This week on Pop the History Makers, Chris Bostock, probably the driving force behind Joe Boxes, certainly today he is. He’s the one who really got it together with the 3 CD box set that’s out now. And um we’re going to hear stories not only of Joe Boxers, his time in Bristol, and of course when he played for Paul Weller and Dave Stewart. So stick with me. [Music] Just getting used to it now, but it’s no longer the thing to do. All the while we’re on a search for something new in the name of progress today. A phone in my side is there to remind me you can’t be too sure. A phone in my side is deep inside of me. It’s changing size once more. Open minds are everywhere but open hearts are very few. So when it seems to build up in truth, there’s only four games [Music] today. A thorn in my side is there to remind me there can’t be too sure. So a thorn in my side there, Chris Bostock, welcome. I mean, this must have been an absolute labor of love to get this box set together. And the weird I don’t it’s not really a weird thing but what’s amazing to me whenever I mention the name Joe boxers people go oh my god yeah I love Joe boxers and it’s sort of like a a moment in time but because of this CD box set it feels much more like a legacy. How much work was it and what did you have to go through to get this together? It started back in 2006 when Just Got Lucky, the single, was used in The 40-year-old Virgin with Steve Carol and uh Lindsay Lohan’s Just My Luck. And it it caused quite a sort of um it revitalized the band really. The the website hits went through the roof. And um so I started asking the band, "Do you fancy releasing these two lost albums?" But nobody knew where the master tapes were. So we searched high and low and nobody knew where they were. and we thought Sony had some and we thought maybe we didn’t quite know where the rest had gone. So, it took forever to find them really. Were you in good contact with the band? Yeah, I’ve always kept in contact with the band, you see, because um I started the Jobbox’s website about 20 years ago and it was it was the reason for starting was because with the band, we made six promo videos and each one cost £20,000 which would be 60,000 in today’s money. So, it was a lot of money was spent and I just wanted them to be seen again. And so I started the website and this was before YouTube came along and so I I was streaming them from the website. So I I’d always kept in contact with the band. Yeah. We’d always been friends and of course we we’d all played in in bands since Joe Boxes as well with with each other. I mean these these are tracks that you know some of us hadn’t heard. Obviously he you know you were there you heard them but some of us hadn’t heard. Were there some Was it surprising for you to go back or were they things that were very present in your mind? Well, to to me they were just part of the set, you know, cuz the public hadn’t earned them, but we knew them and they all, you know, like our our family of songs really. And when we did the the the UK tour in 2022, half of the set half the set was actually those songs missing songs cuz they were our favorite ones. So it it was just it was um it was it was it was really important to me that they got heard and so we spent a long time working on it and planning it. Now you were brought up in a in a creative atmosphere, weren’t you? With it’s it’s sort of I don’t want to say this really, but it just felt feels like when I’ve seen interviews with you, it feels like the Waltons, you know, everyone plays a musical instrument. There’s music all around you. How was it? And what did music actually provide you with as a young person? As a kid? My first living memory was um I was my brothers are much older, at least 10 years older. Now in their bedroom they have these danc record players and they were playing with the Beatles and it was warped and the stylers were going up and down and then it was playing rollover bass over with George Harrison singing and that’s my first memory and I loved that song. And of course, and then what happened um we we had a a front room with a piano and a harmonium that you could pedal like an organ thing and with with um just like something you get in in an old church and and the brothers played guitar. So yeah, everyone played an instrument. My dad was really good at piano and um yeah, my my mom sent me to piano lessons from the age of six. So that was really I knew from that moment that I’d always be involved in music one way or another. I mean because I wasn’t brought up in a musical family and also creativity wasn’t looked at as or wasn’t valued probably in the same way in a family where creativity is prevalent. How was creativity viewed? Was there sort of a supportive atmosphere to go into a creative life or were the family like no you you have to earn money that’s not serious? Well, luckily my dad, he um we moved to Bristol because he was the head of the art college there. And so, you know, he was artistic and we had paintings all over the wall. So, they they um they didn’t mind didn’t have a problem with me doing it at all. They they knew it’d be tricky, you know, it’d have its ups and downs, but they were supportive. What about being 10 years younger than your brothers? Yeah. A couple of brothers. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. being 10 years younger than older brothers is does that make being brought up different do you feel? Yeah, I felt that like everything was going on, you know, over my over the top of my head really. I was completely detached from it really. But the great thing about it was that I got to pick up on all the music because they they’d be, you know, listening to the Beatles and the Stones and the Kinks and the Who and and classical music and um yeah, that that was pretty good. And and the best thing of all that I remember is that they would have parties and they’d invite their friends back from school, their, you know, boys and girls, and they’d all be dancing to Mottown. So that really got into my blood from an early age. So their music sort of infused into you what they were into completely. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, one thing that I had when I sort of hit the teenage years, I mean, as a gay kid, so it’s slightly different, but I think that everyone has something that sort of relates to this, that when I saw Bowie on TV and and and Bow’s music for me provided a world of belonging, provided a world away from my parents where I felt I could be me at some point. And so music was a sort of escape. Was it ever that for you? Were did you feel isolated in some way because of the age gap or I don’t know whatever it was? Well, not really, but Bowie I did had the same effect on me like so many people. I I saw that famous style man on top of the pops that everyone would blew everyone’s mind, didn’t it? And remember going to school the next day and asking all the kids in the know with the music, you know, who was that who was that or what was that on on, you know, on top of the pots last night and they’re going, "It’s David Barry." And they all had it already written on their rucks sacks. you know that they already knew about him. Did you get the haircut? Yeah. Yeah. I look like Linda Bartley. That was the only problem. Um, you said you learned piano when I think when you were six. And so that was, you know, the first instrument. When did the guitar start to sort of be more valued for you? My older brother, he was really good guitarist and still is, and so he was an influence. And I had a I I I kind of switched to guitar when I was about 12 years old and I I I assumed I I’d be a sort of guitarist and backing vocalist in a band. I kind of that was kind of modeling myself around that kind of future really. Yeah, it was a big thing. So So who were your idols in terms of guitar at that point in the very early years? Well, probably um you know Pete Towns and George Harrison, people like that. So how did you view them? Because you know whenever you talk I don’t know if this I mean it’s a real cliche but there is some some truth in this that having a guitar makes you more attractive. [Laughter] It’s something to hide behind isn’t it? You know something that gives you confidence quite possibly. Yeah. Did you you know you know this the guitar being at school being a teenager um and then you meet like-minded people don’t you you know on once you sort of get into something other people are attracted to you because they’re interested and so this is how bands seem to form. So, were you connecting with people, you know, at that age and sort of built um I don’t know, sort of a group of people that you could be creative with? Yes. I mean, I would have regular sessions in in our front room, our music room as it were. People would come over and and and we’d have little jam sessions. And at school, of course, there was it could be divided into people that like football and people that like music, pop music. And so there was always a group of people that would end up forming bands and so you get to know them all from quite an early age. It’s not a massive place. I mean it’s not completely small. Um and I presume then there is some sense of community in the sense that everyone who’s interested in in music can connect quite easily. Yeah. What really did it in Bristol was was, you know, punk rock came along in 1976 and 1977. And then suddenly the whole place took off and everyone had B. I was trying to get into a band or had bands and then you had this whole music scene that surrounds it, you know, fan zenes, loads of gigs, record shops. Um, everything was started to happen. And so you you you get to meet all all your contemporaries at that point around about the age of kind of 17, 16, 17. It was a really interesting era was era, wasn’t it? that sort of mid70s when you had the stagnation of music on one side and then you had this sort of resurrection of like the do-it-yourself era. everyone can be involv you know involved. It was such a change. It was so dull before it was it was it was so dull of stagnant rock bands everywhere playing in pubs and just awful and then suddenly everything came alive and and and anyone you know because the standards didn’t have to be too high. You know, people weren’t scared and they all dived in and had a go and you know some some stuck at it and some didn’t. So you went to see bands in that era. You went to the there there was a venue that you went to, didn’t you? really a lot and you saw bands. What bands did you see and what do you think you gleaned from performances from artists that has really stayed with you and and that you’ve taken on board, let’s say. Well, I saw everything that came through the Bristol Lano. every week I’d be there and and it was it was you know using the Banshees Elvis Costello the vibrations the clash uh the undertones and endless and and sometimes my band would get up and support them but yeah the the quality is always in the songs if the songs were good you know sometimes they just be hiding behind this wall of noise and I couldn’t get into that really but some of the really good artists came through as a result of punk you know such as the Elvis Costello and the police and the uh I mean you say you supported some bands. Is this where you you know you supported the clash? Yeah. Yeah. So did you get to communicate with them? Yeah. It was a real eye opener. So we we um we sported them at Cardiff Sophia Gardens and um we got to meet them and of course we got to see them perform up close from the side of the stage and so that was a big eye opener because the Clash at the time were the bands you know there was they were the biggest band you could ever wish to associate with and so we got to to know them brief very briefly but it was an eye opener. I mean, in a sense, the Clash had I mean, they sort of um they had such a specific style and it wasn’t a band that um sort of came up and you liked one of many bands. It was a it was like a community in a sense of people that that liked the Clash. Is that something that you recognized back then? Yeah, I mean they led the whole punk scene and everyone was trying to be like them to some extent, I think. And and and it’s funny, it’s it’s still going on now. I was at the Mick Jones’s Rock and Roll Library recently. We did our Joe Boxers’s launch there on actually at Mick Jones’s library. And um and that those people are still there, still hugely influenced by everything that happened back in 1976, 1977. I mean the reason I’m asking that is because I mean I want to come you know it’s coming a little bit later but obviously you know when Joe boxers you know when suffic sex sort of morphed into uh Joe Boxers uh it seems to me there was a clear direction to create more than a band to create a style you know because the club left to create a community and I just wondered whether that the seeds of that came from you know earlier on. Yes I think so. I mean, obviously we we were managed by Bernard Roads, the Clash’s manager, and um we we he he um he he he um he wasn’t managing them at the time, and he just launched the the the specials and Dexis. And so there was this feeling that, you know, you need to ignore everything that’s going on and come up with something completely new and do it really well and go against the mainstream. just do something that’s that’s you and do it better than anybody else and then you’ll get noticed. That was that was the the way of thinking. I mean that’s amazing because it is you know I mean it’s such a clear philosophy and and also when you you know talk about Dex’s talk about the Clash and the influences behind those bands are so wide you know um that it sort of does make sense in a way um so that you know you were in the Stingrays you’re in the excerpts and then somehow you got to subway sect. How did that come about? So, there was um a guitarist and singer in Bristol called Johnny Britain who really looked the part and and he sounded great and he looked great and everyone everyone wanted him in their band and um and me included. And then Bernard spotted him and signed him up to a management deal and said, "Find a band in Bristol or at least get some musicians and bring them up to London and we’ll audition them and we’ll put a band together around you." So me and um yeah it was three of us few of us went up to Bernard’s studio rehearsal rehearsals and um um he Bernard basically picked me and Rob Marsh and Sean McCcluskey and Dave Collard and to to be Johnny’s backing band and then we went and recorded in Rockfield Studios. We started putting music together for Johnny. But at the same time, Bernard was managing Vic Godard had had him for a few years and he’d accumulated a whole wealth of songs and needed a band. So suddenly we were with Vic as the new incarnation of Subway set. So what was your impression of Vic at the time? Because Vic had he’d sort of gone from punk to rockabilly and then it was a bit sort of Sonat-ish, wasn’t it? It was like Sonatra swing. But Bernard had nurtured him for about four years and he’d got very good at songwriting. and he he got into writing in the style of uh George Gershwin Cole Porter and was doing it very well and we could all play that style as well luckily you know we could adapt to that jazzier sound and so we it it fitted together really well with Vic and we went off touring all over the place with supporting people like Bow House and Perubu and uh uh the Bureau and Altered Images and yeah so just got thrown into it really suddenly. How much was it at the start of collaboration and how much was it Vic Godard’s vision? Well, Vic had accumulated a lot of songs by then. So, it was it was you know, he bombarded us with all these songs basically. And um so it was it was mostly mostly Vic’s composition with a bit of help from well Dave Collard wrote a couple with him and I wrote one with him but um it was yeah it was mostly Vic coming up with it at that point. So this is when you recorded this is the songs for sale which was the the the really like credible big album from from Vic Godard and Subway Sex and you mentioned the other guys in the band Rob Marshes Shawn Mcccluskkey and Dave Collard. Um Vic fell in love. It’s just such a weird story. He did. He he met the love of his life and he stopped turning up to the shows and we were in the middle of a great big tour and we had the Manchester Apollo about to play the Manchester Apollo and he didn’t turn up. This wasn’t the first time he’d done it and so we were ready if he doesn’t turn up you know what we’ll do is we’ll we’ll max out all the backing vocals and turn them into chant and make it entertain and jump around a bit and so that’s what we did and it went down really well and it was just like nobody noticed he wasn’t there. Did the love work out? Yeah, it did. Yeah, that was that was the end of Vic. But I mean, yeah, it’s a good decision. You know, if you fall in love, it’s okay, is it? Um, was a sense of frustration then before that that the things that you really wanted to do in life, you know, between the rest of you, you weren’t able to do because obviously you must have had some sort of strong connection with the other guys. Yeah, I mean obviously we were we were frustrated with Vic because he wasn’t putting as much into it as we were because also we had Club Left at the time that Bernard had launched with us and we were running that at the same time and where different singers would get up and so we’d be rehearsing all week with different singers and so we’d have different sets each week for for Club Left at the Whiskey Go and so um yeah, we were you know we were ready to to form something else and keep moving. been when Vic disappeared, we were eager to move on and asked Bernard to find us a new singer. I mean, when you say, you know, you asked Bernard to find you a new singer, the bit of the story that, you know, I’ve always wondered about is the fact that he went to New York because he he’d seen Dig uh play with um in London, didn’t he? He’d seen him before, I think, play in London and he went to New York. I just wonder, you know, you’ve got that club, you’ve got people coming up and singing, and I just wondered why it wasn’t someone in London. Did you already have a vision of the type of person you wanted and the type of influence you wanted? Yes, we we the band we’d gone to see um Buzz and the Flyers at Dingwalls with with Dig singing and we were absolutely blown away. He’s amazing. Never seen anything like it and this is guy’s amazing. And we went and told Bernardon. He said and Bernard had already seen him around about the same time we both kind of discovered Dig cuz um Buzz and the Flyers had supported the Clash at Bonds in New York and Bernard was there and had already acquainted with Dig. So um yeah. So so so Bernard suggested Dig and we said fantastic, you know, do it and so Bernard went over to New York and pulled him back. So what appealed to you about Dig? What was it? Oh the performance is just amazing. It’s just amazing. He kind of came across like Elvis Presley in a way, but he was in such a powerful performer. That was the thing. Never seen anything quite like it before. And um yeah, I mean it was um cuz of course he their version of um New Rockabilly. The Stray Cats had caused on afterwards, you see. So Zig was doing it first and then the Stray Cats became successful and Dig wasn’t too happy about that because he didn’t want to be compared with the Stray Cats. He wanted them to be compared with him. So he he was he was ready to jump ship when when Bern had asked him. So it worked out really well. So when Dig came over, can you remember the first meeting and and how it went and what you discussed? Yeah, he he came burner brought him down to the studio where we were rehearsing and we we rehears rehearsed up a couple of his songs already just to make him feel at home and it sounded you know sounded great and um yeah we we got on immediately and um yeah we just started rehearsing together but because we were all starting at the beginning again we started writing right from day one we started putting our own songs together and because Dig could sing all the music that we loved all the funk and the soul and the Northern Soul and and uh it was just worked out perfectly. So we suddenly went on this big writing mission and and and all of that first album came together in in a few weeks. I mean I think you and Dig were sort of the core of the writing, weren’t you? In in in the sense of of of Joe Boxes and wrote a lot of the songs together. How Dave wrote a lot too. I mean the whole band wrote that was the great thing is that everyone wrote and and in fact this this this song that we’ve just released the thorn in my side that’s actually written by everybody equally but yeah I guess yeah yeah me dig and Dave perhaps but everyone wrote so well just tell me about the process of of writing I mean maybe just take me through something like boxer beat and how you know that initial single came about. Well, Rob came out with this really choppy, soulful riff. It sounded really good and we were saying, "Oh, that sounds really good. We got to make something out of that." And so, you know, Rob and and Dig and Dave came up with Boxer Beats. Yeah, there was um I mean that initial period, was it a lot of touring initially as well? A lot of a lot of playing live. We always played live. Yeah, we we don’t we’d been doing it with subway sets and and of course because we had this club left, we had to do that every Thursday anyway. So it was always about playing live. That was the huge part of it. And so that didn’t stop with Joe Boxers cuz Dig came and sang Dang Club left. So we kind of morphed in a way from from from Subway Sector into Joe Boxers. I mean Playing Live was a bit the antithesis of what sort of was around before that, wasn’t it? There were a lot of bands on the scene. I mean they play live now but in that period I mean sort of a lot of particularly electronic bands who weren’t really live bands at the beginning but you were always very much a live band in the early 80s everything was production driven and lots of synths and yeah that’s right and we were determined to go against that. It it was a rebellion against that in a way even the clothes that we wore was a rebellion against the new romantic that had come before. Yeah, it was a rebellion, but it was a complete and utter um scene, you know. I mean, as I said before that I you know, I’ve talked to friends and one of one of my friends still wears dungarees and DMs and a cap, you know, she she’s she loved it since then. And and it was it was really funny for me to remember that and also going to clubs in the in the early 80s for a period as well. I was pulled into that. And that’s what I mean that it was that Joe Box had something wider um than music. It was it was anti fashion, I think, rather than fashion. Yeah. And there was this faith uh article um Oh, hard times. Yeah. Refers to that. That’s that was an amazing article in the face about hard times. That fitted perfectly with what we were doing at the time. So you you didn’t know that this was coming out. It was something that it was in sense about you, but it wasn’t about you. Coming up, more with Chris Bosto. But don’t forget to like, subscribe, and if you go to www.poptheismakers.com, you’ll find all the fulllength interviews. Okay, back to Chris Postock. We turned our back on the on the sort of bow ties and the smart look that we had for for for the subway set era and we we wanted to do something completely new. So it was complete about turn. Yeah, it was um and lots lots of people was funny because we we did it first and we noticed lots of other people were doing it as well. So yeah, I think I’d like to say that that that we led them along, but who knows? Oh, I think you did. think you’re being very modest here because I I do think that you were like uh the apex of this sort of look and style and and also the type of music um that had influenced you and I think in Club Left some of your heroes would come in wouldn’t they? The club left. Well, yeah, because well, club left. It was at the whiskey go that became the wag later, but that was originally the flamingo, which was Georgie Fame’s regular haunts. And so, so he came back and played at club left and so so did Slim Gaylord, who was from the on the road, the character in On the Road, and he was a kind of yeah beat poet um guy and he came back and and played so he he was a hero too. Just to finish off a bit about boxer beat because at the beginning there’s this sort of proud noise. Um, and it gives it a sort of a very sort of live and different feel. Was that part of the original thinking of the song? Well, that that was um a recording of a boxing match starting up because you can hear that you can hear the bell at the end. So, and and of course the intro to that song was inspired by lots of different songs such as um um well James Brown, Sex Machine. Um um there was definitely a vision behind the band. You know, you knew what influenced you. You knew what you wanted to make. You knew that you wanted Dig. you know, you you were a live band, but yet um the record company um who were initially behind you weren’t behind you eventually. When did the change come for you in terms of how the record company perceived you? Well, we had a series of not so good things happened. I mean, for a start, as soon as we signed to RCA Records, Bernard went back with the Clash. So we didn’t have him. So we took on board a friend who was inexperienced as a as a manager. And um then after a year of of Joe Boxes really happening, Jack Steven, our ANR head of ANR, he he left and went to CBS. So we lost the person who was championing us at the record company. And um so nobody was really behind us. And then so we then tried to get out of the record deal and that didn’t go very well. And then the the manager at the time upset them and and so things weren’t going very well there. And so yeah, nobody was really behind as soon as as soon as Jack Steven left it all began to go wrong. I think it’s weird, isn’t it? Because you know, I mean like you box is is a hit. Just Got Lucky creates the first international hit. Um, so in a sense, you know, you sort of ask the question, why wouldn’t a record company, even though the person, you know, that really wanted you leaves, why wouldn’t the record company find someone else within the record company who could support you in a way? I mean, I it’s only sort of my thinking. I can I can see it from um your point of view how difficult that is, but I don’t see why the record company would want to lose something that could be financially valuable to them. It is puzzling. Uh each each new ANR person always wants to have their own discovery. They don’t want to work with somebody else’s discovery. There seems to be like that really. So there you are. You have all this success. you go in and you’re recording the the um No, you record a second album, don’t you? Um and then this is the point where things are going a bit ary. When did your the offer to actually play with the Style Council come about? That ca that came about shortly after Just Got Lucky was released because the Style Council released their Speak Like a Child the same time, same week as Boxerbe and then they had another single that came at the same week as Just Got Lucky and Paul Weller was really into the band particularly. He really loved Just Got Lucky. So he he called me up and asked me to come and play on his new concept album that ended up being Cafe Blur. Tell me about how he works. Well, he was because it was a concept album, he was open to try different things out. That was what was really good about it is that he was really, you know, it was exciting to be excited to be doing something new, I think, after the jam. So, he was great. He was fun. Um, yeah. Um, it was kind of experimental, but it sounded great. So, you know, we went with it. What do you think he learned from you? Well, no idea. You’d have to ask him. No, I mean I mean seriously because I always turn it around because people always sort of ask the question would have asked what did you learn from Paula but for me there’s always you know a thing where we transfer to each other. It doesn’t matter whether you know one there’s always someone with a higher status and and so people always ask it one particular way but he must have he must have gleaned something from you. He must have sort of because he wanted you there. He liked Joe boxes. You said that he obviously liked the way you play and he must have seen you as valuable. So there must be something. Yeah. I I have no idea. I just don’t know. Why did you go in to write the third album when this was all going? Did you know it was ending? And was this sort of an attempt to keep it going? Well, not really. Um, we’ve been working we we worked and recorded this uh Skin and Bone album. It was a year of our lives living and breathing this album. And then suddenly the record company decided not to release it right at the last minute which was a real blow. So we left the label, found a new manager and started all over again. But it’s like that that big chunk of your life’s been taken away from you. So, but we just carried on and we we recorded this missing link album about nine tracks almost almost finished it and recorded that under our own steam and you know without a label and and uh in fact Rob Marsh our guitarist put most of his own money into to making that. What was the Can you remember the the exact day it happened and and the the feeling that it was it was at the end? Yeah. um the the new manager shopped our tracks around and and got us a deal on the table with um Magnet Records and then all of a sudden Dig and Dave decided to leave. They said, "We’re leaving. We’re going to pursue a solo project for Dig." And so it was double whammy for the rest of us because we that was two albums just pulled, you know, the carpet being pulled from under us really. I mean, that must have been hard. I know that you know you you were all close and you you know and and you remained close but in a way it um it must have felt a little bit like oh god you know it’s all right for them we’ve been left behind or did you have that feeling at all? I mean or did you think this is how it goes? Well we we were devastated you know it’s a bit like sort of getting divorced or something but we um we we jumped straight into another project we got with Sandy Shaw. So me, Rob, and Sha worked with Sandy Shaw and we wrote a song for her called Go Johnny Go and we went on a couple of big tours with her and just just carried on with it really. I mean Sandy Shaw was a big figure in in in I I suppose anyone in Britain of of our age in in in my childhood as well. So were you always uh you know a fan or someone who was you know who really liked Shanny Sandy Shaw? Yeah, absolutely. She was such a 60s icon. I grew up with that music playing. It was wonderful to to to be working with her. She was great. So, tell me about working with her specifically. Well, she was she was fun. You know, we wrote this song with her and and she was really open to trying things out. She was great. Um, she uh I think it worked having a you know, a sort of a tight band behind her and what was interesting um yeah, she was she was up for anything. But but what I liked about this her songs from the 60s, they were really well orchestrated. They had some nice orchestrations in there, you know, all sorts of orchestral instruments. And we took those and turned them into guitar parts. So we kept all the little hooks and and turned it into a guitar band version. And she she liked that because she was um she’d been sort of relaunched by the Smiths and and so it suited her completely. when you come in to a to be a band, you know, or you’re working within a band, um, and you contribute in that sort of way. Um, do you own part of the I mean, writing a song obviously you do, but you know, I’ve often talked to musicians who contribute quite a lot to something. Um, and yet they’re still the musicians on the record, but not actually uh the owners of, you know, some IP or whatever. Yeah, that well that would only come through songwriting, but also if the the uh musicians that play on someone’s record, they they they will get airplay royalties as well. So yeah, in our case, there’ll be two forms of income. All right. And you work with Spear of Destiny. Yeah, that came after that. Um yeah. Um yeah, um Alan Shacklo was the producer of Joe Boxers and he also produced the Spear of Destiny album. So he called me along to to do the bass and um we went yeah we recorded this album called The Price You Pay and we took it on a great big tour around the UK afterwards. That was good. And at the end of this this seems to be the period where Dave Stewart came essentially into your life. Yeah. What was happening? What happened was I was I was playing with a band with Paul Thompson from Roxy Music called The Flame and there’s a there was a singer songwriter fronting it called Jonathan Perkins who was signed to Dave Stewart’s anxious record label and uh so we went off supporting the Uriics and the Beach Boys at Wembley and the Birmingham NEC. And um as a result of that Dave asked me to to join him because the rhythmics then split up. They did their final tour and Dave I was the first person Dave asked to to fly out to LA and and and work on some new material with him. I mean he’s one of the most prolific people in in in the music business, isn’t he? The amount of creativity that comes out of him is like unbelievable. Yeah, he’s amazing. Yeah, he’s he’s he collaborates with the biggest names in music and and they’re all, you know, queuing up to work with him because it’s cuz he’s such an easygoing person and also because he comes out with such great ideas and he’s really comforting to be with and you know, relaxing. You go in the studio with him and you feel creative because he he has that manner that that that air about him. Um, you know, when we were recording the first album, Dave Stewart and Spiritual Cowboys, it was called, um, in Los Angeles, some of the huge names would turn up to see him, you know, most of the traveling Wilburries and people like, um, Lou Reed and, uh, Roger McGuin and they’d all come around to collaborate and George Harrison, of course, came around and and it was a studio in his own home, wasn’t it? That’s in Los Angeles. Yeah. Yeah. He had his his 48 track studio in in in in the in the grounds of his home in LA. Yeah. And he works with people at the same time. It’s like Yes. Yes. He always had m he always had multiple projects on the at the same time. So I had a nickname for him. I called him Multi-Mind and I I think he took it okay. That What did you learn from him then? Oh well um well precisely that to to juggle lots of projects at once. Don’t don’t stick to one thing. Do as many things as you can as you’ve got time for really. And um he was easy to work with. We wrote a song in the back of a a cab going to the airport once. I played him a backing track that I put together and immediately he came up with the hook and started writing the the lyrics for it and you know he’s just very very fast and very you know generous in personality as well. Do you think in terms of you know your father being uh creative and being I think you said he was an art teacher. Um has that what you gleaned from your father was this sort of creativity and to always push being creative? Yeah, I think so. Cuz he he never stopped. My my dad never stopped. He always had his studio up in the top of the house and he would always be wood engraving or oil painting or watercolors and he’d always be doing that. All the time he wasn’t working, you know, every all the time he wasn’t going to work, he’d be at home doing that. Now tell me more about because obviously this 3 CD box set has um a lot of tracks um where Joe Box is alive and uh being you know a really renowned live band um at that time and having this sort of energy that you really hear in the music and this I mean you know that’s one of the things that Joe Box has this massive energy and Even in even in the recorded music and videos, you feel this energy. Um, so tell me about the sort of live aspect of of Joe Boxers and why you feel you were such a good live band. Well, it it followed through right from Club Left and all the tours we always did it. We always put the live playing first and foremost. And so when we recorded, we wanted it to have that, you know, that live feel about it. And we didn’t like, you know, programmed music and synths. It just wasn’t our scene at all. You know, we Dig particularly was it was influenced by some of those rounchy singers, you know, um Wilson Picket and people from um and Jean Vincent, people like that. He he wanted to get that whole live energy across. You did you tour in America? I think you did. We did. We did a huge tour in the States. Did almost every state. Who came to the tour? Who came to the tour? Yeah. I mean, cuz I sort of read somewhere that you supported B-52s. Oh, yes. Yeah, we supported the B-52s early on in in New York and Andy Warhol was there watching us and that was quite surreal to see just just standing there. There he was. Uh yeah, I mean yeah it was uh it was a great tour because because you get you got to see all the different each state was different and of course it felt completely different than you know east of the west and midwest and it was yeah we had this big greyhound bus that used to belong to the Harlem Globe Trotters and yeah so we we lived on that for 6 weeks or so. I I read somewhere that you read you met um Ron May the Sparks. Oh, that was it. Yeah. Yeah. In Los Angeles. Yeah. He was a big hero of mine. So, I couldn’t believe getting to meet him for the first time. Do you remember that? This town ain’t big enough for the both of us when he was on Top of the Pop. So, I remember being at home and someone phoned me up and went, "Adolf Hitler’s on top of it. That’s another David Barry moment." Yeah. Yeah. It’s like he was that he was that person on top of the box last night. Yeah. Is the the box set also important for you to to sort of establish and show the legacy uh of Joe Boxers? Because as I said in the beginning, I really feel this was a band um that when I talk to people, they all know and they they’re really enthusiastic. Um yet the legacy had sort of disappeared a bit. Was it important to sort of recreate this legacy? Yes, it was. And also, but to get all these songs heard was really important to me because over the years I’ve approached labels and they’ve re-released the old stuff, the same old same old all over and over again. They don’t want to touch anything new. And this time, Cherry Red, they suddenly wanted to do it. And so, for the first time, we’ve managed to get everything released. It was um yeah, it was important to, you know, the legacy. It was really important. I know that there was uh some live shows um and when I talked to Dig it was like yeah, you know, would like to but I don’t think it’s going to happen or you know I’m not sure we can do get it all together. Do you think there might be? Um there we keep getting offers from promoters to do it and I keep asking Dig and he keeps saying I don’t think so but you you never know hope I keep hoping that he’ll you know see see the sense in in doing that. We keep getting asked to do it. Um it was such a big success the 2022 tour. We did festivals and we sold out the 100 club and lot of other places clubs and festivals it was and um you could see the potential and people still liked it and there were new people discovering it. I think uh I’m I’m really pleased that these new songs are getting heard now and uh cuz of course they can only be heard through the box set. They’re not available digitally. You can only get them from buying the box set. But you’ve got I mean Thorn in My Side is a as a as a single and it’s in the heritage charts and it does give you the the impression that there really is an audience still out there who would be really keen. It’s it’s flying up the heritage charts at the moment and thank thanks to the video I think is it’s been been really useful. I I put the video together with some friends. um director Mark Jay conceived and directed it and he makes um cultural movies for the British Film Institute and he brought along his friend who was a professor of animation at University of South Wales, Sarah Strick, and she she um she had a a prodigy student, a thirdyear animation student called Amy Mccreditis who’s 20 years old and a final year student and she came up with these incredible uh likeness of band as as as we were back in the day. The for the animations, the drawings are just brilliant. They look exactly like us. And so this animation came together and then Jamie Petri um who he edited it and and did some additional animations and pulled the whole thing together and he’s quite an interesting guy because he um is a successful artist but also he um is a great songwriter who wrote Things Can Only Get Better for Dream. So he’s a friend of mine. He he I’m also doing some music with him shortly as well. So he So those four people came together and made that um promo and did a wonderful job of it. How many years out of your life has this been because it has been a labor of love, hasn’t it? Well, it it’s been coming together since 2006 since Just got Just Got Lucky was used in those movies. But um everything really started happen about a year ago as soon as Cherry Red nearly bit my hand off for that for those tapes. it. Everything sort of started then and I I searched high and low to find them and I cherry red got me into Sony’s vault and I found a lot of the recordings but there was still lots missing and then I went I traced them back to Hans Studios in Berlin where we recorded some other stuff and got got some more from there and then finally Stuart Matthew from Shardai came forward with the final missing three which were he found in his loft amazingly so and it’s fantastic. So we got a complete full house of everything on multittrack or original master. So that was that was a great relief to know that all this stuff still existed and we’ I’ I’d finally found it after this sort of you know endless search. I mean it’s quite a lot of work with the rights isn’t it? Um I mean who owns the rights in the end? Well it’s it’s between us and the Sony and the publishing company who are called Concord. Okay. So with the record companies, it’s it’s just a matter of business. It’s not Yes. difficult. Yeah. Luckily, Cherry Red were really good. They sorted out all the all the licensing. They were really good. So you mentioned Jamie Petri. Is there anything else on the horizon that you’re going to be doing? Yeah, I mean me and Jamie are going to be working together on a musical project shortly, which starts in a few weeks time. He’s a great singer as well as a great songwriter. Can you tell me a bit about the project? Um, well, it’s he’s he’s got an art show coming up and uh we’re going to put the music a band together around that art show. So, it’ll be sort of um audio and visual rather than just visual. So, that hopefully that will start something interesting off. Yeah, it sounds like, you know, you’re in a fairly exciting period of your life that, you know, having got this Joe Boxer’s uh box set uh together and now, you know, working on on other stuff. Um, I mean, in a sense, are there are there musicians that you are really keen on working with in the future? There’s there’s there’s lots of them. I mean, it’s, you know, I I hope to to play with a few funkier musicians. I quite like funk music. I like to get a lot more into that now, really. Yeah, Chris. I mean, it’s been really good to talk to you. I’m really I mean, I love the box set. I think it’s brilliant uh that Joe boxers are essentially back. I think it’s a shame that Dig’s not getting off his ass and coming over to Britain and getting on that stage. Maybe he will. I mean, maybe a bit more interest, a bit more pushing and uh you’ll be able to do it. But it’s great to talk to you and and I really think um there is a legacy there. There’s so many great tracks and it was such a great band. that energy of that band and I remember those those years where it was you know there is a period that is defined by Joe boxers as you said this sort of anti-fashion period um and particularly the music so for that I really want to uh thank you for your creativity and what you’ve sort of inputed into the the creative world so Chris Bosto thank you thanks Stephen it’s been great be on the show up there is an interview I recommend And down there is where you can find all the podcast interviews. And here is where you can connect.
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