The early days of The Slits have a reputation for an atmosphere of fun, but also a mood of random chaos: How much of that reputation is accurate? TP: Sometimes things got really intense: people ask if we were ever subjected to violence? Let me tell you, please document how many times we were harassed by people. It's hard to count how many times. I remember one time, the Pistols were playing at The Screen on The Green, Islington. In the foyer, this guy came up to us, came up behind Ari Up and said, "So you're The Slits? Well, Here's a slit for you" and he just shoved a knife into her backside. Sliced her butt, quite literally, right there. Luckily for Ari, she was wearing so many layers of clothes, the damage was limited.

Slits at Woolwich - Photo Ray Stevenson

It just seemed to others that we were asking for it. The vibe towards us was, "know your place woman"! It seemed that we couldn't go anywhere without getting a reaction from people.The attitude was that we were asking for it, but we certainly weren't asking anyone to come up behind us with a knife. Another time we went to a sound system blues dance as we did so often at that time, but on this one particular occasion I remember, someone took offence at what we were, how we looked, and chose to push a huge bass speaker stack right onto us. We just got out of the way in time. Women looking like we did, walking in with the rebel dread Don Letts, sometimes people just couldn't accept it. You see, one thing I'd like to stress is, The Slits always had a sense of humour, a sense of the ridiculous, and some people just did not get it. They took it so seriously, and we got it in the neck.

The early Slits concerts have always been remembered as explosive events. Jon Savage recounts the following memory in England's Dreaming: "Hostilities broke out . . . a concert played by Throbbing Gristle at The London Film Co-Op . . . ended in a pitched battle between the groups on stage and several members of The Slits and The Raincoats . . . the nihilist techniques of the age, whether inside Punk or out, fed back." Nils Stevenson in his diaries of 1976 to 1979 (now published as Vacant: A Diary of The Punk Years) wrote this entry on 1st April 1977: "Nora's daughter, the fourteen year old singer with The Slits, Ari Up, is a live one. Last night at the Roxy she attacked Paul Cook . . . (destroying) the jacket he had stolen from Malcolm. But I love the racket The Slits make . . . their gigs are as unpredictable as Ari's mood swings . . . Don Letts is filming everything."

3AM: Tessa, do these quotations from Nils Stevenson's and John Savage's books bring back any memories?

TP: Yes they do bring back memories. But Nils Stevensons' memory is a little inaccurate! It was me who attacked Paul Cook, not Ari. I don't know why, it was a kind of irrational act, and I attacked Paul Cook. I ruined his jacket! Cut a hole right through the back of it. Why did I do it? I don't know. I was only seventeen. I didn't realise he'd just stolen it from Malcolm McLaren that very day. (Laughs.)

Tessa at the Vortex 1977

3AM: Tell us more about touring and the audience response in those days. TP: We toured a lot: in Italy the audiences threw roses at us in stage! Compare that with the early days in London when the spit from the audiences just rained on us. We were spat on from head to toe! My hair, the bass would be covered in it. I don't know how that started. I think it was the early Pistols audiences who initiated it, but all of us hated it. It was disgusting, but the audiences thought that was what we wanted. It was their sign of appreciation! You couldn't escape it. Sometimes we just walked off stage. I remember when we did the White Riot tour with The Clash, Joe Strummer caught hepatitis. I remember visiting poor old Joe in hospital.

3AM: How do you look back on those very early days of punk? Do you think history has reassessed or reinterpreted the reality of what happened to serve various people's personal agendas?

TP: Punk to me wasn't an American thing at all, it was a very British thing. According to so many people, it all started off when Malcolm McLaren went over to America and linked up with the New York Dolls, but punk is just a word. Punk would've happened anyway, whatever else you want to call it, whatever else it would have been called, it was inevitable. Malcolm McLaren has taken far too much credit for it. Punk would've happened anyway, there was a whole undercurrent going on, and something was about to explode back in 76. Something just had to explode. Punk is just another label, and I'd rather not be labelled with that name. It's just another label. But as I said before, people like a label don't they?

3AM: Which bands and personalities from that time really stand out for you?

TP: The only two bands who really stand out for me from that time were The Pistols and Subway Sect. I loved The Ramones too. It's sad some of them have died now. I hear Dee Dee Ramone was an artist too. John Lydon used to draw too. Did you know that? I thought he was brilliant. He drew strange distorted faces, distorted images. I often wonder if he still paints. I admired John Lydon for his wit. Viv Albertine, and Ari (Up) were very close to Sid and The Pistols. As you know Ari Up is John Lydon's stepdaughter, because he ended up marrying Nora, Ari's mum.

3AM: What are your personal memories of Sid Vicious? How do you see what happened to him in retrospect? TP: I feel upset when I read all the nonsense people write about Sid now. Sid was always one of my favourite people, always my favourite, and he was a gentle soul. Him and John just really complemented each other. I think of Sid as very gentle, and now I see he was a victim, a victim of Malcolm McLaren, a victim of Nancy Spungen too. Nancy travelled around with us on one of our tours. I just can't put it into words what I think about Nancy! Sid was gentle, you know, and he was just used up in the end. To me he epitomised the spirit of what punk was, and he had a lot of humour! I'm always looking for humour in people, and looking into their intention. He was hilarious, like a kid, like a cartoon figure. He also had a vulnerability and naivety that I look for in people, something pure. He had that purity. Definitely. I think it deeply affected John to lose Sid as a friend. I'm sure of it.

A rare picture of Sid Vicious in his pre-Pistols days drumming for the Banshees at the 1976 100 Club Punk Festival

In conversation with Julian Temple in the film/diary The Filth and The Fury John Lydon speaks of his closeness to Sid: "I feel guilty about Sid: I wish I could have told him more about what to expect. . . . Sid was my mate. A very very close mate. He just used to laugh at everything; a genius in that way. We did lots of mad things together. We used to busk together. Me with a violin, Sid with a tambourine, maybe a broken guitar!" Speaking of Sid's demise on the American tour, Lydon stated, again to Julian Temple: "Steve Jones and Paul Cook flew around America with Malcolm McLaren. They didn't want to be on the tour bus, cos they said they were bored with all the reggae I was playing. . . . The point is, Sid is my mate and I didn't want him to be a junkie, this is why we travelled on the tour bus together, this is why Sid was to stick with me. He was far too young for that shit. . . . I feel nothing but grief, sorrow and sadness for Sid, to the point that if I really talk about it, I just burst into tears. He was someone I really cared for. I can't be more honest than that. I've lost my friend. I couldn't have changed it. I was too young. God, I wish I was smarter. You can look back on it and think, 'I could have done something'. He died for fuck's sake! And they just turned it into making money. How hilarious for them. Fucking cheek. I'll hate them forever for doing that. You can't get more evil than that, can you, you know? No respect. . . . Vicious? Poor sod!".

3AM: What other types of music were you listening to at that time? Which other sounds influenced you?

TP: I was also listening to a lot of hard dub music, sound system music. Stereograph Sound System (U- Roy's Sound System) were a huge influence. We used to go to the Bali High club in Streatham. Burning Spear were a very strong influence too. Augustus Pablo made music which is just timeless.. I loved Pharaoh Sanders, Charlie Mingus and Roland Kirk too. I remember being interested, because Roland Kirk could play two wind instruments at the same time! Don Letts had a massive selection of important sound system tapes from the mid to late 70's which he used to give us. Don Letts introduced a whole new dimension to the early punk scene, and he influenced all of us. We owe him a lot. It wouldn't have been very exciting at all if we'd only had those very early punk records to listen to. Don played us a lot of dub music down at The Roxy. We all used to go to sound system dances together all the time.

Jah Shaka was an incredible experience. Live in session. We used to go to a lot of shebeens, blues parties: people used to take over an old house for the night, and just hold sound system dances all night. I really miss that in Ladbroke Grove. Play all night. Sound system. At night time now, it's dead in comparison. Everything just goes dead, with security cameras everywhere. Everything feels like there is so much less soul in life now. There's not the edge to life, the sense of risk and adventure. I listened to Big Youth and Keith Hudson's music too: Intense music. Jamaica was, and still is a nucleus of so much talent, so much sheer poetry.

Speaking of this period to Kent Zimmermann in Lydon's autobiography, No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs, Don Letts recounts the story from his perspective: "I thought the punks were just a bunch of crazy white people. I didn't really tune into it. When I became the DJ (at The Roxy) and started meeting them, I picked up on what they were doing. . . . They liked me because I gave them access to Jamaican culture, and they turned me on to a culture that didn't fucking exist before they came along. . . . John Lydon was a serious dude because there were very few people around during those times who gave off that aura. . . . I started taking him to reggae clubs. We went to a place called The Four Aces in Dalston, which is the heaviest reggae club in London. No white people went in there. The only white person in there was John, because I took him. Everybody left John alone. We black people had a respect for him because he came across as a real dude. He wasn't created by the media. . . . He could walk into places white people could never go with total immunity. . . . We all felt like society's outlaws. . . . John used to visit me in Forest Hill. . . . Jeannette (Lee), John, The Slits . . . Keith Levene, sitting around the apartment listening to reggae and burning spliffs."

Lydon in turn, remembers meeting Don Letts for the first time: "Don and I first said hello and hung out after a Pistols gig at The Nashville. We went back to Forest Hill and spent the whole night rapping on about reggae….Don didn't know, but it was the night I was frustrated and getting ready to quit the Pistols. Going to those reggae clubs gave me a lift".

3AM: Did you ever play any unusual venues?

TP: We were always looking for weird offbeat places to play too: we wanted to play in prisons. We didn't want to play ordinary venues. We played a kids' school once! 5 pence entrance. The kids threw all kinds of things at us, gave us a hard time. We gave as good as we got though! (Laughs.) Don filmed it all on grainy rough super 8 film. (see below)

3AM: What was your relationship with the press and journalists at that time?

TP: Terrible. Absolutely terrible. The Slits always had a bad time with journalists because they all seemed boring, arrogant or ill at ease with us. We seemed to make them feel uncomfortable, and they asked us really boring questions. In the end, we just used to take the piss out of them, try to annoy them or wind them up. What else could we do when they seemed so poorly prepared, ill informed and nervous? If they hadn't been so banal, we could have communicated with them, but they just used to ask us the most mundane questions like: "Oh, how long have you played together?" or something equally uninspiring. We were four crazy young girls, and of all the interesting questions they could have asked us, that's the kind of thing they used to come up with!