There will never be another group like The Stranglers. Formed in 1974 as The Guildford Stranglers, they performed hundreds of gigs to little response. With the arrival of Punk and a new atmosphere sweeping music however, their style of playing and songs soon found a new audience. The Stranglers were unusually tuneful with a unique sound based on a growling base and swirling keyboards. Along with this, The Stranglers added aggression, intellect and a playful sense of deliberately provoking reaction. Only they could mention Shelley’s poem Ozymandias in the song Ugly while complaining that ‘an ugly fart attracts a good looking chick if he’s got money.’
JJ Burnel Rock ‘n’ roll is about cocks and jiving and the odd bloody nose…and about people like us talking seriously about the social order. NME, 10.2.79
Songs ranged from the growling punk of Shut Up, 5 Minutes and Burning Up Time to the sublimeness of Hanging Around, Toiler On The Sea and their cover of Walk On By. Left of stage, JJ Burnel on the “barracuda” bass. To the right Hugh Cornwell on guitar. Further right on keyboards Dave Greenfield. And at the back, Jet Black on drums.
TheStranglers – Dagenham Dave – Early Live Footage
Live, they were excellent, withBurnel and Cornwell prowling the stage and Cornwell providing terrible in between song jokes. Between 1977 and 1979, the band released a string of superb albums Rattus Norvegicus, No More Heroes, Black & White and The Raven – and singles that showed them to be innovative and progressive while still retaining a spiky punk attitude.
Sadly The Stranglers have never been given the credit they deserve, largely being forgotten in books written about this time by the same journalists who pilloried them or being summarily dispatched as karate kicking, organ grinding violent / sexists. These pages tell a different story.
While Hugh left in 1990, both The Stranglers and he as a solo artist have continued on and still releasing some mighty fine stuff. It’s 2023 now and both Dave and Jet are sadly dead but JJ & Hugh continue though not in the same band.
The Stranglers Guildford 1975 pre logo
In todays world of fabricated pop shite and carefully contrived images of PR consultants and managers, the Stranglers story sticks out of pure bloody-mindedness, genius and often suicidal decisions.
The band first came together in Guildford in 1974 with Jet and Hugh before recruiting guitarist turned bassist Jean Jacques. Initially calling themselves the Guilford Stranglers, they found gigs hard to come by and shortened their name to The Stranglers. In 1975 Dave Greenfield joined on keyboards.
Signing with a management deal with Albion in late 1975 got them onto the London pub circuit and they played a daunting array of gigs travelling in Jet’s old ice cream van but picking up fans everywhere including The Finchley Boys, a gang of rowdy football supporters who took the band to their heart and followed them everywhere and a character called Dagenham Dave. Their stark, aggressive act was seen as intimidating by audiences and The Stranglers never compromised whether being clapped or booed. As punky bands began to appear through 1976, The Stranglers found their music and attitude in common with the new movement whose members would often attend Stranglers gigs.
The Stranglers shot from the hip and didn’t hold back. While everyone was saying punk was from the street and the look etc while wandering around in expensive Seditionaries gear it was bands like The Stranglers who looked like they had just come out of the audience. Only when it came to The Raven did they start to look different and by then they were a serious rock band.
After lengthy attempts to secure a deal the band were signed in December 1976 to UA and their first single Grip appeared in February charting at 44. Mysteriously sales of it were attributed to another single and it got no further. 2 months later Rattus Norvegicus was released to almost universal acclaim and caused surprise when it reached #4 in the charts.
From then on the rollercoaster began as The Stranglers became arguably the most popular and successful punk band of the time. Featured in tabloids, a love-hate affair with journalists, controversies, successes, bans a la GLC and Hugh’s wearing of a t-shirt with Ford looking like ‘Fuck’. The Stranglers were unstoppable.
Within 5 months they released three classic double a side singles Peaches/Go Buddy Go, Something Better Change/Straighten Out and the classic No More Heroes/ In The Shadows.
No More Heroes was also the name of their second album, five songs of which was recorded in the same sessions as their first, and reached no 2. Controversy came in the shape of the band’s lyrics i.e. Peaches and mentions of ‘Clitoris’ and alleged misogyny in their lyrics which became a point of dissonance with journalists and the bands aggressive attitude. Unlike most punk bands The Stranglers walked the walk and talked the talk and Burnel was no stranger to settling scores and arguments from on stage or wherever and viewing negative reviews as personal insults which to be fair to him a number of them were.
However no matter how much the journalists hated them, they couldn’t do without the Stranglers as countless interviews and features in Sounds, Record Mirror, NME and Melody Maker can attest from 1976-1980.
While I don’t agree with the violence they meted out to dissenting opinions some of those opinions written in the press about them were often vicious personal attacks with no foundation in the music. At this level I’m not surprised the band were provoked. It was quite common to have an album review and a feature one week in say the NME, the one being positive and the other being a slag off.
They provoked the GLC, they censored their own records to get airplay because they wanted success. But they didn’t want it that bad. They hated America and said so. When licensing their first album they burnt their boats literally in front of the record company president when JJ set fire to the American flag and curtains to boot.
Top Of The Pops appearances were vital to a bands success. They managed to smash a door down of another band and get banned from it and to storm off in protest at Students at Guildford on a live Rock Goes To College.
1978 and 1979 was a commercial high point as they released the more experimental Black & White (that saw them take punk in a new direction), Live X Cert and The Raven. They also scored more hits with 5 Minutes, Nice & Sleazy and Walk On By. By the time they reached Duchess and The Raven, sales were beginning to tail off coinciding with the demise and lack of continuing interest in punk. By then The Stranglers were a serious rock band. Gone were the one of the crowd clothes. Now they were all dressed in black with shiny new instruments.
We are the meninblack
Though our part of the story stops here, The Stranglers continued. The Raven saw the band at the peak of their artistic and commercial success.
As JJ wrote himself in 1978 about political systems
…that everything subscribes to a similar growth pattern IE sharp growth (rise) while young, broadening out in maturity until decline and end. NME, 27.1.79
So happened to The Stranglers. The band went into gradual decline prompted by the Men In Black, a drug fuelled concept album about aliens but had an Indian summer around 1982 with Golden Brown but failed to capitalise and broaden their appeal by following it with a 5 minute song in French, La Folie, about a cannibal that flopped. They were still rock’s bad boys long after punk had died causing riots in Nice and Australia, getting imprisoned and banned and fights and petrol bombings in Sweden.
But Punk had receded, the hits had dried and they were no longer regulars in the rock weeklies. Even the name The Stranglers seemed at odds with the cultured European music they were making and they even considered changing it. However with declining sales the band reconsidered bringing back JJ’s barracuda bass and more keyboards to help reclaim their fan base.
When Hugh left (still acrimonious in 2023) they could have took the easy option and JJ sing everything or just split. Instead they got a new vocalist in and started virtually from the bottom. In the ways things work out, the band are just as popular due in part to their loyal fanbase acquired all those years ago. Their records straddle multiple forms of music, but with well worn experience, and always recognisably The Stranglers with great albums such as Norfolk Coast and Dark Matters. Despite two founder members, Jet and Dave, dying they continue with just JJ left from the original band but with his cohort guitarist Baz Warne who has been in the band for some 15 years.
The Stranglers are arrogant, humble, sexist, sexy, intellectual, boorish, violent, tender, crass, intellectual, uncompromising, compromising, punk, new wave, pop, reactionary, revolutionary, contrary and maddening. But most of all they are fucking fantastic and in short never dull.
You know a band’s good when you come to make a singles comp and find it’s jam packed with goodies. The Stranglers are no exception. From 77-79 a string of 10 shit hot tunes and, unlike most bands, with just as good b-sides. Critics of the time had them down as Doors copyists or bad psychedelia, but that’s an easy and lazy negative critical jibe. If I had to compare them to anyone it would be Arthur Lee’s Love. The Stranglers produced punky, accessible, playful often barbed tunes but always with an ear for a tune and the unexpected. They are as much a part of punk rock as the Sex Pistols or The Clash.
Grip/ London Lady (United Artists February 1977)
It all starts here, opening synth, rumbling barracuda bass, and some cool sax in Hugh’s tale of rock’n’roll. The b side features JJ on punky spunky form with the stage fave London Lady, a spiteful paean to Caroline Coon – Sounds Journalist. ‘Plastics real when you’re real sick’ sings JJ. Yeah!
Chart Position 44
Peaches / Go Buddy Go (United Artists May 1977)
Surely one of the most famous bass intros and one every bassist knows. Sexist? Could be? But I know I’m the same when I’m on the beach. Laviscious tune with a sassy riff and drawled vocals that manage to mention clitoris though they made a cleaned up version to ensure airplay…Oh shit there goes the charabanc.
Coupled with stage fave a la pub rock and Hey Joe riff – Go Buddy Go. If you have this sleeve you’re rich. It was withdrawn and is mega rare.
Something Better Change / Straighten Out (United Artists August 1977)
From the long hot summer of 1977 comes this double A sided gem. Something Better Change was a stage fave commenting on punk rock and features the immortal line “Stick my fingers right up your nose”.
The B side, Straighten Out, is driven by Burnel’s bass in frenetic punk workout about the breakdown of society complete with Buddy Holly style “wo ha ho’s”. Classic stuff.
Chart Position 9
No More Heroes / In The Shadows (United Artists September 1977)
Timeless riff – timeless tune – timeless lyrics. Built around a catchy keyboard riff this sums up as much as anything else punk rock and 1977. Sheer fucking class!
Whatever happened to Leon Trotsky He got an icepick that made his ears burn. Whatever happened to dear old Lenny The Great Elmyra and Sancho Panza
“We’re up there singing ‘No More Heroes’ and in front of us are thousands of kids going crazy. It’s almost as if we’re perpetuating the very myth we set out to destroy.” Hugh Cornwell.
5 Minutes / Rok It To The Moon (United Artists February 1978)
Are they punk, aren’t’ they punk. The Stranglers reply with a cracking driven, aggressive tune that’s up their with their best. A true tale about JJ’s digs that out punks many supposed punk bands.
Great video for this tune with dark lighting and moody looks and Dave playing keyboards with one hand while drinking beer with the other.
Chart Position 8
Mid 1978 saw The Stranglers beginning to change direction musically to a more song and melody orientated style. The band were now a major rock band and serious artists with all that entailed. As they attempted to break free from the constraints of their punk past, musical styles changed and they found their position in the singles charts slipping while albums Black & White and The Raven still reached the higher reaches. After 1979 saw the band go slightly off the rails with (excellent but batty) Meninblack but that’s another story and out of this sites timeframe.
Nice ‘n’ Sleazy / Shut Up(United Artists April 1978)
An attempt at reggae that tells the tale of band meeting the Dutch Hells Angels. Barracuda bass and absolutely mad keyboard solo courtesy of planet psychedelia made this arguably the strangest song played on the radio.
The b side is their shortest and most aggressive song ever – Shut Up and the sleeve is of questionable taste.
Chart Position 18
Walk On By / Old Codger / Tank (United Artists August 1978)
Only The Stranglers could do this. Give away 70,000 copies of a free single then release it as a single and get into the charts. Superb Doors style take on on the classic Walk On By, a staple of earlier live sets. Worth it just for George Melly singing ‘What an old bugger I am’ on Old Codger.
Chart Position 21
Duchess / Fools Rush Out (United Artists October 1979)
fter X Certs The Stranglers come back with this bouncy 60’s sounding number which was a prelude to The Raven and a new direction. The bass is still barracuda though!
An ever popular live favourite
Chart Position 14
Nuclear Device / Yellowcake UF8 (United Artists November 1979)
Cool tune but weird time signatures made it unlikely to be a hit and punk was passing. Always a favourite live with the ‘Bruce’ and ‘Sheila’ refrain added.
The b side is one of my favourites – the backwards Yellowcake UF6 which was an unreleased track called Social Sec. This is due a dance remix!
Chart Position 36
Don’t Bring Harry / Crabs / Wired / In The Shadows (United Artists December 1979)
And what do the boys do next? Bring out the slowest song they have done yet. Don’t Bring Harry is a beautiful tune sounding like a soundtrack to a French film which which must have confused the punks somewhat!
Also featured a live In The Shadows, a live JJ Burnel Crabs and Hugh’s Wired.
All in a festive sleeve. Their lowest chart position since Grip.
Chart Position 41
Rattus Norvegicus (United Artists April 1977)
The Stranglers debut was originally to be a live album recorded at The Nashville from late 76′ but the band didn’t like the recording so was scrapped. The debut was also due to be called Dead On Arrival but Rattus Norvegicus was chosen instead. The review below is from a fanzine which more accurately reflects how most of us fans felt about the album. You can read Phil McNeill’s more controversial NME Rattus review here.
There’s Sometimes and Hanging Around with Hugh spitting out the lyrics like a cobra with an overload of venom. But the best is reserved until last. First Ugly in which Jean’s vocals are truly terrifying. All the way through the album Hugh’s guitaring is so good it must have even suprised him!
But no one instrument stands out. They’re all incredible. Jean’s fluid bass runs, Dave’s imaginative keyboard intricacies and Jet holding it together with rock-steady drumming. And the final number, Down In The Sewer. This has been the highpoint of the set for a long time…and it’s equally good on record! You even get the sounds of the rat’s teeth. Hugh’s amazing wavering notes duet with Dave’s sinister keyboards. The song rushes to its anthem like conclusion. Then you can hear the rats in the sewer as a rush of water signifies the end. “I’ll see you in the sewer, darling.” Nag & Ade, New Wave News, 1977
Compare that to the Melody Maker 23.4.77 review below which is so insulting and derogatory with the reviewer just giving his initials as well. You can understand why The Stranglers’ heckles were up after hatchet jobs like this.
Click for larger images
No More Heroes (United Artists September 1977)
Kevin Maidment, Amazon.co.uk (and I couldn’t have said it better myself) “You either love or you despise, there’s just no room for compromise” spat Anglo-French bassist Jean-Jacques Burnel on Burning Up Time. And by the time of No More Heroes-the Stranglers’ second album – the battle lines were drawn between those (the press and the women’s movement, mainly) who saw the future “Meninblack” as uncouth sexist pigs peddling aggressive punk Doors music and those for whom The Stranglers were a fantastically melodic, intelligent punk-rock combo, albeit one with a dangerously dry sense of humour and a swift-fingered, pipe-smoking keyboard player.
The aborted proposed cover with JJ for No More Heroes
The former had plenty to complain about: Elderly aunts up and down the land must have fainted the day an unwitting Dave Lee Travis played I Feel Like A Wog (“out on the dirty shitty jobs”) on Radio One, so it’s probably just as well they never got to hear the teacher-pupil relationship smut of School Ma’m (most unsavoury line–“disgusting behaviour, all over the parquet flooring”) or the infamously rude Bring On The Nubiles, which was chanted like testosterone-charged Daleks and featured the word “fuck” eight times.
Musically, The Stranglers were on a roll–Dave Greenfield’s use of Hammond organ and Moog synth coupled with Burnel’s sonorous belch of a bass and Hugh Cornwell’s not-bothered vocal made them instantly recognisable. And at least half of No More Heroes is every bit as good as Rattus Norvegicus(in fact, most of the album was recorded at the same time). It’s also the only Stranglers album to spawn two Top 10 singles, namely the gutteral call-to-arms of Something Better Change and the iconoclastic title track–a genuine rock classic. .
Black And White (United Artists May 1978)
If there was one thing The Stranglers were good at, it was polarising opinion on themselves. Black & White is to my mind is both a classic album and one of their best. The Stranglers were on a rich streak. In just over a one year period this was their third album! For the select band of punk groups that made it to their first album stage the third album bands could be counted on one hand – The Clash, Stranglers, Damned & Buzzcocks.
Dave Greenfield…Well Black & White signifies two different ways of thinking, positive or negative…that has always been out attitude if you look at it that way, relating it to audience response it has always been better to have the whole audience booing and throwing things at you….rather than have them sitting there quietly…that is the worst possible attitude…apathy. Strangled #7, 1978
It finds them at a curious point of time as they successfully leave punk and head off on their own. At this time they were invincible. Chart regulars on an upward curve the band were hated by journalists but loved by a strong grass roots following. The funny thing was this popularity meant that journalists could not ignore them and The Stranglers were regulars in the music weeklies.
A band whose selling power would let them give away 100,000 copies of Walk On By with the album then release it as a single and get into the charts. In fact its hard to understand why they gave it away the single as it is so so far removed from the album. In a way it shows how far the band had moved on. From pub rock Mean To Me and the The Hope & Anchor throwaway song Tits.
Black and White contains all the essential elements that makes people love them or hate them and yet still manages to be both innovative and startling. It also shows everything that was both good and arguably bad about The Stranglers. Where they came from and where they were going.
Having exhausted their large original repertoire of songs, the Stranglers offered their own more European view of the world in the light of their touring far afield and a totally new set of songs. Split into black and white sides, songs no longer had a punky speed but were driven by a more controlled anger and power. The sound and lyrics were still abrasive allied to catchy hooky tunes but were already heading towards the refinement of The Raven and beyond. Black and White and its release in Iceland has all the Stranglers traits around it. Run in with journalists and provocative lyrics and advertising. For the Stranglers in terms of support you were either for or against. It was black & white.
Originally to feature one side of Hugh’s songs and one side of JJ’s songs, the album ended up being mixed with as per usual all songs being credited to The Stranglers. B&W has a completely different feel to previous Stranglers albums. Side one is driven by JJ’s bass and swirly keyboards from the uptempo Tank to for me the highlight of the album for me the epic Toiler On The Sea.
The black side mixes up different time signatures and as expected presents a bleaker view with some truly great tracks like Curfew, In The Shadows and Death & Night & Blood finishing with Enough Time with its morse code message spelling out playfully ‘Mother Earth we are fucked.’
This is classic Stranglers – Revolver music TV programme 1978 introduced by Peter Cook
The previous single 5 Minutes was the perfect crossover from No More Heroes with its dark content. Only one single was released Nice N Sleazy their reggae gone wrong song – a tale of the band meeting Hells Angels . Released in a picture sleeve designed to get up noses – the original promo poster for the Stranglers by Kevin Sparrow ( who also designed their logo) of a woman’s body after being murdered. The b side also featured their shortest, most vicious punk rock song ever – Shut Up – clocking it at just 1.06 minutes.
Critics were confused but thankfully lines like Burnel singing “Bring me a piece of my Mummy, she was quite close to me” and including Tits ensured they had something to bitch about and bring out the old sexism card again.
Left – NME pisstake cover – I actually like it better!
Phil O’Neil… “What about the line “Bring me a piece of my mummy” (Threatened) – which I don’t think these days is the sort of line or gesture that works. At one time it did. Like The Doors – the melodramatic sort of line ” Mother I want to kill you”…
JJ…No, I just wanna fuck my mother basically. Always have done. Not so much now because she’s getting a bit older, she’s losing her grip on her looks. She’s a cute little French girl.” NME, 10.2.79
On the whole though reaction to the album was positive.
NME Pisstake 16.12.78
Phil McNeill - NME Review 13.5.78
Tim Lott Record Mirror 13.5.78
And so the physical album and release. I have no idea what is going on the cover designed by Kevin Sparrow except its decidedly unpunk and Jet looms large in the forefront. That said Hugh pretending to be hung and dead is probably advisable in the light of his body painting antics as pictured on the front of Record Mirror!
I also have no idea why the band decided to fly journalists to Iceland and play a gig there showcasing the new songs. Why wasn’t Tank released as the A side of a single? Questions, questions.
At the end of the day though, its a powerful album packed full of tunes and goodies and the end of an era which the following album Live X Cert would sum up. The next studio album, The Raven, would see them move on once again but that’s another story.
Live X Cert (United Artists February 1979)
Unduly derided at the time of release (1979) for being unnecessary and superfluous (but a Top Ten album nonetheless), the Stranglers’ Live X Cert now stands as one of the few contemporary documents of a British New Wave band in action, and serves to draw a line beneath the band’s tenuous associations with the rudimentary musical mechanics of the UK punk scene (their next album The Raven marked a huge stylistic departure). Captured at the height of the band’s commercial success and tabloid disreputability, Live X Cert–recorded in 1977 and 1978 at shows in Battersea Park and the Roundhouse–is a frank, ragged and savage account of the Stranglers’ stage menace and arch musicality.
JJ Burnel It’s the end of a period as far as we are concerned musically, so we thought it would be to have a compilation of the period of the first three albums. And rock’n’rolls about live stuff. NME, 10.2.79
JJ Burnel We could have brought out a compilation album, like the Doors did. I think a live compilation is better than a studio one’cos there’s lots of tracks that haven’t been released on albums before. Its very rough. There’s bits of verbals between tracks, bits of punch ups and things.” Sounds, 10.2.79
Live at Battersea Park 1978 and used for Live X Cert
Kevin Maidment, Amazon Truthfully, only the accelerated stomp through the classic Hanging Around and the bruising vigilantism of Five Minutes get close to the studio versions. Even so, Live X Cert is worth hearing for the sneery condescension of singer Hugh Cornwell, who shrugs-off audience flak (“Did someone just say ‘wanker’? C’mon, let’s geddim to own up, then”) and stage-bound phlegm (“Good to see you’ve all been reading your News of the Worlds and are all spitting just like punks are supposed to be”) with the mastery of a heckle-proof alternative comedian.
The Raven (United Artists September 1979)
Cruelly denied the Number One slot when an administrative cock-up at the UK chart returns office credited thousands of album sales to The Police, 1979’s The Raven found tuneful tough nuts The Stranglers striding purposefully away from the faltering punk scene with a renewed artistic agenda and a head full of hard drugs. A new direction and an overhauled musical vocabulary (gone was the growly bass and the organ, in came futuristic keyboard sounds, odd time signatures, intricate arrangements and extended instrumental passages) The Raven–as perennially acknowledged by the band’s large and dutifully black-garbed cult following–is The Stranglers magnum opus.
Hugh Cornwell We like symbols and for us the raven is much more symbolic of what we are now than what we were a year or two ago. At that time, we were really in the sewer. The raven is more like an element of going ahead in one direction. It’s a guiding navigation for a ship – and its also very European. Melody Maker, 8.9.79
Kevin Maidment, Amazon.co.uk From the epic title-track–a questing, valorous Norse saga adorned by Dave Greenfield’s wuthering Arctic synths and sung in breathless fashion by JJ Burnel–to the quirky prog-rock science of Genetix (on which former biochemist Hugh Cornwell got to show-off his knowledge of pioneering 19th-century Austrian geneticist Gregor Mendel). The Raven was–and remains–enthrallingly fresh, musically daring and downright ominous.
Paranoia abounds–there’s the grimly pretty (but rather hypocritical) anti-heroin lament Don’t Bring Harry and the helium-inhaling vocal freakiness of Meninblack, a portentous slab of psychedelic lethargy detailing the existence of a black-suited extraterrestrial mafia. But there’s pop too–Duchess and the doleful Baroque Bordello, a song almost compassionate and empathic compared to the leerier lyricisations of old. The Raven is The Stranglers’ finest achievement.”
An ice cream manufacturer and drummer who was already 40, a karate loving guitarist who became a bassist, A bio physicist teacher and a pipe smoking keyboardist who was originally a guitarist. From such unlikely characters did the Stranglers grow, but it certainly gave them variety and brought a lot to the pot. The Stranglers were also a tightly knit group who had paid their dues and learnt their craft by playing over 400 gigs in two years (1975-77) across the country to often very few people. The stage was set for a uniquely English band to make its mark helped by the emergence of punk rock. Here are the dramatis personae!
Hugh Cornwell – Guitar & Vocals
Hugh Cornwell, like Burnel was highly intelligent and articulate. A consummate wind up artist and with the driest of dry sense of humour he was the perfect lead sparring partner with Burnel. With his battered telecaster and thin wiry almost skeletal wiry frame Cornwell created not so much the prototype guitar based driven punk but woven bits of guitar and textures interacting with bass and keyboards that reached its zenith around The Raven.
Cornwell’s vocals are distinct with the curious way he has of pronouncing words (see Nuclear Device and Nice & Sleazy) and instantly recognisable.
Hugh was also famed for the mid song banter and terrible jokes that were part of The Stranglers live act. Between them Burnel and Cornwell were dynamic front persons and together with The Stranglers as a unit a formidable live act. Cornwell, like Burnel, also specialised in making outrageous statements guaranteed to raise hackles.
Hugh also released a solo album Nosferatu though with lesser success. Disaster struck for the band in 1980 when Cornwell was arrested and convicted for drug use and sent to prison for three months in Pentonville, but this could not halt the band.
In 1990 Hugh took the decision to leave the band post a gig at Alexandra Palace. This would be a source of acrimony that continues to this day.
Jean Jacques Burnel – Bass & Vocals
Arguably one of the greatest bass players ever, combining aggression, melody and fluidity. Burnel’s arpeggios, runs and barracuda bass were an integral part of the initial Stranglers sound. Burnel also combined this with movement and I well remember during the Black & White period where he started doing karate movements as he got totally into the music.
To top it all off Burnel and Cornwell offered two lead frontmen mixing vocal duties, the former sounding the punkier on tracks such as Burning Up Time, Bitching, Ugly and London Lady.
Originally a classical guitarist, JJ joined the band by accident after being given a lift by Hugh. A lover of karate, Triumph motorbikes and hot headed to say the least, JJ was both the sex symbol of the band and always in the thick of trouble; either starting or ending it. Confrontational, intelligent, aggressive and sometimes not knowing when to stop made him fair game for the critics which he often responded to with violence, wind ups or over the top quotes which they swallowed whole and criticised even more. He also spoke his mind.
He released a solo album Euroman Cometh which preceded the synth revolution just around the corner and featured ideas such as United States of Europe which critics laughed at but very shortly began to come true big style.
“I didn’t realise I was such a psychopath, its all true.” JJ Burnel 1997 Upon reading No Mercy the Stranglers Biography.
One for the ladies…JJ in the nude! NME Christmas 1977
JJ’s bass sound was a distinctive trademark sound of the earlier Stranglers.
The reason it occurred in the first place was because John had a speaker cabinet that was about the size of a door with 16 or so 10″ speakers which are a a bit small to be taking bass. They all blew one after, so he ended with a huge bass cabinet with blown speakers, but the sound got dirtier and dirtier and became a feature of the band. Hugh Cornwell, The Stranglers: Song By Song
As of 2023, JJ is the the last original Strangler in the band.
Dave Greenfield – Keyboards & Vocals
The least known, least punky looking and probably least interviewed Strangler, yet one of the most important contributors to to their sound and success with his trademark keyboards. Part of the Stranglers success and sound comes from the seamless interaction between bass, keyboards and guitar – Check out Hanging Around for the best example of this.
A native of Brighton, he was originally a guitarist before turning to keyboards. Before becoming a Strangler he was working the graveyard circuit of German US bases.
Dave sings in his own unique creepy style on several songs namely Dead Ringer, Peasant In The Big Shitty, Do You Wanna and Genetix. It was also his riff previously discarded that became the basis for Golden Brown one of the Stranglers biggest hits.
The Stranglers early sound was often compared to The Doors which Dave claimed at the time (1978) never to have heard. It’s a fair comparison with his keyboards echoing Ray Manzarek. Best heard in their Doors homage to Light My Fire on Walk On By.
In later years Greenfield’s keyboards would feature less prominently. That changed with Norfolk Coast and the band’s renaissance and his keyboards were back
Dave sadly passed away in May 2020. The band’s tribute is beautiful and touching.
Jet Black (Brian Duffy) – Drums
What on earth made Jet Black, a successful entrepreneur in Guildford, decide to give it all up and answer an ad to join Johnny Sox with Hugh Cornwell in 1974 is hard to know. Not only that, he sold all his businesses except an ice cream van which the band used for transport to gigs up and down the country for 3 years before finding success.
Furthermore Jet must have been about 40 at the time but strangely anticipates punk as JJ recalls in 1977 “… he (Hugh) met this drummer called Jet Black who was a real freak, he had peroxide hair and these really weird flannel drainpipes that came three inches above his ankle.” There was an empathy struck up and the rest is history.
Jet was a solid ex jazz drummer who, when the occasion needed it, provided some deft left field touches like on Peaches or Nice ‘n’ Sleazy. Jet was also no slouch at being confrontational, hurling tables through windows when he wouldn’t be served food. Check out the article right and this little quote:
“Officer what would happen if I called you a cunt? I would have to arrest you. What if I thought you were a cunt? Then I could do nothing. Officer I think you are a cunt!
In later years around Feline Jet would cease playing and recording using live drums and it definitely shows as the band did lose a certain element of their sound, but Jet really was the backbone and sounding board of the band.
In 2015 he stopped touring because of health reasons and in 2018 he retired from the band altogether. Finally in December 2022 he passed away.
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