Psychos
Psychos were from Bexley Heath just outside of London and formed in 1977 playing the Roxy Club, Music Machine and other places supporting bands like Slaughter & The Dogs, Motorhead and Radiators From Space.
They might have been just a footnote in punk with a mention in Sounds weekly music papers news but for two things that both happened within a few weeks of each other. They appeared at the Roxy Club in late September 1977 and Iggy Pop guested on a song and then Raw Records recorded them with the tracks Young British & White & Soul Train appearing on the legendary Raw Deal compilation later that year.
By 1978 though times were changing and after a gig with Motorhead at the Croydon Greyhound in March, the dream was over and the band split.
Cliff Whittle tells the story
Like a lot of other people, we were into rock like Humble Pie with Steve Mariott, Ten Years After with Alvin Lee, UFO and also The Shadows.
The punk band we really got into was The Damned and first went to see them with Eater at the Hope & Anchor. After that we used to go and see loads of bands. My other favourite at the time was the Hammersmith Gorillas. We used to go to the Roxy Club a fair bit and saw The Stranglers & Cortinas. It was a fantastic place, really. You’d go and see The Damned and see Rat Scabies walking around and the next minute you’d see him up on the stage. I had a couple of words with David Vanian but it was a great time because you could meet all these people. I remember I’d read about him in the NME the week before that.
It was only a little place, obviously, but it all happened so quickly. I think a lot of people imagine it went on for a long time. It didn’t. The initial club was only a couple of months really.
Psychos form
The first band was a covers band called Street Rats, but it didn’t get anywhere. Then we decided to go punk. We knocked up a set that was our own tunes that were two-minute thrashes and a couple of covers like 5-4-3-2-1 by Manfred Man and I Can’t Control Myself by The Troggs, really. It was probably me trying to think of something wacky that named us Psychos. We did a demo of five songs in a studio in North London (Straightjacket, So Young, Young British & White, Soul Train and I think Television Indecision)
Roxy Club
We played at the Roxy Club on the new band night with The Meat and The Tickets on the 7th of September 1977. We didn’t do too badly and got invited back a couple of weeks later playing with The Outsiders and Radiators From Space on the 29th of September.
Punk77: Iggy was in town and was due to play The Rainbow with The Adverts. The Radiators From Space had released their debut album TV Tube Heart and were playing a blitz of dates in London to support and had played the Vortex the night before and been joined onstage by Johnny Thunders.
What made me laugh at the time was people like The Damned would say The Stooges were so influential, but for me, I spent all my time trying to play like Alvin Lee and Eric Clapton!
Also there on that night was Ian Stuart from Skrewdriver [who had just released their All Skrewed Up album] who was a little man but a bit of a hard nut. I got talking to him in the Roxy bar and he said “Iggy Pop. If he had got up stage with me I’d have smacked him in the mouth! The Rolling Stones are the greatest band going.” That was the thing then; you could go to a gig and bump into members of bands like the Sex Pistols, Damned or Graham Parker and Chrissie Hynde.
The appearance of Iggy made Sounds, Melody Maker & Record Mirror though in the latter two it was a picture of Iggy with The Outsiders drummer and just mentioned the Outsiders.
The godfather of Punk, Iggy Pop, was in town for his Rainbow concerts and visited the Roxy with NME journalist Nick Kent. While in the bar, he heard ‘Raw Power’ being played by the Outsiders and joined the band on stage. The rest of Iggy’s night was spent trying to fight a member of X Ray Spex before being pulled out of the club. When Sounds misreported that Iggy had played with the Psycho’s, The Outsiders then manager, sometime Rainbow gig promoter and occasional DJ at the Vortex Jock McDonald, irately put them right. Sounds printed a correction in a later issue along with plugs for one of his upstairs at the Rainbow gigs and the forthcoming Outsiders single. Roxy Club WC2, Paul Marko
Adrian Borland from The Outsiders told us Iggy Pop was coming down and we thought “Yeah yeah” and when we were playing Iggy actually jumped up on stage with us and sang into the microphone. After the gig we had a chat with him in his car and he was a really nice guy who said “My name’s Jimmy Osterberg” in that deep drawl. I asked him what it was like knowing Mick Jagger and The Stones and he turned to me and said in that deadpan monotone “I have never met Mick Jagger or The Rolling Stones.”
Raw Records
It all just happened within a couple of weeks. It was unbelievable. On the Thursday we had Iggy Pop on the stage with us and the following Sunday we were recording for Raw. I remember the date clearly as October 2nd 1977 because the night before I went to see Generation X.
They were playing somewhere in Barking and The Pirates were supporting them. I remember watching The Pirates thinking “God, they’re fantastic!” And Generation X were standing in front of me watching them and I thought “Bet they’re thinking now how do you follow that!” I mean, you just didn’t do it; they were just bloody brilliant.
Lee Wood rang up and asked us to come up to Cambridge. He made us laugh because halfway through the day he went home complaining of his stomach and we always thought it was our songs!
We were supposed to do a single but then he said you’re going to be on an album. When we went up to Spaceward, Mike Kemp was producing and mixing and they were really great with us. Robyn Hitchcock from the Soft Boys popped by as well.
Lee’s heart was in the right place. He’d give you a go. I remember him saying that he didn’t want any overdubs because he wanted it to sound as if you’d walked into the pub and we were actually playing which I think looking back was a fantastic idea.
Then we got the record. It’s a lovely feeling, you know, getting hold of it and looking at it and thinking “Bloody hell! We’re actually, on a record!” You have your dreams and you think “Oh, where’s it going to go from here? We’re on our way now and maybe someone will hear it and think there’s something there and we sign to a major label. Everyone must think that in a band but then of course it doesn’t happen and it’s a horrible feeling.
The End
By 1978 we had lost a little bit of interest. Then it became more new wave, which was great and Power Pop. We thought of writing more Mod type songs as that was coming in, but we thought nothing more was gonna happen, really.
We played with Motorhead at the Croydon Greyhound in March that year which was a high spot but nothing much else and then one gig we just lost the enthusiasm and called it a day.
Everything went fast from the moment we sort of first played the Roxy Club to the last gig. It was only about 7 or 8 months but at the time it seemed longer.
We had our dreams, lived it a little and then they returned to being just dreams.
None of us did anything bar the drummer who joined a glammy sort of band called the Burnout Stars who made one single on the Hansa label. Bizarrely they were managed by the famous wrestler Kendo Nagasaki aka Peter Thornley who also managed Cuddly Toys.
Cliff Whittle Punk77 Interview 03/12/2024
TalkPunk
Post comments, images & videos - Posts are checked and offensive or irrelevant ones will be removed
Hi Cliff. It definitely wasn’t you. My wife and I used to go for a curry every Saturday after we closed the shop. I guess that was the problem with my stomach.
I think you were a fantastic band.
Money was always short with the record label, otherwise I would have put out a single. I just listened to the tracks again as I write this and I think anyone who has listened to them will say they are bloody amazing.