Summary
Tonight, we crank up the volume on The Clash, the band that didn’t just play punk, they weaponized it. Born in the gritty chaos of 1976 London, The Clash brought together the firebrand Joe Strummer, the guitar-slinging Mick Jones, and a crew of musical insurgents who didn’t care about rules, unless they were breaking them. They didn’t stick to just punk, either; they mashed it up with reggae, ska, and rockabilly, creating a sonic Molotov cocktail that captured the anger, hope, and dirty sneakers of a generation. From the raw rebellion of White Riot to the genre-busting brilliance of London Calling, we’ll track their meteoric rise, their inevitable implosion in ’86, and the legacy they left behind, one that still echoes through headphones, protest marches, and garage bands everywhere. So grab your safety pins and sarcasm, we’re diving into the glorious mess that was (and is) The Clash.
Show Notes
- This episode dives headfirst into the loud, messy, glorious history of The Clash, the band that made punk political and cool at the same time
- Born in late-70s London, The Clash didn’t just ride the punk wave, they torched the rulebook and rewrote it in power chords
- Joe Strummer, Mick Jones, Paul Simonon, and Topper Headon weren’t just bandmates, they were a dysfunctional family with guitars, drumsticks, and something to say
- Sure, they started as punks, but they didn’t stay in the box, they pulled in reggae, ska, and rockabilly, like musical magpies with a cause
- We’ll trace their early days, fueled by angst, idealism, and the kind of authenticity you can’t fake, even if you tried
- Their lyrics didn’t just rhyme, they hit back at injustice, war, consumerism, and anything else that needed a good musical slap
- More than just a history lesson, this episode asks: how does a band this loud still echo in today’s music and culture?
- The Clash didn’t just make records, they made statements, and they made them stick
Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Sleep With Rockstars
02:22 The Clash: Formation and Early Years
09:49 The Clash's Emergence
15:44 The Clash's Rise to Fame
21:13 The Clash: Rise of a Punk Icon
32:30 The Disintegration and Breakup of The Clash
Takeaways
- In this episode, we kick back and unpack the chaotic brilliance of The Clas, the band that made punk smarter, louder, and weirdly danceable
- Yes, you’re encouraged to relax, this is bedtime punk history, not a college lecture
- If you drift off mid-episode, no shame, The Clash would probably respect your right to nap through the system
- Repetition is your friend here; play it again and let your brain soak it in like a vinyl left on repeat
- We trace the band’s rise from the grimy streets of ’76 London to the global stage, where their sound got bigger, bolder, and way beyond punk
- Joe, Mick, Paul, and Topper didn’t just form a band, they built a movement with guitars and grit
- Their music evolved, their message sharpened, and somehow they made rebellion sound both righteous and radio-friendly
- This episode is part tribute, part time capsule, a salute to The Clash and the punk spirit that refuses to quietly fade away
Links
- Source en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Clash
- You may also enjoy this bonus episode Sleep with Buzzcocks
- Join the Fan Club for as little as $3
Mentioned in this Episode
- the Clash
- Rolling Stone
- CBS
- Sex Pistols
- Buzzcocks
- New Musical Express (NME)
- John Lydon
- Bobby Fuller
- Blue Oyster Cult
- Toots and the Maytals
- Mott the Hoople
- Traffic
- Giovanni d'Adamo
- Bernard Rhodes
- Malcolm McLaren
- 101ers
- London SS
- Alvaro Pena Rojas
- Glenn Matlock
- Steve Jones
- JJ Brunel
- Stranglers
- Pablo Lebritton
- Caroline Kuhn
- Mickey Dread
- Lee Scratch Perry
- Rob Harper
- Terry Chimes
- Nick Shepard
- Vince White
Recommended If You Like
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Transcript
00:00:00.400 - 00:02:21.820
Tonight on Sleep With Rockstars, we Will Sleep with the Clash welcome to Sleep With Rock stars, the Gen X Sleep Podcast. Because you deserve a good night's sleep or whatever. I'm Sloane Spencer.
In each Sleep With Rockstars sleep podcast, I will read from Wikipedia about your favorite Gen X musicians and bands. If this podcast helps you relax and fall asleep, please leave a five star rating and a kind review in your favorite podcast app.
You may find that the more you listen, the more your mind will begin to associate these stories with sleep. So feel free to return to each episode again and again. Repetition can help create a signal to your brain that it's time to rest.
And if the musical act isn't your favorite, that's perfectly okay. You don't need to pay close attention. Instead, let the words flow over you. Let their rhythm and softness lull you, not for interest, but for sleep.
You are not here to be entertained, you're here to let go. Now let your breath guide you deeper into stillness. Take a moment to settle in. Gently close your eyes and let your body begin to rest.
There's nowhere you need to be, nothing you need to do. This is your time. A time to let go of the day. Unwind and allow your mind to slow down. With each breath in, invite, calm.
With each breath out, release the tension.
As your body begins to soften into the surface beneath you, imagine a gentle wave of warmth from the crown of your head to the tips of your toes, carrying away the weight of the day.
00:02:22.780 - 00:12:26.190
This evening on Sleep With Rock Stars, We'll Sleep with the Clash the Clash were an English rock band formed in London in 1976.
Billed as the only band that matters, they are considered one of the most influential acts in the original wave of British punk rock, with their music fusing elements of reggae, dub, funk, ska and rockabilly. The band also contributed to the post punk and new wave movements that followed.
For most of their recording career, Clash consisted of lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist Joe Strummer, lead guitarist and vocalist Mick Jones, bassist Paul Simonon, and drummer Nikki Topper headen.
The Clash achieved critical and commercial success in the United Kingdom with the release of their debut album, the Clash and their second album, Give Em Enough Rope.
Their experimental third album, London Calling, which was released in the UK in December 1979, earned them popularity in the United States, where it was released the following month. A decade later, Rolling Stone named London Calling the best album of the 1980s.
Following continued musical experimentation on their fourth album, Sandinista 1980, the band achieved Further commercial success with the release of Combat Rock, which includes the US top 10 hit Rock the Kasbah, helping the album to achieve a double platinum certification there.
In 1982, Headen left the band due to internal friction surrounding his increasing heroin addiction, and Jones departed the following year with a new lineup. The band released their final album, Cut the crap, in 1985 before disbanding a few weeks later.
In January 2003, shortly after the death of Joe Strummer, the band, including original drummer Terry Chimes, were inducted into the Rock and Roll hall of fame. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked the Clash number 28 on its list of the hundred greatest artists of all time.
19741976 before the Clash's founding, the band's future members were active in different parts of the London music scene.
Joe Strummer, whose real name was John Graham Mellor, sang and played rhythm guitar in the pub rock band the 101ers, which he had formed in 1974 with Alvaro Pena Rojas.
Mellor later abandoned his original stage name, Woody Miller in favor of Joe Strummer, a reference to his rudimentary strumming skills on the ukulele while he was a busker in the London Underground. Mick Jones played guitar in proto punk band London SS and rehearsed for much of 1975, but never played a live show and recorded only one demo.
London SS were managed by Bernard Rhodes, an associate of impresario Malcolm McLaren and a friend of the members of the sex pistols who McLaren managed.
Jones and his bandmates became friendly with Sex Pistols members Glenn Matlock and Steve Jones, who helped them as they auditioned potential new members.
Bassist Paul Simonon and drummer Terry Chimes auditioned for London SS but were rejected, and Nikki Headen drummed with the band for a week, then quit. After London SS broke up in early 1976, Rhodes continued as Jones manager.
In February, Jones saw the Sax Pistols perform for the first time and commented, you knew straight away that was it and this was what it was going to be like from now on. It was a new scene, new values, so different from what had happened before. A bit dangerous.
In March of that year, at the instigation of Rhodes Church, Jones contacted Simonon and suggested he learn an instrument so he could join the new band Jones was organizing. Soon. Jones, Simonon on bass, Keith Levine on guitar, and whoever we could really find to play the drums were rehearsing.
Chimes was asked to audition for the new band and was accepted, but quit soon after.
The band were still searching for a Lead singer, according to Chimes, Billy Watts, who seemed to be like 19 or 18 then, as we all were, handled the duties for a time. Rhodes was watching Strummer, with whom he had made exploratory contact. Both Jones and Levine had seen Strummer perform and were impressed.
In April, Strummer saw the Sex Pistols open for one of his band's gigs.
Strummer later said, I knew something was up, so I went out into the crowd, which was fairly sparse, and I saw the future with a Sonati handkerchief right in front of me. It was immediately clear pub rock was, hello, you bunch of drunks. I'm going to play these boogies and I hope you like them.
The Pistols came out that Tuesday evening and their attitude was, here's our tunes, and we couldn't give a flying fuck whether you liked them or not. In fact, we're gonna play them even if you hate them.
On 30 May, Rhodes and Levine approached Strummer after 101ers gig and invited him to meet up at the band's rehearsal location on Davis Road. After Strummer turned up, Levine played Keys to your Heart, one of Strummer's own tunes.
Rhodes gave Strummer 48 hours to decide whether to join the new band that would rival the pistols. Within 24 hours, he agreed. Simonon later said, once we had Joe on board, it all started to come together.
Strummer introduced the band to his school friend Pablo Lebritton, who sat in on drums during Strummer's first few rehearsals with the band. Liberton left the band shortly after and joined 999.
Terry Chimes, who Jones later referred to as one of the best drummers in their circles, became the band's regular drummer in Westway to the World. Jones said, I don't think Terry was officially hired or anything. He had just been playing with us.
Jimes did not like Strummer at first, saying he was like 22 or 23 or something. And that seemed old to me then. And he had these retro clothes and this croaky voice. Simonon thought of the band's name.
They had briefly named themselves the Weak Heart Drops and the Psychotic Negatives. According to Simonon, it really came to my head when I started reading the newspapers and a word that kept recurring was the word Clash.
So I thought, the Clash. What about that? To the others and they and Bernard, they went for it.
Early gigs and The Growing Scene 1976 after rehearsing with Strummer for less than a month, The Clash made their debut performance on 4 July 1976, supporting the sex Pistols and the Black Swan nightclub in Sheffield. The Clash wanted to appear on stage before their rivals, the Damned, another London SS spin off, made their own scheduled debut two days later.
The Clash did not play in front of another audience for five weeks. Levine was becoming disaffected with his position in the group.
At the Black Swan, he approached the Sax Pistols lead singer John Lydon, whose stage name was Johnny Rotten, and suggested they form a band together if the Pistols broke up hours after their debut.
The Clash, most of the Sex Pistols and much of London's inner circle of punks attended a performance by New York City's leading punk rock band, the Ramones, at Dingwalls. According to Strummer, it can't be stressed how great the first Ramones album was to the scene. It was the first word of punk, a fantastic record.
Afterwards came the first example of the rivalry induced squabbling that was to dog the punk scene and undermine any attempts to promote a spirit of unity among the bands involved.
Simonon fought with JJ Brunel, the bassist of the Stranglers, a slightly older band who were publicly identified with the punk scene but were not part of the inner circle, which centered on the Sex Pistols. Rhodes insisted the class should not perform live again until they were much tighter, so they intensely rehearsed the following month.
According to Strummer, the band devoted themselves to creating a distinct identity, saying, the day I joined the Clash was very much back to square one. Year zero Part of punk was that you had to shed all of what you knew before.
We were almost Stalinist in the way that you had to shed all your friends or everything that you'd known or every way that you'd played before. Strummer and Jones shared most of the writing duties. According to Jones, Joe would give me the words and I would make a song out of them.
The band sometimes met in the office over their Camden Town rehearsal studio. According to Strummer, Bernie Rhodes would say, an issue, an issue. Don't write about love. Write about what's affecting you, what's important.
Jones later said, bernie had a hand in everything.
00:12:26.990 - 00:12:28.110
Not the lyrics.
00:12:28.110 - 00:35:30.440
He didn't help with the lyrics. He didn't tell us not to write love songs. As the myth goes, that's kind of simplified version of it. He told us to write what we knew about.
Strummer performed lead vocals on the majority of songs, but he and Jones sometimes shared the lead.
Once the band began recording, Jones rarely had a solo lead on more than one song per album, although he was responsible for two of the group's biggest hits.
On 13 August 1976, the Clash, wearing paint spattered Jackson bollock outfits, played in their Camden studio before a small invitation only audience which included Sounds magazine critic Giovanni d', Adamo, whose review described the band as a runaway train so powerful they're the first new group to come along who can really scare the Sex pistols shitless. On 29 August, the Clash and Manchester's Buzzcocks opened for the Sex Pistols at the Screen on the Green.
It was the Clash's first public performance since the fourth of July. The Triple Bill show is seen as pivotal to the consolidation of the British punk scene into a movement.
New Musical Express reviewer Charles Scharr Murray wrote, the Clash are the sort of garage pan that should be speedily returned to the garage, preferably with the motor still running. Stromer later credited Murray's comments with inspiring the Clash's song Garageland. In early September, Levine was fired from the Clash.
According to Strummer, Levine's dwindling interest in the band was due to his use of speed, a point Levine denied.
On 21st September 1976, the Clash performed publicly for the first time without levine at the 100 Club Punk special, sharing the bill with the Sex Pistols, Susie and the Banshees and Subway sections. Chimes left in late November and he was briefly replaced by Rob Harper.
As the Clash toured in support of the Sex Pistols during December's Anarchy tour, the Clash promoted a left wing message in their songs and interviews and sang about social problems such as career opportunities, unemployment and the need for a backlash against racism and oppression. Joe strummer said in 1976, we're anti fascist, we're anti violence, we're anti racist and we're pro creative.
Strummer also said, I don't believe in all that anarchy bollocks.
According to the Clash guitarist Mick Jones, the important thing is to encourage people to do things for themselves, think for themselves and stand up for what their rights are.
A confrontation between black youth and Police at the 1976 Notting Hill Carnival was important in the development of the Kalash's political stance and inspired Joe Strummer to write white riot.
Images of the riots were used as the Clash's stage backdrop and as the back cover of the first album, which was reprinted on badges and Clash T shirts. Punk breakthrough and UK fame 19771979 By January 1977, punk had become a major media phenomenon in the UK.
According to New Musical Express, NME 1977 is the year of the Clash.
On 25 January, the band signed to CPS Records for £100,000, a remarkable amount for a band who had played about 30 gigs and very few headlining shows.
Clash historian Marcus Gray said the band members found themselves having to justify the deal to both the music press and to fans who picked up on the Critics muttered asides about the Clash having sold out to the establishment.
Mark Perry, founder of the leading London punk periodical Sniff and Glue, wrote, punk died the day the Clash signed to cbs, but recanted when he heard the single White Riot, saying, they're the most important group in the world at the moment. I believe in them completely. All I said about them is crap.
According to one of the band's associates, the deal was later used as a classic example of the kind of contract that no group should ever sign. The group had to pay for their own tours, recordings, remixes, artwork, expenses.
According to Strummer, in March 1977, signing that contract did bother me a lot. I've been turning it over in my mind, but now I've come to terms with it, I've realized that it all boils down to his perhaps two years security.
Before, all I could think about was my stomach. Now I feel free to think and free to write down what I'm thinking.
And look, I've been fucked about for so long, I'm not going to suddenly turn into Rod Stewart because I get £25 a week. I'm much too far gone for that, I tell you.
Mickey Foote, who worked as technician at the band's...
