LAST BUZZCOCK STANDING: STEVE DIGGLE ON SEX PISTOLS, CLASH, NIRVANA & PETE SHELLEY
The Manc Rocker Has An Autobiography Out And Tales To Tell
Late last year I saw Buzzcocks rock London’s Koko for the first time. The quartet delivered a potent hits set – they played every tune off 1979’s Singles Going Steady - yet watching I felt remorse. This was due to never having made the effort to see the Cocks when Pete Shelley was band leader (Shelley died of a heart attack in 2018). It was a little odd in the sense that guitarist Steve Diggle – the only remaining original Cock – now fronts the band, singing both his songs and Shelley’s.
While these days there’s all manner of veteran outfits performing with no (or one) original member – and the Sex Pistols recently reformed for several dates without the vile John Lydon – its odd to hear Diggle sing Shelley’s songs. Not because they have very different voices (they don’t) but its akin to, say, Nirvana continuing with Dave Grohl singing Kurt’s songs. He could. And people would pay to see such. But it would feel a bit sad. Well, that’s just my opinion.
What also makes it sad is that in Diggle’s recently published autobiography Autonomy: Portrait Of A Buzzock (Omnibus) he makes it clear that he resents having to sing Shelley’s songs. And loathes Ever Fallen In Love (With Someone You Shouldn’t’ve), not just the Cocks biggest hit but their greatest song – and one of the most potent songs of the original punk rock era. Obviously, Diggle now owns the band’s name and can do what he likes with it – and as his solo efforts released after the band split in 1981 (before reforming later that decade) found no takers he knows which side his bread is buttered on. Still…
I’ll review Autonomy: Portrait Of A Buzzcock on a later Yak post. For this one I’m providing an interview I conducted with Diggle at the end of last year. Back then his book wasn’t out so I wasn’t aware of his animosity towards Shelley’s songs - this isn’t because he doesn’t rate them, its because he feels his own songs are overlooked. The Buzzcocks were influenced by The Beatles but the animosity here is not akin to McCartney feeling Lennon’s songs get more attention than his: Shelley wrote some striking songs in the 1970s while Diggle, who wrote considerably fewer tunes, never came near matching Pete’s best. For now I’ll note that the book’s strengths are in its character studies of Shelley and the band’s producers’, the late Martins Hannett and Rushent.
Indeed, as Diggle was there at the dawn of UK punk - and his playing helped shape Buzzcocks’ sound - he was a witness to British rock’s last great upheaval. I was on the edge of puberty when punk hit and, boy, did it fire up my hormones! Decades on I still, on occasion, enjoy listening to my favourite punk records. As Buzzcocks are amongst that select group who have endured I wanted to hear what Diggle had to say. In person he is a personable and engaging interviewee. Which means I believe anyone interested in Brit punk/Buzzcocks will find something of interest here.
“Let’s get this straight,” says Steve Diggle. “There were five original British punk bands: Sex Pistols, The Clash, The Damned, The Jam and us – Buzzcocks. We were the bands that set the template for what was to come, created the sound and look and content. Forget those bands that came after and claim to be ‘punk’ – the original five bands laid things out and everyone else followed us.”