The Stranglers
The Stranglers are an English rock band formed in 1974. Scoring 23 UK top 40 singles and 20 UK top 40 albums to date in a career spanning five decades, the Stranglers are one of the longest-surviving bands to have originated in the UK punk scene.
Formed as the Guildford Stranglers in Guildford, Surrey, in early 1974, they originally built a following within the mid-1970s pub rock scene. While their aggressive, no-compromise attitude had them identified by the media with the emerging UK punk rock scene that followed, their idiosyncratic approach rarely followed any single musical genre, and the group went on to explore a variety of musical styles, from new wave, art rock and gothic rock to the sophisti-pop of some of their 1980s output. They had major mainstream success with their 1982 single "Golden Brown". Their other hits include "No More Heroes", "Peaches", "Always the Sun", "Skin Deep" and "Big Thing Coming".
The Stranglers' early sound was driven by Jean-Jacques Burnel's melodic bass, but also gave prominence to Dave Greenfield's keyboards.
Their early music was also characterised by the growling vocals and sometimes misanthropic lyrics of both Burnel and Hugh Cornwell. Over time, their output gradually grew more refined and sophisticated. Summing up their contribution to popular music, critic Dave Thompson later wrote: "From bad-mannered yobs to purveyors of supreme pop delicacies, the group was responsible for music that may have been ugly and might have been crude – but it was never, ever boring."
They experienced several line-up changes. After Cornwell's departure in 1990, Burnel, drummer Jet Black and Greenfield were the only constant members of the band until Black's retirement in 2018 and Greenfield's death in 2020.
History
Formation and mainstream success (1974–1979)
Prior to forming the band, Jet Black had run various businesses, including a fleet of ice cream vans, and later ran The Jackpot, a Guildford off-licence that would serve as the base for the early Stranglers. Black had also been a semi-professional drummer in the late 1950s and early 1960s. After attaining a degree of financial stability due to his business successes, by 1974 he decided to return to drumming and assemble a band. The Stranglers came to be an influential band in the British punk and new wave scene of the mid-1970s. Black drove the ice cream vans that would serve as the Stranglers' early tour buses.The group that eventually formed between 1974 and 1975 was originally named The Guildford Stranglers, but they soon dropped the geographical prefix and the name, The Stranglers, was registered as a business on 11 September 1974 by Black. The other original personnel were bass player/vocalist Jean-Jacques Burnel, guitarist/vocalist Hugh Cornwell and keyboardist/guitarist Hans Wärmling, who was replaced by keyboardist Dave Greenfield within a year. None of the band came from the Guildford area apart from Burnel, who was originally from Notting Hill but moved to Godalming during his childhood. Black was from Ilford, Cornwell from Kentish Town and Greenfield from Brighton, while Wärmling came from Gothenburg and returned there after leaving the band.
Cornwell was a blues musician before forming the band and had briefly been a bandmate of Richard Thompson, Burnel had been a classical guitarist who had performed with symphony orchestras, Black's musical background was as a jazz drummer, and Greenfield had played at military bases in Germany. Their early influences included pre-punk psychedelic rock bands such as the Doors and the Music Machine.
From 1976, the Stranglers became associated with the burgeoning punk rock movement, due in part to their opening for the first British tours of American punks the Ramones and Patti Smith. Notwithstanding this association, some of the movement's champions in the British musical press viewed the band with suspicion on account of their age and musical virtuosity and the intellectual bent of some of their lyrics. However, Burnel was quoted saying, "I thought of myself as part of punk at the time because we were inhabiting the same flora and fauna ... I would like to think the Stranglers were more punk plus and then some."
The band's early albums, Rattus Norvegicus, No More Heroes and Black and White, all released within a period of 13 months, were highly successful with the record-buying public and singles such as "Peaches", "Something Better Change" and "No More Heroes" became instant punk classics. Meanwhile, the band received a mixed reception from some critics because of their apparent sexist and racist innuendo. However, critic Dave Thompson argued that such criticism was oblivious to the satire and irony in the band's music, writing: "the Stranglers themselves revelled in an almost Monty Python-esque grasp of absurdity."
These albums went on to build a strong fan-following, but the group's confrontational attitude towards the press was increasingly problematic and triggered a severe backlash when Burnel, a martial arts enthusiast, punched music journalist Jon Savage during a promotional event.
In February 1978, the Stranglers began a mini-tour, playing three secret pub gigs as a thank-you to those venues and their landlords for their support during the band's rise to success. The first was at The Duke of Lancaster in New Barnet on Valentine's Day, with further performances at The Red Cow, Hammersmith, and The Nashville Rooms, West Kensington, in early September.
During their appearance at the University of Surrey on the BBC TV programme Rock Goes to College, on 11 October 1978, and aired on the 19 October, the group walked off stage because an agreement to make tickets available to non-university students had not been honoured.
In the latter half of the 1970s, the Stranglers toured Japan twice, joining the alternative music scene of Tokyo, which was evolving from the punk sound of Kyoto-based band Murahachibu, whose music influence spread to Tokyo in 1971. The Stranglers were the only foreign band to take part in a landmark scene focused around S-KEN Studio in Roppongi and The Loft venues in Shinjuku and Shimokitazawa from 1977 to 1979. The scene included bands such as Friction, and they became friends with the band Red Lizard, whom they invited back to London, where the band became known as Lizard. In 1979, while still in Japan, Burnel also became close friends with Keith, co-founder and drummer for ARB. At the end of 1983, ARB's bassist was imprisoned, leaving the band with a problem for their forthcoming tour. Burnel took time out from the Stranglers to fly out to Japan at short notice and join ARB to cover the tour, including appearing at the All Japan Rock Festival at Hibaya park, becoming the first non-Japanese to ever appear at the festival. Burnel toured with ARB for five weeks and played on two studio tracks, "Yellow Blood" and "Fight it Out", both of which appeared on the RCA Victor ARB album Yellow Blood.
Second phase (1979–1982)
In 1979, one of the Stranglers' two managers advised them to break up as he felt that the band had lost direction, but this idea was dismissed and they parted company with their management team. Meanwhile, Burnel released an experimental solo album Euroman Cometh backed by a small UK tour and Cornwell recorded the album Nosferatu in collaboration with Robert Williams. Later that year the Stranglers released The Raven, which had a more melodic and complex sound. The songs on The Raven are multi-layered and musically complicated, and deal with such subjects as a Viking's lonely voyage, heroin addiction, genetic engineering, contemporary political events in Iran and Australia and extraterrestrial visitors, "Meninblack". The Hohner Cembalet, which saw prominent use on the previous three albums, was dropped and Oberheim synthesizers used instead whilst acoustic piano was used on "Don't Bring Harry". A harmoniser was used to treat Burnel's vocal on the track "Meninblack", the recording of which led to Martin Rushent, who had produced their earlier albums, walking out, leaving the band to co-produce the album themselves with Alan Winstanley.The Raven was not released in the US; instead a compilation album The Stranglers IV was released in 1980, containing a selection of tracks from The Raven and a mix of earlier and later non-album tracks. The Raven sold well, reaching No. 4 in the UK Albums Chart - it spawned one top 20 single, "Duchess", with "Nuclear Device" reaching No. 36 and the EP "Don't Bring Harry" reaching No. 41. This was followed by a non-album single, "Bear Cage", backed with "Shah Shah a Go Go" from The Raven. A 12-inch single, the band's first, containing extended mixes of both tracks was also released; "Bear Cage" was No. 36 in the chart.
Following the success of the Stranglers' previous four albums they were given complete freedom for their next, The Gospel According to the Meninblack, a concept album exploring religion and the connection between religious phenomena and extraterrestrial visitors. It was preceded by a single "Who Wants the World", which did not appear on the album, and just made the top 40. The album also included "Waltzinblack" which became adopted as a theme by TV chef Keith Floyd. The Gospel According to The Meninblack was different from their earlier work and alienated many fans. It peaked on the UK Albums Chart at No. 8, their lowest placing to date, and in 1981 was widely considered an artistic and commercial failure. The track "Two Sunspots" had been recorded during the Black And White sessions in 1978, but was shelved until 1980 when it was rediscovered and placed on The Gospel According to the Meninblack. The "Meninblack" track from The Raven is the "Two Sunspots" soundtrack slowed down.
La Folie was another concept album, this time exploring the subject of love. At first La Folie charted lower than any other Stranglers studio album, and the first single taken from it, "Let Me Introduce You to the Family", only charted at No. 42. However, the next single was "Golden Brown". The song is an evocative waltz-time ballad, with an extra beat in the fourth bar. Cornwell said the lyrics were "about heroin and also about a girl. She was of Mediterranean origin and her skin was golden brown." It became their biggest hit, charting at No. 2 in the UK Singles Chart. It was also named as "record of the week" on BBC Radio 2, despite the station not previously playing music associated with the punk genre. It remains a radio staple to this day. Following this success, La Folie recharted at No. 11 in the UK Albums Chart. "Tramp" was originally thought to be the ideal follow-up single to "Golden Brown" but "La Folie" was chosen after Burnel convinced his bandmates of its potential. Sung in French, it received negligible airplay and charted at No. 47. Shortly afterwards the Stranglers left EMI. As part of their severance deal, the Stranglers were forced to release a greatest hits collection, The Collection 1977–1982. The track listing for The Collection 1977–1982 included the new single "Strange Little Girl", which had originally been recorded on a demo in 1974 and rejected by EMI. It became a hit, charting at No. 7 in July 1982 and providing royalties to Wärmling through his co-writing credit.