Do yod see yoursell primarily as a I's the best job there is for me; somelhing fike doing and which I get paid for. Only about 5 per cent of workers get that soct of fulfilment.. Unlike the job before, though — 1 was a cierk in a music publishers has its lisadvantages: that was just a job o. vork that i did for eighi bours So long as 1 crawled through the door at 9,30 it didn't matter what the hell 1 did in my time off. In this job, I's entirely on your own shoulders whether the job is good or not, It's getting better though: if you compare your career lo a plane cide, then we ve got past take-off, and the question is now how far ia'll go; to what altitude and what the destination is..
The previous four years could be compared to hanging about in the airpott lounge A lot of the songs you re playing now are at leust a year old. How easy is it tn write new material and what gives you the inspiration?
I'm very anxious to do a second album. We didn't tour with this a buin becuuse we bad been olaving the songs for a year and a half, and all last year was devoted to the audience. We sigged solidly from January to December last year, and recorded the EP so as not to take time off lor recording.
Come this January we were all set to go off to Germany when Chris Thomas, who produced the Sex Pistols, asked us to do an album, 50 WE canceRee mE tcman anEcs though we will go back and do them and dad the albumi. Doig the EF meant that there was space on the album for two new songs, Too good to be trae and The Man you never sww, which was the last thing I wrote. To give you an idea of che way the music is going 1 could recite you the lyrics of that...
Have you heard an ugly whisper? Is the rumour really true?
Just in time, we're next in lime, They 'te really after you and me. Since the demonstration Camping down on every side, Roending up the kids at rundem, Chorus:
Don't repeat this conversation job did Don't let on we met before Try and make like T'm a stranger Im the man you never Church police were roand this mornin and the army'x on our track Took away my books and papers only just got out the back.
Just flown in to tell you That your ploce is heing watched Don'i go into wark tomorrow Tr ano make w down ш qocks.
Dump your car and burn your lellen Smash your glasses, cut your huir Buy a suit und taice a raincoat When sou go, don't tell us where.
Take a look outside my window Don't recognise that van Someone's standing In the doorway Betler make it while you can...
Pretty paranoid, mind you!
A lot of sour sigs have un air of comine risasier und cilesirooae..
Rumpant paranoia...
But is that how you see polities developing in this country?
Mac bit like superstition: if you say says it will. But you want to show people how it could happen: Winter TV ho sis gr stare oil. BSWAUCAASALALLS lootball hooligan, Thati"Hin the drains, sippee" and all that. doesn't ant to know.
and gradually it wants to know about him, and you get this amage of thi SAS wanting to know what they were doing and gradually personal liherlie disappear.
of the audiende have a think about worth it.
How do you community now! heterosexual" world Really Tm a managemeni team is gay but the reit of the organisation and the band are heterosexual. 1 got the band together COCTSOBR you work in.
winter of "79 won't be like the song The was anything, opted our of politics, coming rouod one night and waking everyone up in the street and 1 dunno, but if it makes f per cent where chey stand and why, then it's fit into the gay man in lead singer. a gay to be up there and visible? It's been like that in the left until receatly and it must be true in the milleu that I guess l do. Glad to be Gay is just SM TEM SIS IR AHR AIR and it isn't pushing my pay lifestyle. I tend to come over more asexual than 'oos that's the best way of aroidine ine loberent sexisI and machismo of rock music.
But isn't there a contradiction when your lead gultarist does all that mucho posturing on Right on Sister?
Come on! He sends himsell tp rotten at the same time. He's so over che top that it's obvious that he's taking the piss out of himself, orber guitarists, the audience and the song If he was serious, lie'd be unbearable And if you grant the terms, then he's much more feminine than me. There's an element of macho but also one of ambiguity. He'd be taken for the gay one in the band by a stranger. So we've got a camp, hel guitarist, and ap asexual, low-key macho gay Do you find that having become a 'rock star' that it is difficalt to relate hack to the gay community - as untoechable, touchable for the wroag reasons?
Cive moe those wrong reasons!
Seriously, most of that is te otber people's heads. I'm unaware that it happens cos most of my ble is spent in hotel rooms, buses, backstage, on stage and in recording studios. You're quite cut off from really:
Last nighcar the Albert wasthe first time that I'd board asy of my own gay place completely hlown away by all thos people singing Glad to be Gay and dancing together. It was fantastic Beine at the Albert 15 Jike renewing old acquaintances, No one lays a big same when we were giseing at the Brecknock and places There was a real rapport belween tbe band and the people who followed us gig. .No one wanted astographs and to shake my hand until we got to the Marquee, and then the same people wanted autograpls. Maybe ir had someching to do with it being ditficult to get in.
That was a dilemma, At first? wouldn't do it. but then 1 thoughi about it and realised was being more patronising by not giving autographs etc, You just give into the system andI guess 1 did very quickty. Da you get snide remaris shent heing Behind my back, yes. Paul Burnett on Radio One saying: We've had New Wave now we have Blow Wave' for example, titter, titter, and so on c c sg to o Dc any 200l man always has to demonstrate how mAsCuine ne 15 Dy tarsog & wup pslbi Ir's pathetic. If you stare at thein and sing "em a verse they usually shut up, if not then sou point 'em out to the audience and say: Look a real man Surprise, surprise' Cand put it in Generally if you meet someobe who bas no secrer longing to go to bed with sorbcone of the same sex, whch you occasionally do (though 1 don't suppose tbere ine many of thems), who in secure in their sexuality and who In't gay, then there's no problem. The obes who hassle are insecure and trying to prove something.
What tedious lives they must lead. 1 fcel sorry for them. maybe chey should go and see a doctor!
Next week. Phil Derbyshire's interview concludes with Ton Robinson on: Being a socialist star It's about ELS feasible as being a socialist perfume manufacturer'; Rock Against Racism; youth radicalisation; the organised left. Don't miss it!
Out on 19 May -- The new Tom Robinson Band LP: Power in the Darkness. Already out: the single Up against the Wall. Both on the EMl label.
SOCIALIST CHALLENGE 18 May 1977 page 15