Punk rocker whose songs evoked the agonies of romance and thwarted desire
Pete Shelley, who has died aged 63, was a musician whose songs of teenage angst and frustration ensnared a generation of fans with their yearning lyrics, insistent hooks and chainsaw guitar lines.
Buzzcocks, the band he formed with Howard Devoto, served as an antidote to the tempestuous politics of their angrier colleagues in the punk movement, most notably in their biggest hit, Ever Fallen in Love (With Someone You Shouldn’t’ve).
The song was written for fellow musician Francis Cookson, with whom Shelley would later live for seven years, and part of the band’s appeal lay
Pete Shelley
in their antimacho persona.
Shelley, who had musician
been involved b April 17, 1955
with gay politics d December 6, 2018
at college, remarked of his sexuality that ‘‘it tends to change as much as the weather’’, and when the band made their Top of the Pops debut he wore a badge declaring: ‘‘I Like Boys’’.
His lyrics were specifically aimed at both sexes, however, and in 2002 he said: ‘‘I honestly think Morrissey stole my idea of the non-gender-specific lyric.’’
He was born Peter Campbell McNeish in Leigh, now part of Greater Manchester. His father, John, was a fitter at Astley Green Colliery, while his mother, Margaret, had worked at a mill. He studied Electronics at Bolton Institute of Technology, where he answered an ad on a noticeboard looking for musicians to form a band. He found a kindred spirit in fellow student Howard Trafford, and they formed Buzzcocks, eventually recruiting Steve Diggle on bass and John Maher, whose machine-gun drumming would be the beating heart of their sound.
The name came after they read a review of Rock Follies, the television series about a girl band. It contained the line ‘‘it’s the buzz, cock!’’ – ‘‘cock’’ in its slang sense of ‘‘mate’’. Trafford and McNeish changed their names to Howard Devoto and Pete Shelley, ‘‘Shelley’’ being what Pete’s family would have called him had he been a girl.
After reading a review of a Sex Pistols concert, the pair drove south in a borrowed car to see them. They set up the Pistols’ first appearance in Manchester, at the Lesser Free Trade Hall – the gig of which it was famously said that although only a few dozen people turned up, everyone there went on to form a band.
When the Pistols returned to Manchester, Buzzcocks were on the bill, garnering ecstatic reviews. In January 1977 they borrowed £500 from friends and parents and made the EP Spiral Scratch on their own New Hormones label – making them pioneers of the indie movement. Recorded in half an hour, its stripped-down sound and witty lyrics fitted the punk aesthetic perfectly. Their DIY gamble paid off when John Peel played the EP on his Radio 1 show, and it went on to sell
‘‘I’m not a millionaire, but then again, I’m not starvingly poor. The love of the music around the world is worth more than money.’’
16,000 copies in six months.
Immediately afterwards, however, Devoto left to resume his degree, disillusioned with the direction punk was moving in – he went on to form the artrockers Magazine – and Shelley assumed principal vocal and songwriting duties. Having effectively launched the indie movement, Buzzcocks, now with Diggle on guitar and Garth Smith and then Steve Garvey on bass, signed to a major label, United Artists. But their debut single, Orgasm Addict, released in November 1977, was banned by the BBC for its high smut quotient. Shelley later remarked: ‘‘It’s the only one I listen to and shudder.’’
The follow-up, What Do I Get? – ‘‘I’m in distress, I need a caress, what do I get?’’ – entered the Top 40 in February 1978, and their status as punk superstars was cemented by their thrilling debut album the following month, Another Music in a Different Kitchen. With its angular riffs and playful lyrics of thwarted romance, raw but intensely melodic, it sounded like the love child of the Beatles and the Stooges.
A mere six months later they avoided the ‘‘difficult second album’’ syndrome with the joyous Love Bites, whose standout track, Ever Fallen in Love, reached No 12, their highest chart placing. Shelley wrote it after watching the film Guys and Dolls, in which Adelaide tells Sky Masterson: ‘‘Wait till you fall in love with someone you shouldn’t have.’’
After their third album, the band split in 1981 amid a dispute with their record company. But when a cover of Ever Fallen in Love by Fine Young Cannibals reached the Top 10, Buzzcocks were inspired to reform (minus Devoto), making six more albums and touring extensively.
His band also gave its name to the longrunning BBC TV comedy panel quiz Never Mind The Buzzcocks. When Shelley appeared on it, host Mark Lamarr introduced him by saying that, without him, ‘‘there’d be no Smiths or Radiohead and this show would be called Never Mind Joan Armatrading’’.
Though he claimed not to have made much money, Shelley was not bitter. ‘‘The worth of the songs is measured by the effect they have on people,’’ he said in 2002, when he reunited with Devoto to make the electropop LP
Buzzkunst. ‘‘I’m not a millionaire, but then again, I’m not starvingly poor. I could do with more, but I didn’t sign my life away for £10. The love of the music around the world is worth more than money.’’
He died of a suspected heart attack. His first marriage, which produced one son, ended in divorce; in 2012 he moved to Estonia with his second wife, Greta, an EstonianCanadian artist. He proudly reported that he was learning the language by watching The Simpsons with Finno-Ugric subtitles. –
Telegraph Group/The Times