Dave Woodhall talks to Buzzcock Steve Diggle about family holidays and spiky-haired bank managers.
“I told Bruce Springsteen how my dad’s car always used to overheat when we were going on holiday. Him and his sister only got to the end of the street so I said to him my dad’s car always broke down going to Blackpool. Talking to Bruce Springsteen about going on your holidays…”
Not the sort of thing you hear every day, but Steve Diggle isn’t an everyday musician. The Buzzcocks, the band he helped found back in 1976 Manchester, may never have gained the column inches of their contemporaries but they were every bit as influential. While the Sex Pistols spearheaded the punk revolution and the Clash were its political wing, Diggle and his Mancunian mates were the influence for much of what’s come since. Next time you hear a three minute guitar-based pop song have a listen to the Buzzcocks afterward and try to spot the similarity.
“That’s right. You can hear the Buzzcocks in a lot of bands can’t you? Bands like U2 and REM over the years, and a lot of you never hear of start off like the Buzzcocks. Ash, there’s another who are very close. Same with Green Day, they’re said to be a cross between the Clash and the Buzzcocks. It was such a distinctive thing, that style, those songs and the way we did them, that defined a lot of punk rock.
“There was a reality to it as well. We talked about the human condition, people could relate to it, we were singing about real things. It wasn’t songs to make hits, we stuck to our guns and when we did have our hits it wasn’t because of adverts, it was the fans who bought them.”
Sadly, though, there were some people who the Buzzcocks couldn’t influence. The band played with both Kurt Cobain and Ian Curtis before these uniquely talented but tormented frontmen found life too unbearable. Was there anything in their behaviour that was a portent of what was to come?
“You can’t predict anything. I was talking to Ian at a party when we were on the road on the last tour and you wouldn’t guess he’d be hanging himself a few weeks later or whenever it was. He said he had some problems with his marriage but you don’t think it’ll come to that. Then the thing with Kurt, he was up and down, kept asking how we’d survived over the years but it makes you wonder why he was asking those questions. You do wonder if I’d have answered any different whether things would have turned out differently but I remember reading a book about suicide that I bought from Oxfam for about ten pence when I was 16. It said that most times suicide is pre-meditated so it’s in the back of peoples’ minds all the time. You don’t just wake up one day and hang yourself. It can be a bit of a crazy business but you have to keep a hold of yourself somehow.”
Yet you started in it thirty-six years ago. Not bad for what was thought to be a five-minute wonder.
“It’s like we started yesterday. We thought we’d get a couple of gigs, a gig in London maybe and here we are all these years later. We played in front of sixty thousand in Moscow last year, we’re doing festivals all the time.”
And there’s a new album out soon.
“We’ve been in the studio for the last couple of weeks and we’ve got about a week to go then we’ll have an album of new material. It’s due out in early May. We’ve turned it round really quick, it’s been a bit full on, like the old days, doing the gigs and going into the studio at the same time.”
Classic Buzzcocks or contemporary?
“Pete and me have done seven songs each. It’s like the classic stuff with a few modern twists. It’s hard to describe but there’s some different kind of things, like we used to do with Pulsebeat and Why Can’t I Touch It? A couple of different avenues then of course the classic three minute pop songs and a few interesting tracks. It always takes a while but it’s starting to come together”
The Buzzcocks played the legendary punk festival at the 100 Club as well as supporting the Sex Pistols at the equally-mythical free Trade Hall gig that was the springboard for a host of Manchester bands. Do you still get people saying they were there?
“Oh yes, you get all that kind of thing. What was it, eight million at the 100 Club? The Free Trade Hall, it was half empty but everybody was there. But nobody realised how big and influential it would get, and how it would last. Even bank managers have spiky hair now, there’s nothing shockable anymore. There’s always bound to be something new coming along, but it’s never going to be as big as ours. It was a powerfully life-changing movement. The carpet was pulled from under the records companies feet; they didn’t know what was going on so they had to go out and sign bands from the provinces. “
But you ended up impressing some very important people.
“Springsteen’s a big fan as well. He said to me ‘I know who you are Steve, I got all your records’.”
The Buzzcocks play the Robin 2 on Thursday 10th April. www.therobin.co.uk