The day The Clash were arrested for terrorism
In the mid-1970s, The Clash emerged alongside the Sex Pistols as one of London’s pioneering punk bands, delivering a punchy, rebellious sound that left a lasting impression on the British music scene. As the decade progressed, The Clash’s distinctive style evolved beyond traditional punk boundaries, incorporating elements of reggae, funk, and rockabilly, but the air of anarchy never abated.
The themes and lifestyles reflected in the Clash’s music were rarely too far from home. For example, in 1978’s ‘Stay Free’, Mick Jones wrote, “I practised daily in my room, you were in the crown planning your next move” and “If you’re in the Crown tonight, have a drink on me”. The “Crown” here was the Crown and Sceptre pub in Streatham Hill, south London, which remains open today.
Likewise, The Clash’s 1980 single ‘Bankrobber’ was based on true events. The ska-inspired track tells the story of a boy whose father robs banks but refuses to harm anybody in the process. At the time of release, the song was taken literally by many, and critics curtly pointed out that singer Joe Strummer’s father was a foreign office diplomat and certainly no outlaw bank robber.
While some fans jeered at the song’s lack of authenticity regarding Strummer, it was actually based on Jones’ father. “‘Bankrobber’ is an interesting one,” Jones once told Daniel Rachel, author of The Art of Noise: Conversations with Great Songwriters. “I think my dad was a bank robber’s assistant. There was talk of him driving getaway cars. He was a cab driver, but he drove for other people.”
“Joe wrote the words,” he added. “The songs are like folk songs. They’ve become like traditional songs. A lot of it was based on truth. We made it so everybody could relate to it. It wasn’t exactly the truth; for instance, in ‘Lost in the Supermarket’, I didn’t have a hedge in the suburb. I lived in a council flat. A lot of the time, it got mythologised.”
The band’s bad-boy punk image also gained credence during a 1978 altercation wherein bassist Paul Simonon and drummer Topper Headon got arrested for terrorism. On March 30th, 1978, the pair sat with a group of friends on the roof of Chalk Farm Studios, London, shooting pigeons with an air rifle.
The mischievous bunch soon realised these weren’t just any old pigeons; they were prized racing pigeons whose owner didn’t take too kindly to avicide and threatened them with a pipe wrench. Meanwhile, the British Transport Police, spotting the commotion from the nearby train station, mistook the air rifles for real guns and an immediate threat to passing train passengers.
Within half an hour, armed police units, members of the Secret Service and a search helicopter were deployed to the scene. Simonon and Headon were arrested on suspicion of terrorism but soon released with a £30 fine per head, an additional £30 in legal fees and a court order to pay the pigeon owner £700 in damages.
