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 There's some well documented run-ins with other bands at the time. Was it true you had a bit of incident with The Clash's bass player, Paul Simenon?
JJ: Yeah, by the middle of 1976 we had a couple of really good regular gigs, like residencies really. One was at The Hope and Anchor, one was at The Red Cow and we had another in The Nashville Rooms. There was definitely some changes going on at the time. People were starting to cut their hair shorter, jeans were getting tighter. Anyway, we all congregated in these kind of places. We were starting to get a bit of a name for ourselves on the London circuit and were invited to do the American Bi-centinary gig. After our set, we had a few drinks and snaked our way out into the audience. I passed by Paul Simenon while he was standing at the bar with Steve and Paul from the Sex Pistols. The Clash's Paul had a bit of a nervous spitting habit and he gobbed on the floor just in front of me. So I thumped him! He then fell against Steve and Paul, who dropped their pints, and all jumped in on top of me. The rest of the band and a few of our followers, called The Finchley Boys, joined in. Eventually, we were all thrown out into a courtyard, where there was a big stand-off. Chrissie Hinde and Dee Dee Ramone were there too, watching Paul and I just put our noses in one another's faces. It was real school kid stuff. Joe Strummer said to Hugh at the time as well, 'Oh I think my bass player's having a punch up with your bass player!'
Early songs like ‘Peasant in the Big Shitty' resonated the kind of alienation that became the very essence of punk. But you never classed yourselves as punk did you?
JJ: No, we didn't, but a lot of people did at the time. There was a cross-over, but the more hardcore followers of punk certainly wouldn't have classed us as such. For start, we had a keyboard player and a synthesiser occasionally. And also, we claimed to be a few years older than the others, but I just recently discovered that Joe was exactly the same age.
You’re still referred to as a punk band, even though the punk era took up a very short amount of time in your career. Does that frustrate you?
JJ: Well, it was our formative years wasn't it, and that was when other people were forming their opinions of us. We developed a reputation for being uncompromising though, which stuck for many years. When we wanted to be seen as being musically ambitious, it got in the way.
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