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Well here we go with Jesse, the force behind The Wasps. Fair play to
the bloke I gave him some difficult questions which he answered in
one way or another. At the end of the day I honestly can't make my
mind up one way or another about the band but what I do know is
Jesse's enthusiasm comes across even now and lets face it the boys
knocked out some great toons!! |
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You
were formed in early 1976 and were one of the first punk bands yet you are
never mentioned as among the originators. Perception is that you were one
of the second wave following the Pistols and Clash and Damned. Why do you
think this was and do you feel left out of the history of that early
period?
When The Wasps first started playing we were playing local gigs in the
East end of London in pubs & clubs that were traditionally Rock and Blues
strongholds. We had no management at that time where as the Pistols and
some of the other bands you mentioned had management right from the start
and were able to get to play in the West end and central London. It would
have been easier for us if we had been playing Punk venues from the start,
but it was a good education to do it the hard way anyway.
What was the
Wasps early sound and look like and I’m talking here mid 76. What covers
did you play in the set and how would you describe the Wasps music at that
period?
The Wasps have always had an element of Pop in their sound as have The
Ramones & The Buzzcocks for example, but in the early days there were four
creative members in the band who had different musical influences and it
took a few gigs for The Wasps sound to gel. During these early days we did
a few covers in our set, these included “Jean Genie”, Lou Reed’s “Waiting
for my man”, which we later did on the “Live at the Vortex” album, a Power
Punk version of “Paint it black”, Tommy Tucker’s “Hi heel sneakers” and we
did “Search and destroy” once or twice. Our early sound was quite heavy
and we were described by Giovanni Dadomo of Sounds magazine as “looking
back street chic dressed in black with subtle touches of yellow to flesh
out the name’s connotations”.
Where did you
play and what sort of reaction did you get?
At the very beginning as I have said, we played a lot of pubs in east
London and surrounding areas and it was difficult as most of the patrons
at these venues were looking forward to watching a Rock or Blues band and
a lot of what we were doing was going right over their heads. But we soon
started to build a following and began to play all over London.
When did you first become aware of the Pistols, their look and sound and
how did this change the Wasps sound and look?
I don’t really remember becoming aware in that sense of the Pistols;
everything seemed to be happening at the same time. Steve Wollaston and
myself had been listening to The Stooges, MC5 and a few such bands for
quite awhile, but to be honest I think at many Punk gigs the real stars
and the most influential people was probably the audience. I think the
atmosphere brushed off on everybody and you can’t really pinpoint where
you picked things up from, although I am on record as having said I did
and still do reckon the “Bollocks” album to be an outstanding piece of
work by anyone’s standards.
Did you
actually view yourselves as a punk band? If you did when did you stop
viewing yourselves as one?
The short answer to that question is yes, we did view ourselves as a Punk
band, but we still felt that a good song structure and melody was
important to what we were doing. To my mind Punk is an attitude, I had it
then and now and always will have it. I don’t know how the rest of the
band feel, I can only speak for myself on this question.
How did it feel
watching other bands some who had just formed like The Unwanted or Wire
get on a record and get record deals when you had been going for so long?
It didn’t really bother us because we were changing all the time,
improving and really enjoying it and still growing as a band.
Why did it take so long to get a record out? Effectively the first wave of
punk was over? Did you think you had missed the opportunity and look at
some of the other bands who had made it and think why them and not us?
I am sorry Paul but I really never thought like that, it’s okay to look
back now and see the first wave, the second wave, etc, but at the time it
was just an on going situation and I’ve never been disheartened or envious
of other bands and I have always been glad for them if they got a record
deal. I’ve always believed that The Wasps were among the best of the New
Wave regardless of when they first made a record or first played the Roxy
or whatever. I think we have to be a bit careful with questions like this,
it’s seems to suggest an elitism usually associated with Jazz fans arguing
about purism and the like. We have to be careful not to become “look back
bores”; I think this is exactly the opposite of what Punk was about.
Where and when
are the pictures in the sleevenotes from. I like the Wasps patches you and
Steve are wearing.
The pictures in the sleeve notes of our “Punkryonics” album are mostly
taken at our very early gigs at The Bridgehouse, Canning Town, London.
JJJJ-Jenny is a
great song and allegedly about a girl at the Roxy. Can you tell me about
the song? The French lovey bit in the middle was a nice touch! What did
you think of the Roxy – the atmosphere, people and bands?
Yeah, it’s true, I asked a Punk girl at the Roxy what her name was and she
stuttered “JJJJenny” and when I got home I just sat down and wrote it
while I still had the atmosphere of the Roxy in my head and got together
with the rest of band the next day to work on the arrangement and dynamics
of the song. I think the Roxy club in its heyday was great, it was a
genuine Punk venue, it was seedy, unpredictable and real and I loved it.
Even though you sometimes had to threaten to beat the management to death
with a mike stand to get paid for a gig.
You say that
the suits were just a joke for three gigs but wasn’t it a huge risk to
have your only promo interview in Sounds featuring those suits? Your fan
base would see you like that and obviously be confused.
First of all Paul, I never did that promo interview in Sounds it was
written without my knowledge or consent (management interference) and I
cringe whenever I read it. Anyway, the suits were never worn for any gig,
they were worn for a photo shoot which was used in the promo for the
Sounds interview and a short live video of three songs. Yeah maybe some of
our fans could have been confused, but Punk not just about what you wear,
it’s an attitude and I would have preferred to focus on our music. We
always wanted the band to grow into the public domain organically and by
word of mouth and to some extent this was happening until interference
from publicity seeking old wave management began to conflict with what the
band was really about.
What do you
remember of The John Peel shows and how much did they help the bands
career?
John Peel’s contribution to Punk was massive. A lot of bands were given
the chance to be heard on a national radio station who normally wouldn’t
have been. I enjoyed doing the Peel shows and think that the excellent way
the sessions were produced showed the bands at their raw best. As for
helping The Wasps, it’s true to say that it did make a difference. John
Peel came across as a genuine guy and totally sincere about wanting to
give new bands a chance to be heard.
1978 was a
weird time, Record companies had seen off punk and power pop was its
replacement. The suits seem to be positioning yourself in this market.
Also why the deliberate layoff which must have been commercial suicide?
Firstly as I have said, The Wasps had a Power Pop element in their music
right from the beginning and this is evident in “Teenage Treats”,
“JJJJenny” and even “Can’t wait till ‘78” now a minor league classic is
really a superior slice of Punk with a massive dose of Power Pop thrown in
for good measure. As for the suits, as I have said, we only wore them
once.
The deliberate layoff to be honest was the brainchild of our manager at
the time who wanted to showcase the band to major record companies and
secure a deal. The band was never happy with the idea and it stopped our
momentum at a time when we were going like an express train. All the
members of the band loved playing live and it was a very frustrating
period and the beginning of heavy management interference against the
bands wishes and this is when all the problems started.
Did no US
companies show an interest in you?
Yes they did, Jet Records, CBS are two that I know about, but again
management was holding out and looking for big money up front where as we
just wanted to make records and get on with it.
In the end you signed to RCA not a label known for it punk rock . How did
you come to sign to them and was it the Wasps mk2 with Gary who signed and
played on Rubber Cars or the Wasps mk 3 with Tiam Grant etc?
I don’t think that anybody would think that signing to one of the largest
record companies in the world could be a bad move. It was okay for Bowie,
RCA managed to sell 60 million records for Elvis even though he was dead
and even about 10 million albums for Country singer Jim Reeves even though
he was dead as well. Looking back, perhaps after signing to RCA we should
all have committed suicide and sold a few million records. In short RCA
were a disaster, the A&R man who signed the band left almost immediately
and his successor was never going to get any credit for a successful Wasps
since he never signed the band in the first place, so we got very little
help from the record company and a lot of aggravation from previous
managers trying to claim a piece of the action. It wasn’t long before the
whole thing turned into a circus of threats of litigation, writs,
injunctions and any other legal terminology you can think of. Subsequently
at that point I think I was as close to a nervous breakdown as I have ever
been although I didn’t realise it at the time.
In the
sleevenotes you state that it was RCA’s best selling single and was
expected to go to N01. I’m struggling to believe this but it’s a great
thought if true of The Wasps at No 1.
Well let me clarify that. When I received the print outs of RCA’s sales of
singles for the first week of the release of “Rubber Cars” our record had
sold more copies that week than all their other singles put together and I
was told the record was likely to go straight to number one. However, by
the end of the first week of release, RCA had to pull the record out of
the shops due to litigation arising from disputes between band members and
management. “Rubber Cars” was a personal song and was written after a
relative of mine was killed in a senseless car accident and was never
really meant to be in our set, let alone our debut single, but someone in
RCA heard me strumming it one day and thought it should be our first
single. The best version of “Rubber Cars” is on the “Punkryonics” album.
Gary Wellman is
quite bitter about the whole band breakup and his actual words to me were
that he toned the whole interview thing down for libel reasons. Band
breakups are strange things and people take them very personally and never
forget almost like family rows and I understand this. You don’t have to
answer this but why is he so bitter and why when you reformed The Wasps
did you not ask him to play again?
I am sorry that Gary is bitter about the break up of the band; it must be
quite a burden to carry bitterness around with you for 25 years. My
emotion about the break up was disappointment and this I suspect was also
true of John and Steve. John however joined another band and Steve went on
to become a published writer, but still is involved in various music
projects. In all bands that break up there is inevitably one and sometimes
several members who are bitter about it, so Gary is not unique in this.
However, he was only about 17 at the time and had not yet become used to
the disappointments and knocks that everybody has to take in the music
business if they want to succeed. On the contrary up to this point, Gary
had been fortunate to be in the right place at the right time and join a
band who were already up and running and had everything in place including
most of the songs. Unfortunately the last piece of the jigsaw didn’t fall
into place for Gary, or for any of us for that matter. Perhaps Gary should
have not given up at this point, maybe he should have formed his own band
and carried on, he certainly had the youth, ability and talent as a
guitarist to go all the way.
I always enjoyed working with Gary in the band, he was excellent and as
for why I never asked Gary to join a reformed Wasps line up, the answer is
very simple. I split from the manager of the band and the rest of the band
unfortunately were still in his control and legally we were unable to get
back together unless I went back to being managed by their manager. It
would have been great to get back with John, Steve and Gary, because as
musicians the chemistry was definitely right. The energy was there and we
had a unique feeling for working together. The ironic thing about this is
that it was me who got the band involved with the manager in question in
the first place and for this I do feel responsible.
You were a
passionate individual. You wrote to Sounds defending the band in the
letters page and Can’t wait till ’78 was an optimistic bit of top quality
punkery but ’78 failed to deliver for The Wasps. You had been going two
years. Did you start to get disillusioned? Did you think punk had had its
day?
I am still a passionate person and no, I wasn’t disillusioned, but I was a
bit sad. It had been such a fantastic period, but I just knew the current
situation in ’77 couldn’t go on in it’s present form and I knew that the
majority of the bands who would survive would be the “safe bets” who would
never really rock the establishment and I was curious about just how much
they would compromise to succeed. The best Punk bands didn’t compromise
and will live on in the pages of Punk fanzines and websites such as Punk
’77 for many years. Punk by the sheer nature of what it is cannot evolve,
it is what it is and it is great.
You were
obviously an ambitious band, you changed management a couple of time,
signed to a major, visited the USA but ended up with nothing. Do you think
in hindsight your ambition hindered rathered than helped?
What ambition? Our management was ambitious, all we wanted to do was to
just get out there and play our music. If by ambition you mean we wanted
to reach more people than there were down the local pub by means of the
help of a record company, then I plead guilty. The whole idea of putting
The Wasps together was not so that we could disappear into oblivion and
die an anonymous and honourable death in order to prove our Punk
credibility. However, ironically, that’s what happened. But in a sense you
do have a point looking from where you are standing, but you have to
understand it was the moves made by our management and not the band that
may have given the impression that we were thinking about the business
side of the band more than the musical.
Talking of getting out there and playing our music. I’ve just come back
from the UK after having a constructive meeting with John and Steve. Watch
this space!
Unlike a lot of punk bands you weren’t the straight 1234 format. Yours
songs had some style, were catchy and had distinctive vocals. The Wasps
story is a classic tale of rock’n’roll. Cheers for giving us some great
music.
Regards
Paul |
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