Guitarist and vocalist in the legendary punk band Buzzcocks, Steve Diggle, speaks with Amanda Cozens about changes in the music industry, partying with Joy Division, and the very nature of punk.
Massive congratulations on the Buzzcocks 40th Anniversary, how does it feel to have been going for such a long time?
It’s been a long, long road forty years in what feels like the shortest time. It’s like being on a train journey and each time you look out of the window there is another memory or image that comes back. We started in Manchester and the music, and ourselves, have travelled the world and still do. It’s amazing.
How do you feel that you and the band have grown over the years both musically and personally?
When we started the musical landscape was boring. There was nothing happening, so we wanted to make three minute songs that were exciting and relevant to our generation. There were almost a million people unemployed, with a lot of frustration, and the world was a black and white dull place at that time. Over the years we have evolved by making many albums and having at least eight singles in the charts, I can’t remember how many, but the song writing has been very strong. We always knew how to write a tune and a riff and that writing has seen this music span generations. A lot of younger people have picked up on our music over the years, each album has a different kind of Buzzcocks style to it. Although on one level we became known for singles, there are a lot of diverse things on the albums, experimental stuff like Running Free to Moving Away From the Pulse Beat, we covered a lot of ground. I wrote a song called Autonomy where I started out pretending to be a German singing English, because I was listening to a German group called Can and thought their English accents were funny.
Politics is an integral part of music, how has it shaped your music over the years?
Politics has played a part in my music on one level. My surroundings have influenced many of my songs, another song Why She’s a Girl from the Chainstore was asking a sociological question , that song also mentions Bernstein’s language barrier where the language spoken in a working class home may be different than the language spoken in the classroom, therefore children were blinded by words and would underachieve.. There is always politics in my music, it’s part of all our lives and part of the human condition.
You recently released your ninth album The Way; can you tell us the concept behind the title and the album?
The latest album has modern themes. I wrote a song called People Are Strange Machines, which, as the title suggests, enquires how human and how machine are we becoming? The Way is where the Buzzcocks are now, that’s how people should look at it, and it’s been very well received. One of my favourites on the album is a song called The Third Dimension which highlights our more experimental style. Most of our inspiration comes from everyday life, what I call the poetry of life.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BT1Hj9HCMZc
You have hung out with some amazing people. Who has given you the best and worst memories?
I have met many people in this business. Crazy fans, particularly in the early days, and mad moments like where a hotel bar closed and us and Joy Division decided to open it, and the front grill of the bar was broken off and the drinking carried on. I think the police came and stopped the proceedings but we were very young.
What does punk mean to you?
Punk is an attitude. It meant more than the music. At the beginning it was a way of looking at the world through punk music. When those early punk records came out you had to rethink your whole consciousness about what music was and what it was doing to you, it wasn’t just entertainment.
Buzzcocks 40, Tramshed, Cardiff. Sat 13 Feb. Tickets: £18. Info: www.tramshedcardiff.com