'They made Sex Pistols sound like Take That': the fury of Midlands punk
In the late 1970s, Mike Stone changed punk for ever from the boot of a BMW. He had started Clay Records from a tiny record shop in Stoke-on-Trent, and after initially distributing the releases from the back of his car, Clay’s hardcore punk bands Discharge and GBH made the UK charts and are now considered pivotal influences on numerous metal styles from thrash metal to black metal, grindcore to an entire genre named after Discharge, D-beat.
Both bands have been covered by some of thrash metal’s biggest artists – Anthrax, Slayer, Sepultura and Metallica, whose frontman James Hetfield credits the British bands as “the beginning for me … I loved Discharge and GBH and still do.”
Discharge founder Terry “Tezz” Roberts was a schoolboy in Stoke when the band started in 1977 with his brother Tony (“Bones”, guitar) and bassist Roy “Rainy” Wainwright, following instructions in Sniffin’ Glue fanzine: “Here are three chords. Now start a band.” Forty-five miles away in Birmingham, GBH singer Colin Abrahall – still spiky-haired at 58 – saw the Ramones play at Birmingham’s Top Rank and decided: “The day I leave school I’m going to become a punk.”
The Birmingham scene was centred around the currently disused Crown pub near New Street station, which had once hosted the first Black Sabbath gig but by the late 70s was a punkrock hotbed where GBH played (initially as Charged GBH), rehearsed, and even built the stage. “Everyone in there seemed to be in a band,” says Abrahall, when we meet pre-coronavirus crisis in their Digbeth rehearsal room, surrounded by posters from 40 years of his band. Birmingham was erupting with chart-bound pop – Duran Duran, UB40 and Dexys Midnight Runners – but the punk scene was DIY.
“I bought a bass guitar off a kid at school for £18,” says the singer. “Our first drum kit was an electric fire.” Hair was spiked up with everything from “Vaseline to egg whites, which made your head stink, so I discovered soap. That was great unless it rained, in which case we’d run around with Tesco bags on our heads.”
Unbeknown to either band, the man who would bring their music to the world was undergoing his own awakening in London. Mike Stone, pushing 30, wasn’t exactly a punk rocker. The former mobile DJ was working for the fledgling Beggars Banquet label when chancing on the Lurkers (who he’d subsequently manage, then sign to Clay) playing in a basement made him want to get involved. “They had