With the buzz about Sham spreading it was no surprise a major stepped in and that was Polydor. Surprisingly they agreed to the bands demands about featuring live material. 

Dave Parsons At this point we were being managed by Tony Gordon (he later managed Culture club etc etc). We'd done some demos for Island but they only offered us a one off single deal. Tony was good friends with Jim Cook who at that time was head of Polydor and he bought him down to the Roxy to see us play. As luck would have it there were queues around the corner and he offered us a deal that night.

At that point we were predominantly a live band and we stipulated that we would only sign if we were allowed to make half the album a live one. Also the gigs were such a two way thing between us and the audience we thought it wouldn't be fair to leave them out.

On 6/12/77 A john Peel broadcast of five songs was broadcast.

Dave Parsons  It's all a bit hazy really, just turning up in the old transit van - loading in the gear and having a bit of a laugh. John wasn't there, but the engineers were cool. We listened to the playback over a couple of beers and then went off to play a gig somewhere.

and in January 'Borstal Breakout' was issued followed swiftly by the half live and half studio album 'Tell Us The Truth' in February reaching number 25 in the charts. Sham were here and publicity was rolling in in the music weeklies and appearances.

While the Skinhead element was useful at the start for a ready made audience, the rise of the right wing National Front and the image of Skinheads and violence becoming inextricably linked with it began to become a problem for Sham 69. Add to this their increasing popularity and exposure and songs about fighting and football terrace style choruses began to attract certain sections of people who's idea of fun consisted of beating people up people in and out of gigs and hijacking gigs for their own political ends.

Dave Parsons  We were anti fascist, and on odd occasions we would get fans coming back stage and saying that they used to be members of the BNP or National front and that after listening to us they'd given it up. Every little action - no matter how small, makes a difference; if we inspired a few people to think for themselves then that's good enough for me.  NO REGRETS.

If any one started to spit at any of our gigs, we would stop it straight away - and the same with any violence. In the early days there really wasn't that much and generally speaking , once Jimmy had said his piece it would stop!

 Others saw it differently.

Gareth Holder (the Shapes) Thanks to the likes of Sham 69 and Co not making a stand against violence and right wing involvement until it was way too late, there was a time when going to *any* gig could result in violence. It was the violence at gigs that was one of the things that killed off the old punk. I fucking hated OI music and the bands that did nothing to stop the violence at gigs. That idiot Pursey had his head so far up his arse it wasn't true. He just didn't want to deal with it. He'd be singing "If the Kids are United" and the whole fucking place would be a war zone while he was doing it. Maybe I'm being a bit unfair to him, but they could really have done more to control the situation in my view. 

Christian Paris (the Bears) I remember going to a Sham 69 gig at the Vortex and a big fight breaking out and I just thought what the hell has happened. Punk has gone downhill. I never saw any fights at any other Punk gig and definitely none at the Roxy.

Their populism also managed to get up the original punks noses who saw Sham as the end of the party. By mid 1977 the original Roxy had closed and reopened with new owners and the cosy elite of bands and faces had been invaded and swelled by out of town band and faces. This second wave of punks were harder, tougher and more street orientated and bands like Sham 69, Menace were indicative of the time. While the first wave of faces had been scene setters and shapers they were now starting to be derided as poseurs walking round in expensive Kings Road clobber and shouting about Anarchy while if they saw anarchy would run a mile.

Marco Pirroni (the Models) I got bored with it after Grundy but I still went to the gigs I just didn't wear a leather jacket. I wore my personal collection bondage suit with pride and I didn't scream sell out (whatever that means?) at the Pistols because I knew that they were too good to spend the rest of their lives in a grotty cellar and on some dead end indie label. I didn't get what old Mark Perry was on about ‘Today the El Paradiso club. Tomorrow the world’ I say, if you you're going to do it… do it BIG! In my view the great Pursey finished it off good and proper. I don't bare grudges (ala mackay ) but I still blank that cunt Pursey. He undid everything that had gone before. I saw their first support gig at the Roxy. In those days it was cool to be bored. The indifference to their set was deafening. Silly sod. Fuck off down the pub and stay there, just like your dad. Know your place oiks.

Gary Bushell But if the kids love Sham, the intelligentsia don't. The people who consider punk to be their very own private property and hate the idea of 'commoners' getting their grubby paws on it...

Jimmy Pursey All the intellectuals say 'he's very naive, he's very thick' because if I'm not part of their intellectual scene, I'm a moron, I'm a cunt. Well I'd rather stay a cunt...The punk movement in the beginning musically, was it was great, because it was fucking action packed. But then came the manipulation, you got 'Seditionaries' and 'Boy' and eventually after a year it wasn't just going on stage and going 'Bollocks', it was all a fucking show, all robotised....half these fucking posers would walk around saying 'Anarchy' - if they saw the law running down the street with a fucking riot going on they'd be the first to run down the road... Sounds 5.8.78

 

Rip Off /Ulster/Borstal Breakout, - Roundhouse 1978

For Pursey & Parsons the elitism and fashion was precisely what he was against.

Jimmy Pursey (Sniffin Glue 12 1977) Do you know what a real punk is? a real punk today is the bloke with a belt joining the legs of his trousers together, or a girl in fishnet stockings. And they're the first people to shout wanker at my band. Cos they're in their little smug groups of fashion .....My attitude might seem thick to you cos I was brought up to be thick to keep rich cunts in money...Sham 69 speak exactly what loads of geysers think."

Dave Parsons (Sham 69) Punk for us was many things, anti fashion for one - to try and get away from that multi corporate control always there dictating what you should be listening to or wearing. This is what the ripped shirt and safety pin symbolised, so no we never bought our clothes on the Kings Road! It also meant for us that anybody was welcome at a Sham gig no matter what they were wearing. Bands like Siouxsie didn't like us at all, lord knows why, maybe they thought we showed them up! It's always the same old story; I mean think what a voice the youth could have had if they weren't always fighting amongst themselves " If the Kids were united"?

Bands like Sham 69 were quite simply breathing new life into Punk as it stalled mid 77. To some they became punks last hope and the spirit of the working class and mouthpiece for this and that. They became championed by Burchill and Parsons (double edged sword there) and Mark Perry.

Dave Parsons (Sham 69) It was a help sometimes and a hindrance at others. People always tend to project their own views onto others in the spotlight so it was probably inevitable. We were strictly A-Political; Punk was supposed to be about getting rid of labels and boxes anyway!

I suspect that Pursey et al didn't really have time to think about what they were doing or its impacts because events were happening so quickly and were out of their control.

By February 1978 gigs were already being disrupted by violence and the police being called out. So much so that the first statement of stopping playing was issued. Sham 69 had also started playing Rock Against Racism gigs which clearly stated their intent. They also rather than trying to ignore prescribe or drive out the NF actively welcomed to their gigs in order to change their views by argument. A dangerous act. Say what you like about Jimmy Pursey but here was a genuinely brave guy with rock solid cahones. Others threw bricks at Nazis from the safety of numbers, others tried to ban them speaking but here was someone who walked on a knife edge, who was an anti Nazi and who could be outnumbered 300 to one  by skins and who engaged in a dialogue to try and make them change their ways. You can only admire Jimmy Pursey.

Jimmy Pursey I thought I could get them thinking the same way I was thinking. When they started those Nazi salutes I thought I could bicker them down about it. They know EXACTLY what I'm about. In the early days the National Front sent someone to see whether we'd work for them and I said 'You must be fucking joking. NO WAY'. So when the skins start all that I say 'What are you doing? You want to do that. Why come here and do that? You know I don't believe so why do it? I don't beat around the bush. I'm a figurehead and they know I'm having a go at them...I think I'm winning if I can get someone aged sixteen just thinking about politics so they're not just going down the road and voting for the National Front...and its hard when you're out on stage to put it across like that. Sounds 3.6.78