Jack Black Interview 27 May 2000

You were born in London in the late 1950’s?
I was born in Chiswick on 21 February 1958.

Your real name is obviously Polish. Is that where your family originate from?
Yes they originated from Poland. My parents came over to England after the war as refugees and they settled in London.

What were your major musical influences as a teenager?
As a teenager I’ve got to confess that Uriah Heep were my favourite band. I also liked Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple and Genesis. Duncan was also into Genesis at that time. I liked lots of other bands like Focus, Marc Bolan, Frank Zappa and Jethro Tull. They were the kind of albums I was buying at that time.

What inspired you to become a drummer?
I don’t really know. I suppose I was self taught because I was drumming in Poland at the age of 12 or 13 with much older guys. When I was at Tonbridge Public School I was actually taught by the guy who was the drummer for the London Philharmonic Orchestra. I had about a year with him and after that I developed my own style. I think my drumming is very distinctive and I don’t think any other drummer will sound as good as me with the Boys because they do too many fills in the wrong places whilst most of the time I kept it simple-ish.

Can you play any other musical instruments?
I can strum a guitar but I can’t pick it or anything. I could join in on a folk session or something.

You were at school with Duncan Reid and you formed a band with him called the "Tribute To Lemmings"?
Oh I don’t know what to tell you about that. I’ve actually got some photos of us playing. I don’t know how we came up with the name, I think it was psychedelic or something. Jim Penfold was at school with us at the same time and he had a band and I’m not sure if we were in direct opposition or not but we just wanted to get a band together.

What sort of music did you play?
I wouldn’t know how to describe it. I suppose it was sort of rock n roll and it was quite clever stuff. The guitarist was a guy called Vigor; I can’t remember his first name. He did most of the writing and it was maybe a bit too clever at the time but we wanted to be in a band so who cares.

You mentioned that you were also at school with Jim Penfold and along with Neil Aplin and Duncan you were in Jim’s band the "Matinee Idols" for a short while?
Yeah that’s right and as a singer/songwriter Jim Penfold should have made it big without a doubt, I thought he was brilliant. All his songs were just so different and he had his own style. He also used to get even better women at his gigs than we used to get. It was all public school girls who were stinking rich; it was like watching the boat race. He used to have them coming on stage and doing stuff. I really liked Jim Penfold, I thought he was a brilliant songwriter and I’m really disappointed that he never made it. Jim actually auditioned for the Boys in 1976 but he seemed too tall for the band. Well he is about eight-foot tall! I spoke to him a couple of days ago and we had a real good chat about the old days.

I believe you got a job working in a T shirt factory where you met John?
I quit school and I was working at Chiswick Polytechnic and the tutors there were lousy. I don’t know how I found the job but it was just down the road from Chiswick Polytechnic. My mum went on holiday to Poland and while she was away I got the job at the T shirt factory and that’s where I met John. Duncan started playing with John first at Matt’s studio in Maida Vale, which was the centre of music at that time. One day Duncan asked me if I wanted to join a band and I said Yeah, and that’s how I started with the Boys.

How did you acquire the name Jack Black?
For some reason the others thought that Jacek Lempicki wasn’t gonna look cool in print and they wanted to find a new name for me. It was Ken Mewis I think or maybe Matt who came up with the name. There was a discussion at Matt’s, where everything happened in those days and they said how about Jack Black and everyone just went yeah and I thought fine. Lot’s of people now know me as "Blackie" or "The Black One" or "Black Jack" so it stuck with me and personally I do like it.

When you first joined the Boys Duncan and yourself were teenagers whereas Cas, John and Matt were in their mid twenties.
Old men! And you can quote me!

How did that affect you?
Not in the slightest, it never came into it really. I mean I was in awe of the others, that’s why I love this band so much. I felt so lucky to be in the Boys because I was thinking I love all this music I’m playing. I liked every song that they were writing barring a couple which I didn't like. I just loved the music and loved being in the Boys.

What were your thoughts on the punk scene at that time?
Well we actually started as a beat band and not as a punk band, our songs were fairly middle-paced. The way I remember it punk hit the scene in a two week period and if you weren’t in a punk band forget it you weren’t gonna get any press and you weren’t gonna get anywhere if you were a new band. Punk just took over everything so the way we counteracted that was to speed up all our songs. All the songs on the first album were much slower than that originally and we had to speed them up just to be a punk band although I never thought of us as a punk band. We didn’t go on stage and say "hello we’re the Boys and our message is destroy" which some bands did. I don’t think that we were radical or anything like that, we were just in it for a laugh. We had to keep up with the times so we speeded up all our songs. We couldn’t play middle-paced songs when the music scene dictated that songs were played at 100 miles an hour. We could certainly drink at 100 miles an hour!

Which other punk bands did you like around that period?
I liked the Rezillos and I thought the Ramones were a sensational band. The first time I heard "Denis Denis" by Blondie, which wasn’t punk at all, I thought there’s a number one. I used to watch the Heavy Metal Kids whose front man Gary Holton used to come on stage in turned down gum boots, black tights, a long black coat and shirt and a big black top hat. He used to appear from behind a huge black umbrella and say "Allo,’ow are ya". I also liked Johnny Thunders’ Heartbreakers. Although they predated punk I also used to like the Flaming Groovies and Dr Feelgood; I tell you there’s no guitarist like Wilko Johnson, he had his own distinctive style. I liked Talking Heads as well but I wasn’t that interested in the other bands because I was just so interested in the band I was in.

I believe Paul Weller was a fan of the Boys and you did a couple of tours with the Jam?
Yeah I think we did two tours with the Jam and we had an altercation with them at our very first gig which I think was the Nags Head. We were supporting the Jam and I dared to touch a drum kit or something and Paul Weller went mad and smashed a bottle or something and we wondered what the hell was going on. After that we went on to do several gigs with them and we became good friends. They actually apologised to us after the Hamersmith Odeon fiasco which was a right old fix. We ended up walking off because the sound was so awful, we couldn’t hear anything so we did two numbers or something and walked off. I think that was with the Saints as well. It was the Jam’s first big gig and the whole thing was a fix; they came later and apologised and assured us that it had been nothing to do with them.

Tell me about your first few dates with the Boys?
I remember playing The Brecknock and we played at the Hope and Anchor in Stoke Newington. We played at the Kensington Olympia, but that’s when we were a beat band rather than a punk band.

What were you like live?
Probably a bit raw but I still think we were pretty good. A guy called Barry Dickens, who I think was with MAM, saw us rehearse three songs and told Ken Mewis that we were the best band he’d seen since he first saw Queen three years earlier.

Why did you sign to NEMS and what was the deal?
God knows why we signed to NEMS, probably because we were all idiots! I think we were just desperate to sign a record deal. We always seemed to be so unlucky in everything we did for instance we charted at number 50 with our first album and then Elvis died. RCA were printing our records and they were printing Elvis records, now who takes precedence. That was that and we were out of the charts the following week. I think I signed for NEMS because I was told to; I was just the drummer and it was nothing to do with me!

How quickly did the band’s relationship with NEMS deteriorate?
They stopped paying us for a start and we were the first band to go on strike weren’t we. It deteriorated because we felt that we were doing all the work and they were doing sod all. We felt that they were not giving us enough back up and support.

Looking back now how do you feel you were treated by NEMS?
With hindsight I think they treated us like shit. Personally I think there was more there than meets the eye, they just wanted a punk band on their books and they didn’t really care what happened to us. They weren’t behind us at all and they didn’t care about us as a band because I think they could have done a lot more with us.

You then went into the studio to record "I Don’t Care" and "Soda Pressing". What were those sessions like?
They were great, it was near Victoria where we recorded those songs. I can’t remember the name of the studio or who did it. I was just on top of the world to be recording a single. I don’t know how Matt felt, he seemed to take it all in his stride but I thought it was fantastic. Compare the pace of "I Don’t Care" on the single to the pace on the album, two different songs in a way and I don’t think I drummed particularly well on the single. I definitely prefer the album version of "I Don’t Care" to the single.

What can you remember about Polydor’s interest in the Boys?
Every record company was trying to sign a punk band and we seemed to be last in the queue. We heard that Polydor wanted to sign a band and for some reason shortly after we had signed to NEMS for a thousand pounds the Jam signed to Polydor for a quarter of a million!! That grates on me because it could have been us and as I said earlier we just appeared to be an unlucky band. Polydor wanted to sign us and because we’d already signed for NEMS they ended up signing the Jam and we’d missed out on the big one.

To promote "I Don’t Care" you did a national tour supporting John Cale. How did the tour go?
The John Cale tour was great; it was great fun although I didn’t know who he was at the time. I remember on the very first date, which I think was at Croydon, he came on and did "Heartbreak Hotel". He was dressed as a surgeon and ended up chopping a chicken’s head off. His drummer couldn’t take it so he quit the tour that day.

You played a weeks worth of shows in Paris in 1977?
Yeah we played at a club called The Gibus which was also known as the Top Hat Club and that was sensational. We met this great band called Bijou, I’ve got their album and they’ve got ours. They were one of the best three-piece bands that I’ve seen. I really enjoyed those gigs.

How did you feel when NEMS decided that Pete Gage would produce your first album?
I’d never heard of him and to be honest it didn’t matter to me at the time who was producing the album; he’d got his job to do and I’d got mine. I think he was the guy who was married to Elkie Brooks wasn’t he.

What did you think of the original Pete Gage mix of your first album?
It was shit.

Were you happy with the final production of the album after Matt and Cas had remixed it?
No it was still awful, I wasn’t even allowed in while they were re-mixing it. I don’t think the vocals are mixed high enough, the energy and everything are there but the vocals aren’t high enough. The songs are very good but a better production could have made the album sound so much better; it sounds too muffled to me although in time you get used to it. The cover’s crap too but I didn’t have any say in that either. The second album cover is brilliant but the first one was crap.

Who decided on the cover?
Matt.

What are your favourite tracks from the album?
"First Time" is brilliant, "Sick On You" is great and I really like "Box Number", it has some of my best drumming on it. I really do like "Box Number", in fact I’ll have to put it on in a minute. I thought "I Don’t Care" was better than the single, "Cop Cars"/"Keep Running" is clever and I loved "Living In The City". I liked most of it, the songs were great I just wish the production had been better.

Apart from the occasional exception Matt and Cas were writing most of the early Boys material. Did you ever consider writing more songs?
Matt and Cas were prolific songwriters and John tended to write on his own. I think that Duncan desperately wanted to write songs and to be honest I didn’t really get a look in. Towards the end I wrote three or four songs which I thought were okay so I certainly had it in me. Mind you I wouldn’t want to take it away from the others because I loved their music anyway, they were great songwriters.

Were you writing many songs at that time?
No not really to be honest and not at all for the first two albums.

First Time is very commercial. Did you feel it had the potential to be a big hit?
Definitely. I think if we’d been another band it would have been a hit. I still cannot understand why it wasn’t a hit because it was the perfect rocky, pop song. You couldn’t really call it punk though, it’s not a punk song. It’s so bloody commercial I just can’t understand why it wasn’t a hit. It came in at number 84 and then Elvis died and it dropped out of the charts because no one could buy it. It’s all Elivis’ fault!!

You’ve touched on Elvis a couple of times. What impact did his death have on the Boys chances of success?
Well it completely fucked us up at such a critical time. Who knows what would have happened if he hadn’t have died at that time. It had such a devastating impact on us because RCA just said sod everybody else and just concentrated on printing Elvis’ records and we couldn’t do anything about it; it was so frustrating.

The Boys had a reputation for being heavy drinkers and knowing how to enjoy themselves?
Yeah we certainly knew how to enjoy ourselves and people liked working with us because we were such a good time band. We used to make sure we played a good gig and then we enjoyed ourselves afterwards. Although I do remember two gigs where I didn’t play particularly well. One was at The Brecknock where we played a lunchtime gig and I had an enormous hangover. That was hard work with a hangover in front of about eight people! I remember Duncan’s Dad was at that gig and he said "I think you’ve got something there". Another time was at a small cinema in France where I got pissed and completely messed up and everyone was annoyed with me and after that I never did it again. Duncan was always a true professional, he would never drink before a gig; he used to put so much effort into his performance. Duncan and I were the lynchpins of the band being bass and drums and having to keep it all together; we were very disciplined. Matt and John would sometimes drink before a gig and they probably let us down on a few occasions but I’m sure it happens in every band so it’s no big deal.

What do you remember about the night Led Zeppelin came to see the Boys at the Roxy?
I remember that we were playing and this big, fat bearded guy came to the left of me and he’d obviously had a few beers. We were in the middle of a song and he said " can I come and play" or something and I replied "fuck off". Later on I’m at the bar and someone asked if I knew who it was and obviously I didn’t so they said "it was John Bonham actually!" And I thought "oh no" because he was one of my heroes, I used to love Led Zeppelin; I had all their albums when I was at school. I hope he forgave me.

You co-wrote "Teachers Pet" with John and Duncan. How did that come about?
I think that Duncan and I tried to get that together; I was just really chuffed to get the Boys to play something I’d written, it was a bit of a novelty for me.

You wrote the lyrics didn’t you?
Yeah I think I did. A lot of the Boys lyrics were brilliant in their way because they were all about girls and sex and having fun, although Matt tended to get a bit heavier and a little more political which was probably more in line with the times.

You then recorded "Alternative Chartbusters" at Rockfield?
Yeah that was a brilliant time, I loved it. They were happy times and I know so many stories from Rockfield.

Tell me a few.
Well Rockfield was at the bottom of the hill and the house we stayed in was at the top of the hill. There was loads of food in the fridge in the house where we stayed and two cooks used to look after us. The first evening there was about eight of us and they put out one bottle of white wine and one bottle of red wine and we thought what the hell is going on here. After that they started to put out like six bottles of white and six bottles of red every night. Anyway John and I had finished our recording one day so we went back to the house and moved all the furniture, including the television, out of the living room and into the garden. So when the rest of the guys came up the hill John and I were sat watching the television on the lawn.
Another time they came back late at night and we had an air rifle and started shooting at the van as it was coming up the hill. We knocked a few headlights out and they were all saying that we must be crazy but nobody got hurt. I really loved Rockfield. Monmouth was a one street town and every other shop was a pub. One night we decided to go for a pub crawl. There were something like seventeen pubs in Monmouth and we were going to have half a pint in each pub, but I don’t think we finished the pub crawl. It really was a great time, I loved it there.

The Boys produced "Alternative Chartbusters" themselves. How did NEMS feel about it?
I don’t know and I don’t care but you can hear for yourself that the production on "Alternative Chartbusters" is great. I think that it’s an incredible change from the first album and it shows our versatility. We did what we wanted to do and I think it shows in the album. I love that album and I think the production is great.

What involvement did you have in the production of the album?
I think that it was primarily Matt, and possibly Cas. I didn’t have much involvement at all and I wouldn’t want to take it away from Matt and Cas because they did such a great job.

The album originally came out with a montage of photos on the inner sleeve. Whose idea was that?
Matt’s. He put all that together and I think that’s without a doubt our best album cover. I’ve got some of the originals of the front cover and some alternative versions. I don’t think the front cover was ever planned, it just sort of happened and ended up like that. I think the idea of the songs and the pictures on the back of the sleeve was all Matt’s work as well.

You recorded some radio advertisements for "Alternative Chartbusters" which were to be released on "Odds and Sods"?
Yeah that’s right, I did the Mavis voice. They were great fun to make. I had more input into that; I think it was basically all of us having a laugh and taking the piss out of Generation X, the Clash and others.

You made videos for "Brickfield Nights" and "Sway"?
Yeah that’s right, I think that Cas wore a bandage in "Sway" and "Brickfield Nights" was shown on the Paul Nicholas Show. I remember we recorded both songs in an hour, we were always very quick in those days. I remember once when we went into a recording studio for about eight hours or something and this guy asked how many tracks we wanted to put down. He thought we might say two or three and I think we actually recorded eighteen demos. We didn’t mess about in those days, we were really good at that sort of thing; we were so tight and worked really hard. One of my favourite Boys songs is "Bad Day", just listen to how tight we are on that and also on "Box Number" too. In fact I must listen to "Box Number" right now!

Were any tracks off "Alternative Chartbusters" considered as a follow up to Brickfield Nights?
Well Paul Adrians always said that "TCP" should have been a single. Personally I wish we’d had the guts to have released "Heroine" as a single. If Phil Collins had released "Heroine" it would have been number 1 all over the world without a shadow of a doubt. "Sway" was a good song too and could have been a single but in those days you couldn’t do something like that as a single because it wasn’t in line with what your general music was supposed to be like. One thing I’ve always thought about the Boys is that we were very versatile; we could do "Garden Gang" and then something as different as "Kamikaze", we did country songs and then the Yobs, which of course was great fun to make.

What can you remember about "Cast Of Thousands" being commissioned for TV?
We were commissioned to do a song about football hooliganism but it never happened and we asked Deaf School, who were at Rockfield at that time, to join in at the end of the song. I thought it was a great song, it’s my favourite cymbal sound, the first cymbal I hit and I think the drumming sounds good on that too.

What other tracks did you like from "Alternative Chartbusters"?
USI" is another good song which is another of John’s songs. "Do The Contract" is another track I really like and very clever writing from Matt too. There’s no doubt that Matt was a great singer/songwriter, some of his lyrics were so bloody clever. I also thought "Backstage Pass" was a great song but I feel that the arrangement was wrong, I always felt that the finish to it was wrong. By the time of the third and fourth albums I was having much more of a say in the arrangements of the songs but on "Alternative Chartbusters" I didn’t. I think there’s a lot of good pop songs on the album.

How did you feel when "Alternative Chartbusters" and "Brickfield Nights" both failed commercially?
Gutted. Again that’s one of those things I just can’t understand, I thought they were so good. I mean "Brickfield Nights" was a great pop song, Matt’s lyrics were great and it really deserved to be a hit. I don’t know how it failed, I was gutted then and I’m gutted now. I remember listening to a radio show where "Brickfield Nights" was supposed to be played as one of six chart contenders. The first song came on and it wasn’t us and then the second came on and it never happened again. All six chart contenders were played and they’d missed out "Brickfield Nights", I tell you the PR at NEMS was crap.

Is "Brickfield Nights" Matt’s finest moment as a singer?
Yeah I would agree although he does some great singing on "No Money", "Heroine", "Independent Girl" and several others; I really like Matt’s voice. A lot of people didn’t like his voice but personally I think he’s a great singer although he’s a bit Lennon-esque at times.

You played some live dates with Rudi?
Yeah we played some dates with Rudi in France and I’ve got some photos of him playing with us. That must have been for the third album because I think he was there primarily for "Kamikaze" and a couple of other songs.

You recorded your second John Peel session in May 1978. You recorded "TCP" with the BBC references?
Yeah that shows our impishness, we were always looking at ways of taking the piss and being on the BBC it seemed appropriate. John Peel used to like us, for about a week or something he used to start his show with "The Worm Song". We used to play that live at the time and as soon as we did the "bump bump" bit the place used to go berserk. It was great fun.

After "Alternative Chartbusters" what did you do to get released from NEMS?
We basically went on strike, we’d had enough. Some of the PR at NEMS was crap, if we’d only signed for a big record company who knows what might have happened. We had struggled along with NEMS and made the best of it but by that time we’d had enough.

What did you do for the next 18 months?
Very little. I joined the Rowdies with John and we had Alan Anger on vocals who was one of our biggest fans, he was mister fanzine. Alan Anger is now a traffic warden and he’s the guy who busted Chris Evans twice and made the centre page of the Sun. He busted him once and Chris Evans thought "I’m only five minutes late" and then he busted him again. Alan Anger used to run this fanzine and wrote lots of articles about us. He was a wonderful guy who used to come on tour with us; he was brilliant. Anyway Mark Harrison played the piano and Phil Spalding played bass and we released "She’s No Angel" first as the Rowdies and then as the Cockney N Westerns. It was excellent fun making that record. I thought "She’s No Angel" had the potential to be a hit but the world is not always a fair place.
Incidentally Mark (Muck-Man) Harrison, drums and Phil Spalding, bass toured with us with the Bernie Torme Band who were another brilliant three-piece. Mark and Phil, who are still great friends of ours to this day were a superb unit, really tight. They had signed for JET Records and they were staying in really good hotels so we spent most of the time at their hotels playing pool and gambling. Mark and I still go watching the racing every time I go to see him in London. If you ever get to visit his place you’ll know why he’s called Muck-Man!! Mark and Phil both went on to play in the Dirty Strangers and Phil also played with the Original Mirrors, Toyah, Mike Oldfield and many others.

You then signed to Safari with whom you had a better relationship?
Safari were brilliant and John Craig was fantastic. He was really good to us, he genuinely liked us as people and not just as a band. We tended to socialise with John a lot and he would invite us back to his place. He had a really nice wife and he also had a lovely cocker spaniel dog called Humphrey who did the backing vocals (howling!) on "Doggy" from the Yobs first album. In one review we did a photo shoot with Humphrey who we sat in a wicker chair wearing dark glasses and surrounded by the band. The headline was something like "Safari Executive Welcomes His New Band The Boys"; it was a cool photo at the time. I really did like John Craig, he was a great guy, he liked us and we liked him. There was another bloke at Safari I remember called Tony who was always checking out his oil prices. Safari were very good to us.

How did you come to go to Norway to record "To Hell With The Boys"?
That was obviously to do with Cas who arranged it. He knew somebody and it was a great experience. As I recall we got this Levi sponsorship as well and we all had great trousers but boy is Norway expensive. Cas had this pink Cadillac at the time and we used to cruise round Trondheim in it looking cool! You probably know that Cas went on to be huge in Scandinavia with Gary Holton, they had their own private tables in restaurants and things like that. They had hits with "Ruby" and other country songs which were rocked up a little; Gary’s voice was special.

The producer didn’t like Duncan’s vocals and wanted Matt to sing all the tracks on "To Hell With The Boys". What did you think?
I remember I disagreed with it, I thought it was unfair. I think it was because the producer thought Duncan sounded too young for the album but I disagreed with him and of course Duncan ended up singing "Terminal Love" and "Rue Morgue".

What did you think about the final released mix of that album?
I liked it. I remember we all listened to the original mix of the album in Matt’s living room and we were all disappointed with it. I think the original mix had a more acoustic version of "Independent Girl". I’m personally happy with the final mix which was released, I think it was a good mix.

What are your favourite tracks?
I love most of it to be honest. I think "Terminal Love" is John’s best song ever and I also thought "Kamikaze" was brilliant. I know it’s a very basic song but I still love it and of course it was a Chevrolet car revving up at the start and not a motorbike. "Lonely Cowboy" was a great song and John Mayall played on that for £500 and a bottle of vodka! I also love "Bad Day", we’re really tight on that one and I’m gonna play that next. "Independent Girl" is another great song and "Waiting For The Lady" was an old Penfold song. In fact I love the whole album, I can’t really knock a track.

Do you think it was better than "Alternative Chartbusters"?
No I couldn’t say that, it’s very different from "Alternative Chartbusters". For me they are both great albums in their own ways and it would be an insult to say one was better than the other.

Can you remember recording a radio session for Mike Read/Anne Nightingale which included "Kamikaze", "Terminal Love" and "See You Later"?
I can’t remember that session but it’s possible we did it.

You appeared on the Whistle Test in January 1980?
You get a badge when you appear and I’ve lost mine! The only way you can get a badge is by appearing on the show and I wish I’d still got mine.

What did you think of your performance?
Having just watched it for the first time in twenty years it looks and sounds very good. Looking back on the show it was the things that dreams are made of because the Whistle Test was so credible that if you were on it you deserved to have a hit. Unfortunately things don’t always work out that way.

What other TV appearances did you make?
The "Brickfield Nights" video was shown on the Paul Nicholas Show and that always made me laugh because he made out that we were actually there but of course we weren’t. We did a Top Of The Pops type programme in France performing "Brickfield Nights". Talking Heads were on the show and Serge Gainsboro was also there singing his latest single "Sea, Sex And Sun"; he was on a couch with all these women sprawled all over him. I remember I played the drums with rolled up newspapers for a laugh. We also did a German show with Desmond Dekker. We performed "You’d Better Move On" and behind us there were these four gorgeous women with white t shirts with B, O, Y and S on their backs and I tried to pick up Y and there was consternation in the hotel. During rehearsal I was drunk and I dropped my stick or something and we had to do it all again. I remember John Craig was really pissed off with me because he thought I was going to blow the whole thing but it all worked out fine in the end.
On the way to the show we had a private eight seater plane. We had an excellent pilot who was a really kind of straight guy and he gave us all a go at flying the plane. Anyway we all had a go at flying the plane and then Duncan had a go. He’ll remember it because in the middle of his go the pilot cool as you like says "I think I’d better take care of the controls before we go into a vertical dive!" When we arrived at the airport we cut out four of Duncan’s faces from some posters and stuck them over our heads and I’ve got a great photograph of five Duncan’s sitting in this airport terminal.
When we arrived at the television studios they had a bar and we were supposed to say "five bottles of lager to Safari". Of course we were going up "eight bottles of lager and twelve schnapps to CBS" and Safari never paid a penny on the drinks bill but it cost CBS a small fortune! It was a laugh and you know I’m the only one from the band who’s not now a business man or something and it’s weird in a way.

What were your thoughts when you were invited to join the Ramones tour?
Oh brilliant, the tour was awesome and they really wanted us to support them. In terms of performance they were brilliant. I can’t believe that anyone could keep up with them. They were fantastic, one of my favourite bands of all time and a real feelgood band as well. I loved them and I thought they were awesome. I could never have drummed like they did non stop for forty five minutes or so, they were just unbelievable. I thoroughly enjoyed the tour and we stayed in some great hotels. John and I always used to room together, we were known as the Big Two. Every party after every gig always ended up in our room, the reason being that if anyone wanted to leave early they could always go back to their nice quiet room.

Did any of the Ramones socialise with you?
No they didn’t party at all, they were incredibly professional. Marky got fined for missing rehearsals and things like that but no they didn’t really socialise with us. I remember once we all went to a restaurant in Chelsea but that was about it.

What do you remember about "Jimmy Brown"?
Looking back I find it surprising that it wasn’t released as a single, it certainly had the potential to be a hit.

What impact did Casino’s departure have on the Boys?
Casino and I always got on great and I was very sorry to see him leave, we had some great times together. I can’t actually remember why he left although I think there was a woman involved somewhere. There was certainly no animosity within the band, everyone liked Cas.

Did you consider finishing?
No we didn’t we just got on with it and I think that’s why we called the next album "Boys Only". Personally I missed Casino an awful lot and he then went on to do great things with Gary Holton. In fact Gary Holton also used to come on tour with us just for the crack and then go on to dominate all proceedings but we enjoyed his company. Cas and I always got on great and we used to go to loads of Arsenal games together. I really missed him.
I must tell you a quick tale about Cas. He’d told us that he was going to have a gold tooth put in at the front, you know a kind of cool showbiz thing. Of course we had naturally assumed that it would be a whole tooth. Well we picked him up outside the Sussex Arms in Paddington, where he lived at the time, and he got on the mini bus. We all said "come on then let’s see this famous gold tooth" so he opened his mouth to give us a grin and we could barely see it, it was a teeny weany little strip at the side of one of his front teeth. Well we all had hysterics and said "what’s that". Cas was not amused and told us to fuck off in his own Norwegian way which sounded like "Fock Ov" so we were in hysterics again. Needless to say Cas didn’t talk to us much for the rest of the day.

What about his impact on the band from a writing point of view?
Well John always wrote on his own and Matt just got on with writing songs without Cas. You’d really need to ask Matt that question.

You were then involved with the "New Guitars" album?
Yeah that’s right. I actually thought it could have been better than it was because it had some great songs on it. As an album I think we did it too quickly and it could have been so much better.

After that The Boys recorded the Yobs album and you sang a couple of the songs?
Oh yeah I sing on the best songs! I sang "The Ballad Of The Warrington" and "C-H-R-I-S-T-M-A-S" and I think I also did the Jewish voice on "We Wish You A Merry Christmas". We actually did that album in a couple of days. We went into the studio and just rattled off an album. It was good fun to make it, we all had turns on the tubular bells and everybody had a go at everything. There’s the odd mistake on it but how can you be the Yobs with a nice, tidy record. My nephew used to love the album, he thought it was the best album in the world. It’s disgusting and it’s rude but it’s fun and it puts smiles on people’s faces. Even my 70+ year old neighbour Cath Mark likes it and she loves the Boys too. You’re never too old to appreciate great stuff!

Did you ever fancy singing on a Boys album?
I don’t think I was good enough and I was probably too shy to ask if I could. It didn’t bother me at all because I was happy with the other guys singing and even when I wrote the occasional song I was happy not to sing it myself.

Around the same time as you recorded the Yobs album you recorded "Boys Only" and "Weekend" was released as a taster from the album.
It should have been a hit, it was a great summer pop song. All the time we were together I kept thinking what do we have to do to have a hit. We were desperate for a hit but it just never seemed to happen. I still can’t understand why "Weekend" wasn’t a hit.

You made a video for "Weekend". What did you think of it?
Considering it’s in the early days of video I suppose it’s not too bad although it’s a bit naïve but we had some fun making it. The story behind it was that the guy who made it, Stephen Waldorf, was then shot by the police a couple of weeks later.

Were you surprised when it was shown on Noel Edmonds Multi Coloured Swapshop?
I’m not sure whether I was surprised that it was shown on the BBC but I was certainly very pleased that it was shown and I’m sure the rest of the band were equally pleased.

"Boys Only" didn’t receive the same critical acclaim as the other three albums and is generally regarded as your weakest album.
Really. I would disagree with that statement, I think it’s got some great songs on it. As far as I’m concerned it’s certainly not a weaker album than the other three we released. Our albums are all very different and each are equally good in their own way. I thought it was a great cover and a lot of work went into that. I think it’s very clever; black and gold – John Player Special.

What tracks do you like?
I think "Weekend" was a great single. I also really like "Wrong Arm Of The Law", "Nothing Ventured" and "Gabrielle" is one of my favourite Boys songs. I wrote "Satisfaction Guaranteed" and I do like it, it’s probably the best song I’ve written. I accept that "Scrubber" is not very good, it started off as a country song with different lyrics. "Monotony"; John’s final wish to write a two chord song and he finally made it! It’s a good album and I do not consider it to be the weakest of the four.

On Boys Only you wrote three tracks, two being co-written with John. How did you feel about getting three of your songs on a Boys album?
I felt great about it. "Poor Little Rich Girl" is not a great song but it’s okay. As I said I like "Satisfaction Guaranteed", it’s got a good melody, it’s simple, I like the drums on it and I think it’s a good pop song. "Miss You" is a tribute to John Wayne; it’s John and I collaborating and borrowing a little from a Jim Reeve’s song.

Was John Wayne a hero of yours?
John Wayne, Dean Martin, Tony Bennett and of course Charlie George of Arsenal. Cas turned me onto Tony Bennett. We went to see him at the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane. Cas turned up with a friend of his called Mark I think. He had really long hair and a beard and looked as if he could eat anybody for breakfast. We turned up looking distinctly different to the other Tony Bennett fans but nobody seemed to mind because we were all fans. I remember Cas kept shouting out "Antonio sing San Francisco" which of course he eventually did. It was a brilliant night out and the Syd Lawrence Orchestra was supporting.

After Duncan Reid left the Boys in March 1981 he was replaced by Chris Brashford and Howard Wall.
Chris Brashford actually did some gigs with us where we both played the drums and I thought it sounded great with the double drumming. He was very versatile because he then played bass guitar with us for a while.

How did the Boys finally call it a day?
I think that I instigated the final split and I’ve always felt guilty about it. We were in Madrid in Spain and had just finished a European tour. If I remember rightly there was a deal on the table for me as I’d just invented this board game called "Tightlines". The Boys didn’t seem to be going anywhere at that time and for me it was a little soul destroying to be getting nowhere. We were playing gigs, making records, working really hard and having some fun but we were just not getting anywhere. We never had the hit that we wanted and we really needed and there just didn’t seem to be any point in carrying on.

How did you feel when the Boys finished?
I was absolutely gutted when we finished. I never went on to play for another band that’s how gutted I was.

Why didn’t you consider joining another band?
I didn’t want to. I remember John telling me that several bands wanted me to play with them but I just wasn’t interested. I just didn’t want to play for another band, for me it would have been like a betrayal. I wanted to play in my band, it was as simple as that and my band was the Boys.

You give up drumming then?
Yeah I sold my drumkit, my beautiful pearl drumkit and fly cases. It was like the good times were over so what was the point in keeping my drumkit. I wasn’t going to play for another band.

You mentioned "Tightlines" earlier. I believe you invented a couple of other board games?
Yeah I invented "Tightlines" and a couple of other games. Very much by chance I bumped into someone in a hairdressers who introduced me to a guy from Cambridgeshire who made adverts and he was printing a game called "Kensington" in his printing factory. He fancied a venture into the games world because he had some money to invest. He saw my game and he liked it and I think it came out in 1982. I made a bit of money out of it and I saw it very much as a personal success but I had little artistic control. I’ve also invented a steaming two-player game called "Equus". I’m currently looking for an entrepreneurial type marketing person for that one. It really does beat "Backgammon" as a gambling game, just ask anyone who’s played it. I’d like to get some photos of the game on the internet because it looks really good too.

You apparently injured your back in the 1980’s?
Yeah I did and I picked up some compensation, but it’s all gone unfortunately.

You bought a business in Poland with some of the money?
Yeah I did, in a factory in Poland.

Campino was interested in the Boys and he apparently used your scrapbook as research for the "Odds and Sods" album?
And he’s still got it! I hope he’s still got it because he’s not returned it to me. If he’s as big a fan as he claims I can’t believe that he’s lost it so hopefully he has still got it. It’s contains all our early cuttings including an article on our first gig and stuff like that.

You’re hoping to get it back one day then?
Bloody right I am.

What were your thoughts about "Odds and Sods"?
I thought great, thanks very much. There’s a couple of tracks I don’t like for example "Flies" because I don’t think we did it very well and I wasn’t crazy about "Mummy". I like "Pick Me Up" and I really like "Walk My Dog", it should have been a summer single and "SAP" is a song John wrote about me. It was about me and my girlfriend at the time and the fact that I would not be unfaithful to her. She was tall, blonde and gorgeous and I just wasn’t interested in any other women and so John wrote the song "SAP" about me. I prefer the single version of "I Love Me" with the piss take on the Rolling Stones.

What’s the story behind "Garden Gang"?
There was this nine year old girl who wrote a series of books for Ladybird and it was all about Tommy Tomato and Oliver Onion and all that. We were commissioned to do the theme song for the television series and of course it never happened. There were various different versions of "Garden Gang" and we all got to write one.

I believe around that time you rehearsed with the Boys?
Where?

I don’t know it was Duncan who said that you had.
I can’t really remember it. It’s possibly true but obviously nothing came of it although I can tell you that if someone said to me do you want to do another Boys album I’d be there like a shot.

You’d be happy to do another album with the Boys then?
I’d love to. Even though Mark Harrison did this, somebody else did that I’m the Boys drummer it’s as simple as that. I’m not being funny about it but I was the Boys drummer, I still am the Boys drummer and if there was going to be another Boys album surely I’ve got to do the drumming and not somebody else.
I’m sure every Boys fan would agree with that Jack.

Why didn’t you appear on the second Yobs album?
I’d just spent 102 days in a Polish prison and I’d just come back to my girlfriend and two children in England. Literally the next day I was asked to do it and I would have loved to have been involved but I obviously had to spend time with my family. That’s the only reason I turned it down; I couldn’t let my family down. I would love to have done it but I couldn’t.

In 1996 Matt, Duncan, Casino and John came together with Campino to record "Powercut." Why weren’t you involved?
I don’t know why I wasn’t involved. I wish I’d been there.

What did you think of Campino singing instead of Matt and Duncan?
No problem, Campino’s a Boys fan good for him.

Last year "The Boys Punk Rock Rarities" was released.
I haven’t got the album and I’d love a copy!

How come so many great songs remained unreleased when you were together?
I really don’t know.

What are your thoughts on the Boys tribute album "Satisfaction Guaranteed"?
I think it’s great. It’s amazing that other bands are doing our songs and it’s great to hear all the different versions. Some of them are funny and some of them are absolutely brilliant. I love the version of "Independent Girl" on the album.

What did you think about the album title?
I loved it. My words thank you very much. I was very very happy about that.

There is another Boys/Hollywood Brats tribute album currently being compiled in Italy. How do you feel about that?
Brilliant. It’s very flattering that there are so many other bands out there around the world who like the Boys music. I cannot emphasis how much it means to me that someone out there really gives a damn.

There appears to be a growing interest in the music of the Boys, particularly from young bands who weren’t there first time around. How do you feel about it?
I think it’s absolutely superb and I’m delighted that these people want to listen to our music. It really means a lot to me that young people who maybe didn’t hear our music the first time around can listen to it now and like it so much. It’s very flattering for me and must be even more so for Matt, Cas and John who wrote most of our songs.

Following Michelle Gun Elephant’s success there was a lot of Boys activity in 1999 culminating in the two dates in Japan. Why didn’t you go to Japan?
I’d love to have gone but the rest of the band decided that I wasn’t up to it. It could be a sore point but it won’t be. I never really got asked. I think I should have been asked and I could have formulated an opinion. I think I could have probably done it but they felt I couldn’t do it and they made that decision and that’s history now.

Did they make that decision based on the fact that you haven’t done any drumming in the last 20 years?
True but that’s not to say I couldn’t do it. I don’t believe whoever did it could have done it as well as I would have done it.

How did you feel about Vom replacing you on drums?
I don’t know the guy and I haven’t heard him drum but I can’t believe he did it as well as I could have done it. As far as I’m concerned it’s not the Boys playing Boys songs unless I’m drumming. He’d have been doing fills where I didn’t do fills and he would have been doing different drumming to me so how can it have sounded like the Boys.

Would you ever consider playing live with the Boys again?
Definitely. I would love to play live with the Boys again. I suppose a whole gig at the old pace would probably be unlikely but I’d love to make a guest appearance or something. I could easily drum on a couple of the songs or maybe even play tambourine or percussion perhaps. I think that there are several Boys songs which would be really suited to the tambourine, particularly on the chorus. I’d love to go to Spain with the Boys in whatever capacity they’d have me.
I’m sure all Boys fans would love to see you there in some capacity.

Have you seen the Boys website?
No. I wish I had access to the internet but I haven’t.

You’ve kept a lot of memorabilia on the Boys?
Yeah I’ve kept loads of stuff. I’ve got newspaper cuttings, hotel receipts, beer mats from hotels, tour itineries, Boys and Yobs stickers and badges, posters, the original Polaroid’s from the "Boys Only" album and loads of other previously unseen photos. In other words I’ve got it all!

You’re clearly very knowledgeable on Boys matters. Would you ever consider writing a book about your experiences?
That’s exactly what I want to do and why don’t we do it together Steve! All I need is a publisher who’ll give me an advance and I’ll put together the best encyclopaedia/history on the Boys ever. I’d love to go and interview all the people we’ve met all over the world and pull together all the stories about the band along with my substantial collection of unpublished photos. You can be sure they’ll all tell you that the best band in the world was the Boys!

What are your three favourite Boys songs?
Oh I can’t pick out three it’s far too difficult. "Terminal Love" would have to be in there and "Bad Day" is straight in there. "Gabrielle", "Brickfield Nights", "First Time", "Box Number", "Living In The City", it’s just too difficult to pick three, I love them all. Sorry I can’t help it but I really do love all the Boys music.

Ken Mewis thought of you as the second Rolling Stones. You have been called "The Beatles of Punk". What do you think?
I think we were the Boys. We were great and I loved the band more than any other band member loved the band. We were all nice guys, we all got on, there was never any animosity and we had lots of excellent people working for us who have had success in other areas and good luck to them. We liked to drink, we liked to gamble and we liked to make great music. We’d always be challenging our contemporaries at pool, darts, snooker, cards or anything really. In the event we lost we’d ask if we could pay them Friday! It was without doubt the best time of my life and I wish I could go back to the start and live it all over again right now!

In your opinion why didn’t the Boys make it big?
Because the management fucked up, full stop.

With hindsight would you have done anything differently?
No I don’t think so, I loved every minute of my time in the Boys. To me it was all too good to be true. I know there’s loads of bands who tour the world but I know, the other band members know and the fans know that we were a good band and we had a really really good time. For me one of the most important things was that people liked working for us which is a huge compliment. I suppose with hindsight one thing I would change is signing to NEMS; had we signed for a major label who knows what might have happened.

What type of music do you listen to now?
Laid back music. My favourite song at the moment is "From A Distance" by Nancy Griffiths. I also like ZZ Top and rock n roll. I’m also a huge country fan, especially Jim Reeves because he’s great to drink whisky to when you’ve just had an argument with your girlfriend. I don’t like anything that’s in the charts today and these boy bands who prance about doing covers go in one ear and come out of my backside!

What are you doing at the moment?
I’ve been casting some moulds and I’m trying to relaunch a couple of my games and I’ve got a few other ideas. Hopefully I will be able to get a relaunch for "Tightlines" in the near future.

Have you any musical plans for the future?
Well I play every Monday night with these other guys down my local. There’s a piano/accordion player, a violinist, there’s triangles and all sorts of things and we have a great time. I play the tambourine just to make sure everything’s tight! I’d like to do my favourite Boys songs their way; I’m sure it could make a really interesting album and for once I’d be in charge!