You won’t re-release their stuff for obvious reasons but this alone has made the price of their records treble in value. While I have nothing but contempt for Ian Stuarts beliefs and later output I recognise their first two singles and album as punk classics and treat them as such.......

I agree that the original band were a great punk band. They were about as raw as it gets. It is a shame that the name was dragged through the gutter like that. The other three guys in the band were really pissed off too. Grinny the drummer came from solid Northern Socialist stock. When they made records for us Ian Stewart showed no signs of Fascism. The skinhead image was a – maybe in hindsight misconceived – fashion thing. It was cooked up by a bunch of us, including the band’s then management and the Photographer Peter Kodik. The teeth on the back of the sleeve are Patti Paladin’s of Snatch fame – NY art punk!

Early Skrewdriver

Patti Palladin's mouth and screw !!!!!

They sent in a tape from Blackpool with a hilarious photo of them in torn blazers and flares standing in front of Blackpool tower. The whole thing was so gormless and the tape such a noise I couldn’t resist. I think that the motivation for signing them was a reaction against the studied arty side of the Pistols and the Clash as projected by Malcolm and Bernie. Here were real kids from the arsehole of nowhere and very angry at anything they felt like being angry at. But as out of town kids they were a bit in awe of it all. They were part of that 2nd generation of Punks inspired by the Pistols. I think we might have pulled Streetfighter because of worries about violence at their gigs. The whole punk thing in general was disintegrating a bit by then and the cliquey scene that had started in 76 had fallen apart. It had all got bigger and there was some nasty violence at some of the gigs. The fun really began to go out of it then.