The usual reaction when people mention the Lurkers is "punk's poor relations". This is wrong. The Lurkers are proof that all the safety pins and bondage trousers in the world mean nothing if you don't have the tunes. The Lurkers had no pretensions, no hype, no frills and were nothing less than pure rock'n'roll. This is a band who deserve so much more respect than they get.

Though The Lurkers fitted the punk mould music wise with short sharp bursts of tuneful, machine gun punk they were certainly at odds with it image and attitude wise and the more their career went on the more they seemed to feel and express it. From the start they weren't impressed with clothes.

We didn't make any effort to look ridiculously punky. We used to see bands who put safety pins through their ears and we thought these people had read too much of The Sun newspaper and thought this is what you were supposed to do to be a punk rocker. All that gobbing was just fucking moronic we thought. The Lurkers never ligged. We hated that showbiz shit. We just preferred our own boozers. We thought a lot of them (other punk bands) would sell their grannies just to get fame. Opportunists to become rock stars. We didn't have a lot of time for the Kings Road bullshit. Arturo  Punk 77 Interview 1999

Not for them safety pins and spiky barnets. Their hair was unfashionably long a la Faces style and their clothes what anyone on the street would be wearing. Live shots either show them wearing leather jackets and jeans or Travolta style disco white jackets or suits and flares! Ironic as a Beggars Banquet promotional campaign was The Lurkers as anti Grease and Travolta

This lack of glamour and unpretentiousness no doubt cost them in terms of record deals in the mad gold rush scramble of  '77 and probably made the band more insular - A kind of us against the world attitude.

The name of our band is The Lurkers because that's what we are...we're all a bunch of temperamental so ands so's. But we won't conform to anybodies fashions. People like Joe Strummer and those other three posers he hangs out with; its all one big front and its all bullshit. Before the Lurkers I was playing jazz...this New Wave thing came along and  I was crazy on it. We all were because we thought it was genuinely outcast by society. But its all just another fashion. All these groups are the same. Suddenly their hair is getting longer and they're all saying different things...gradually. We rushed into this business when we first started. We thought that all we had to do was do a few gigs and that was it. Then all of a sudden we are reading we were reading about The Damned and Adam & The Ants, and the whole lot are wankers...the're not interested in music. They're just interested in images. They all want to be heroes. ..When this group breaks up I'm not going anywhere near another rock group. Esso Sounds 3.6.78

They still found time to get the worst from punk rock. Howard Wall was beaten up on a bus by punk bashers in '77 and was hospitalised with suspected meningitis in '79 courtesy of some misplaced gobbing! Right up to the end thoughThe Lurkers were a down to earth punk rock band and that's why we loved them.

Friends have told me that they see you as the only genuine 'people band' left from the early days of the Roxy. Would you go along with that?

Howard. "Yeah I agree"...Pete. "The Lurkers haven't changed from their first gigs. We're more professional and experienced but we haven't changed." Sounds 3.6.78