The Stranglers celebrate their 50th anniversary with Portsmouth date
The Stranglers, one of the most iconic and influential bands in British music history, are celebrating their 50th anniversary with dates including Portsmouth Guildhall on March 23.
Jean-jacques Burnel admits he still gets the same buzz as he straps on the guitar – and perhaps, in fact, enjoys it even more. As he says these days people aren't there to throw things at the band. They are there to listen to The Stranglers.
JJ admits too that the big anniversary takes some thinking about: “When we started there was no precedent. not even the Rolling Stones had been going that long when we started, maybe 12 or 13 years. And when you think about it, 50 years is quite rare in this day and age. People get tired of each other, but I think one of our great strengths and one of the main reasons that we kept going with the original bunch in the band was that we shared everything equally. Even though Hugh and I from the mark one band were writing everything, we shared everything equally and that was really important. There was a precedent for that. One of my favourite bands was the doors and they did exactly that. And that was the template and it just makes sense. Why would you want to be fighting over money? Bands start with the same dynamic but if they have success, then the songwriter gets the credits and the money and the kudos and it just changes the dynamic but the way we did it meant that we shared the triumphs and we shared the disappointments.”
Looking back to those days when they began, jj concedes it was a very different world: “By the late 70s we had a bit of success. By 77 we had a synthesiser and then we started getting polyphonic synthesisers and it coincided with the whole generation of technology and we were criticised for doing that.
“We started in 74 and by 75 we had the line-up that endured for quite a few years. In 75 we started playing a few pubs and in 76 we played 200 gigs. Early in 76 we were already playing to some of the people that became protagonists in punk. members of The Damned And The Pistols and The Clash would come to see us, and when we were chosen out of all the bands to support Patti Smith on her first tour here, that was a big thing. That really consolidated our position but we were actually one of the last bands to get a recording contract.”
JJ, who was born in the hospital in which Jimi Hendrix died (“That's my major claim to fame!”), recalls: “The 60s were exciting form ea sat en-year-old boy growing up and then you had the 70s. Pub rock was a pejorative term used to describe us by our detractors but actually I wear the pub rock armband as a badge of honour. We were very pleased when we started out getting a gig in a pub and you look in The NME and The Melody Maker and there were the listings. And there was one week when on Sunday night it was The Stranglers, on Mondaydire straits, on wednesday Shakin’ Stevens, on Thursday XTC.
“And I think we have endured because so many of the songs have connected with people.
"You don't have an audience ready and waiting for you. Musiccreates its own audience and our songs have meant something to people.”