The Ruts

Vince Segs – Bass. David Ruffy – Drums.
Two bands from the second wave of punk stand head and shoulders above all others and who gave hope that punk wasn’t dead with the Sex Pistols splitting and The Clash going stateside. First is those perennial favourites led by Manuel Vaderer i.e. The UK Subs and the second was The Ruts. Both bands specialised in chuggy, beefed up punk sounds but at the same time, extremely melodic and catchy toons. Both had TOTP appearances. The Ruts however were more complex musically and lyrically.
The Ruts, like Menace, have a rarely referenced past. Even in interviews in 1992 they were saying they came from a pub rock band called Hit & Run that Dave Ruffy & Paul Fox played in. Ruffy was on bass, Paul on Guitar and Paul Mattock was on drums. Its true but the story starts earlier.
Paul Mattock however recalls it differently and that The Ruts before turning punk in August 1977, had roots in a heavy rock outfit called Aslan based in Anglesey, North Wales, sporting suitable quantities of facial hair and flares large enough to sail boats.

Rocky (Malcolm’s girlfriend). Malcolm Owen on guitar.
They were based around Paul Fox and Malcolm Owen, who then played a bit of guitar. Malcolm had come back from a trip to India and had decided to move out of London to the country with friends to live the hippy dream. It was at this commune that Malcolm first dabbled in heroin, a habit that would eventually have tragic consequences for him.
Punk happened. Malcolm [Owen] really got into it and started writing punk songs with Paul Fox. It started out as a bit of a laugh. Dave Ruffy fancied himself as a bass player and I played the drums. We got some cheap studio time and went in and recorded some of the songs, Lobotomy, H Eyes and In a Rut…It was from this track that we got the name the Ruts. Unseen Pics of the Ruts in North Wales, Link2Wales, 28.8.2018
This was August 1977 and in between Aslan and the Ruts various members of the band had been in the pub rock band Hit & Run. The Aslan history explains the Malcolm Owen quote below.
Malcolm Owen I was really delighted when punk happened…I was into a lot of jazz…George Duke, Weather Report, Stanley Clarke…I never play them at all now. I was a regular at The Vortex. I used to be tied up in all sorts of…(bondage gear). I just totally went along with it. And it turned me on so much ’cause it was so energetic. 14.7.79, NME
Thankfully not naming the band Malcolm and The Skulking Loafers (mooted as a band name), the Ruts classic line up was complete when Paul Mattock (a soul music fan at heart) left and Vince Segs, a Hit & Run Roadie, joined on bass and Dave Ruffy moved to the drums.

A tape of demos got no interest from the record companies so The Ruts got down to playing. With a set list of originals comprising a very fluid reggae punk blend bar surprisingly one – Eat Your Heart Out – given to the band by Phil Lynott of Thin Lizzy, but subsequently dropped and never recorded.
They played their first gig in September 1977 as the Ruts. In their Wiki entry Malcolm’s wife has to check twice it’s her husband on stage, having transformed into the ‘Human Punk’.
… the Ruts made their live debut, playing three songs during a break in a set by Mr Softy (another Fox band) at The Target in Northolt, Middlesex. Owen’s wife, Roxina Stone, was so surprised by his aggressive persona that she had to check that this was Malcolm on stage. Ruts Wiki Entry
The band began to gig more, though it was Rock Against Racism that helped provide the gigs. Their first RAR (Rock Against Racism) gig was with Misty at Southall Community Centre. “It was a shambles but it was fantastic. There was all these pogoing pakistanis”. By no means political or militant, RAR was a means to an end for The Ruts while at the same time showing an alternative to the NF.
Malcolm Owen We gigged solidly in the RAR clubs with bands like Misty…We played gigs like that for a year with virtually nothing else…they were giving us gigs when noone else was. NME, 24.3.79

Pictures Mick Mercer – Music Machine 1979

In A Rut, their first record, was financed by Misty and had taken the band seven months to get out. With support from John Peel it sold 20,000 copies. They signed with Virgin and released Babylon’s Burning which rocketed them to a top 10 position.
Like for many other bands, the deal offered was piss poor that would screw the band over later but Segs was philosophical about it.
Segs Jennings At the beginning me and Dave wanted to stay independent because that’s where we were at. That’s where we came out of. Malcolm and Paul both had wives, and didn’t basically. It’s as simple as that. They wanted to sign a deal. They said “All the marketing will be taken care of and we’ll just be able to concentrate on playing. We’ll get the money up front”. So we said alright in the end. We didn’t know. We’d just been gigging for about two years before that, and then ‘In A Rut’ came out and everyone went mad about us. So we ended up signing for Virgin.
We’re now in debt to about £23,000 [Punk77 – this was in 1992] . It’s taken 10 years to get down to this level. But I still do maintain now that it was better to have had a really bad deal, but had fun and released some great records than not at all. I don’t have any regrets about it. I can’t really afford to feel too bitter about it but I’d like justice. The point I think is wrong is that Virgin didn’t misinform us but they didn’t fully inform us either. They knew what they were doing. All record companies do and that’s what I hate. Chris Jones May, 1992

More hits followed with the band regular on the weekly music prime time music programme Top Of The Pops. An album The Crack came out that was up there with any punk album released. Along with this their live shows were fast, raw and very sweaty and Malcolm Owen was a livewire on stage;an excellent frontman with a brilliant voice who channelled the intensity of the music.
All wasn’t well though.
The one thing you notice though is the vein of sadness and irony in the lyrics that runs through some of the songs most obviously Love In Vain,H-eyes, West One and In a Rut. Malcolm was a heroin user before The Ruts but turned back to it after his wife left him and it was that that shockingly killed him. The band had effectively split because of Malcolm’s problems but he had got himself clean and the aim was to record again.
Dave Ruffy So Malcolm had gone up for his bath and being the naughty boy that he was, he bought himself a little bag of heroin. I suppose to give himself a bit of a lift or whatever, and this is my interpretation of how he died. Because his resistance to it had gone right down and he had a hot bath, I think that he passed out and drowned. Technically, he had an overdose. Chris Jones May, 1992
Malcolm Owen died on July 14th 1980 aged 26.

Wind the clock forward to 2007 and the last surviving Ruts are on stage at the Garage Islington with Rollins on vocals. Its a benefit for Paul Fox who has cancer and played with one working lung. He died aged 56, three months later.
Segs and Ruffy still play as Ruts DC with Leigh Heggarty on guitar and are well worth checking out.
There’s a bit of everything there in their music. From the explosive punkery of Babylon’s Burning or Backbiter to thrash punk like I ain’t Sofisticated or Human Punk to the mesmeric tour de force of It Was Cold to just the excellent tunes of West One and Staring At The Rude Boys to the reggae of ‘rain In Vain and Jah Wars. One minor criticism. Their record covers were some of the worst I’ve ever seen and like the Sex Pistols, never featured band members on their covers !
Dave Ruffy I don’t think there’s another band like us. We play fast numbers. We play slow numbers. We play reggae and we play good music and yeah we’re very punk. 14.7.79, NME
The Ruts – In A Rut / H-Eyes (People Unite January 1979)
What a first single! With little or no advertising and distribution this single sold over 20,000 copies. Absolutely superb. In later years New Model Army would cover this song. Ironic B side in the light of Malcolm’s later death from heroin.

The Ruts – Babylon’s Burning / Society (Virgin June 1979)

A classic slice of UK punk with its menacing explosive riff that ensures their place in the punk all time hall of fame. A top ten hit for the band too. Pure heaven! B side continues that punky stream of consciousness. Was originally going to be entitled London’s Burning but as The Clash had already done it Babylons Burning was decided on.
The Ruts -Something That I Said / Give Youth A Chance (August 1979)
Another stormer. Normally the set opener when playing live, this was their second top thirty hit and rightly so. The B side was the start of their forays into reggae being put down on vinyl and an excellent track it is too.

The Ruts – Jah War / I Ain’t Sofisticated (October 1979)

The Ruts in a nutshell. Perhaps the world wasn’t ready for full on reggae and so would explain why this record didn’t chart. Excellent song coupled with their frantic punk thrash of I Ain’t Sofisticated – one of their earliest songs.
The Ruts – Staring At The Rude Boys / Train In Vain (March 1980)
Another stormer. Normally the set opener when playing live, this was their second top thirty hit and rightly so. The B side was the start of their forays into reggae being put down on vinyl and an excellent track it is too.

The Ruts – West One / The Crack (August 1980)

Posthumous single and shows off just how good The Ruts were. As a song its astonishing… A classic fusion of punk underpinned by some great reggae bass and drumming really creating a sound of their own. There’s a definite aura of sadness about it. This was Mike Monroe’s of Hanoi Rocks favourite record.
The Ruts – Stepping Bondage / Lobotomy / Rich Bitch (Bohemian Records 1983)
Lobotomy & Rich Bitch come from that first rehearsal back in ’77 at Rotherhite and features the first line up with Paul Mattock on drums. Stepping Bondage is the classic Ruts line up. Raw urgent punk and more suprising because of the length of time the band had been together and how good they sound.

3 John Peel sessions
29.1.79 – Savage Circle / Babylon’s Burning / Dope For Guns / Black Mans Pinch / Criminal Mind
21.5.79 – SUS / Society / You’re Just A… / It Was Cold / Something That I Said
SUS features Mannah on backing vocals.
Manna was one of the Ruts assistants and wrote the lyrics for SUS.
18.2.80 – Staring At The Rude Boys / Demolition Dancing / In A Rut / Secret Soldiers
The Ruts – The Crack (September 1979)

D.R: It took about 3 weeks altogether. We were all pretty rehearsed before we went into the studio. We all knew the songs very well from playing live. Our collective will was very strong. With Virgin we were a big budget kind of a band so we used the best studios. Also, our producer, Mick Glossop, was known as a really hot engineer and he used recording techniques that were ahead of their time.
It’s a classic from the word go with police sirens kicking off a different version of Babylons Burning. Tracks to check out are SUS, Backbiter, Out Of Order and It Was Cold…. In fact the lot ! The one thing you have to say about The Ruts is that these boys could play reggae. Not the dire rubbish peddled by The Members (Offshore Banking Business) or ATV (Love Lies Limp) but classic stuff like ‘Love In Vain‘ and ‘Jah Wars.’ It took the Clash 3 albums to get to this standard. There’s a lot going on on the album The Crack and the singles and all of it is accessible. Its punk but its pulling it it another direction.
Reached #16 in the UK album chart
Henry Rollins, arguably their biggest highest profile fan says this and you can’t argue with him
The Ruts stood out on so many levels’, Rollins says. ‘As a kid, I think it was more instinct that told me The Crack was an important record, but as an adult, I can dig the individual components far more. I can completely understand that Segs and Ruffy were a phenomenal rhythm section and that Paul Fox was a guitarist’s guitarist. Then there was Malcolm Owen – and there’s still nothing like that voice. HiFi News.com 14/7/23
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