The musician that Joe Strummer thanked God for: “Hit the jackpot”
In many punk circles and beyond, The Clash frontman Joe Strummer stands with a near-deified stature as a symbol of music’s perennial social upending vitality.
John Lydon harps on about his private school background as if often as he can, and committed socialists like the Redskins would raise an eyebrow at just how unwavering he was in his anti-establishment outlook, but there’s no doubt that while the Sex Pistols were UK punk’s big bang, The Clash would sit as the movement’s most fiercely politically galvanising outfit, earning the “only band that matters” tag for good reason.
Leading the charge of the ‘second British invasion’ of the early 1980s, The Clash, for a moment, were one of the biggest bands in the world, just behind The Police in stadium selling, standing and near-MTV domination.
Such elevation brought major label attention. Signing with CBS and seeing them through from 1977’s eponymous debut to even The Clash’s maligned Cut the Crap LP farewell in 1985, a keen dwell on the music industry’s fringes was exactly where Strummer wanted to head with his former band behind him, as well as where he felt the most exciting bands were to be found across the 1990s.
“It’s the growth of the independent sector that’s really come on strong,” Strummer stressed to CD Now in 1999. “Thank God Brett Gurwitz put Epitaph together, hit the jackpot and brought the right groups together like Rancid, the Offspring. Thank God, Tim Armstrong is a sorted-out young geezer- he got Hellcat going. I was thinking the other day, when I was his age, I didn’t know fuck-all. I didn’t know nothing, especially how to put a label together and sign guys.”
Formerly playing guitar for Operation Ivy before fronting the famous Rancid, Armstrong is credited as a major player in the 1990s explosion of Californian punk. Depending on your position, the likes of The Offspring is where punk enjoyed a new era of Billboard conquer, or where the movement’s potent charge had been co-opted by corporate sanitisation and the eventual dregs of Blink-182 or Sum 41.
It’s a maligned moment of punk’s evolution, but Hellcat could count Strummer as a lifelong faithful, taking on his The Mescaleros band and affording the vanity label a serious punk stripe.
Recalling, “When I met him, he said, ‘What are you doing?’ I said, ‘I’m looking for a label ’cause I got away from that thing and now I can get a solo deal.’ He said, ‘Come on, Hellcat.’ I had eight or nine meetings lined up that week with labels last summer. But we just shook hands and BANG! I cancelled those other meetings. I just liked ‘Hellcat.’ Doesn’t that sound good? Imagine a jacket with ‘Hellcat Recording Artist- piss off’ on the back of it. It’s so great to say that rather than (mumbles) ‘Uh, I’m on Sony.’ It doesn’t compare.”
Hellcat would serve as a key chapter of Strummer’s life, overseeing the release of his final album with The Mescaleros, Streetcore, issued posthumously before his sudden death in 2002.
