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Sean:
I HEAR THERE'S A BIG ONE GOING DOWN I was working in a DIY store in Bristol, playing with a few punk bands, just finished Art College, things were looking grim. Local kid Johnny Britton was being managed by Bernie Rhodes the Clash's manager up in London and he needed a backing band, that was it, I told the boss where to stick his pension plan, got in my 67 Humber Scepter and drove. First stop, pick up Chris Bostock the best bass player in Bristol, next stop Rob Marche the hottest guitarist in town, got on the M4, no coming back, never coming back. Worked with Johnny Britton in London on one single, sleeping on a mattress in the Clash’s studio in Camden Town, one thing led to another and we started playing with Vic Goddard as Subway Sect (another story) recording one album and doing a few tours round the UK, Vic had other interests by then, so Bernie |
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hooked
us up with this singer from NYC called Dig Wayne and JOBOXERS
were born.
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| Dig: I can't believe it's been 20 years since I was in Joboxers. That had to be the best time of my life. Listening to this new release, especially the live disc, makes me remember just how lucky I was to sing with a group of such excellent musicians. God, they were tight! At a time when playing live was not a prerequisite for success, or even necessary, Joboxers were untouchable. The commitment to the band and it's music was something to behold. We thought nothing of rehearsing five or six hours a day, practically every day. Even when we weren't together playing, we would be working on riffs and ideas that would become songs and part of the show. We lived the whole bad boy, street urchin, concept of the band, sometimes to a fault. Leading a few of us to incarceration, and in my case, even deportation. |
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One
of the first times we were on 'Top of the Pops' I remember being excited
to be on at the same time as Dexy's Midnight Runners - a group we
all loved and respected. At rehearsals, during the day of the show,
I was shocked and disappointed to see them not wearing their patched
dungerees. Instead, they had on Ivy League sweaters and nicely pressed
trousers. I just assumed they wore the dungerees all the time. Once
I got to know Kevin Roland I discovered they had moved on to another
look but were performing a song that was connected to the dungerees.
I struggled with that, but in the end I understood it was part of
showbusiness. Everybody has a different way of going about it. All
valid. The only thing I would change about Joboxers, as I remember
the band, is the fact that we had big mouths. It made for great press,
but we sometimes hurt people's feelings, and alienated some people
we could have embraced. We were young, though, and full of ourselves.
Now, twenty years later, all that really matters is the music. I'm
very glad to have had the chance to be a part of something so exciting". Dig Wayne , Los Angeles, December 2003 Click here for more on Dig Wayne The Shack Rouser album |
| Chris: THEN There weren't that many live bands around when JoBOXERS started out. Each of us progressed from other groups and had played live since our early teens, therefore live shows were always a crucial part of our lives. The group’s live act had evolved through seemingly endless and continuous touring with previous groups, culminating in Subway Sect and in Dig’s case: Buzz and the Flyers. JoBOXERS evolved from a wealth of musical influences, past and contemporary. At times the show bordered on manic but always went down a storm with the audiences who meant everything to us. The ‘look’ evolved without any planning; we wore on stage what we wore day to day and its theme constantly developed. The JoBOXERS name came about when someone pointed out that lots of boxers were called Joe: Joe Bugner, Joe Frazier, Joe Louis. Frank Bruno soon featured in the promo video for Johnny Friendly and there is now a baseball and soccer team named after us. AFTER We are still involved with music in different ways. After JoBOXERS, I spent some time with Dave Stewart and the Spiritual Cowboys before producing albums for EMI and BMG and recently set up a small record label. |
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Rob and Sean launched their own group called 'If?', then Rob started 'Earl Brutus' and his playing is always in great demand. Sean stepped up his creation and promotion of top London clubs and launched his own record label. Dave MD’d and played with Lisa Stansfield and 'The The' while Dig became a successful actor and now performs again at key music events. When the JoBOXERS Anthology album was released, we thought it might be good to get together for a show. Dig and Dave now live in the US and are busy with other things, so the logistics are tricky but it would still be great to do a JoBOXERS concert to recapture the magic. |
Watching the celebratory fireworks from the roof of the Gramercy Park Hotel in Manhattan...cut to a `Top of the Pops' appearance (a British institution...at the time)... a chauffeur driven Bentley - helicopter - private Lear jet ...To a miniscule audience in Aberdeen (Scotland) who had watched us on live TV 90 minutes earlier!!!
Cut to New Zealand the following year...festivals with Talking Heads, Pretenders and Eurythmics...(Live, we feared no one) and on to Australia...Iron curtain Berlin (for our second album) when these places were still vaguely exotic (i.e. before a round the world trip became a students right of passage)...
Times have changed...
It was recently widely reported in the UK that, whatever song had reached No1 in the chart, had sold 16,000 copies...I'm still not sure if that was in a week or overall... but it is strange to think now that we had to sell 250,000 to reach No3 in 1983 ,with David Bowie at No1 and Duran Duran at No2..(Second single `Just got Lucky' sold the same to reach No7!)...
Times have changed...
In late 1980, Chris, Sean, Dave and myself had, by default, ended up in London (Via Bristol) playing as the great Vic Godard’s Subway Sect... doing a huge amount of rehearsing, touring, recording (with the late Alex Sadkin) and living an almost evangelical existence.
