Credit Tina K

 On release in late 1979 Metal Box by Public Image Ltd looked out of place with the rest of the music coming out in the UK at that time. Though the PIL First Issue album was a statement of intent, Metal Box was completely out on it’s own in terms of it’s sound, songs and appearance. The response from Music Critics was not very positive, they weren’t ready for this! 

 We now look on Metal Box as iconic and the album to admire that it really was? Making the recordings was extremely difficult for all the members involved for lot’s of various reasons and it was the end of their time with PIL for several drummers, producers, engineers and other band members including Jah Wobble. He now performs the album in an alternative Dub version with an extremely talented band. I looked forward to talking to the man named Jah Wobble by his friend Sid Vicious. 

 On connecting to John Wardle aka Jah Wobble he starts by explaining some pain he has been going through recently with his back. So for the first 5 minutes we share our “back” experiences as is a common situation when you get to a certain age. So I first ask if this has caused him to cancel any shows as the back recovers? 

John Wardle : “I was going in the passenger seat to shows, laying completely flat. We only moved two shows, we've done them in the new year, so... I didn't miss a beat”. 

ReturnToSound:  “You have a tour coming up, you're going to perform the Metal box dub version,  which I'm looking forward to. How did this version you now play come about?” 

JW: “ Well, how it started, the very beginning of this sequence of events was in 2018. I went over to record an album with Bill Laswell, with my band, in New Jersey, and we did a couple of shows just for fun over there, and in one of the shows, I asked them to get me a bass as I didn’t take one over. Don't bother trying to get an Ovation, which is what I normally play. Get a Fender P (Precision) for me. Just get me a good Fender P. That'll do the job, I know it well.  

  So I got a Fender P, and it has got its own unique sound, especially with the roundwounds (strings), and it made me think back to how I played in Public Image. In fact we started some versions, prototype versions, remakes of "Poptones", "Public Image"... around that time, maybe even just slightly before that, you know. So, it got me back. 

 It got me thinking about those old songs and Metal Box, because you go back to thinking about what went through your mind as you produced those early bass lines. And you can't help but think about what you would do with some of the compositions now, if you could have another run at them, you know. And,  so... that set the scene. 

 In 2020, when lockdown was happening, Cleopatra Records, Matt Green there, said to me, look, would you ever think about doing a new version of Metal Box? I think he thought I was going to say, how dare you! That's an iconic record! What a stupid thing. But I went, yeah, sure, I'm ready to do that. He was really surprised. 

  What they didn't know, this is the other absolute coincidence, I was doing a community project with John Klein. He was the only guy that could really handle that proper post-punk guitar sound now, I was working with John remotely at that time, because of lockdown. So, it was all perfect timing. It meant the next day, I could start the project with John remotely. 

   I sent John... "Poptones" and "Albatross", with heavy metal power chords across them and the basic arrangement. John got back to me and said, look, are you serious about this? He wasn't sure. I said, just trust me, it'll be great, John. Just go with it, it'll be great.  but... he let go and just got stuck in. And of course, he's a great musician and great producer. 

RTS: “Working remotely with the to and fro did that come quite easily to you? coming up with the different versions of those songs, which are quite spontaneous anyway, weren't they, in the original form?” 

JW: “ Yeah, they were spontaneous, but this was just no problem. 

  I just thought, like with...  "Albatross" and "Poptones", I'm very simple the way I build tracks. You've basically got some minor chords, like power chords, going across, I think E minor, I suppose it is, with "Albatross", E minor kind of B, and "Poptones", I guess that's A, you know, so you've got sections in there that don't modulate, they just stay on the main part of "Poptones", and sit on the A part, you know. The string arrangement that you hear on that, especially at the end, was something we were doing live anyway, because we've got a great keyboard player, who's got great string sounds, and he's a classically trained guy, so me, the bass and the drummer drop out.   

  "Socialist", that was just a case of, well, okay, let's make it modulate. We were already doing a drum and bass version of it, live, but I added some extra modulations, some melodic stuff,  that took care of that. There's "The suit" which is even more developed than it was on the album, because you have to remember, the original "The suit" didn't have any guitar on it. That's the one I started in the manor in Oxfordshire. Then I went to ChinaTown, to Goodsbury Studios , Gerrard Street. There I did a track called Blueberry Hill, but then took just the backing track, which then became "The Suit”. 

Going back to 1979 and the birth of the tracks that ended up on Metal Box, with what was going on in and around the band Wobble felt in a precarious position. It all started well but slowly deteriorated and ended with some animosity. There was a difference in opinion on who created what and the union was crumbling which wasn’t the way PIL were supposed to exist. 

JW: “Right. So, when I left PIL, they were saying, oh, he stole our backing tracks. It was the complete reverse. 

I gave them my fucking backing tracks, in fact. I started.. a lot of the stuff that PIL had... they were my backing tracks, because nothing would be going on. 

I'd go and initiate stuff. At that point, Levene (Keith) was struggling to get it together on guitar. So, it was easier for him just to make noises on the synth, you know, they're nice noises, although they're bad noises, you know. 

So, he couldn't handle putting any guitar down. 

We have put guitar on the new version”. 

RTS: “So, it's how you would have liked the song to have been originally now?” 

JW: “Yeah, well, it should have had a guitar on it, that track. 

So, it finally got one. Yeah. Excellent”. 

RTS: “Touring this new version, are you using the same band for this?  

You've got some good musicians there. Who's doing what?” 

JW: “Mark Layton-Bennett's on drums, George King on keyboards, 

Martin Chung on guitar. And, obviously, John Klein on guitar. So, two guitars. 

I've been playing with Mark and George for 15 years.  And Chung for probably... 11 years now. We have done a lot of shows. They're great guys. 

I had no intention to be playing live this late into life. But, they're such good guys. They're a joy to hang out with, as well as play with. 

So, while they're up for it, I'm up for it. Well, the back's up for it. 

Even with the back, you know, I'll do it lying down if I've got to”. 

RTS: “And playing that album in particular is still a good thing for you. And I presume the audience still love hearing it?” 

JW: “The composite parts... Some are larger than the parts themselves, somehow. It's become a really fantastic event... We end with a version of Graveyard. You have to be there... Hopefully, you'll hear it on the night. For me, the whole thing captures the zeitgeist of post-punk, actually. So, it goes beyond metal box even. Yeah, I don't say that lightly”. 

RTS: “Going back to 1979, when you were recording this monumental album, you probably didn't realise how it was going to turn out. Looking back now, did you  feel at the time that this was something special?” 

JW: “I did feel it was something special. I don't know if we really articulated it like this, but especially me and Keith. We thought you can plot a career through music,  

you have the first album, which we did. And maybe that's a bit nascent. It's a bit, unformed, you know, you haven't quite got your sounds yet. And then you do the second album, and it's really coming on. The third album's great. 

And then by the time you get to the fourth and fifth album, you decide to go a bit far out and experiment. We just decided, with Metal Box, the second album, oh, motherfuck it. Let's just do what we really want to do. 

Which was very primal. It wasn't song-based, particularly. The music wasn't polite. 

It wasn't bourgeois. You know, we weren't trying to be liked. It was very bold”. 

RTS: “Do you think that happened naturally? I mean, it's not like you went in one day and thought, this is what we're aiming to do. Do you think it just happened as such, by itself, by the characters that you three, were?” 

JW: “Everything started with a bass. So, I would just play. I was very lucky. I was a novice player. I had a good idea of how I wanted to play, which is making repetitive patterns on the bass, not following guitar chords. So I was very lucky. I'm in a situation where everyone's kind of in agreement with that. 

Which was wonderful. So, you know, that was it. And basically, that's what I took to the table. 

Levine had that angular, kind of mad guitar with a real arm-melodic kind of sensibility going on. There's three tunes, "Public Image", "Theme" and "Poptones", so the three that you really hear him. That’s his abilities on those, yeah, definitely. 

  He brought that harmonic sensibility. John realized he didn't have to try to sing, he was probably never going to be a singer, and he could just be himself and screech the lyrics out, I guess, like some sort of primal scream”.  

RTS: “Did you all feel you were almost in your comfort zone, where there was no particular pressure to produce actual songs in a normal structure?” 

JW: “Oh, we were very lucky. 

I couldn't imagine another situation like it where you haven't got a record company saying, we're gonna have the songs, man, you know, you're kidding, this is shit, or you'd have a manager cajoling you. We didn't have anybody telling us what to do, so we did what we liked. It's a very unusual situation, and because of that, it ended up with a very extreme record” 

RTS: “I'm guessing Richard Branson never stuck his head in the door to see what was going on?” 

JW: “I think Virgin A&R people just kept the fuck away from us, you know, so we were able to do what we wanted. I think there were one or two producers who'd come down, and they didn't last. Nobody really lasted, you know”. 

RTS: “There seemed to be an inconsistency through the time you were making the album, you didn't really have a drummer as such, you had various drummers, did this just sort of happen, it wasn't a case of not planning anything?” 

JW: “No, no, we had a great drummer who got fucked off with it and left, Jim Walker, he was on the first album. Jim was a really good drummer, but he didn't like the business set-up, and in time I also came to not like the “business”, so I fucked off. We were left without a drummer and I increasingly realised, well, I'm going to be leaving. 

  So as we got into Metalbox I started to think, I don't actually like these people very much, they're not very nice they're not good people both the band and the people around the band, I thought they're not good souls and so I'll see this through, eventually it was just a case of I'm going to do America, I wanted to go to New York especially, then I'll fuck off, which I did. So for me, I wasn't looking to find a drummer, I wasn't going to be in it forever, let alone find a drummer who’s going to be in it, because I didn't really give a fuck by that point, so we just had different players who’d come in. I knew it was just chaos at that point in regards the business, though the one thing that was good was the music somehow and the tapes remained unscathed. We recorded and we had a respect for the music so that was fine but everything off stage was just pretty unpleasant it had been light hearted at the beginning of Metal Box. It wasn’t anything to do with the music it was all the various drugs that were being taken, as I say for me, just bad people not conducive for creating good music. There was a window opened in the middle of all that to make something really meaningful which we did, as to being a viable band you couldn't imagine anything less viable, it was obviously not going to be able to continue as a functioning band”. 

RTS: “Looking back for you now, if you listen to the original Metal Box it must bring back good and bad memories?” 

JW:” It got pretty much slagged off when it was released to be fair, which didn't bother me at the time but I think it had some terrible reviews and I think even when it got OK reviews they were pretty weak. They didn't really get it.  I think the best review was probably Angus McKinnon in the NME. Angus totally got it, he was coming from a Big Electric Miles fan or a Nick Coleman fan, he kind of understood it in terms of, if Cleopatra or anybody had asked me to redo Metal Box in the early or mid 90s I would have said how dare you! I'm doing world music I'm doing my own stuff! I don't fucking care about that. Now it's years on you look back and realise this has become iconic and I've got respect for it. 

 This wasn't a case of I never liked that record this is my chance to make it better, it was more a case of that's great I think it's possible to rework it and make another version that's fantastic as well”. 

RTS: “ I think you're correct, because of the way that album was created, it's spontaneity, it can be reinterpreted, it's not fixed, it's a fluid album”. 

RTS: “You are always busy with touring coming up, do you have other interests? I know you like to paint?” 

JW: “I've not had as much chance to do that because I also run a community project, it's in South London where every two weeks people get together at Wimbledon Library. It's called the Merton Artspace where anyone can come and jam so loads of people come down. Bands form, people might come and do cover versions all that stuff and we built a studio so every other Tuesday if you sign up for it you can come in and record a track with me and John Klein. We've got an album coming out on Cherry Red in the next month or so”. 

RTS: “That album is of the people who've come into your studio?” 

JW: “That's right”. 

RTS: “That must be exciting, putting something back and also creating new stuff?” 

JW: “Yeah I love it, the great people we get, a lot of regulars. I was there this week, some of the stuff I've played on is as good as anything musically I've ever been involved with.  We've got people from mental health drop-in centres, they're one or two people that have issues with housing and homelessness along with people in employment working in the city of London. It's a really eclectic mix of people, it's very inclusive so anyone is welcome. That takes up a lot of my time that's impinged on doing art. It's funny I've been selling more and more of the paintings and it feels weird because they were all done a good few years ago. This was when I had an art studio in Ancoats near the canal in Manchester and I would just paint, I loved it, though I had to let that studio go. 

   I'm very active, I love pottering about, I like football. I was playing up to fairly recently when I tore my abductor, had a few issues as the bone was cracked, broke my thumb all sorts of stuff I've not been playing any football recently just trying to stay out of it, what with the trouble with the back. I was always very fortunate with injuries when I was younger it's all caught up with me a bit now. I'm pretty fit and I'm very optimistic for the future and the back will be healing up and back to normal very soon”. 

Jah Wobble is out on Tour with some of the dates especially to play the above mentioned Metal Box in Dub