Joe Strummer
Joe Strummer
John Graham Mellor, known by his stage name Joe Strummer, was a British musician, singer, actor and songwriter who was the co-founder, lyricist, rhythm guitarist and lead vocalist of the Clash, a punk rock band that was formed in 1976 as part of the original wave of British punk. Their music also incorporated elements of reggae, ska, dub, funk, rap, and rockabilly. The Clash were one of the most prominent of the emerging bands in the UK punk rock scene,...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionMusician
Date of Birth21 August 1952
boarding considered gets home kids school sent yorkshire
The only place I considered home was the boarding school in Yorkshire my parents sent me to. It's easier, isn't it? I mean, it gets kids out the way, doesn't it?
bad english-musician good sent side
Anyway, it's good to be sent back to the underground. There's always a good side to bad things and the good side to this is that at least everyone has to go back down.
mimicking pretending
We sing in English, not mimicking some American rock singer's accent. That's just pretending to be something you ain't.
bit dad felt soft split stay stayed whatever
I get on all right with my parents. But I don't see them very much. They split up when I was eight. I stayed with my mum, but I felt it was a bit soft with her. I could do whatever I liked, and I wasn't getting nowhere, so I went to stay with my dad.
art found hopeless passed total
I found that I was just hopeless at school. It was just a total bore. First, I passed in art and English, and then just art. Then I passed out.
english french nice played scenes
When we played Paris, the English punks would come over, and they got to know the French punks. There was some nice scenes in the back alleys.
father saw seen time twice
I only saw my father twice a year. If I'd seen him all the time I'd probably have murdered him by now. He was very strict.
america beer english-musician enjoy full hit playing singing sure
What I like about playing America is you can be pretty sure you're not going to get hit with a full can of beer when you're singing and I really enjoy that!
I'm proud of all our records. Even the crap ones.
complete failure good hippies hippy million movement reasons represent
The hippy movement was a failure. All hippies around now just represent complete apathy. There's a million good reasons why the thing failed, OK. But the only thing we've got to live with is that it failed.
god man
If you ain't thinkin' about man and God and law, then you ain't thinkin' about nothin'.
music stuff supposed
To me, our music is like Jamaican stuff - if they can't hear it, they're not supposed to hear it. It's not for them if they can't understand it.
We did eight gigs in super-stadiums, all the biggest joints - L.A. Coliseum, Oakland Coliseum, Shea Stadium.
worry feels
I like to just feel how I feel and not worry about it really.