Gang of Four

Mon 7th Mar, 2011 in Features

Any self respecting punk historian will delight in telling you, while fingering their well-worn vinyl copy of Entertainment!, that Gang Of Four were one of the most important bands there at the birth of the scene. The bright crimson sleeve, slightly cynical exclamation point and the name itself – Gang Of Four – all suggested a cautious approach. The band’s founder, Jon King is on the phone today from his home in Leeds, and every bit aware of the reverence/caution he invites: “All I can hope for is that I might have encouraged and stimulated people to be creative. That’s all I would want for.” Certainly countless artists have rarely stopped singing Gang Of Four’s praises, but now Jon, along with co-founder Andy Gill, is back with their first new album since 1995, and all the man cares about now is getting a few of their famously brutal shows over and done with.

“It’s a bit out of the ordinary for us to be touring at all, so I suppose I should be a bit more excited about it,” King laughs, “I’d much rather be doing the one-off festival appearances, like we are in Australia. The road rat way of living I’ve never found to be very rewarding, you know what I mean? I’m sure it must be nice to be Damon Albarn sitting in a hotel room between shows making his next album on an iPad, but not me mate.”

Indeed the long wait for any new Gang Of Four material is simply a matter of fact. Bar actually asking why they like to take years off between records, I wonder when the last time Jon felt he was under any pressure to get an album done and released. “Not since our first record, mate,” he laughs, “I remember when we were finishing Entertainment!, we were a just couple of songs short of a full album and so we took ourselves to a farm in Wales and stayed there for a couple of months to write, and Andy (Gill) and I came up with Return The Gift down there, so it was obviously worth our time getting out of the studio. But I think very interesting things happen within a band when you’ve got a deadline. I think all creative people to some degree need someone indirectly involved intelligently managing time for them. I’m like the painter who stands around all week looking at the walls and then on Friday at 5pm works frantically throughout the weekend to get it all done in time.”

Gang Of Four’s notable influence and reverence arguably sprung from a filthy sordid affair between prog rock, New York punk and reggae. They pre-dated the ska-punk movement and unlike many of the late ‘70s punk bands, Gang Of Four didn’t discount prog’s musical merit. Punk’s a title they still happily own, but Jon’s willing to use a much dirtier word to describe his music. “I always say – though it’s probably quite wrong – what we do is kind of like jazz, you know where you improvise and try and push things.” he says provocatively, “Just take a song like He’d Send In The Army for example (from their second album, Solid Gold ) that one is always completely different whenever we play it live. I mean, Andy and I might not play anything at all for a few minutes just to see how long we can stand it before we’re compelled to drop in again, which could only work on a song with so many stops and starts.” He adds, “Songs that have so many trigger points telling the artists where to come in and what to do next aren’t terribly interesting to me.”