Monocled Alchemist

Robbi Millar waits for judgement hour with Theatre of Hate

Article published in Sounds, 20th March, 1982

Theatre Of Hate | The Look Of Revelations | “The whole thing is total. It has to be. When I stop aiming for it to be total, when I can’t go any further with Theatre Of Hate then I pack it in. No doubt about that.” —Kirk Brandon.

You will find us sitting among the posters, the press releases, the pre-tour chaos of Terry Razor’s basement flat. Terry Razor is the manager of Theatre Of Hate — more of him later, undoubtedly.

Kirk Brandon, Stan Stammers, Billy Duffy, John Lennard, new boy drummer Nigel Preston, Virginia Turbett and me. All waiting for something to happen.

Today is the first day of a major Theatre Of Hate UK tour. There have been tours before, more will follow, but this one is a little bit special.

The TOH single ‘Westworld’ has made a bright impression on the charts, the TOH album ‘Westworld’ is poised, without a doubt, to do the same. This time God-willing, Razor-willing, nothing can hold them back.

Theatre Of Hate | The Look Of Revelations

And Sounds has joined the tour because . . . well, because I’m wearied with the angst, the intensive (extreme) adjectives thrown at the band; the ‘gothic’ connection with all those ‘stoned-out idiots walking around with their underpants on their heads’ — someone else’s description but I couldn’t resist it — the grim, the glum and the grating.

After all, Theatre Of Hate are a band like any other; they play instruments, they make records, they do gigs. It’s just that they command a devotion that’s almost unusual taking into consideration the amount of (albeit facile) competition.

They believe in what they do enough to take chances and risks, to live from hand to mouth and spurn the ‘higher’ echelons of the recording business by keeping faith in their home-grown Burning Rome enterprise. As such they have many converts. Let them convert me.

A conversion that began (partly) on first hearing of the extraordinary ‘Westworld’ — if not absolutely convincing then still one of those startling debut albums that convinces you of an embryo excellence — continues in Brighton’s Top Rank on this salty evening.

If I didn’t know then I wouldn’t believe that this is one of those infamous, hassle-ridden first nights. The sound is sharp —thanks, mainly, to Kirk Brandon’s careful monitoring of the sound desk throughout the sound-check; he’s not about to hand over control of his bands’ music to a technical outsider — the atmosphere is high and Theatre Of Hate, all free-wheeling passion and complete determination sparkle with energy unleashed.

Theatre Of Hate | The Look Of Revelations

It’s as if they’ve been shackled, all chained-up with no release and suddenly, suddenly they burst loose with all the pent-up emotion and excessive pride that’s been held in quiet rein. Like chariots doing speed-crazed battle in a Roman arena, Theatre thunder forward.

No coincidence that they choose ‘The Ride Of The Valkyries’ for their intro tape. Not such a great coincidence either that they’re sometimes compared to the Clash — though the music is different and the times have changed, the give-all is the same. Theatre Of Hate hold nothing back.

Incorporated into this new live set are songs newer than those on ‘Westworld’. (‘Westworld’ is, of course, a comparatively ‘old’ record, completed at the end of last summer and delayed by many money problems.) It is (partially) from these that I gauge TOH’s next move.

‘The Solution’, for one, is poppier, lighter in melody if not in intent while ‘Americanas’ is often frantic, hung up on John Lennard’s saxophone and propelled with vast enthusiasm by Stan Stammers’ swinging, moving bass.

Kirk would, it transpires, choose this for a single; my preferences lie with ‘The Hop’, both caustic and tempting. Of the album material, it’s ‘Judgement Hymn’ and the more established ’63’ that catch my attention; the former sweeping, not a little breath-taking, the latter a defiant pose that provides the perfect medium for Nigel Preston to prove his worthy rhythmic take-over from Luke Rendall.

I had hoped TOH would grace with ‘Anniversary’, instead they slow matters down with the haunting lilt of ‘Love Is A Ghost’. (Another single?)

Theatre Of Hate | The Look Of Revelations

As for those old, established singles. Well, the Theatre still include them in its performance. ‘Original Sin‘, ‘Nero’, both accepted wholeheartedly and much appreciated although I’ve a feeling that neither ‘Legion’ nor ‘Rebel Without A Brain’ would feature were it not for the ever insistent call of the encore.

While they don’t deny their past, I guess TOH don’t want to drag it too far into the present — but they accept the word of their earliest audiences.

This is their earliest audience. Part of it. I enquire how come they know so many Brighton inhabitants. “They’re not from Brighton, they’re from London,” I’m told. “They came down here especially.”

The Theatre Of Hate story can, within reason, be divided into two sections. On one side, the method by which the band ignored the conventional route to pop importance and made the necessary sacrifices for total control over their talent – this side is often mislaid but significant, an inspiration —and, on the other side, the meaning behind the purpose of TOH.

More complicated, this, and a favourite with long-winded hacks. Yet equally important. Still, let us begin with business. When Theatre Of Hate put their ideas into practice not so long ago, they did so via Terry Razor, one time Clash merchandising superintendent and founder of Burning Rome.

(SS Records to be more exact but various references to extreme politics rendered this not the reich title, hence Burning Rome.)

Theatre Of Hate | The Look Of Revelations

Since then, every TOH product, from their very first single through to their ‘Live At The Lyceum’ tape has been (just about) financed by Razor and band who survive on a mere £40 per week each as a consequence. Until now . . .

Theatre Of Hate had finally to seek the assistance of A. N Other company recently because “we figured that if there was still going to be a Theatre Of Hate, we’d have to”.

So they plumped for Stiff whose boss Dave Robinson has had a permanent love/hate relationship with Razor and who, in the end, “have the best sales force”.

“We’ve always had a problem with money, obviously,” explains Kirk Brandon, matter-of-fact and mighty friendly. “All our records were always deleted at around 15,000, partly because we’d reached a certain stage with each one and partly because we had no bloody money!”

“We had a few problems with Chrysalis over the album. They had the tapes in a vault or something and they wouldn’t let them go because of money and various things.

Anyway, we needed the money and the say so of someone larger than Rough Trade,” (who distributed the single ‘Westworld’) “we needed a larger distributor.

“We were offered the most fantastic amounts of money by record companies. In some cases it was literally ‘We’re gonna make you an offer you can’t refuse!’.”

But they did. Theatre Of Hate turned their backs on £30,000, on £500,000, even on the legendary £1,000,000 from a Certain Bloody Serious bunch of hopefuls.

Deal with Stiff Records

Says Kirk, “I honestly think that sort of money would deflate the band”.

John Lennard agrees: “It’s like when you get to the very top, you’re often just a shell of what you used to be.”

So does Stan Stammers: “You have to fight for everything. And if there’s, nothing to fight for . . . what’s left?”

(Kirk Brandon hopes that no-one thinks TOH have “sold out” by signing a distribution deal with Stiff. In the face of such alternative temptation, / hope no-one is so unfair in their judgement.)

It’s the fighting and the striving that makes ‘Westworld’ stand apart from most of the albums released by peer bands of the Theatre. That spirit and the usual choice of producer that the band met one fateful night in a queue outside the Venue.

By any account, the Clash’s Mick Jones did not give Theatre Of Hate an easy time of it; Kirk, in particular, found his vocal audibility under severe grilling.

“It’s true that I must have sung some of the lyrics 20 or 30 times. I remember ‘staggering’ in ‘Conquistador’ — God knows how many times Mick made me do that one!”

But Stan insists that the end result was ideally suited to the bands’ desires: “The effects that Mick came up with, we really liked those. I mean, we didn’t want a studio version of our live songs, we wanted something different.”

“Live, there’s a lot of aggravation,” explains Kirk. “The instruments all aggravate. Maybe Jones managed to get that aggravation onto record.”

Westworld

For a short while he is thoughtful. Later he gives me the essence of his feelings for ‘Westworld’; they’re remarkably close to mine:

“Personally I think the album will grow in stature. It was a gamble but Jones captured something and —although I don’t want to blow my own trumpet — I think it could become a classic.”

On taking up the challenge of a Theatre Of Hate feature I’d originally intended to get around the problem of Kirk Brandon’s sometimes difficult pronounciation and corner him into explaining some of ‘Westworld’ to me.

It is with this in mind that I attack the subject of the excellent ‘Judgement Hymn’.

“When I was a kid, I was taught by nuns. Once a Catholic, always a Catholic, I suppose — although I know what’s wrong with it.

“Anyway, I read some of the Bible, a bit aimlessly, and the only bit of it that stood out for me was Revelations. Revelations made sense.

“If it was translated into modern language, it’d be a very good interpretation of what’s happening now. Very accurate. Very frightening and, though I still think some of the ideas a bit iffy, it’s tending to come true.”

“How do I put this without people thinking ‘Kirk Brandon’s losing his mind!’? I had a sort of vision of a judgement day, the idea of man bringing man to his knees, the souls and spirits rising out of graveyards, angels bellowing their horns . . .”

Revelations

He trails off. Kirk doesn’t want to be thought a crank and quite rightly so. The subject of the nuclear holocaust has been done to death in one way or another. Even so, he tells me of the government built shelters beneath Clapham South underground, the seating for 8,000 sheltered under Centrepoint — and he continues.

“It may not be the end as Revelations puts it but it could be an enormous change in man. Say they do devastate the world, what are the survivors going to think?

“That it can never happen again! At some point there has to be a reckoning, everyone will have to be responsible and the end of the sort of mentality that causes such things will come.

“It’ll be very — I don’t want to sound like a Bible-basher but I can’t think of any other word — very joyous! Like if someone’s pushing you around and then they stop, it’s a great relief. In that way, all the worry will be ended, it’ll be a weight off everyone’s shoulders, a lift.”

Three-o-clock in the morning and we have little chance of moving further into ‘Westworld’. An early start sees us Stoke-bound; Keele University, to be precise, where Theatre Of Hate are none too delighted to spy pro-Russian posters decorating the windows.

“Pinkoes” mutters guitarist Billy Duffy in disgust.

“Why do they always have to throw their ‘radical’ ideas at everyone?” is the general assent — and TOH disappear into a three hour sound-check.

It’s later, much later and in the wake of an exciting and successful battle against dire sound problems that I meet up with Kirk Brandon once more.

He’s tired, over-tired but he attempts to explain the motive behind Theatre Of Hate to me and, since I ask, the usefulness of actual music in this campaign.

Drums and voices

“Music is a focus. There is some fantastic music and it can be a focus. Your perception and awareness is triggered off by music; it’s possible through the medium of music for me to communicate with you.

“Those geezers from Jamacia. I and I, all that stuff. If I think of it as I perceive I then it makes total sense, complete communication.”

But Theatre Of Hate have always stressed the lyrics. Where then do these fit in?

“Lyrics are very important and if you can get the lyrics to fit the music . . . I relate strongly to primitivism —drums and voices which I know has been over-used and made into something of a cliche — and it was so much easier for primitives, African natives, because single noises had meanings and everything was immediate. No need to buy the album!

“I find it difficult writing songs. It gets more difficult all the time. Often I’ll get halfway but I have to work so hard to get the other half. It’s funny though, the actual music is getting better all the time.”

As he talks, I notice that Kirk Brandon never lets up on his personal brand of intensity.

“I never relax. My mind keeps ticking over . . . working myself into a pitch. People’s normality — what is considered to be normality — that level is like a death trap to me.”

And do the remainder of Theatre Of Hate share these feelings?

“Stan and John are at the front of the train, Billy’s a carriage back and Nigel’s a few carriages back. In time, I hope, we’ll all be in the same carriage. But they’re all completely there. I’ve no qualms about any of them. We’re a happy band, happy people really!”

Burning Rome

Happiness. Yes, there is happiness in Theatre Of Hate. Despite their (supposed) image of anger and ferocity, there is also hope.

“All those little punks who come to see us, they can feel so much. They know what’s being done to them but after a while, if they’re not strong, they’ll break and they won’t know who they are anymore.

“If all the young people in the world said ‘No!’, governments would fall. The more you say ‘No’, the more you take your life back into your own hands.”

And that is Theatre Of Hate’s intent. To persuade people to use the word ‘No’. In the most positive fashion.

I’m not sure when or where but manager Terry Razor says a similar thing to me and it stands out in my mind. Why, I wonder, does a perfectly sane man turn his back on personal life and run up a frightening overdraft all to take on the pressure of a venture called Burning Rome?

“All those little c**ts, they mean a lot to me,” he admits. “At gigs, I look out at the audience — and they are a load of little c**ts — and I want to help them because I love them. Theatre Of Hate is my way of getting through to them.”

Just as Theatre Of Hate has gotten through to me.