By Will Buckley, Second Year Politics and International Relations
Following his US Metal Box Rebuilt in Dub Tour and ahead of a run of UK shows, post-punk progenitor Jah Wobble sat down with Epigram to talk about, well, basically everything.
For years the term ‘punk-poet’, a phrase becoming increasingly ubiquitous in Bristol, has caused eyes to roll out of skulls, conjuring images of privately educated Pete Shelley wannabes.
Spend no longer than five minutes on Instagram reels and you’ll be sure to find heaps of current UK punk and post-punk offerings; all of course being insufferable Depop dandies (doing their best faux cockney accents) and all, of course, describing themselves as punk-poets.
Jah Wobble is undoubtedly a real punk poet (and Cockney), and there is not a hint of artifice about the former Public Image Limited and established solo bassist.
To playing bass sat down on TV (with deliberately blacked out teeth), to packing it all in at the height of his career and choosing become a tube driver, then releasing countless albums ranging from dub to ambient. The man has always been authentic, and authentically working class.
Shortly after the initial niceties, we begin the interview and I open with a question about his recent collaboration with Horace Andy - Jamaican music legend and frequent collaborator with Bristol's Massive Attack.
Talking of the collaboration, Wobble said, '[it was an] absolute honour, a pleasure, totally unexpected’... 'the record company said, ‘you’re like a featured artist on this, do you want your name on the cover’, and I said ‘is it ok?’ to which they replied, 'absolutely it is, yeah.'
'Obviously I grew up listening to Jamaican, music so it’s been a huge influence on me, he’s one of the last of the great, great singers.'
This answer, for me, portrayed one of the best qualities about Jah Wobble: for him, as clichéd as it sounds - it really is all about the music. There are no sudden right wing turns here, no anti-immigration rants (like those we see from former collaborator John Lydon), just a genuinely nice guy who loves the music, respects the greats and gets on with it.
Shortly after this, as Wobble has been known to do in interviews, we did end up discussing politics. I ask him how he feels about the aforementioned middle class punk takeover, as a major post-punk figure himself.
‘Well - - God, there’s so much I could say about all that. When Thatcher socially engineered a middle class revolution in society, lots of people were sort of left behind and cut off.. I could see exactly what was happening. The middle class really grew, in numbers and in strength ... they tend to be a mercantile race.’
His words ring true, especially in a city (and country) that seems to become more middle-classified by the day. He goes on to say one of my new favourite aphorisms:
‘[The] middle class love committees, they love taking control of things’, going on to clarify that he doesn’t bear grudges over this, ‘it sounds really bitter; I don’t go through life with a chip on my shoulder ... I’m a great believer in inclusivity.’
During our discussion, it strikes me how Wobble seems to have a pronounced humanist philosophy as his guiding light. Without confirming or denying, he says:
'Well, I was very angry in the '80s. Angry at the establishment, angry at Thatcher, all that stuff, and then, you know, I stopped drinking, I had to adapt ... I stopped doing drugs, I had to adapt to life, start to take things on life’s terms. I got on with it. I took life on life’s terms. You know you go in to life and take life and people as they come.’
If I was to surmise the life and times of the man in four words, it would be ‘I got on with it’, a sentiment no doubt informed by his working class East End upbringing. No pondering of legacies here - you do your bit and you get on with it.
He furthers this sentiment later on when I half-jokingly ask him which piece of his music he’d send into space. He responds by saying: ‘I’d wilfully send something really obscure, 'Divine Mother', off Heaven and Earth, (from the) '90s.'
'I’ve done so many albums, I love the music. It’s an emanation of yourself in some way, but I don’t have an extreme attachment to it. I find that really tiresome when people worry so much about how they look or what represents them. I’m not too bothered to find something that absolutely represents me, it doesn’t matter.’
After this follows a brief but spirited discussion about football (Wobble is a lifelong Spurs fan), and then the interview concludes. In an unexpectedly nice move - even for him - he finishes up by asking about university and wraps up our talk telling me he think’s I’ll be getting a first class degree. The guy is wise, literate, and loves people, but I’m sure a glance at my essays would change his mind rather quickly.
With a current music scene that’s as edgy as a Westlife album (that is to say, not very), true punk-poets should be treasured, and Jah Wobble is one of the remaining few. Whether it’s Dub, Ambient, or another Public Image Limited redux, I’m excited to see whatever he does next.
Featured Image: Ian Cheek PressWhat's your favourite Jah Wobble song?
