy them. Another couple of weeks and we would have been on Top Of The Pops and after that it would have been history. If we had charted with "First Time" it would have changed the Boys forever so basically Elvis did kill off the Boys 100%. Because our records were being pressed by RCA after his death it was just Elvis, Elvis and more Elvis. For months nothing else got pressed and we were a small unknown band so no one could buy our stuff.

Tell me about your first session for John Peel in 1977?

I remember that Peel was such a massive fan of ours. He loved our first session and I think those recordings are better than the album versions. We’d played the songs a lot more by then and you could hear the vocals. We recorded it in the afternoon so we weren’t pissed!

What were the Boys like live at that time?

Brilliant, we never did a bad show. Duncan was and is an extremely talented bass player. The least musician out of us live was Cas because he did everything one handed so he could have a drink with the other hand! He could play if he wanted to. Even on the odd occasion where one of us messed up because we’d had a drink or whatever we never did a bad show. We never let anybody down and that’s my opinion anyway.

The Boys had a reputation for being heavy drinkers and knowing how to enjoy themselves. Can you recall any amusing incidents at the time?

Well there’s so many.

Give us a couple.

There was one in South of France where we’d painted obscenities all over the tour manager’s face because he was completely drunk and fast asleep. We then started letting off the fire extinguishers in the hotel and they’d obviously not been checked for many years so all that was coming out of them was black water. Matt had just walked into the corridor and had seen us and put his hands up to protect himself and we hit him with it full on. When he walked away there was a white silhouette of Matt with his hands in the air on the wall behind where he had been standing and black water everywhere else. The tour manager was then called out of his hotel room because guests had been complaining and of course he still had all these obscenities painted on his face. He had to go down to reception to explain our actions. We’re all in handcuffs because the local police had been called and he arrives and says "these men are professionals and they are just letting off a bit of steam" and he’s got all these obscenities all over his face. We were awful to that poor guy. We were very heavy drinkers and really knew how to enjoy ourselves. I remember I nicked the tour bus one time and I didn't even have a license. I drove all the way round this French town with Jack searching for a bar and couldn’t find one. We came back about 4 am in the morning and Duncan was pacing around outside the hotel really angry with us because he was always the sensible one, and the business man as well; he never drank before a gig and great we needed someone like that. He was so angry with us he actually attacked me and I was so drunk I just couldn’t stop laughing. There are so many stories what did Jack tell you?

He told me a few.

He’s mister memory man. Jack is the biggest Boys fan in the world and would have laid his life on the line for the band, I know that. I’ve done so much since it’s hard to remember which ones were whilst I was with the Boys.

Jack and yourself were known as The Big Two. How did that come about?

It’s because we were taller than the rest of them and generally a lot bigger. Duncan was like a rake and so was Matt and Cas was like a small Norwegian if there is such a thing. We were bigger than everybody else was and we stood up for ourselves. At times it was a hard slog and we were always regarded as the fucking idiots who should never be listened to.

You then went into the studio to record the first Yobs single. Why did you become the Yobs?

I didn’t play on "Run Rudolph Run". I didn’t think it was punk and I couldn’t understand why we did it. The only way we made it punk was to give Rudolph Hess a red nose. As far as I was concerned it wasn’t punk and it wasn’t the Yobs. The "Worm Song" was but I thought I’m not doing some Chuck Berry shit so I refused to play on it. I also didn’t like the idea of Andrew Matheson doing the vocals because he wasn’t in the Boys and he certainly wasn’t in the Yobs so I was totally against it. It ended up being a real favourite and everybody loved it.

What about "Worm Song"?

Yes I brought that one forward. I’d first heard that when I was in the Scouts for about half a day.

How did you come up with the Yobs?

It’s just backwards isn’t it? We had to think of something because we didn’t want to put it out as the Boys.

Why not?

We never were punk and we just got labelled that. If we were going to be punk I personally didn’t want it to be the Boys. It would look like we were jumping on a bandwagon by suddenly being outrageous but with the Yobs you could get away with murder. One of Matt’s ideas, which I thought was great was that people really will not know it’s us and then when they do find out it’ll create some publicity for the Boys. It got a bit frightening though when the Yobs started to become bigger than the Boys! It’s always been Cas’ favourite band and anything to do with the Yobs and Cas’ll be there. I think he’s trying to sort out a Christmas thing for the Yobs this year. The Yobs have always been great I mean you can’t even slag em off. If you don’t like it who gives a shit. It’s a great marketing tool. Are you a fan of the Yobs?

I love the Yobs and the Boys too! Shortly after Christmas 1977 you went to Rockfield to record "Alternative Chartbusters" and produced it yourselves. How did NEMS feel about it?

They loved the idea because they didn’t have to pay for a producer. It wasn’t the Boys though it was actually Matt who produced it. Personally I prefer to have someone outside the band producing the album but Matt was powerful enough to convince them he knew what he was doing. As a band you never get it exactly as you want it unless it’s your own stuff like I produced my own solo album and I wanted to do it like that so I was happy with it. But with the Boys it was the band and for the first two albums Matt basically just took over.

Were you actually happy with the production on "Alternative Chartbusters"?

I was happier with it than I was with the first album but certainly not totally happy. Again the album sounded better when we heard the rough mixes and I think a lot of it was lost in the final production; I think it needed a fresh pair of ears. It’s very difficult to play all the songs and then one person goes in and mixes them. We should have had Dave Edmonds producing it; that’s what we all thought was going to happen because it was Rockfield. I would have loved that because I like a lot of the stuff that he’s done. The sound is definitely better than the first album though. Were you happy with the production on it?

Personally I think it’s a great production, it was the album which really got me into the Boys and it’s my favourite Boys album.

Yeah I think it’s my favourite too. Whenever I listen to Boys albums now, and I don’t own any, I forget about the production and just listen to the songs and remember the times. Mind you a producer isn’t always the answer you know. We got a producer on "To Hell With The Boys" and I hate that production.

What are your favourite tracks from "Alternative Chartbusters"?

Obviously "Brickfield Nights" is my favourite. I also like "Backstage Pass" and the football song "Cast Of Thousands".

I remember reading an interview in May 1978 where you said that "Schoolgirls" would be released as a follow up to "Brickfield Nights". Why didn’t it happen?

I don’t know. I never thought "Schoolgirls" was good enough and it certainly wasn’t in the same league as "First Time" or "Brickfield Nights". It was a good album track or a b-side but certainly not a single.

Why weren’t any other tracks considered as a single?

Because we’d had enough of NEMS, that’s the only reason. NEMS and Elvis completely fucked us up.

Is "Brickfield Nights" Matt’s finest moment?

No but it’s one of them. He wrote some equally good songs; Matt really is a great songwriter, I don’t know how he does it. I know he nicks a lot but he does it in such a way that you don’t notice. He was a great one for a book of poems or whatever and like Bob Dylan if a line sounded good he’d put it in. Matt claims that every one of his songs makes sense whereas there’s no hidden meanings to my songs. I also think that "Independent Girl" is one of his finest moments.

You made videos for "Brickfield Nights" and "Sway". What can you remember about them?

If I thought that making an album was the big time I certainly thought that making a video was. At the beginning it said "BBC" and all the cameras had "BBC" on them and I thought bloody hell we’ve cracked it. Mind you I was very drunk at the time. Jack and I had had a skinful because we were miming and we knew it was okay so we’d gone down to the pub beforehand.

How did you feel when "Alternative Chartbusters" failed commercially?

The good thing about being let down by a record company is that, although it’s very frustrating, you know that it’s not your fault. If your album gets great reviews everywhere and it doesn’t sell it’s different from if everybody had been saying that the album was shit and the Boys were crap. "Alternative Chartbusters" was given rave reviews and in some papers it was album of the week so it’s gut wrenchingly disappointing but you can carry on a lot easier when you know it’s not down to you. We thought that if we could go to another record company we might have a chance. I always believed that it wasn’t our fault and it made me able to carry on. I suppose looking back it was the fall and fall of the Boys. There should have been a book called that because that’s all it was. It’s very satisfying that our music appears to have stood the test of time so well. It’s unbelievable that you’ve got kids of sixteen who write to you saying "you may be boring old farts but you’ll always be the greatest to me." And my own son is a fan and he thinks it’s great, he can see how great it was and he’s amazed when he keeps on hearing stuff he’s not heard.

After "Alternative Chartbusters" what did you do to get released from NEMS?

Basically we went on strike. We refused to play and I seem to remember that it made the papers. It got very heated but they didn’t care because they were making a fortune by doing it illegally. We couldn’t carry on because we weren’t seeing any money. They were horrible Italian Mafia bastards who want shooting for what they did to us.

You recorded your second John Peel session in May 1978. What can you remember about that?

I don’t think that Peel enjoyed it as much as the first one. I remember doing "BBC" instead of "TCP" but I can’t remember what else we did.

"Brickfield Nights", "Classified Susie" and "Boys".

Yeah that’s right. I seem to remember the canteen and the bar more than the music because it was very cheap. We loved going to the BBC because it was an incredibly cheap bar! We’d do the session as quick as possible and then we’d be straight into the bar! The recordings worked and as far as I remember the "BBC" lyrics worked very well and the recordings were probably better than our albums’ versions.

Could "BBC" or "TCP" have been a single?

Oh yes I think it should have definitely been a single.

Do you remember recording another radio session for Mike Read or Anne Nightingale which included "Kamikaze", "Terminal Love" and "See You Later"?

Yes we did. I remember doing "See You Later" but I can’t remember what else we recorded for that session. We definitely did it because I can remember going into the Maida Vale studios three times. I also remember the Boys doing some radio sessions in France and Spain but I don’t know where they are now.

Tell me about the legendary third album "Junk" again recorded at Rockfield?

I can’t remember a lot about it. There was an early version of "Kamikaze" called "Jap Junk" with Matt on lead vocals, which was very much like Velvet Underground. That was the album that NEMS wouldn’t pay for. That was another example of what NEMS were like, they put us into a decent studio and then wouldn’t pay for it. It was getting to the stage where we couldn’t rehearse anywhere because they weren’t paying any of the bills.

What did you do for the next 18 months?

I think we went to play in France and did some shows. We continued playing but we didn’t do any recording. It’s very hard to remember. We went to Norway to do the album when we didn’t have a deal. Cas organised that in a studio with Bjorn "Phil Spector" Nessjoe and again Matt seemed to have more influence than I did over the production.

The Yobs released "Silent Night" and "Stille Nacht" with you on lead vocals. How did that come about?

I’ve no idea but I loved it. I remember the German guy writing it out in German for me and then me telling him that I couldn’t read it. I asked him to say it to me so I could write it out in English how it sounded in German. Unfortunately part of it just didn’t make any sense at all. When Die Toten Hosen heard it they just cracked up laughing because it was just nonsense. I think I sang it because I basically had the yobbiest voice in the band if I wanted and I was the biggest and loudest.

Who actually brought it out?

I think we just got some copies pressed up for ourselves and sent it to the press and that’s what got the interest going.

Around that time Jack and yourself joined the Rowdies?

Yeah that was Alan Anger who like you was a big Boys fan. We’d already done the Rockfield versions of that song, which were never going to be released by the Boys.

You sang on that version didn’t you?

Yeah I did but then we also got Alan to sing on one of the versions as well which gave us the idea and like you Alan was a massive Boys fan. He just kept hassling us to record it again and put it out and finally we gave up and recorded it with him. We went into the studio one day and recorded it and I really loved that song. I also liked the idea of the Cockney N Westerns who released it after the Rowdies. I think that the "New Guitars" album followed that pretty quickly but it’s such a blur.

How was it decided to re-record "Jap Junk" as "Kamikaze" with you getting your first official Boys outing as a vocalist?

I love the song but I didn’t want to sing it like that. I was told to sing it like a yob but I really didn’t want to. There’s no way I’m a vocalist and I know that but I sing backing vocals and I can hold a note. I’m a much better vocalist than "Kamikaze" would suggest. The others were insistent that the style suited the song so instead of singing it as I wanted to I had to sing it like a drunken yob and now everybody thinks I sing like that. When my Mum first heard it she said "John you just can’t sing." Since then my voice has always been labelled as that of a drunken yob and inside there is a very delicate person trying to get out.

I thought you gave some good vocal performances on "SAP" and "Don’t Move Stand Still". On "To Hell With The Boys" Bjorn Nessjoe apparently didn’t like Duncan’s vocals and wanted Matt to sing all the songs. How did you feel about that?

It was bullshit. Again how any producer can take on a band, come up with that and let Duncan know before he’d even completed his work is disgraceful. As far as I was concerned the Boys were the Boys and you worked with what you’d got. It was done by Bjorn behind Duncan’s back with the him getting Matt to lay duplicate vocals down. Inevitably Duncan found out and it caused a real bad stink within the band and then a few years later Cas brought out the Scandinavian album where it was all with Matt singing. I consider Matt to be a great singer and I would put him above Duncan as a vocalist in certain areas but I thought the way that it was done was awful. It caused a lot of controversy and a lot of bad feeling within the Boys and Bjorn should have realised what that could do to a band.

What did you think about the final mix of the album?

It was far too glossy. He took all the Boys roughness away and sprinkled fairy dust everywhere. There were some great vocal sounds, some great guitar sounds and a great sound from the Hammond which was there but there was too much niceness. I would have liked it to be a bit rougher personally.

What about the first rougher mix which Casino released?

Well I preferred that mix but strongly disagreed with Matt singing all the tracks. It would have been a great album if Matt and Duncan had been singing half the songs each on the rougher mix.

What are your favourite tracks?

"Independent Girl" without a shadow of a doubt. I also like "You Can’t hurt a Memory" and "Terminal Love".

Tell me about your live appearance on the Whistle Test?

I loved appearing on the show, as it was the big rock show of the time. My favourite recollection was that of Frank Zappa watching us. He was stood right in front of me with his minder, this big bald headed black guy. To show everybody how hard he was he lit this cigarette, took a drag, put it behind his ears and let it burn all the way down so it was burning his head. Coming off after doing "Terminal Love" I walked past Frank Zappa and he says to me "Great song, great song."

What did you think about your performance?

Well it wasn’t that great because the Boys were not ones to do all sorts of takes to get different camera angles, waiting around for all the others to do the same and then playing it again. I used to hate doing that. If they would have filmed our first take then it would have been blinding but we’d done it so many times and we’d been in the bar by the time we filmed it.

What were your thoughts when you were invited to join the Ramones tour?

Great, I really loved the Ramones simple as that and I couldn’t wait to go on tour with them. I thought it was going to be party, party, party and got the shock of my life when I met them because they were just so professional which you wouldn’t have thought. They were in bed by ten o’clock every night and never had a drink. I always remember the drummer Marky sneaking down at 11.30 when all the others were in bed and having a drink with Jack and myself and saying "don’t tell any of the guys." He also had a word with our roadie and asked him for a drink to be placed in his water bottle so our roadie used to fill Marky’s up with vodka and coke. One day they mixed Marky’s bottle up with Joey’s. He took a slurp and spat it straight out. When they got back to America they sacked Marky. One night in Edinburgh in this big hotel where they had a whisky bar where they had loads of malt whisky’s and we got through about forty of them. The next day Marky was completely fucked up and he was in such trouble with the Ramones and Jack and myself were fine. We were down at breakfast and we’re going "Hi Marky" and he wasn’t well at all. It was a great, great tour. Every show was dynamite and I remember being behind the curtains with Matt and Duncan doing the backing vocals to "Baby I Love You" and Casino playing the keyboards.

So Matt and yourself did some backing vocals as well as Duncan?

Oh yes. The first time Casino played he was behind the curtains with us and later on they asked him to go on stage with them. I always remember asking them why they weren’t doing "Baby I Love You" because I think it was at Number 8 or something and they’d just been on Top Of The Pops. They said they couldn’t play it and I remember showing Joey the chords. I said it goes E to C Sharp Minor and he says, "what’s a minor". He didn’t know what a minor chord was because they were just playing all bar chords. They were blinding chaps and really cool guys. It was a great tour and we had a great time together. As characters they were fantastic, their music is fantastic and they were punk leaders. I love them to pieces they are one of my favourite bands ever and "TCP" was my tribute to them. It was a great honour for me that they used "TCP" as their introduction song, mind you I never got paid for it!

You spent some time in the Lurkers?

I had my life threatened a few times by Lurkers fans because they didn’t like the Boys. I remember at the first gig I had bottles and everything thrown at me and I had to leg it on a couple of occasions. I couldn’t believe it because they had asked me to do it. The band were fans of the Boys because of the two guitars and they knew I could play better than Pete Stride could. They wanted to have the sound of two guitars live and to be honest I had a great time with them. They were another heavy drinking band and I was more than happy. Unfortunately some of their fans weren’t particularly pleased especially when the "New Guitars" album came out because it basically spelt the end of the Lurkers.

You co-wrote "New Guitar In Town" with Pete Stride. Why didn’t the Boys record it, after all they did play it live?

Well it was Pete’s idea and we wrote it at his Mum’s place. The Lurkers recorded it before the Boys had even heard it so it was never seriously considered for release by the Boys. It was single of the week in all the music papers and it was reasonably successful. I played slide guitar on the single with a pint glass that happened to be lying around the studio. I’d never played slide guitar before so I’d no idea what I was doing. There was a guy on Beggars Banquet at the same time who used to play slide guitar and he came up to me and told me that it was the worst slide guitar solo he’d ever heard but I thought it was so bad it was great!

Did you play on a Lurkers album?

No but I appeared on their greatest hits album.

You recorded a John Peel session with the Lurkers.

No.

Yes you did. You recorded "You Better Move On", "Schoolgirls", "Pick Me Up" and "Cold Old Night."

Yes I did you’re right. "You’d Better Move On" required me to do a real weird tuning on the E string which made it drone but I actually preferred the guitar sound on the Lurkers version to the one on the Boys version. Howard loved "Pick Me Up", he was a real drinker and the Lurkers did a great version of that.

You’d been playing "You’d Better Move On" with the Lurkers. Why did the Boys decide to record it?

The band said let’s do a cover because everybody knows it but I was against it because we weren’t a band that needed to do covers. I did like the version we recorded but you only do covers if you can’t write or it’s a real favourite. I certainly didn’t want to put it out as a single but it didn’t do anything anyway.

Can you remember recording "Jimmy Brown" as a potential single?

Yeah it was Cas’ song and I remember him writing that in a rehearsal. I haven’t a clue why it was rejected; it certainly had the potential to be a massive hit single. Cas wanted it to be released so much and Jack, Duncan and myself loved the song too but Matt didn’t like it, which shows how much power Matt had in those days. It must have been Matt who rejected it.

You recorded a version with Pete Stride?

That’s right we did with different lyrics. As I recall that was a much slower version than the Boys version.

What impact did Casino’s departure have on the Boys?

A massive impact both live and in the recording studios. His keyboards weren’t the most important thing to the Boys but his backing vocals were. It meant that I had to start singing, which no one was into as and I couldn’t sing the backing vocals anywhere near as good as Cas. I was never made to feel that in any way my vocals were as good as his and it was very hard taking Cas’ place because he could sing so incredibly high which gave the Boys a lot of their sound. Of course we also missed his writing and his dry sense of humour. For me it was the beginning of the end because one of us had gone although we carried on but it was never the same after Cas had left. The Boys were a very close knit band, I mean we got on each other’s nerves at times but we were all very close and we had some great times together. Cas was an amazing character and it was a big wrench to lose him. We were all very close and it would never have been the same if any of us would have left. I know that everyone is indispensable but each individual in the Boys was a character in their own right and everybody offered something to the band. It’s sometimes forgotten that everybody in the Boys was as important as each other; the five of us made up the band. It was never the same without Cas and I couldn’t understand why he wanted to go but he then became massive with Gary Holton. He enjoyed a lot of success and I saw a bit of that when I went over there to stay with him.

Why did he leave?

I suppose he knew that it wasn’t going to happen with the Boys. We all knew then that we weren’t going to make it, we’d been around too long but we couldn’t stop because we all loved the band. He was the only one with something else to go to; he had a chance and he went for it.

Tell me about the Yobs album?

We did it at Eel Pie studios which was owned by Pete Townsend and I can’t remember whether we recorded it before Cas left or not. I think it must have been after Cas left which is surprising because the Yobs are his favourite band; he loves the Yobs more than the Boys. He was probably very surprised that we’d come up with the album after he left.

How did it come about?

We went into the studio to do a Christmas album. We didn’t have any idea what we were going to do and we were going in as the Boys to do a Christmas album for John Craig of Safari. We did the German version of "Silent Night" and we thought what else can we do. Someone then suggested that we bring an album out of filth because it’s very easy, well it was for us! So we decided to do some Christmas carols in a punk style with alternative lyrics. It just happened and we wrote everything in the studio. When we were there actually recording it everyone in the studio, including Pete Townsend was coming in and saying "what the bloody hell are you doing" but they all loved it and not one of them thought it was too much. Mike Pela who was the Engineer was saying that it was going to be massive which was great. There was no pressure and no arguments over the album, which was a change because there were so many arguments in the Boys. It was a very happy time. We did it in two days and the only thing we were worried about was playing it to John Craig but thankfully he had a great sense of humour and he loved it. What a great album it turned out to be!

What do you think about Captain Oi! releasing it for Christmas 2000?

Oh it’s absolutely amazing and brilliant. I’m very proud that it’s going to be re-released in the year 2000; that album is one of my proudest moments. The Yobs should have been as massive as the Boys should have been. I am a Yob, I’ve a son who’s a Yob and I love the Yobs!

What’s your favourite track from the album?

Probably "CHRISTMAS" and Jack did a blinding vocal.

You then made "New Guitars" with Pete Stride. Tell me about that?

The management of the Lurkers liked what I’d done with them and in particular "New Guitar In Town". The Lurkers had been dropped by Beggars Banquet and they approached me about doing an album with Pete. They wanted Pete and I to write some songs and as the Boys weren’t doing much at the time I agreed. We recorded it in a couple of weeks and were put into some really nice studios up and down the country and we ended up at Rockfield. The guy from the Searches produced it and it was great. I got Jack in on the drums and it was great fun. There was always some sort of competitive edge in the Boys but there was no pressure on me with the "New Guitars" album. Pete was a talented guy but he was going "well if you think so John yeah lets do it that way." I had a free run with the album and we had some great photographs taken too. I had a great time and I was paid really well too. I can remember being on a Dutch tour with the Boys when the first copies came out. I was sent a letter by Safari saying that the album looked and sounded great and that it had received some great reviews. I remember feeling really good not only for myself but also for Jack. It was the first time that the Big Two had done something different from the rest of the band. I remember Duncan, Matt and Cas sat in this bar looking at these reviews and I could tell they were pissed off.

What were your favourite tracks from the album?

I loved "Laugh At Me" and I also liked "He’ll Have To Go", with the roadie singing it, "Half The Time" and "Cure For Love." To be honest I loved every track and it’s one of my favourite albums.

When Weekend became Peter Powell’s record of the week did you think you were finally going to have a hit?

No we were too long in the tooth by then. I knew in the depths of my heart that the Boys were never going to have a hit. At that time no matter what would have happened we were just not going to have a hit. The Boys were destined never to have a hit; it was nothing to do with the songs. You get fed up of saying the songs were great because they were but I just knew that this band were never going to be a household name.

You made a video for "Weekend"?

Yeah and that guy went on to be one of the biggest video makers in the country and "Weekend" was his first video. He also got shot by the police about six weeks later; I tell you anyone who touches the Boys it’s the kiss of death! Originally they were going to put a lot of money into it and then of course they didn’t. I mean that phone that blows up it looks like a giant piece of plasterscene! I was so against a lot of that video. I loved it when it was just the black and white. I remember going to this flat to do the filming and thinking this is going to look shit.

I don’t think it looks too bad now although Jack hates the way the producer edits his drum playing so it’s out of sequence with the sound. Were you surprised when it was shown on Noel Edmonds Multi Coloured Swapshop?

Absolutely although still to this day I’m convinced that it didn’t matter where it was shown we were just destined not to have a hit. I know many times I kept thinking this is it we’re going to make it with this one. It was like being kicked in the teeth every time. I was secretly hoping but I knew deep down we’d never make it.

"Boys Only" was then released and I believe it’s your favourite Boys album?

Yes.

At the time it didn’t receive the same critical acclaim as the other three albums and is now generally regarded as the Boys weakest album.

I know it’s incredible. I can’t see how it can be regarded as our weakest album but most Boys fans I speak to do regard it as the weakest of our four albums. I think that there are some great tracks on there, like Matt’s ballad. I mean "Gabrielle" is brilliant and it should have been massive. Some of the guitar sounds were great and we had a producer who received about £10,000 for it which was a lot of money at the time. I kept thinking that’s ten grand of my money! I tell you everybody involved with the Boys has made money out of the band apart from us.

On "Boys Only" you sang lead vocals on four tracks. What did you think about that?

Incredible. I was really pleased and I really wanted to do it but again I wasn’t allowed to sing "Miss You" like I wanted to. I wanted to sing it normal whereas I had to sing it like John Wayne. It wasn’t until I recorded my solo album that I was able to sing how I wanted to sing because I was never considered to be a singer. Matt didn’t consider himself to be a singer but at least he was allowed to sing in his Lennon-esque way whereas I was always pushed into singing like I did with the Yobs.

Tell me about "Miss You"?

Well it wasn’t actually about John Wayne. The original lyrics were something like "I used to go to the places where we used to go. The Marquee, the Nashville but you never show." It was all about a girl and I loved it but they didn’t like it because it was too poppy and it was about boy meets girl and boy loses girl. I liked it because it mentioned every rock n roll venue in London. While we were in there John Wayne died so we re-recorded it with the John Wayne lyrics.

Was John Wayne a hero of yours?

Oh yeah as a character you can’t beat him. Cas has a tattoo "John Wayne Rest In Peace". The day he died he had that put on himself. I loved the characters he played but as a person I didn’t respect him. I love his movies.

You covered "Wonderful World"?

Yeah we were a track short and I was playing the riff in the studio and Matt said why don’t we record it. I didn’t volunteer to sing it because it’s a difficult song to sing.

I believe that "Monotony" had a vocal track with Duncan singing lead vocals but the band voted your vocals in?

Yeah which was weird because I voted to use Duncan’s vocal. We used to vote in boxes and that.

I’m fairly sure that when I saw the Boys live around that time Duncan sang lead vocals on "Monotony"?

Yes he definitely did because I couldn’t play the riff and sing it at the same time. I also think that Duncan sung it miles better than me anyway. Again there was always a lot of politics in the Boys. It may have been that Matt was having a row with Duncan about something so he voted for my vocal and Jack would always vote for me no matter what because we were the Big Two weren’t we.

What are your favourite tracks?

"Gabrielle" is my personal favourite from the album.

What impact did Duncan Reid’s departure have on the Boys?

Well that was it wasn’t it although we carried on for a short while with Howard Wall and Chris Brashford. It was very different from when Cas left the band. We’d never been to Italy and had a tour booked. Duncan then left knowing we’d booked the tour and we were a little pissed off. I think he left to go to University didn’t he?

He did go to University but he joined the Hollywood Killers first.

Duncan was basically the smartest out of the lot of us. He realised that we were going nowhere. We could have carried on for years doing the tours because we were very popular abroad but I think he’d had enough. It was very strange because Cas had gone and now Duncan had gone. We knew it was over but we’d signed the contracts and the tour was booked so we had to go. That Italian tour was my worst ever. We played some great gigs but it was all becoming a bit too much, it wasn’t the original line up and we were living on past glories. One night I fell over in a disco after a few beers and Matt, Jack and Howard Wall were kicking me, just fooling around, and they cracked a couple of my ribs. I didn’t realise they had and because I was still drinking I got alcohol poisoning in my bones. When I got home I was laid up for days and I couldn’t drink. Jack just thought I was being a wimp.

How did the Boys finally call it a day?

It’s so vague I can’t really remember we just slowly drifted apart. We went to America without Jack which was weird considering how much he loved the Boys. Our first time in America and he didn’t want to go although Duncan went on that tour. Everything was falling apart, I really do wish that we had split up when Casino left. We kept clutching at straws not wanting it to be over. I remember going to Ibiza and all of us went. We went down a storm and afterwards all of us were sat round this table, the wine and everything was flowing and Jack was saying "we can’t end it, we can’t end it" and everybody was saying yeah we must go on. Then we were booked to go to America and Jack wouldn’t come; it was very strange. We’d had so many kicks in the teeth we were punch drunk. We had a lot of disappointments. It’s not sour grapes and it’s not feeling sorry for myself but you look at bands who made it at the time and we were so much better than they were I just can’t believe we didn’t make it big. It was soul destroying.

Tell me about the Yobs on 45 single in 1981?

I was broke and I suggested to Matt that we record it. There were all the Stars on 45’s around at that time so I suggested we do a Yobs on 45 and Matt agreed. We went to Fresh Records with the idea and they jumped at it. I think we got something like £500 each for that and we did it purely for the money. I can’t even remember how good it was.

What did you do for the next couple of years?

I was in a band called Dirty Strangers for about two years. What attracted me was they were working with Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood. I then joined a band called Mannish Boys and we went to America. Jo Jo Laine who was the wife of Denny Laine of Wings was our manager. She took us to America and got us a deal with Tamla Mowtown. They put us in the studio and we did some recordings with the Stones’ producer. They were pretty good recordings and Tamla Mowtown loved it because they were looking for a rock band until we walked into the office and they realised we were white! Jo Jo hadn’t told them that we were white and so we were immediately sacked by Tamla Mowtown because we weren’t black. The guy who was singing, Gass Wild could have been a black guy; they wanted a black rock n roll band and she didn’t let them know that we weren’t. We were on loads of money, having a really good time doing these recordings. We did some good tracks and it got to the stage where we actually went into to sign a major deal, my first time ever. We were that close to getting half a million.

The album was actually released as a limited edition album "Penetration Sensation" with some studio and some live recordings?

The reason that happened was that I was touring with the guys who used to be in the Barracudas, a band called the Fortunate Sons. We played this gig and this bloke who was a massive Boys fan saw us and came up and said in broken English "do you remember me?" and I did. He had put the Boys on at Annecy and it was the time we had driven from Calais to Annecy and we gone through blizzards and the lot. Jack and I drank a bottle of scotch and Jack was so pissed it was the only gig he ever messed up and he never forgave himself. Anyway this guy asked me what I was doing and I told him that I was doing it for a holiday and a bit of fun. I told him that I was with the Mannish Boys and he recorded a live set in Geneva and put the album out with some studio tapes we’d done as well.

You then played with Splodgenessabounds?

Yes I played with Splodge for about a week. It was a funny time but I felt I was going nowhere. I also did some recordings with Brat Boy and we did a tour of France. We did some blinding gigs in France. I remember we got barred from the University in Annecy because the place got trashed after the gig by the fans. It was with the Hollywood Brats guitarist Brady and me so we called it Brat Boy. We did some Hollywood Brats stuff and some Boys stuff as well as new material.

So you made some recordings with Brat Boy?

Yes they are somewhere around.

In the late 1980’s Campino was becoming well known, as was his love for The Boys and you got to meet him through Arturo Bassick from the Lurkers?

I was living in Highgate with Rosie and one day there was a knock on the door and it was Arthur who I hadn’t seen for years. So he came in and we had a few drinks and he told me about this band called Die Toten Hosen. Rosie, who’s half-German cracked up laughing because it means The Dead Trousers in English. He told me that they were massive Boys fans and wanted me to go over and support them. So we formed the Tower Block Rockers, which is how I met Darrell Bath. I also have some really good recordings with them from Munich.

Were the Tower Block Rockers formed specifically to support Die Toten Hosen?

It was Arthur’s band and he had some numbers left over; he’s been in so many bands like 999 and the Lurkers because he was an original Lurker you know. Yes I suppose they were formed specifically to support Die Toten Hosen. It was such a good line up with Arthur, Darrell, me and the original drummer from the Lurkers. Arthur had written some really good songs

Tell us about the dates with Die Toten Hosen?

They were great. I remember flying out there and Darrell and Arthur hate flying so they got drunk. They were putting their sweets from their dinner on the heads of the people in front of them. So when we arrived in Berlin we were immediately arrested by the police and thrown into the cells and for the first time I wasn’t drunk! It wasn’t until we mentioned that we were playing with the Hosen in the big arena in Berlin that they let us out. I was so pissed off by this time I drunk my duty free in the taxi. We were going to see the Hosen that night and would support them the following night. So we got out of the taxi and I fell onto the pavement