The classic rock band The Clash desperately wanted to match: “We’re not content”
The Clash were a band who lived on the teetering edge of an ever-changing movement. Exciting, sure, but a tricky place to exist.
Punk remains one of the most elusive styles of music ever made. It’s one laden with finger-pointing, as artists call their contemporaries “fake” saying they’re not a true punk, they’re just using the movement for their own gain. Johnny Lydon called every other punk band who came after the Sex Pistols “copycat wankers” and The Clash found themselves within this harsh label, as Lydon was always quick to point out what he believed to be the band’s shortcomings.
“Have a picture taken outside council flats, you know, as if that equates integrity. No!” Said Lydon when discussing the band’s lead singer, Joe Strummer, and how supposedly fake he was, “He’d come around, and he’d sit in front of the six o’clock news with his notepad […] It’s nothing personal. I liked Joe. But you can’t be a champagne socialist. You’ve got to be more honest with us than that.”
While there may have been a bit of tension between John Lydon and The Clash, it wasn’t something The Clash tended to associate themselves with too much. Instead, the punk icons were constantly trying to improve their sound, which meant approaching songs differently and pushing themselves in a bid to churn out something cutting-edge.
There are a lot of people who are credited with starting the punk movement before it officially found form in the UK. The Ramones are an obvious one, but other bands who are given credit include the likes of Captain Beefheart, The Doors and Iggy Pop. One band you never hear credited within the movement is Van Halen, and yet, that’s who Mike Jones once said The Clash were trying to match.
“We feel we’re underachievers,” he said when talking about The Clash, “I suppose it’s because we care so much. We’re all so kind of intense about it that we muss it up. You say, ‘Hey, these guys are big successes’ but we want to be successes that Van Halen are. We’d like to have those people’s ears. We want to make them listen! We’re not content. We want more.”
You have to admire Jones’s ambition. It’s tricky to work out whether or not, when he talks about Van Halen, he means he wants to have their sound or merely have their fan base. You can understand why any band would pine for both, as throughout the ‘70s, Van Halen became the band to beat. Their style was unique and admired by many, meaning that people around the world began listening to them, buying their records and paying to see them perform live.
Of course, their sound was also something to be envied. Eddie Van Halen’s playing style was the envy of many, while both David Lee Roth and Sammy Hagar were excellent frontmen. The entire band came together to deliver a large sound that would blow the minds of anyone remotely rock-inclined.
Regardless of what Jones’s intentions were, it’s interesting to hear a punk band talk so highly of Van Halen. It’s even more interesting hearing said punk band say they wish they could emulate the glam rock giants. The genre remains as elusive as ever.
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