Skrewdriver

Phil Walmsley This must have been about November 1976. We liked the New York Dolls sound, we covered Pills which was a regular part of our set all through 1977. We did Gloria in a similar fashion to the Eddie and the Hotrods version, and we used to do Louie Louie, we’d also written about half a dozen songs ourselves. The originals were all written by Don and myself really. Stephen Yarwood Interview

A demo is produced that is recorded on a music system hi fi that must have sounded atrocious and is accompanied by a picture of the boys posing in front of the Blackpool Tower and sent to record companies! The picture is used on the back of their first single.

Chiswick Records, based in London’s Camden Town, liked the raw sound. Roger Armstrong recalls his initial impressions.

Roger Armstrong They sent in a tape from Blackpool with a hilarious photo of them in torn blazers and flares standing in front of Blackpool Tower. The whole thing was so gormless and the tape such a noise I couldn’t resist. They were part of that second generation of Punks inspired by the Pistols. I think that the motivation for signing them was a reaction against the studied arty side of the Pistols and The Clash as projected by their management. Punk77 Interview

Grinny We didn’t have a name when we sent the demo. I think we got the name off a list of possibles that Chiswick supplied. The boss of Chiswick, Ted Carroll, wanted to call us “The Nervous Wrecks”. We didn’t like that, but we settled on Skrewdriver. Alex Gottschalk, Interview

Phil Walmsley We’d done the demos from which they chose You’re So Dumb, we weren’t entirely convinced, we thought it was a bit too much of a thrash, but they were the guys in the know, and they paid the money. We recorded the single soon after. Stephen Yarwood Interview

Grinny The day before the gig on a Friday I was at work as a sheetmetal worker, when I cut my hand on a piece of metal. I had to go to the hospital and had four stitches put in the wound, which was across the palm of my right hand. …The gig went well and I got my minute of fame by getting my picture in New Musical Express. The picture was taken in the grotty dressing room with me all sweaty and the drumstick taped into my hand. The picture had the headline “Whose Skrewing you, John?” Alex Gottschalk, Interview

Mervyn Jones (Roxygoer) Nice guys but Northerners who had got it slightly wrong. They weren’t Skinheads then. They were wearing lumber jackets and moustaches. Mind you, even then they had got it slightly wrong. The Roxy Club WC2, Paul Marko

Once in London they had an image makeover and soon became more Punky.

Kevin McKay (Skrewdriver) We had based our Punk look on things we had seen in the newspapers. When we came down to London we changed again because we were in the scene then and we got a bit more Punkified because that’s what people want to see. We changed our hair and clothes because you just evolve. The Roxy Club WC2, Paul Marko

Intrestingly while in London they were paid £15 a week by Chiswick and put up in lodgings. Also living there was one Steve Harrington aka Steve Strange who tried to give Don a makeover.

Phil Walmsley Much of the stuff they got didn’t fit or he never wore because of adverse comment, with the exception of a pair of black leather pants. This was the start of the Gene Vincent phase complete with dyed black hair, sideys and biker jacket. I thought it suited his hard man image, but it didn’t last for long.

Which became a little more Teddy boy rockerish. Great pictures taken from the London Weekend Show ‘Punk Impact’ from December 1977. Below shows the boys with Ian Stuart in his black leather Jim Morrison lookalike best performing ‘Anti Social’ dedicated to the Teds. The boys were using Mean Street’s gear after they were attacked by Teddy boys, had their gear smashed up and Grinny lost two teeth. Later their van full of equipment was nicked!

The Skinhead Image

Grinny All of us had grown up with the skinhead, suedehead and bootboy fashions of the early ’70’s. I decided in 1977 that I had always been happier with the skinhead thing than the punk thing. So I got my haircut, boots, Levi jeans and jacket and away I went. Later, when Ian saw me–this was the time between Phil leaving and Ronnie joining–he decided the band should become a skinhead band. Ian was always well into the skinhead thing, he loved the violence. Kev was not too keen but went along with it. Alex Gottschalk, Interview

Sunday Mirra November 1977 The Skrewdriver cult following are, believe it or not, skin’eads who hate ‘praise to Jah’ but go mad about ska or blue beat type reggae such as Prince Buster or Desmond Decker!!! Lead vocalist Ian Stuart says that most of their mates are skin’eads…Skrewdriver used to be skin’eads but they lost the interest as they became a band. But now that most of their fans are skin’eads they’ve picked it up again.

Skrewdriver then started to attract other Skins.

Kevin McKay (Skrewdriver) We attracted Skinheads from Chelsea, West Ham and Arsenal and they all came to see us. Ian would go out fighting with them afterwards because he loved all that type of crap and all the fans loved him. So when we did a double headline gig at the Roxy with Sham 69 we played first. When they played, our Skinhead fans were running on stage and booing them because Sham didn’t go out fighting with them. It was a bit sad really because it wasn’t about the music it was just the fighting. The Roxy Club WC2, Paul Marko

Gary Hitchcock, later manager of the 4 Skins, appeared in Sounds in 1980, talking about the Skinhead revival describing Skrewdriver as the first real Skinhead band.

We met Ian Stuart at a Sham gig at the Roxy in ‘77. He told us about Skrewdriver, said they weren’t like Sham, that they were skins, so we spread the word about, and there was a massive turn-out. Down at the Vortex it was. We never knew there were so many skinheads around and they were all geezers. No one looked under twenty five, and they played all the skinhead reggae stuff that we hadn’t heard in years.

Violence began to follow the band. First an incident with the Boomtown Rats that made all the music papers where Geldof was almost knocked out by a friend of the band onstage but more was to come.

Kevin McKay (Skrewdriver) We had just put together a twenty-six date tour and the first headline gig was the Vortex. Suggsie (later singer with Madness), our roadie, was there at the side of the stage. All the skinheads were there from Arsenal, West Ham and Chelsea and as soon as we started the first song they just kicked off. They weren’t fighting each other but against all the bouncers and bar staff. We kept playing and they were hitting them with chairs and everything. It ended up with a fleet of ambulances outside at 10.30 p.m. at night with all the staff in them, so they had to shut the club. The Roxy Club WC2, Paul Marko

In the end, Phil left after a disagreement over the skinhead image change and publishing rights post album production.

Ron Hartley took Phil’s place.

Ron joins at a bad time. Losing a key guitarist and music contributor is bad enough. but the violent image effectively stops any more gigs and with their single pulled by Chiswick the band grind to a halt. Ron’s guitar playing also doesn’t suit the band and he soon exits. Chiswick don’t dump the band they just stop supporting them as they are not playing.

Phil Walmsley Ron’s style of playing was more rooted in the blues, he was really very good, but he didn’t really have the right style for the chord thrashing that was required. His influence was Clapton and Page, whereas mine was Townshend and Wilko Johnson, so perhaps my style was more suited to the punk thing. 

In January 1978, with Skrewdriver effectively split, Kev and Ian (still a skinhead) moved back up to Manchester sharing a flat with Phil. The next version of Skrewdriver is kick started with Phil on bass, Ron on guitar and Mark Radliffe (Mark & Lard Radio 1 DJ) on drums who Phil had known since University in 1976. The biggest thing was a tour with Bitch featuring ex Drone Gus Callendar and Glenn Jones on guitars and punk face Charlie Green on vocals.

Ian was still keen to carry on though, his music was no longer punk as such, more like high energy rock. The Skinhead image was ditched and Grinny came back for Mark 3.

Grinny The band did change image, but I think we were always closest to the skinhead thing. A lot of the reason for the change was that as a skinhead band we found it impossible to get gigs, because of the violence. We enjoyed the atmosphere, but we definitely lost tours and gigs because of the image.

Phil Walmsley Don ended up living at Sean McKay’s student house in Salford. He decided it was time for a change again and that the music scene needed a good rock band! He rang me up and was so enthusiastic and persuasive that I went along with it. Grinny was back on drums, Kev McKay was on bass, I was on guitar and Chris Cummings also joined on guitar. I think we did about three gigs the most memorable one being the support slot with Motorhead at King George’s Hall in Blackburn. We were pretty dreadful really, the material was crap, mainly new stuff that Don had written, plus a few leftovers from earlier times, anything that could be done in a rock vein. It all fell apart very soon.” 

Grinny That was the best line up we had. Ian wrote some good songs and we made some tapes but Chiswick did not like the change of direction.

Instead another changed lineup did the final single for DJM records with Glyn Johns on guitar and Martin Smith on drums and that was it.

In 1982 Ian Stuart reformed Skrewdriver and came out as actively racist/nationalist coinciding with the skinhead oi scene. There was however rumours of Skrewdriver/Ian Stuart supporting the NF towards the end of 1979 that Stuart was at pains to refute. A bit odd really as the new formed Rock Against Communism by the National Front had them wanting to be involved in nazi gigs.

Grinny Me and Ian both became members of the NF in 1980. The trouble was again the bad publicity and being unable to get gigs. But Ian made his decision to go political and it was what he believed in right until the end. Up until then Ian had always held racist views although he did not discover the National Front (NF)

I used to talk to Roger [Armstrong] and he was a Labour supporter. But I think he got this romantic idea that all Northern bands were working class, flat capped whippet owning Labour supporters. This just was not true.

Roger Armstrong The other three guys in the band were really pissed off too. Grinny the drummer came from solid Northern Socialist stock. When they made records for us Ian Stuart showed no signs of fascism. Punk77 Interview

For Kevin McKay the move was more cynical.

Ian always wanted to be a rock star no matter how he did it. He saw the political route as getting a ready made audience for his records and gigs, getting fame and being paid and he took it.

He did indeed.

The originals were all written by Don and myself really, I didn’t write lyrics, apart from Better off Crazy, I’m not too sure what inspired the lyrics to that! It was just a great guitar riff, it was the first thing I wrote in the punk vein, rather in the style of Gloria.

Chiswick Records, based in London’s Camden Town, liked the raw sound. Roger Armstrong recalls his initial impressions.

Roger Armstrong They sent in a tape from Blackpool with a hilarious photo of them in torn blazers and flares standing in front of Blackpool Tower. The whole thing was so gormless and the tape such a noise I couldn’t resist.

Phil Walmsley We’d done the demos from which they chose You’re So Dumb. We weren’t entirely convinced. We thought it was a bit too much of a thrash, but they were the guys in the know, and they paid the money. We recorded the single soon after.

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You’re So Dumb / Better Off Crazy
(Chiswick June 1977)

Sniffin’ Glue thought they, and the Radiators From Space, had been captured too soon on vinyl but I disagree. Chiswick caught them at the right time. So raw it makes your ears bleed, but no two ways about it’s pure punk and it’s a classic. Gutteral vocals, basic distorted guitar and somewhere there in the mix there are drums but they mean it maaaan! The B side has some questionable lyrics, not in some right wing sense as you might think, but the fact that they were a punk band from oop North in Blackpool singing the tripe below.

I’m gonna steal me a fast car, hit a Highway 49
Pick me up some fair-haired woman, have us a real good time!

Sniffin Glue thought they, and the Radiators From Space, had been captured too soon on vinyl.

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Anti Social / 19th Nervous Breakdown
(Chiswick October 1977 )

Another top single with the classic punk rant ‘Because I’m an -ti – social / an – ti – social / an – ti – social / I hate the world !’ It’s a thinner but clearer production. The B side is a nod to their Tumblin’ Dice days with a perfunctory run through of a Stones cover. I like the interview in Search & Destroy #5 with Crime where Johnny Strike says ‘I really like the Skrewdriver song ‘Anti Social.’ I thought they were saying “Chainsaw Child.”

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Built Up Knocked Down / Breakout / A Case Of Pride
(DJM Records February 1979)

All Skrewed Up
(Chiswick November 1977)

Chiswick had soon wised up to the punk collectors market and promotional gimmicks. The LP (26 minutes long!) came in either pink, yellow or green covers and played at 45 RPM (7″ single speed). If you had an import copy it would have played at 33rpm and featured Street Fighter and  Unbeliever as extra tracks. Classic set of Skrewdriver songs including I Don’t Like You but includes a rather dubious version of The Who’s Won’t Get Fooled Again. The photo on the front is also misleading as by its release Phil Wamsley had left the band in an argument over publishing rights and their skinhead image. So the cover features his replacement Ron Poulton (top right) though Although Ron Hartley is featured on the album sleeve, the original liner notes acknowledged that Phil played all the guitar parts.

The irony would be that after having their contract cancelled, and Ian Stuart’s later far-right activities, Chiswick swore never to re-issue any Skrewdriver recordings which they have kept to until this day (2023).

Phil Walmsley We were back at Riverside and once again it was mainly at night, the engineer was a guy called Neil, good bloke, laid back long haired hippy type. He was very experienced which was just as well because we were complete novices in the studio. All the songs were written by Don and I, apart from the covers of course, but he wrote most of the lyrics. That’s an acoustic guitar on Where’s It Gonna End. Actually I think Don wrote that riff.

The recording sessions were great, it was all new and exciting, although Don would get bored because he didn’t smoke and neither did Kev so they’d go off somewhere. It was quite a time consuming process, it would sometimes take several hours just to get the drum sound! We did a few guitar overdubs. Most of the vocals were double tracked to give it more power which meant that Don had to sing the same vocal exactly the same twice. 

As a package it was a bit of a novelty record, it spun at 45rpm and lasted 26 minutes. Some of the tracks were quite good, I’m quite happy with the part I played bearing in mind the limitations of the time but some of the lyrics are a bit trite. I don’t think we got involved enough in the mixing, the bass sound isn’t good, some of the tracks are just not charged, not angry enough. Actually the earlier session for the single produced a much more powerful sound. Stephen Yarwood Interview

Grinny All of the band thought that “All Skrewed Up” could have been done better. It was commonly thought that Chiswick always did things on the cheap as far as recording, advertising, etc. went. The album was recorded over a few days, it is virtually live, there were just a few overdubs on vocals and guitar. Trouble was all the tracks were over in 2-3 minutes. I’m no technician, I don’t know why the album came out at 45 rpm. The songs on it were what we played live, so it was a good representation of the band. But we all felt the sound was a little tinny.

When “All Skrewed Up” came out Chiswick only pressed a few hundred copies to put in shops. They sold well and ran out, and we had to wait for more copies. By that time we had lost momentum. I think Chiswick was going to release “Streetfight” but we went our different ways. I was sorry that they didn’t. Nihilism On The Prowl

SKREWDRIVER All Skrewed Up (Chiswick) NME Review 3.12.77

Fun fact kiddoes the cover was designed by Peter Kodick who also did The Damned first album and the famous New Wave compilation for Phonogram. Fun fact 2 – it’s his wife of the time, Patti Palladin – one half of Snatch whose teeth are photographed holding the screw.

1977 was certainly the year of subculture violence and punks were on the receiving end of it all. From soul boys and disco types, your average weekend drinkers, football hooligans, the re-emergence of skinheads to the story of summer 1977 battles with teds – all wanted to fight punks. The Teds were the forerunners of punks – 50’s rock n roll lovers with a codified dress sense and they hated punks.

Grinny Yes, we had a punch up with the Teds after a gig at the “Railway” in Putney. We were support to THE POLICE before they were famous, Sting etcetera, not the law. All night at the gig people were talking about the Teds coming down from a nearby Ted gig featuring SHAKING STEVEN & THE SUNSETS. Near the end of the night punks and THE POLICE began to disappear rather quickly.

We hung about packing away gear. We started loading the van up when we heard this noise, I looked up and there was this gang of about twenty Teds coming towards us shouting, “Get the bastards!” I was at the back of the van, outside it with the back doors open. I thought, well, I’m not going to run as I grabbed a cymbal stand and decided to battle it out. I saw one Ted approach and I swung the stand at him.  I caught him somewhere high on the arm. But next thing I knew I was surrounded by Teds, one of them picked up a mic stand–It was one of those heavy ones with the cast iron feet–and wham! Straight in the mouth. I saw flashes and stars and ended on the floor in the middle of the road. My head was spinning and everything was going in and out of focus. I could not pick myself up.

Next thing I remember was Police and Ambulance men picking me up and putting me in an ambulance.  I was taken to Queen Mary Hospital in Roehampton where I had 36 stitches put in my mouth. Two of my teeth had been knocked straight out, never to be found again.

Revenge came quickly, though not from me. I was patched up and leaving the hospital with Effie, our manager at the time, when I saw a Teddy Boy coming in on a stretcher with facial wounds. Apparently, after I had been taken to the hospital, the band all got back in the van, minus it’s windows. Kev was driving, Ian was next to him in front, then there was Phil and Kev’s brother Sean, who had come down from Blackpool to see the gig.

As they were driving back Ian spotted a group of Teds walking on the pavement towards the van. He told Kev to get close to the pavement and then put his foot down. The van had sliding doors, so as they got near, Ian slid open the doors and went whack! with a mic stand.

A couple of things came out of this. The van was later nicked in Covent Garden with all the gear in. And Ian’s constant piss-take out of Phil for running away and hiding behind some dust bins when we were attacked. Phil, whose not used stage name was “Ronnie Volume” had to listen to Ian playing the guitar and singing the song “Working Class Hero” by John Lennon. The words became “Ronnie, Ron runaway, where have you been, hiding behind the bins from the Teddy boy’s boots”.

The Year Of Punk – Janet Street Porter Reviews The Year Of Punk, A LWT Documentary Broadcast On 01/01/78 Featuring Early Classic Footage Of The Sex Pistols, The Clash, Siouxsie and Skrewdriver.

Also, a couple of days after the attack we were interviewed by Janet Street Porter for a TV program. The interview went along the lines of a rant from Ian about what the punks were going to do to the Teds. The interview was shown a few months later, when all the trouble had calmed down. This set it all off again and Skrewdriver became Public Enemy #1. The Punk vs. Ted rivalry could be bad if you were in the wrong place at the wrong time. There was definitely trouble between the two.

Phil Walmsley After the gig while we were loading up the van a nearby rock ‘n roll club was just emptying out, all these Teds were coming down the road and spotted us. The van was surrounded and we got a right pasting. The police were soon on the scene and the Teds all ran off, but Grinny had been knocked to the floor with a mike stand, one of those with a really heavy metal base, it had come down on his face and before we knew it he was off in an ambulance. We later found he’d lost several teeth and had lots of stitches.

Kevin McKay We were driving around looking for them and Ian says open the doors and he sees the teddy boy and we drive past and he hits him with the mike stand and the guy does a complete 360 tuen and lands back on his feet.

And so it was that one of the first gigs they did when they came over to the UK was to headline in July 1977 the Music Machine with two more hardcore punk acts at the time 999 and Skrewdriver in support and TV cameras to capture the event.

However, it was violence, not music that would make the music weeklies about this gig.

Bottom of the bill bands always get a raw deal. You know the score. No lights, you’ve got no stage because all the other bands gear has been set up in front of you and always for some reason you’re sound is crappier than the main bands because they don’t want you blowing them off stage. In some cases you will have paid the main band for the privilege of the above!

And so Skrewdriver who had moved down from Blackpool in early 1977 and were playing a more hardcore style of punk. In June they had played gigs with Sham 69 at the famous punk club the Roxy and were attracting some of the hardcore Skinhead and football hooligan elements that were starting to follow that band.

So already miffed at having paid £5 towards the PA then told to pay £10 at the last minute leaving them £5 in payment for the gig found themselves onstage with an atrocious sound. They were not happy and neither were some of their fans.

Kevin McKay (Skrewdriver) We went on and our sound was crap so our fans were really pissed off. 999’s was pretty good and then the Rats came on and theirs was fabulous. We had a fan called Vince (Boots) who was a bad lad and it was rumoured he was later put inside. He got a pint pot the old type with the handle and threw it as hard as he could at Bob Geldof. It missed him, hit the front of the stage and smashed. If it had hit him it would have killed him and there would have been no Live Aid or anything! Punk77 Interview

What happened next though was even more unbelievable. Some report a fan, others a hardcore punk wandering on stage unhindered by bouncers and committing an unprovoked attack on Geldof leaving him bleeding.

Kevin McKay (Skrewdriver)So he walks through all the bouncers up the steps onto the stage gets hold of Bob Geldof and kicks the shit out of him. He’s got hold of him at the front of the stage and he’s hitting him in the face and all the bouncers are just too astonished to do anything. Then he throws him on the floor and walks back to us then goes off to get a beer.

Within minutes we are surrounded by bouncers, taken downstairs through the front, into the lobby. We walk up the stairs because we don’t want anything to do with it and then suddenly the bouncers produce coshes and start beating the shit out of some of our poor fans and Ian and Grinny. Last thing I see is Ian is outside and he’s trying to pick up a bike to throw it, but its chained to some railings and the bouncers are coshing him over the head. He went to hospital I think with Grinny and some fans. Punk77 Interview

Ian and Grinny – Hospital bound!

The violence was becoming a regular occurrence. Don had started knocking around with a few people who were that way inclined. We played a gig with 999 at the Music Machine which was also the Boomtown Rats‘ debut. We’d played a good set and so had 999, then Geldof came on with long hair and posing about like Jagger.

Don was getting very angry and this guy took it upon himself to teach Geldof a lesson on Don’s behalf, or that’s how it was seen. He strode up onto the stage walked straight up to Geldof and hit him hard, knocking him over. There was blood everywhere. He then just walked off the other side of the stage and wasn’t even thrown out. He came back and stood with us! Don was laughing and patting him on the back. I was very uncomfortable with this, I didn’t want any part of it, I think that was perhaps the start of it. The word got round that these people were acquaintances of ours, although in reality they were acquaintances of Don’s.

The music papers reported the assailant as Doc Rat, a friend of the band, and they quoted him. “I hit him. Why? Because they were crap, that’s why. I enjoyed it.”

For the Boomtown Rats it was a small hiccup in their rise and soon forgotten. For Punk rock, at that time constantly in the papers with Punk & Ted battles and members of the Sex Pistols being attacked, it was more unwanted publicity about punk violence. For Skrewdriver it helped attract more of the violent element to their gigs that would give them an audience, but would also lead to their gigs being canceled amidst fears of violence, their third single release to be canned and eventually split up.

Violence isn’t big and it’s not clever.