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An Interview with Clive 'Winston' Blake - April 2019

Part 2: 1983 to 1988

Clive Blake aka Winston - original bass player, and founding member of the League.
This interview - conducted in April 2019, was an absolute pleasure for me, and one hell of a buzz, what with Winston being one of my musical heroes since I was a teenager way back in the 80s, in one of my alltime favourite bands - the Anti Nowhere League!!

What follows is part 2 of the interview, covering the period 1983 to their breakup in 1988.

Also, do check out Part 1 of the interview: The Early Years, and Part 3: Reunion Years 1991 to Present, to follow shortly.

 

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Q) Can you tell us about the bass guitars you have had and that you’ve played over the years? What was the guitar you played when you first joined the League?
 

 

Blake "Back then at that time I would have had a Manson which was a handmade guitar. At that time it would have been plugged straight in. Amplification in those days, I was using was Peavey if I remember rightly. I always kept the Manson, but I had a lot of other guitars: Gibson Thunderbirds stuff like that. Because by that time I had become reasonably proficient on the bass - I knew what I wanted and I found that a slimmer neck suited me better for fretting and things like that. You know, after a while you know how you want to play. I've still got one guitar, although I have sold most of my equipment now. I've still got my original Manson which I've had ever since the beginning. That was an expensive bass when I had it made, but I always liked rosewood fretboards and a slim neck on a bass. And I liked a double octave as well, cos I always liked to be able to slide my hand.. vroom.. vroom.. to get that noise out of it. But towards the end of the League, by that time I could play fretless in anything really you know. I mucked about with an acoustic guitar and had the 'Les Paul learn to Play Guitar book' when I was a kid but I never really liked it. It was only cos I was put on the spot joining the band that I learnt to play guitar."


Q) With the ‘For You’ single and from that point onwards, there was a noticeable change in lyrical style, and gone was the profanity – was that all conscious decision?

Blake "It was just a matter of growing up a bit really. It wasn't a conscious decision not to have profanity. Just a matter of fucking growing up, and getting more proficient at playing our instruments and - for want of a better expression, trying to be fucking musos! You know. You can't go on forever saying ‘fuck this, fuck that I've fucked a schoolgirls pratt’, can you?! (Laughs) It’s true though, you can't. It wears a bit thin after a while. So we didn't. And together, we collectively went on to write some fucking good tunes."

 

Q) What was the song writing process in the band then, could you explain how that worked?"

Blake "Well, what we did - how we wrote songs, Chris would come to band practice and he might say “Oh, I've got this riff…” or I'd come along and say “I've got a riff..” I might play it and say, nah, its fucking naff, then that would be the end of it. Or I'd play it, and then Chris would join in, then the drummer and then Nick would make some silly lyric up then before we knew it we would have a song. You know - that was how the Anti-Nowhere League songs were written.  Later on in our career, I had a portastudio and all that.”

 

Q) What was PJ like to tour with – I’ve heard stories from other band members, that it was difficult working with him at times?

Blake “PJ was an absolute nightmare to tour with! We was on North American Canadian border, and because he was Iranian, he was pulled up because he got an Iranian passport. It was just after the Iranian hostage crisis, so the Iranians was the most hated nation worldwide. They said “What have you got in your bag?”,  PJ: "I got bomb, what you think?!” So they dragged him off and wouldn't let him into the country, so me, Nick, and Chris would get into the country, but the tour manager would have to take him back to NYC to go to Canadian embassy to get him a fucking visa and this all wears a bit thin after 3 or 4 fucking times.  And that’s what happened later in Spain in 1984. That’s what happened there when they wouldn't let PJ into Spain, so we had Matthew Best play drums for us. This went on and on and PJ was always like smoking dope. He was a fucking nightmare. So in the end when push came to shove, when we were starting to get success, and needed a reliable drummer - we first spoke about it amongst ourselves, and then in the end we said he's got to fucking go. It ain't no good. And it was put down to me to sack him. So I said “PJ, we don't want you in the band anymore.. blah blah” and he went “I want my drum kit!”, and I said “Well you ain’t having your drum kit, we own it”, and that’s when he said to me – “It shows what sort of cunt you are because you made me wear stocking on head!” (NB. Read Part one of interview for PJ and stocking on head story!)
 

Q) Chris Exall (aka Magoo) has said in various interviews that everything the League did after ‘We are the League’ he hated, especially Perfect Crime – but that can’t be right surely?”

Blake "No. I disagree. When you do an album that’s not successful it’s very easy to criticise it afterwards. To be honest I think Chris had got to as far as he could go without having lessons, because at the end of the day Chris is a great rhythm guitarist, but he's not a lead guitarist, and so I think he needed the extra guitarist. If we wanted to progress musically and move on we needed to get another guitarist in the band. And that’s why Gilly came in."


Q) At the beginning of 1983 you recruited a second guitarist, Mark Gilham…

Blake “Well we knew Gilly anyway, cos he played in a band with PJ called the Ayatollahs. We didn't bother auditioning - we just said ‘Gilly, do you want to play guitar with us?’, he said “Yeah!” and that was it! Gilly is a great guitarist and a great songwriter. He is one of them guitarists where you can say play Dire Straits - and he'd play Dire Straits, and you can say play like Slash in Guns n Roses, and he'll play like Slash in Guns n Roses! A really good guitarist. Much better than Beef ever was. Gilly was a good songwriter - well you can see by the influence he had on the band. A lot of people think it was the wrong influence - but I thought it was the right influence. You progress on as a band and I think the ‘Perfect Crime’ album is a fantastic album.

Gilly and I are friends and we had some great fun in the band. Gilly was good for me - he was a very good teacher, and I learned a lot off of Gilly. He taught me a lot about playing guitars, and I was fortunate to have him in the band with me to be honest. He's a lovely bloke. What you see with Gilly is what you get. In the early days he was quite cherub looking, but he is a lovely, genuine bloke. You won't get many better than him that’s for sure.”


Q) So, let’s talk about some of the songs from this period in time: ‘Going Down’ (a live version appeared on the Live at Yugoslavia 1983 LP) is such a great song, so why was it never properly recorded and released?

Blake "I don't know, because it should have been. It always went down a storm live, Going Down. It always did. It’s another one of mine, when I was going through my Pink Floyd phase, I ripped off from Meddle.  Fucking great song, great lyrics. In actual fact another one where we were going through our Mad Max fucking whatsit era, cos it’s about the end of the World, nuclear holocaust, sort of tribes, and motorbikes. The films Mad Max 1 and Escape to New York - we were all into those films at the time. But no you're right, there was some good songs on there and really we should have persevered with a lot of them, maybe give them a bit of a polish and released them"
 

Q) ‘Last Dance’ (Performed live 83 – 85) – is another one of my favourites from that era. This should have been recorded and included on your second album. Is there a studio version perhaps,  or a demo even of this great song?

Blake “Last Dance - I was fucking about practicing. Cos I used to practice one day a week. It was like a tango, if you understand what I mean. I took it to rehearsal and we built ‘Last Dance’ around it. 'Are you going to the shindig tonight, the word is out its gonna end in a fight..’ I think we did a demo but there was never a proper recording.”
 

Q) Was there a demo version of Let the Country Feed You?

Blake "Yes, there was a demo version of ‘Let The Country Feed You’. Again, that song came out of a bass line. That 'da na na la la la lang..' that’s how that came up. That’s another one that came up after a practice at Tunbridge wells.”


Q) ‘Russians are coming’ was a live favourite in 1983, but by the end of 1984 you guys had reworked the song into ‘Out on the Wasteland’ didn’t you?

Blake "Russians Are coming - that should have stayed as Russians Are Coming, fucking great lyrics for the time. Most of the songs you can tell the music that I wrote, because most of them are in A Minor. Cos I love the A minor scale, and if you play Russians Are coming (dum, dum dum dum), its very much like Babylon’s Burning. It is the same sequence as that. As to why we changed Russians to Out in the Wasteland.. I just.. do not know! (Laughs)”


Q) I really like the song ‘Working for the Company’ and was surprised to learn that it was first played live in early 1983 on the USA tour – it’s an interesting song, and sounds almost theatrical doesn’t it?"

Blake "It’s a great song. It’s another song that was bass orientated at the end of the day.. (Hums: bom, bom, bom.. bom.. dah dah, dah dah dah). Yeah, the song came from another of my bass riffs. At the time we had a crap record company and crap people working for us, but it was the certain anniversary of the Strawbs I'm A Union Man. Remember that? Well, yeah ‘Working for the Company’ was sort of like Anti-Nowhere League’s slant on it. Well if they (the record company) had been sensible, got us into the studio, recorded it and promoted it, with a decent producer and all that - I reckon that could have done really well. It’s quite a different sort of song for the Anti-Nowhere League but I do think it’s a bloody good song. It’s a little bit tongue in cheek. It could have done well. It’s one of those things, we nearly.. could have.. made it.. just missed it sort of thing with the League – unfortunately we was always one of those bands. It’s a shame you know. We could have done so much better than we did do.”


Q) Throughout 1983 and 1984 you flew out to the USA a number of times to do promotion for the Anti-Nowhere League didn’t you?

Blake “I went out there to do PR. I'd have to fly out there and do things like Radio IDs “Hey! I'm Winston Blake from the Anti-Nowhere League and when I'm in town I listen to KFX 76..” or whatever! You'd go into a studio and all day long that’s what you'd do. Our management paid for me to fly out there. I was seeing a bird out there at the time as well, and she had quite a bit of money, and used to put me up in the Gramercy Park Hotel for the week. It was a whole week doing radio IDs, interviews and I think I even done a couple of television interviews out there. Photo sessions, yeah, a whole week of it. The radio IDs were for College stations all around America and radio stations - well if you are doing that, then they play your records, don't they. So it was beneficial to us. And at that time we were on MTV which had just started, on the MTV jukebox, cos they had these video Jukeboxes in all these clubs and that, and we had ‘Streets of London’ and ‘So What’ on that on video."


Q) By early 1984 you were playing songs like Those Summer Days?

Blake “Those Summer Days - I never really liked the song, I thought it was too much like Sugar Sugar by the Archies! It was American Bubble Gum Music and it's so nice and sing along! If I remember correctly it was built around a bass riff I came up with while practicing, and then when we all got together we turned it into a song, but I stand to be corrected.”

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Q) ‘Westside’ was yet another cracking good song, which you introduced into the setlist in 1983. Again, such a shame that it was never properly recorded.?

Blake "Westside. Yeah, a great song. Another one of Gilly’s. Gilly used to go in the studio with another bass player and Michael Bettell, who played drums for us. If Gilly had an idea for a song he would record it with them, cos he used to have a studio - funnily enough just over the back here, at Stonegate, and come up with a demo and then play it - or give it to me and ask what I thought of it."


Q) In June/July 1983 you returned to the States on tour, and also visited Canada. In the new ANWL documentary Nick talks about how the pressures of touring got to everyone, and mentions that you had a hard time yourself?

Blake "Well I had a come down off of cocaine. I thought about throwing myself out of a hotel window. It was all the pressures of being away from home, being away from my children, taking far too many drugs, drinking far too much. Yeah - doing everything to excess to be honest with you. That was the trouble, doing everything to excess. As I said before, unless you've been out on the road - you think it’s fun all of the time, but it ain't! Its bloody hard work. Travelling from place to place, you probably think, oh lovely, going to New York, going to LA. But it is hard work it really is. Very tiring, and especially doesn't help when you are taking loads of drugs and drinking loads either. Maybe if I'd been - or we'd all been a little bit more sensible, and not got so drunk, and took all those drugs we could have survived it all a lot better!"


Q) The original version of On the Waterfront was recorded at the 1984 Chris Kimsey session also wasn’t it?

Blake “On the Waterfront - another great song. I really liked ‘On the waterfront’. It was one of Gilly's but then we all put the Anti-Nowhere League slant on it. The original version is the one we done with Wesley Magoogan playing sax on it. I've got a dub version of On the Waterfront somewhere. It cuts in and cuts out, sort of a dub reggae track. Cos me and Chris Kimsey one night - I think everyone had gone back to the hotel, and we sat in the studio and just fucked about. Chris Kimsey had just done Killing Jokes ‘the 80s’. And they did a dub version of that. And I said cor, I'd really like to see a dub version of Waterfront. And he fucked about with it, and that’s what he came up with. I've got it on tape somewhere."

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Q) Memories of the Out of the Wasteland EP?

Blake “We wasn't recording an album, we were just recording an EP with Chris Kimsey in Dublin at Windmill Lane Studio's (a studio that U2 used and they came up the studio to meet us) I remember getting pissed up with U2s manager in a pub down on the docks and have got a picture of me somewhere laying in my own vomit! The name change was a way of our record company trying to make us respectable if I remember correctly. To be honest U2 only called in to see us to say hello, but they seemed decent enough blokes, there was talk that we had a deal with Geffen records in the U.S.A. But it never came to fruition, at that time I was flying out to the US quite often to do PR and radio IDs so we were reasonably well known on the college circuit and Nick and myself flew out to NY to audition for Richard Benjamin's new film that was going to called the Money Pit with Tom Hanks”


Q) Michael Bettell (RIP) joined on drums for a while, and played on the Out in the Wasteland single didn’t he – what was he like?

Blake “He was a good drummer but he was too technical for his own good to be honest with you. He was too good a drummer. You know, double bass drum kit, he could do all these fancy trills and all that sort of stuff. Far too good. 


Q) Did Michael Bettel also play any live shows?

Blake “He did play live. He played in Dublin with us and I'm trying to think where else he played… He played a few live shows with us. Yeah definitely. Probably Gilly knows more than I do, cos he used to draw cartoons.. Gilly is a great artist, and while we was on tour Gilly used to draw cartoons of him, we used to say his hair looked like a beehive! So Gilly used to draw these caricatures of him, with a beehive on top of his head! Great drummer and so sad that he died at such an early age. It was actually Gilly who introduced Michael to us. I got on really well with Michael.”


Q) With so many new songs being written in 1983 and 1984, it’s such as shame that a second album wasn’t released before 1987’s Perfect Crime.

Blake "Yeah. But the trouble is what people don't realise - and I think this is a quote from Elvis Costello: It takes you a lifetime to write your first album, but takes you 6 months, or a year to write your second one. And that’s how it is. But the great thing about it is - the breathing space between doing the first album and then the Perfect Crime.  But yeah, maybe we should have done another album perhaps 'Branded' between those two albums”

 

Q) I guess John Curd must have given you some money to go into studio to record some demos in 83/94? I believe Going Down, Westside, Branded etc were all recorded in Enid studios (The Lodge Recording Studio) in Northampton, England?

Blake "Ah yes, Enid studios. There was that band called the Enid, an old hippie band. The singer was an old shirt-lifter - always surrounded himself with young boys. Well they lived in the middle of nowhere, somewhere. I can't remember exactly where it was, and we had a load of studio time to go and do some demos. It was like a hippy commune, and they all cooked their casseroles and that sort of stuff. I think we recorded ‘Summer Days’ there and all those ones, if I remember rightly.  We'd go into the studio and do say four or five demos. We even used to use this studio that Gilly used to use in Stonegate with a bloke called Mouse - they had an 8-track over there. We used that a couple of times. But the trouble is with John Curd - if you went into a studio to record some demos, it was embarrassing because John wouldn't pay the studio! The studio would come back to me - or they'd come back to Chris for the money. Cos Curd was such a bastard, he'd give you all the bullshit "yeah, nitto, nitto.. don't worry I'll pay it". Then when the bill came in he wouldn't fucking pay it. It was an absolute nightmare. He was a shark - he should have had a fin on his back, he really should have done. But most managers of record companies are like that anyway, they are all bastards."


Q) Can you tell us about the 1984 film the Money Pit, starring Tom Hanks that you were supposed to be in?

Blake "Yeah, the Tom Hanks film. It was the whole band not just Nick. I never saw the film, but it was the Money Pit. Me and Nick had to fly out to New York to do an audition, and the actual producer of the film was a bloke called Richard Benjamin who was also an actor. Anyway, we had a meet with him in New York and had a chat. He said 'Yeah, I'd like be in the film, and the idea is you're a band - and somebody buys a house, but you're squatting in it and.. blah blah blah.." He gave us a brief synopsis of what the film would be about. And as far as I knew we had the part. Anyway, we come back to UK, cos we was going to have to write some songs for it and that sort of thing, but never heard any more about it. And then later we found out that what had happened - the woman who was meant to be liaising with Richard Benjamin's film company in LA - had gone off to have a baby, and hadn't delegated the work to anyone. The company had been phoning Ian Copeland's offices at Frontier Bookings International in NY, chasing it up, but nobody knew anything about it and in the end they got fed up and changed the script. So yeah, how close was that? Total incompetence and so we lost that. And Richard Benjamin was well hot for us. You know, the Anti Nowhere League all covered in tattoos, biker image/punk thing and with Tom Hanks.  I don't know, but it could have brought us massive success couldn't it. Just nearly, but not quite made it. It’s disheartening, but at the time we just took it in our stride, and didn't think anything about it. Could have been big for us, and could have cracked it in the States."


Q) ‘Queen and country’ – what a superb song, and it really should have been an A-side single, surely?

Blake "It was going to be picked up by the BBC - they were doing a programme, or a drama about soldiers, and that song was going to be picked up as a title track for that BBC series. But of course it was never pursued by our record company and all that, so we lost it. A great song Queen and Country. A really good song. And funnily enough a lot of soldiers - although I never knew until later, a lot of them loved the song and the lyrics you know, 'To shoot without a conscience, to die without a cause..'. And on that song I indulged myself on the middle 8 bass playing on that, with a bit of pino palladino sort of chorus bass work on it.”


Q) When Queen and country was performed live in 1983/84 there was a bit in the middle of the song, with someone shouting out in a Sgt Major voice ‘Left, right, Left right!’, was that a pre-recorded tape playing back?

Blake "Yeah, I had to do something where I shouted "ATTENTION!! LEFT RIGHT, LEFT RIGHT.." It was hard on my throat, I can assure you, trying to be a sergeant major.  But it was always just one of those things. Just nearly done it but didn't. The same as what I said like with the Tom Hanks film the Money Pit and everything. We always had the wrong people working for us at the wrong time. We had the right people sometimes, and then we had the wrong people at other times. We just missed out. We could have been massive.”


Q) In early 1985 you recruited a new drummer, Jonathon Birch – what was he like to perform with?

Blake “The best drummer I think I ever played with in the ANWL was, the best drummer I could lock in with as a bass player, was probably JB to be honest with you. Pj was a great drummer - no qualms about his drumming, but I felt more at home with John Birch than I ever did with PJ.”


Q) In early 1985 you set out on a short UK tour, this time with a keyboardist in tow – Paul Shepley (who would leave in May to join The Damned). Who’s idea was it to recruit a keyboardist, and what songs would he have played on?

Blake "The geezer came from Southend, Essex and I think that Michael Bettell knew him. Anyway, he came in and played on a couple of tracks, and then we had him playing live. But the Damned nicked him! Cos I suppose they thought, cor he's alright, cos The Damned was bigger than us so he cleared off and went with The Damned. A little bit naughty to be honest with you, but I don't think we was too phased about it. He would have played on a Gilly composition, so probably something like ‘Queen and Country’, ‘Westside’ or something that would lend itself to having keyboards in it. I wish we'd never used keyboards so much on the Perfect Crime because I think it spoils it in places to be honest with you.”

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Q) Apart from a mini UK tour in early 1985, and the Australian tour at the end of December, there didn’t seem to be much band activity? 1986 and 1987 were also quiet years for the band on the touring front, why was that?

Blake "The trouble is - and I mean Nick would never admit to it, Nick didn't really want to tour at that time. We had a chance of doing South Africa I think it was, but he didn't want to do that. And then we had a chance of doing Japan, I think and he didn't want to do that either. He had a bit of ‘false illusions of grandeur’, you know? He wanted to go everywhere by first class, and drive around in a range rover. Well, we was a poxy punk band, you know? We couldn't do that. We went economy and was in the back with everyone else, that’s how it was. It’s a sad fact of life that you can't run before you can walk, and you've got to start somewhere. The only way you get anywhere in the music business is by touring, touring and keep touring. You can go out to America, start in one part of the Country and continually tour that Country - for years if you wanted to. It’s just one of them places, and I just don't think we toured enough to be honest with you. Touring makes you a tighter band, you write better songs, with different experiences and everything, and I think it would have been good for us. A lot of our songs came out of us touring and the best time to go into the studio and record stuff, is when you come back off of a tour because you are such a tight band. It’s unbelievable. You know exactly what the other person is thinking, or is going to play or when the drummer is going to hit the cymbal and all that. It’s a shame that we didn't do the ‘Branded album’ - it would have been a bloody good album. And it would have been a good lead into the Perfect Crime. It would have been a stepping stone to it, without a doubt."


Q) What are your memories of Australian Tour 1985?

Blake “Peter Noble was the fat Australian promoter with the Thai wife, that he treated like a slave, he lived in a posh area of Sydney, every time we went on stage he would say "Showtime, they're waiting for you" as far as promoters go he was quite good and very fair with us. The only trouble we had on that Australian tour was a skinhead girl getting stabbed at a gig but I can't remember what gig, I do remember that I paid for the ambulance to take her to hospital"


Q) When did you split from John Curd, was it before the Aussie 1985 tour?

Blake "Funnily enough it wasn't really a split from John Curd. We just went from Curd to Doug Smith - I never really liked him either - a typical manager. It wasn't like we are finishing with you, and we're going with him. I think Curd actually set the Doug Smith thing up for us to be honest with you. So there wasn't any sort of bad feelings or anything. Curd knew Doug Smith really well, from promoting Motorhead and Girlschool. So he obviously palmed us off onto Doug Smith. Knowing Curd he probably got something out of it, Doug probably bunged him a couple of grand - that’s probably how it happened!"

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Q) So in the Autumn of 1986 you went into ICC studios in Eastbourne where you recorded Perfect Crime album. Can you tell us about the recording of the album?

Blake "Yeah that was down at International Christian Communications studio in Eastbourne. So, I've been to Hastings, and I've been to Brighton and I've been to Eastbourne too! I think we had about a month down there if I remember rightly. Myself and Chris went down there and set up the deal. As I say it was a Christian studio, which is a bit ironic being the Anti-Nowhere League isn't it?! ICC which was at the back of the Grand hotel. I remember we got a weekly rate with them which included food and accommodation - a live in residence. And you didn't have to go to Church on Sunday! I don't know what the rate was, but it was a German bloke who owned it, Hans or Bruno... something like that. And I can't remember exactly how much it was, but something like £6000 a week. Well I remember I was in his office, we'd just started recording down there and he was talking to someone on the phone and he quoted them something like £4000 a week.  So I said – “Hold on! Did you just quote him a rate of £4000?” I said “..but why are we paying £6000 a week?” And he said, “..yeah but they are Christian”. So I thought that was a very un-Christian thing to do isn't it - to tuck someone up because they aren't a Christian?! But no, it was alright because it was a reasonable rate and it was a good studio. The label paid for it anyway. The sound engineer was alright, but we got a bit faggy with all that 'victims of oppression' and all that sort of stuff.”
 

Q) Like a lot of fans, I’ve always loved the Perfect album. Yes it’s very different to We Are the League, but it’s all about musical progression isn't it? Not doing the same record twice. Moving forward.

Blake "Yeah, you progress on in the band. And Nick saying what he does, you know he said to someone (about the album), ‘oh that was Winston's fault that was’. Well - all five of us went in there, recorded the album and were all really happy with it. We all had a hand in the production of it. We all had a hand in the playing of it. Jonathon Birch at that time had a septic bollock, so he struggled a bit to play on the album(!). But yes, we all was up for doing that album. And then, after the event - just cos people didn't like it - it’s no good saying "Its crap.. it’s this.. it’s that..". At the time everyone thought it was a great album. And I still do think it’s a great album. I was listening to some of the tracks from it yesterday, and I still think it’s a great album. I'm proud of it. It just shows how we'd all come on, you know - me as a bass player, Chris as a guitarist, Gilly as a guitarist, Nick as a singer. Collectively I think it is a really really good album. And if anyone says anything negative to me about it, well I say you don't know what you're talking about! I think it’s a really good album. To be totally honest, if there had been more money put into it, we could have got a bigger producer in and all that. A lot of the keyboards, I ain't that struck on and that sort of thing though.”


Q) Which tracks do you like most on the album, and which ones not so much?

Blake “Tracks like I don't believe this is My England I love. I love some of those tracks, but there’s a few things, I should have put my foot down on, as I didn't want to do. But I'm glad that we had that school choir in - that was St Bedes school choir, I'm glad we had the opera singer in. I think that sort of made it. Like the middle 8 on that when it comes in, sort of like Rule Britannia, in the way that it builds up. It’s a good album, but just little bits I would have changed to be honest. It was the sound engineer that did the introduction (brother to brother.. nation to nation..) he was a middle class sort of bloke who had an 'actooorss... voice' as you would use. A great album and I'm very proud of it. If the truth be known, Gillys also very proud of it and so am I. If Chris Exall or Nick doesn’t like it then that’s their problem. I've played the Perfect Crime album to people, and they've gone 'This ain't you, is it?' - Yes, it’s the Anti-Nowhere League! Fucking hell they say, like they are really shocked that we could actually play - or write a decent song. A lot of people's image of the ANWL is four blokes dressed up in leather, saying fuck, cunt piss shit all of the time! (Laughs). But we actually proved that we could write good songs, and that we could play our instruments.”

 

Q) In the ANWL documentary, Nick recollects how – when Doug Smith first listens to the mix of Perfect Crime, he puts his head in his hands and says ‘What the fuck have you done!!’.

Blake “Hmm, I'd take anything Nick says with a pinch of salt. I mean - when Nick was writing his book, he had to come over and ask me questions! (Laughs). But as far as I remember we went to Doug Smith and played him the near enough final cut, and he was reasonably happy with it - not as Nick/Gilly recalled in the documentary, how we'd ruined his songs. That did not happen. That did not happen at all. I remember it clearly, because Doug Smith cracked open a bottle of champagne - and I remember him saying 'you must always twist the cork on a bottle of champagne as you take it out..' I can remember that as clear as anything! One thing you will get with me is the truth - not some made up bollocks.”


Q) Perhaps it suffered a bit from the 80s style production, same as records by The Damned during that era (Phantasmagoria etc) But in the case of The Damned, they had major label behind them promoting it. Although they lost some fans during this period, they gained new ones. And I guess that’s something that the League didn’t have – the backing?

Blake "We didn't have the clout behind us. I remember we went and supported Big Country at Wembley Arena in 1984. Well a band like the ANWL ! But we actually went down a storm with Big Country's audience, which has got to say something about the League hasn't it. You know? To play Wembley Arena! We could have got booed off but we didn't - we went down an absolute storm."


Q) Were you happy with how the Perfect Crime album turned out? Gilly told me that it was missing a guitar track, and that he thought the keyboards were way too high in the mix.

Blake "It’s missing quite a lot. Funnily enough I was listening to some of it yesterday when I was here, and I thought it would be so good to go back into the studio, knowing what we know now - to go in and remix it. Because it was just us and an engineer mixing it. So, it was only really novices doing it, and it could have been so much better than what it was."


Q) In my humble opinion, I would say that ‘Atomic’ is the song that suffers the most from over use of keyboards on that album – I’ve heard the live version of that song, and it sounds so much better.

Blake "Yeah. Oh! That’s awful! You're right. Atomic is probably the worst track on there. I never really liked playing Atomic live actually, cos you had to play it with a flattened string. Or at the start of the song anyway, and it was a pain in the arse. But on the album that track didn't come across at all. I don't know what we was thinking of on that one! Some of them songs did - like Johannesburg that came across quite well. A lot of them songs did.” 


Q) Did you not tour the Perfect Crime album when it was released?

Blake “I didn't keep a gig list year by year, but I know we didn't do a tour to promote The Perfect Crime - that was a fuck up from day one and down to Bronze records and the prat who's name I can't remember who owned it”


Q) ‘I Don’t Believe this Is My England’ is a stand out track on ‘Perfect Crime’ - the song has got everything: great lyrics, great vocals, melody, guitar work (Mark Gilham) and also the really catchy bass line, which drives the whole song.

Blake “I was surprised nobody picked up on I don't believe this is my England, it could have had some commercial success, but in this day and age I expect some people would think it's too right wing, and you would have Antifa and Leftist loonies picketing Nick's gigs. There is nothing inherently wrong with being a patriot, I'm British by birth and English by the grace of God and very proud of my heritage.”


Q) So what was the turning point then, because you appeared on Meltdown Thames TV show at end of 1987 performing 3 new songs off of the album, The Shining, Johan and Atomic. That was the same show that Lemmy was on with Motorhead and - according to Nick (in one of his interviews) Lemmy turned around to you guys, or to Nick and said your new album is shit. Do you remember that?”

Blake "Total bollocks. Lemmy never even spoke to Nick at that show. Its bollocks. Nick's lying there, I'm sorry it’s just not true. Nick didn't even know Lemmy. The only person who knew Lemmy was me.. cos I was seeing his girlfriend when he was away on tour, a girl called Sharon Ashley who lived in Earls Court. So no, Nick's talking nonsense there. I thought it was a bloody good show to be honest with you. I thought we come across really well. A totally alien audience. I know they cheered and clapped anyway, but I think we went down alright. Nick used to wear makeup - his wife used to come along and put makeup on him and all that sort of stuff. That ain't a big tough biker, is it?! (Laughs) But that’s the way we was heading - we was trying to get successful and make money out of it. You know? A lot of people say, well that ain't the punk ideal, but we was never really a punk band anyway. I was in it for the money, I wasn't in it for anything else."

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Q) What happened after the Meltdown 1987 TV appearance, there was no tour to support the album – why did it all end?

Blake “I think what happened Barry, was that we went up our own arses a little bit. Nick was one of the main ones that wanted to fly fucking first class, and go everywhere in high class cars and that sort of stuff. It wouldn't have mattered to me if we'd gone up in a train and a taxi. You know, we was what we was at the end of the day - we was a poxy old punk band. If we had worked a lot fucking harder than what we did do, I reckon we could have done a lot better than we did. But I think we fucked up at the end of the day. We could have been a very big band if we'd worked a lot harder than what we did - but we didn't and the rest is history.”
 

Q) Finally - a number of fans wanted me to ask you: what was your first motorbike, and what are you riding these days?

Blake "My first bike was when I was 16 which was the Yamaha FS1E then after that, I took my motorbike test on my 17th birthday, passed it and got straight on a 750 Norton Commando, which was part of my dad's redundancy money, when he got made redundant from the printing firm. So that was my first bike. What did I have after that? From Norton Commando, I went to a Triton which is a Triumph engine in a Norton featherbed frame. Then after that I had a triple - a 3 cylinder Triumph which is my passion and that’s what I work on now for a living. I've still got a Harley now. But in-between that I had lots of motorbikes, choppers, Harleys and stuff like that. I've still got a Harley now, well I've got a Buell - which is a Harley engine sports bike, and I've got a BMW, I've got three Triumphs. I've got loads! Motorbikes have always been my passion. My dad was a motorcyclist, my granddad was a motorcyclist, a couple of my uncles were motorcyclists, and they rode Triumphs as well.   And I've always worked on them, and I've always been mechanically minded and I started in the motor trade when I first left the Approved school.”

MANY THANKS TO CLIVE FOR HIS TIME!
The final part of this interview - part 3 to follow shortly, which will cover the period 1991 to present.

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