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Detected language: German
[00:00.000 --> 00:18.000]  It's not a bad thing, when the first concert you visit is one from the Clash.
[00:18.000 --> 00:26.000]  I was 17, my friends and I had just started at Trinity College in Dublin.
[00:26.000 --> 00:35.000]  At the back of the stage they had a picture of their first album with a load of barbies running down the street.
[00:35.000 --> 00:42.000]  That was what was going on in London, but in Ireland it looked like it was in Belfast.
[00:42.000 --> 00:51.000]  It was a very, very tense moment as this backdrop was opened up.
[00:51.000 --> 00:58.000]  We had to roll the tanks, kill the air force, roll the army and the navy.
[00:58.000 --> 01:06.000]  There was a real sense of danger and violence in the air.
[01:06.000 --> 01:12.000]  I was terrified, I was excited.
[01:12.000 --> 01:23.000]  In that moment Rock'n'Roll had nothing to do with entertainment. It was not about life and death, but something much more serious.
[01:23.000 --> 01:27.000]  One, two, three, four.
[01:27.000 --> 01:49.000]  My friends and I were thinking about how we could play in bands like the Clash.
[01:49.000 --> 02:00.000]  We were in the right place at the right time with the right music, an explosive mix. We felt like pirates who fell into everything. We were completely out of control.
[02:00.000 --> 02:13.000]  We had a fan who stole or trampled cars and followed us everywhere.
[02:13.000 --> 02:21.000]  Once the film team of a local station came to our wardrobe. We always let people in. Our fans were our friends after all.
[02:21.000 --> 02:31.000]  It was like a joke where 19 people got out of a tiny car. Someone had opened the window and suddenly more and more people climbed into the wardrobe behind me.
[02:31.000 --> 02:56.000]  At some point it was about 50 people, like in a Charlie Chaplin film.
[02:56.000 --> 03:04.000]  If the kids didn't have money to go home, there was no money. If they didn't have money for drinks, there was no money.
[03:04.000 --> 03:15.000]  The police would wait until we were driving across the mountains. After a few motels we had begun to borrow each other's pillows to make it more comfortable at night on the bus.
[03:15.000 --> 03:23.000]  When the police didn't have drugs, they searched the bus and found about 30 pillows and hundreds of hotel room keys.
[03:23.000 --> 03:34.000]  They said it was theft and threatened to accuse each one of us and keep us there all night. So Joe said, I'll take over the pillows if you take the keys.
[03:34.000 --> 03:39.000]  We sat in the cell for about three nights.
[03:39.000 --> 03:45.000]  We really got close and I got to know the real Joe.
[03:45.000 --> 03:55.000]  When I talked to him before, there were always other people with him, so he never dropped the mask. We talked about the fact that we were afraid, because back then a lot of gossip was made about the punk movement.
[03:55.000 --> 04:05.000]  We thought we might get really angry. We were just honest with each other. He still had to fight that he was a punk rocker in a boarding school.
[04:05.000 --> 04:15.000]  I don't care where he came from. He wasn't a poser. You know, he wouldn't do anything to us. He believed what he was doing.
[04:15.000 --> 04:26.000]  Gabby started to go out with Joe. I remember how this guy in his black leather jacket with his shoulders up ran through our little social apartment and snuggled up in front of him.
[04:26.000 --> 04:38.000]  When they moved to Letbroke Grove, I visited them more often and got to know Joe better. He was an excellent host who always made sure that everyone had something to drink and a seat to sit on.
[04:38.000 --> 04:46.000]  Since he came from a family of diplomats, he was determined to serve the guests in the house of his parents cocktails.
[04:46.000 --> 05:08.000]  The punk movement has proven that you can do what you want, that you can express your own opinion. I am convinced that this has shaped me as an artist.
[05:08.000 --> 05:23.000]  I was a Clash fan. When I saw them in 1978 in the Apollo, there were a lot of them. The door standers were a huge hit from Glasgow. The punks hated it. The Clash had to interrupt the concert.
[05:23.000 --> 05:33.000]  I couldn't continue singing while these people were brutally abused.
[05:33.000 --> 06:01.000]  I loved the fact that they offered the door stander paroles. Your fans are your friends. You are not better than them. We were always one with our audience. You should never be too much.
[06:01.000 --> 06:10.000]  At first, the punk movement didn't seem to be something for black people.
[06:10.000 --> 06:22.000]  But the first Clash album with Police and Thieves, with clips from Notting Hill Carnival, suddenly made punk accessible to me.
[06:22.000 --> 06:28.000]  It was as if they said, come on, do it, it's something for you.
[06:28.000 --> 06:50.000]  White music was always influenced by black music. The difference with the Clash was that Trammer and Jones were inspired by people from their immediate environment. So it was a much more direct influence.
[06:50.000 --> 07:00.000]  I remember saying you can't hear the words. But the words are really great. Really great. And you can't hear them. Don't you think that's ironic?
[07:00.000 --> 07:09.000]  Joe had a good way of dealing with language. He had a sense for stories. With Joe, there was more to me than with others in an entire album.
[07:09.000 --> 07:34.000]  I could identify with Joe's lyrics. Against the establishment, against the military and against the work, which I particularly liked. I was working in a factory at the time and wondered if I had to do that for the rest of my life.
[07:34.000 --> 07:46.000]  That's why we were so idealistic, because we had the feeling that we had to fight against fame and wealth.
[07:46.000 --> 08:06.000]  Bernie got on my nerves. He always seemed to provoke and look for a fight.
[08:06.000 --> 08:10.000]  What was his name again?
[08:10.000 --> 08:13.000]  Because I was stupid.
[08:13.000 --> 08:26.000]  Bernie got sacked. All of a sudden we were on our own. Dad was no longer there. Now we had to prove ourselves.
[08:26.000 --> 08:35.000]  We lived for five months in some dirty hole in Pimlico. We sat in the patch because we no longer had a manager. We sat down every day and wrote and wrote.
[08:35.000 --> 08:43.000]  It went so well that we ran into the studio and recorded the record in three weeks and two days.
[09:05.000 --> 09:30.000]  I used to live right next to the Thames.
[09:30.000 --> 09:45.000]  I was dealing with some of the world's best predictions that scientists were constantly arguing about. Some said there would be a new ice age. Others said we would collide with the sun so that you would feel like an ant and wondered if it was worth living at all.
[09:45.000 --> 09:56.000]  Then it suddenly said you should look forward to the Thames. There would be a flood and everyone would drown. I tried to cheer up by putting all these ridiculous prophecies into a song.
[09:56.000 --> 10:06.000]  I played it to Mick and he liked it. He tapped the lyrics with his finger and said I should write a message for the whole world.
[10:06.000 --> 10:35.000]  We had to break out and go to America.
[10:36.000 --> 11:04.000]  The Sex Pistols landed here in 1869.
[11:04.000 --> 11:24.000]  He knew the culture of America. He knew very well the American culture and literature and especially the music. And so we hit it off immediately.
[11:24.000 --> 11:40.000]  It was unbelievable. We grew up thousands of miles apart and yet the same things moved us.
[11:40.000 --> 11:57.000]  He was passionate and sang every word as if he really meant it. He sang about things that were deeply hidden in his soul. He sang about injustice and all of that with an enormous urgency.
[11:57.000 --> 12:25.000]  I don't think you can separate politics and art from him. He didn't just demand to be questioned, but also to find out what he was doing. What does it mean to be free?
[12:25.000 --> 12:45.000]  The first effect that The Clash had on me was probably the proper effect.
[12:45.000 --> 12:58.000]  You were experiencing a sincerity, not only in the lyrics, but in the music as well. There was a truth in the attack.
[12:58.000 --> 13:17.000]  They sort of pretended that they hated America, but Job loved cowboys, big cars, big pizzas and the fact that in the bars there was a single was a double. So there was a lot of things that they liked about America.
[13:17.000 --> 13:29.000]  I came out of the Vietnam War and I was very much into liberation struggles. In 1976 I was very involved with the Sandinists.
[13:29.000 --> 13:36.000]  It was a very young revolution in which the people had control of their own country for the first time.
[13:36.000 --> 13:48.000]  I was given these towels as a gift, as they wore the street fighters in Esteli, a small town in Nicaragua, in order not to be recognized by the Somoza troops. I gave them to Joe and Mick.
[13:48.000 --> 13:54.000]  We decided to call the record Sandinista to counteract the lack of information in the newspapers.
[13:54.000 --> 14:07.000]  I had no idea who the Sandinists were or where Nicaragua was. Joe Strummer's lyrics were like an atlas for me. They gave me an insight into the world.
[14:24.000 --> 14:36.000]  At some point the people got used to the idea that this was punk. But when we started playing other things, we were criticized everywhere, especially in Britain.
[14:36.000 --> 14:55.000]  My favorite record of The Clash was Sandinista. I especially liked the idea that I use people for my brothers and sisters and don't let them like anything. That's also the punk ethos. But they wouldn't have been my absolute favorite band if they hadn't developed with every record, improved and changed.
[14:55.000 --> 15:06.000]  That's the biggest inspiration for me and my band, the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Because it doesn't make sense to go on if you don't have anything new to say anymore.
[15:06.000 --> 15:20.000]  Sandinista, a triple album for the price of one. We wanted to sell it cheap because we had the feeling that record labels were generally overpriced. The record company flipped out. They only liked the idea too much.
[15:20.000 --> 15:33.000]  You learn a lot about life when you're put on the cross like that. And after Sandinista it became clear to me that I wanted to have Bernie back. I still had Bernie for a creative person and I lacked his input.
[15:33.000 --> 15:39.000]  Then it was either Bernie comes back or Joe gets out. So Bernie came back.
[15:39.000 --> 16:03.000]  And how?
[16:03.000 --> 16:17.000]  The Clash was like a family, like brothers in arms. I think the others looked up to Joe. He was like a big brother to them. It was probably because he was the oldest and probably the strongest personality.
[16:17.000 --> 16:31.000]  Then came our greatest commercial success.
[16:31.000 --> 16:49.000]  In England we are still hated that we did it in America. But someone had to go out there and prove that it was a global thing.
[16:49.000 --> 17:09.000]  Only half of the people came in and they started to randalize the Times Square. The whole of America knew about it. For the first time since Frank Sinatra they had to block the Times Square.
[17:09.000 --> 17:19.000]  You could hear our music all over New York. It caused an illegal mix of The Magnificent Seven, the non-stop from all the ghetto blasts in the city.
[17:19.000 --> 17:27.000]  This summer we had New York.
[17:27.000 --> 17:39.000]  It was a real love story between The Clash and New York. Once I met a taxi driver named Jack Checker, who told me that they were very different from other rock stars who came to New York.
[17:39.000 --> 17:42.000]  Their limousine was Jack Checker's taxi.
[17:42.000 --> 17:58.000]  He just wanted to see the city. He wanted to go to Harlem and Brooklyn. He was looking for contact with the people.
[17:58.000 --> 18:03.000]  They conquered New York. All the artists wanted to see and hear them.
[18:03.000 --> 18:13.000]  The Clash was a revelation. It took us back to the time when rock'n'roll was still new and exciting.
[18:13.000 --> 18:28.000]  Interestingly, the music came from the 1940s and 50s and from operas. But actually The Clash was my source of inspiration.
[18:28.000 --> 18:36.000]  I did see The Clash in the Bonz. Grandmaster Flash, who was almost booted off the stage, played as a pre-group.
[18:36.000 --> 18:43.000]  It was completely crazy. We all called out, and they answered, fuck you. We sing, yeah, and you fuck off.
[18:43.000 --> 18:52.000]  When The Clash came on stage, Joe was right. You have to give them a chance. Listen to it first. You can't do that.
[18:52.000 --> 18:59.000]  And the whole audience thought, oh shit, Joe Strummer just pissed us off.
[18:59.000 --> 19:06.000]  When I puked on the carpet at the airport, he scolded the journalists. He's sick, leave him alone.
[19:06.000 --> 19:24.000]  Shut up, will you, you stupid cunt. If he feels like throwing up, it's because his stomach hurts.
[19:24.000 --> 19:31.000]  I don't need your jokes to fucking contend with. If you haven't got something serious to say, piss off.
[19:31.000 --> 19:38.000]  What is serious? Well, you tell me, about life and death, never mind the pukes on stinking carpets.
[19:38.000 --> 19:43.000]  The dance keeps going all night long.
[19:43.000 --> 19:48.000]  I didn't like some of his character traits. My girlfriend was on a tour with us.
[19:48.000 --> 19:53.000]  One evening I said, after a fierce argument, you won't sleep in my room tonight.
[19:53.000 --> 19:57.000]  When I woke up the next morning, she spent the night with Joe.
[19:57.000 --> 20:03.000]  That really hurt. I felt really betrayed. But I wasn't the only one, he did the same with others.
[20:03.000 --> 20:09.000]  We weren't a unit anymore. I was getting more and more selfish and Joe had doubts.
[20:09.000 --> 20:16.000]  Probably our success was slowly becoming embarrassing to him. And Mick couldn't sit in the bus without a spiff.
[20:16.000 --> 20:24.000]  Everybody has their weaknesses, right?
[20:24.000 --> 20:28.000]  We got fed up with each other, after we had been sitting around the pillow for years.
[20:28.000 --> 20:33.000]  We never had a holiday. Every band is on holiday these days to come out and get their heads out.
[20:33.000 --> 20:39.000]  We never did that. We worked all the time.
[20:39.000 --> 20:47.000]  Mick thought, if he didn't want to play Wyatt, none of us could.
[20:47.000 --> 20:55.000]  I probably made a remark that I shouldn't have made. That brought the rock to a roll.
[20:55.000 --> 21:01.000]  It was directly related to his presence on the stage.
[21:01.000 --> 21:08.000]  He said, you have no respect for the stage. And I said, what do you want to tell me about the stage?
[21:08.000 --> 21:13.000]  He poured his drink into my face.
[21:13.000 --> 21:19.000]  I hit him with full force against the star.
[21:19.000 --> 21:25.000]  What a hit. There was even blood. That's what you understand under musical differences.
[21:25.000 --> 21:30.000]  All because Mick didn't like Wyatt. But Joe looked just as shocked as Mick.
[21:30.000 --> 21:37.000]  As if he wanted to say, oh shit, what have I done?
[21:37.000 --> 21:44.000]  Well, I have no books up, but I guess that was a triple hook combination with a double up cut.
[21:44.000 --> 21:50.000]  Shortly afterwards, I laughed my ass off.
[21:50.000 --> 21:56.000]  Suddenly we were at Saturday Night Live, at Johnny Carson in talk shows.
[21:56.000 --> 22:00.000]  We weren't prepared for that, after all these years we had only been racking our asses.
[22:00.000 --> 22:04.000]  It stuck in our heads.
[22:04.000 --> 22:09.000]  Everything fell apart. We were never all four at the same time in the studio.
[22:09.000 --> 22:15.000]  I came to Electic Ladies Studio and no one was there. I had an idea for the piano.
[22:15.000 --> 22:23.000]  I thought, if I record the drum track and put the piano track over it, I can play my idea to others later.
[22:23.000 --> 22:31.000]  When I had recorded the drum and the piano and still no one was there, I also recorded the bass and a few percussion instruments.
[22:31.000 --> 22:36.000]  When it finally came, I could almost play a finished piece for him. Joe was thrilled.
[22:36.000 --> 22:42.000]  Bernie came in and said, do you always have to do Raga? We asked, what?
[22:42.000 --> 22:47.000]  And he said, your songs last every six minutes. How are we supposed to put that on an album?
[22:47.000 --> 22:49.000]  When he was gone, we laughed about it.
[22:49.000 --> 22:54.000]  I went back to the Iroquois Hotel on 44th Street. It had already become bright again.
[22:54.000 --> 22:57.000]  There was a typewriter in my room and I started typing.
[22:57.000 --> 23:01.000]  The king ordered his men to stop with the Raga.
[23:01.000 --> 23:05.000]  I was dead tired, but this piece of paper in the typewriter attracted me magically.
[23:05.000 --> 23:08.000]  So I wrote the entire text of Rock the Casbah.
[23:08.000 --> 23:12.000]  In fanaticism, there is no tenderness or humanity.
[23:12.000 --> 23:15.000]  That's what I tried to express with the song.
[23:15.000 --> 23:19.000]  The relationship between Mick and Joe became more and more difficult.
[23:19.000 --> 23:22.000]  We passed by him and Joe threw the text in the mailbox.
[23:22.000 --> 23:25.000]  He didn't want to see it and also didn't want to write songs with him.
[23:25.000 --> 23:36.000]  At that point, I was afraid that Mick could fall into our misfortune with his idealism and his refusal to make compromises and adapt to reality.
[23:43.000 --> 23:46.000]  Mick is an emotional type.
[23:46.000 --> 23:50.000]  He often had to act as a scapegoat for things that Joe was actually responsible for.
[23:50.000 --> 23:57.000]  He often used unjustified criticism because Joe was mercilessly tactful in order not to present himself as a boomer.
[24:21.000 --> 24:25.000]  So Bernie Rhodes said, look, you've got to disappear.
[24:25.000 --> 24:29.000]  I said, well, Bernie, if you really think I should disappear, I will.
[24:29.000 --> 24:31.000]  Where do you want me to disappear to?
[24:31.000 --> 24:33.000]  And he said, well, I don't know.
[24:33.000 --> 24:37.000]  Go to Austin, Texas. You know that fellow there, Joe Ely, the country singer.
[24:37.000 --> 24:40.000]  I said, okay, Bernie, I'll be seeing you.
[24:40.000 --> 24:42.000]  I took the boat train to Paris instead.
[24:42.000 --> 24:45.000]  And I thought it'd be a good joke if I never phoned Bernie at all.
[24:45.000 --> 24:48.000]  He was going to be thinking he was going to be acting, you know.
[24:48.000 --> 24:52.000]  Oh, where's Joe gone? And really he was going, where has he gone?
[24:52.000 --> 24:54.000]  And I ran the Paris Marathon too.
[24:54.000 --> 24:57.000]  And eventually they hired a private detective to find me.
[24:57.000 --> 25:01.000]  What is he up to and what news is there of his whereabouts? Who can answer that? Cosmo?
[25:01.000 --> 25:03.000]  We don't know where he is and we can't find him.
[25:03.000 --> 25:07.000]  And if you're listening, Joe, I said this before, please get in touch. We need to talk to you.
[25:07.000 --> 25:09.000]  So in no way is this any kind of publicity stunt?
[25:09.000 --> 25:11.000]  None whatsoever, I tell you.
[25:11.000 --> 25:13.000]  He wanted to prove that the band didn't work without him.
[25:13.000 --> 25:18.000]  When he came back, it was either Topper or me.
[25:22.000 --> 25:27.000]  I can't deny that I lost everything.
[25:27.000 --> 25:30.000]  When you use drugs, you don't care about anything else.
[25:30.000 --> 25:44.000]  He was selfish and dishonest and I didn't give a fuck about the others.
[26:01.000 --> 26:03.000]  Basically, they had no other choice.
[26:03.000 --> 26:11.000]  You can't use a drummer in a band who is so drunk that sometimes he can hardly play and always comes too late.
[26:11.000 --> 26:13.000]  I burst into tears, right?
[26:13.000 --> 26:15.000]  I broke into tears and Mick cried.
[26:15.000 --> 26:19.000]  Then Joe kind of softened and said, listen, this is not the end.
[26:19.000 --> 26:23.000]  We simply claim that you are completely exhausted and need a break.
[26:23.000 --> 26:27.000]  And when you're back in control, you're back again after the tour.
[26:27.000 --> 26:30.000]  I tried to stop him.
[26:30.000 --> 26:37.000]  But about a week after the start of the tour, Joe said, we had to get rid of Topper because he was addicted to heroin.
[26:37.000 --> 26:44.000]  From one day to the next, he had turned his time away from drugs due to a nervous breakdown.
[26:44.000 --> 27:08.000]  Then I started to inject heroin.
[27:08.000 --> 27:12.000]  I lived in a occupied house in Fulham and slept like a dog under a carpet.
[27:12.000 --> 27:29.000]  Then I saw a song on TV played by someone else.
[27:29.000 --> 27:33.000]  I don't think we played a good gig after Topper was fired.
[27:33.000 --> 27:35.000]  We didn't play a single good concert anymore.
[27:35.000 --> 28:04.000]  Rock the Casper landed in the top five in America.
[28:04.000 --> 28:07.000]  They're not punk rock now.
[28:07.000 --> 28:10.000]  They're just what the Stones are.
[28:10.000 --> 28:14.000]  Life keeps many bad jokes and this one was probably to be seen.
[28:14.000 --> 28:17.000]  Nevertheless, it was a shock when it really happened.
[28:17.000 --> 28:21.000]  We became pop stars and I couldn't believe that we had become what we were fighting for.
[28:21.000 --> 28:30.000]  Rather, I wanted to become a street musician, a nobody, than continue like that.
[28:30.000 --> 28:36.000]  When the clashes got really big, it certainly had something frightening for them.
[28:36.000 --> 28:40.000]  That was certainly frightening.
[28:40.000 --> 28:52.000]  Maybe they weren't ready for it yet and were afraid that success and money could steal them a piece of their purity and honesty.
[28:52.000 --> 29:00.000]  I'm asking you about the kind of responsibility that you feel that you've got towards the fans as a public figure that you are.
[29:00.000 --> 29:06.000]  I just don't feel strong enough to carry anything at the moment.
[29:06.000 --> 29:09.000]  Are you discouraged with rock and roll in general though?
[29:09.000 --> 29:14.000]  It's not worse than any other prostitution business.
[29:14.000 --> 29:23.000]  We ain't got no baseball tonight, we ain't got no football, we ain't got no strike.
[29:23.000 --> 29:28.000]  But what we have got to be at is a little bit of what's going on in London at the moment.
[29:28.000 --> 29:44.000]  So, welcome all the way from London Pro, London WT, The Clash!
[29:58.000 --> 30:00.000]  When I was on stage...