Monocled Alchemist

Amrik Rai sees Chron Gen getting impatient for their ride on the rock machine. But he knows and they know – that the ‘Chronic Generation’ LP won’t get them past the first stop . . .

Article published in NME, 26th June 1982

Chron Gen | What Time Is The Gravy Train Due Around Here? | “PAUL McCARTNEY earns 56,000 dollars a day and Chron Gen are hot on his heels. We might only be on thirty quid a week at the moment . . . but we’ll catch the bastard someday.”

John Johnson, the Chron Gen drummer, pursues the dream of ‘making it’ with a singlemindedness only slightly diluted by a self-effacing humour. He smiles and shakes a head bristling with blond spikes at these ludicrous imaginings — yet still returns to the subject with clockwork frequency. As Floyd, the guitarist, later explains:

“John wants to be rich and famous. He’s been in the band four years now and I suppose it’s only natural to lose a few ideals and become a bit narrow-minded when you’re playing this sort of music. All the best intentions in the world can get soured by years of touring and releasing records.”

I ARRIVE in Hitchin, Chron Gen’s home base, armed with a belt studded with praise for a recent stunning live performance and boots laced with criticism for the dreadfully chronic first album.

As damning a testimony to the stilted ritual of punk ’82 as anything The Exploited or Discharge could have dreamed up, ‘Chronic Generation’ consists of twelve slices of grinding punk rant extolling the virtues of violence and tribalism (‘Rockabill’), changing systems and phoney individualism (‘You’ll Never Change Me’). The gaping disparity between a record breathing stale, sordid despair and a live performance charged with irrepressible vitality demands explanation — and the burden of accountability inevitably descends squarely onto the hunched shoulders of vocalist, guitarist and songwriter Glynn Barber.

“I had a feeling you’d ask something like that. I’ve got this all worked out, this section’s called ‘In The Beginning . . .’, isn’t it?

“The point is that everyone dismisses Chron Gen as being just another one of those fresh/new young punk bands that’ve popped up from nowhere after listening to the Pistols four years too late . . . and it’s all crap! We started Chron Gen when we were 14 (they’re 19 now) and I played drums and John sang. When you’re that old you don’t think about anything, you just go and do it.

“I wrote the songs on the first album, songs like ‘You Make Me Spew’ and ‘LSD’, because that’s what I thought punk was all about. They seemed like the right sort of things to say, and we said them for years without getting anywhere apart from playing in Letchworth and Stevenage in front of a load of mates. Then suddenly you got the revival and somehow we managed to get caught up in it all, just as we were changing and starting to think about a lot of other things.

“We got booked fourth on the bill with Anti Pasti and The Exploited . . . and suddenly everything was so different. We did a tour with them, got a record deal and BANG! The fact that we were younger than a lot of the other groups and keen as hell to do the album meant that we didn’t really think about anything else. In the end there was only enough money for five days in the studio, five bleedin’ days, and all we could do was to go in there and put down the songs we’d been doing for years. They were the only ones we could play well enough.

“OK, so you want to give the album a bollockin’. Go ahead — but how can you say we were wrong to grab a chance that for so long had seemed impossible? It was like a fucking dream.”

Chron Gen | What Time Is The Gravy Train Due Around Here?

So what have Chron Gen got to say that’s valid in 1982?

Floyd: “Whatever we say, I think that it’s important that if you’ve got the privilege of getting up on a stage before 2000 people then you should have the guts to say something worthwhile and intelligent.”

John: “That’s crap. You don’t have to say anything. I don’t want to teach people anything. I just want to go out there and entertain.”

Floyd: “Yeah, but there’s a difference between entertaining in a bland way and actually saying something worthwhile while you’re entertaining.”

John: “But the way you want to teach them makes you sound better than you are. You can’t treat them like shit, they’re the people that buy your records.”

Floyd: “I still think it’s important that what’s happening in 1982 is reflected in our music. I mean it’d be great if, fifty years from now, someone could pick up a record and say ‘That’s what it was like in 1982’. All these things, like the CND and the state of the country, are things that need to be said. It doesn’t matter if a lot of bands are saying the same things, at least they’re being said.”

John: “Let’s change the subject. I hate talking about the fuckin CND or politics or fuckin’ religion. It’s only gonna cause an argument.”

BY FAR the most articulate of the Chronics, Floyd shows considerable restraint during the interview. He’s only been with the band since the most recent tour and stresses that it’s not his right to play a predominant role in group discussions. But later on in the pub, when the others have left and he’s more relaxed, the black-haired guitarist talks easily about himself and Chronic Generation.

He’s a vegetarian, wears an inverted cross around his neck and has done a fair share of travelling abroad. The notion of being a cosmopolitan, diabolist vegetarian appeals to Floyd’s sense of humour.

“I’m a vegetarian but I still eat cheese and eggs. It’s really difficult, but where the slaughter of animals is concerned I’m totally against it . . . and yet to survive, I’ve still got to eat things like that. Like punks wear leather jackets and they don’t really think about where they come from. I don’t wear leathers myself but then again it could be quite alright if they were made using animals that had died naturally.”

Floyd stands out as the only member of the band to deviate from the obligatory biker’s jacket, preferring to blanket his gangly frame with a shabby green mac.

“I get a lot of stick from punks about not wearing a jacket, but the rest of the band don’t give a toss. We’re trying to be getting away from that sort of thing anyway.”

How do your views relate to the rest of Chron Gen?

“Well, you heard that argument with John. It’s good really to have things that we disagree about ‘cos that keeps the friction and energy going in the group. Glynn’s getting to be a really good writer now, but the only problem is that the general attitude of the band is that ‘We’re not a political band’ sort of thing. Everyone’s afraid of being dragged into a ‘political-band’ rut.

“But when Glynn’s writing songs that are relevant to what’s happening today then there’s no use in saying that you’re nothing to do with politics. The typical Chron Gen audience is obviously going to be really young so instead of being afraid to say something there should be a real sense of satisfaction that you’re actually saying something worthwhile.”

Next year?

How different do you think Chron Gen are going to be in the next year or so?

“The stuff we’re doing now is quite a big change for us. I mean, Glynn’s musical background is mainly in rock and it’s coming to the time now when he’s competent enough to translate those influences and actually change the sound. Personally, I’m just glad we’re going to get out of the punk routine and get a much wilder audience.

“One of the new songs is about uniforms, you know, punk, heavy metal and disco. It all stemmed from when Glynn went to see Iron Maiden and there were all these idiots just staring at him. That just shows how exclusive all these groups are really.

“It was the same on the tour we’ve just done with The Anti Nowhere League. They’ve got a pretty bad reputation for being outrageous and yet if you looked at the audiences we got, they all looked exactly the same. It worries me when I think about it (punk) these days, it’s all so tame and controlled. There’s just no room for outrageousness in that sort of situation . . . the most outrageous thing about the League was their 11/2-hour soundchecks.

“Anyway, what do you think about the new Chron Gen sound? Did you like the tape we played?”

The four tracks I heard, three of which will be Chron Gen’s new single, were a mild revelation. Discarding almost completely the hereditary punk thrash, they’ve branched out and created a melange of (very) musical styles. Rock, pop, disco, reggae and even, they say, psychedelia figure to some degree in the new Chronic sound.

Chron Gen stand ready to throw away the punky blinkers and utilise that cranked-up vitality, displayed with stunning effect in the live arena, to kick up a storm in a broader rock world. The next generation . . .