U.K. Punk legends the Vibrators like their name.
“It’s a good name. It probably held us back a bit in terms of success and radio play, but it kept us subversive,” says lead singer Ian “Knox” Carnochan.
Staying true to their punk roots has paid off and these days the Vibrators play around the world. For a band that formed in 1976, playing two to three shows a week is no mean feat.
“My mind is still coming back from Canada,” says Knox talking from his home in London. “Our music is transferable internationally; punk is like a little phenomenon that won’t go away.”
The Vibrators style came from the same 1976 Malcolm McLaren shop that the Clash and Iggy Pop bought their sadomasochistic rags, jackets, and studded belts.
It was a time of conservative Thatcherism in England, and Knox says the atmosphere gave birth to a unique culture.
“It was exciting, it was a very hot summer in 1976 and London was having power cuts. I saw a programme saying it was voted the best year of the century,” he says.
That hot summer gave birth to UK punk rock, but Knox says the genre didn’t arise in one city alone.
He didn’t have much hope in the band when they started out.
“I thought we would have no relevance and nothing would happen. But as we started to play faster in the pubs people liked it, and then journalists came up with ‘Punk Rock’ and off it went.”
The band played in Berlin a week after the wall fell and while staying there wrote the song Troops of Tomorrow.
“It was mad in that city, surrounded by the East Germans and the Russians. A friend of mine was imprisoned in the Czech Republic for promoting punk rock, he was only freed when the iron-curtain fell,” says Knox.
As the band’s influence spread it toured with Iggy Pop, appeared on prime-time TV shows like Top of the Pops, and years later Mojo magazine’s listed the single Judy Says (Knock You In The Head) as of the best punk rock singles of all time.
Knox says punk is about more than music; it has a community that popular culture can’t match. He says the trick to punk rock is not taking yourself too seriously.
“When we are recording and it’s not perfect, I’d say ‘don’t worry about it, its punk rock’ so long as the spirit is in the song.”
He thinks people stuck in the modern rat-race need to get back into the music shops and sort their heads out.
“Rather than spend $400 seeing a psychologist, people should spend it in a music shop and really listen to it.”
The Vibrators, Bodega, June 11.