Monocled Alchemist

Adrian Maddox sees The Defects tool up for the big break

Article published in NME, 15th May 1982

The Defects | Carry out Punk . . . On A Stretcher? | CLICK. (Tape fade in of extraneous bus station cafeteria noises. A voice.) Do you remember what life was like before you became famous? “Yeah, same as it’s like now, except we played more football then and we were more fit.” And where do your interests lie now? “In drinking carry outs.”

THE DEFECTS are a Belfast Benny Hill punky caricature band with hearts of gold and a childlike faith in the all-pervading beneficence of the rock and roll Jerusalem. It’s a faith that’s most clearly observed being touted in the recent crop of colour poster mags like Punk Lives and The Defects want in on it. For them new punk is one way out and they want to use it.

After the release of their own independent ‘Dance Until You Drop’ EP, Straight Music smartly signed them up and super troupered them, and round our table Buck, Gary, Glenn and Dukie’s conversation centres on fevered considerations of contracts, careers, capital and the capital.

What’s it like being pop stars?

Buck: “Pop stars! Urghh, no way. Not yet. Anyway what is a pop star? I don’t know if we could be pop stars — we’re not pop music so how can we be? I’d like to do Top Of The Pops though; there’s really good money in it, £86 an appearance plus it gets more people seeing you and sells more records. And that’s our job now fulltime, the more stuff we sell the more money we get.”

Are you interested in quality? Do you think you can be any more now that you’re a money-making ploy?

Buck: “I don’t think it’s like that. We’ve been doing this for three years and it’s only in the last six months really that all this has happened.”

‘This’ is the big UK tour with Anti-Nowhere League, Chelsea and Chron Gen currently being promoted by their London backers as the first of its kind since the ‘Anarchy’ days — the tour-band chain-snarl that’s supposed to be the big break. Who’s being broken and who the breakers are is a fine point. What’s being offered to the fans this time round?

Buck: “Same as what we offered before, good powerful strong music. No stagey stuff. Just straight there, and no stupid videos of swinging through windows on chandeliers — people don’t want to see you doing that, holding up buses and things.”

What’s punk mean to you, in what way are you punks?

Glenn: “I wouldn’t really class us as punk, it’s up to others.”

But you fit in so easily.

Buck: “What can we do? We’ve been dressing this way for ages, before we were in a band or anything. We went to concerts and listened to records like everyone else, we still do. Just cos we’ve got singles out doesn’t mean anything, we’re nothing special — how does it make us different from any other punks in the street?”

Glenn: “Lots of people seem to think that if you’ve got a single out you’re going out every night, having to make appearances, but every night we’re drinking at the back of Buck’s house.”

The Defects | Carry out Punk . . . On A Stretcher?

So how do you respond to the sex and drugs and rock and roll lifestyle you seem to be embarking on?

Buck: “Sex and rock and roll yes, forget the drugs. You do what you want to do but if one of us starts taking drugs the others’ll tell him to stop — it spoils our fun and if it affects us it’ll ruin everyone else’s time as well. Malcolm’s dead, Sid’s dead, and that’s enough for me.

“What else is there for us? All we’ve got’s the band — we’ve got no jobs, there is no jobs around and there never will be. We all get enjoyment out of playing. In the end it’s better than sitting behind a sewing machine or something.”

Unfortunately he’s right. What else is there? But I still think it’s disgraceful the way that such meagre talents can be beckoned and abused. How long can they go on like this as part of some punk fad?

Buck: “We’ll keep on as long as we can. Punk won’t die, it just can’t die. People don’t go round saying ska’s dead or reggae’s dead. Punk wasn’t a phase. It mightn’t be front page in the media but it’ll always be there.”

But what’s so alive about it?

Buck: “There’s still bands going and there’s more young bands growing up and there’s more people everyday downtown with spikey hair and leather jackets.”

That’s all there is?

Buck: “Well I don’t know what punk is, what’s a teddy boy even, except a grease back with a drape?”

Gary: “It’s about protest, distinct protest, and there’s more of it now than ever. It’s a far worse situation in Great Britain now than it was in ’77 and that’s what’s sparked the whole thing off again.”

You’re social commentators?

Glenn: “We just sing about things that happen to us.”

Gary: “Coming from Belfast you can’t really be a political band cos everyone says you’re just another group making a fortune out of the troubles. Anyway we don’t want to be another Stiff Little Fingers.”

I don’t think you’ve any choice in the matter, but could someone sing good songs about the situation in Ulster?

Buck: “Yes, but it’ll always be a form of exploitation.”

Glenn: “It’ll always be cashing in, there’s no use in singing about it. You know the way the English are anyway all, ‘Christ it must be wild over there, all the bombs and all, I feel really sorry for them’.

“Did you hear Strummer on the radio the other night, slabbering about ‘I think bands should go and play the Far East, they’re dying for bands out there.’ For fuck’s sake, this is part of the UK and no one comes over here. Bands here deserve a lot more than what they’re getting, even smaller ones like Stalag 17 and Rebel. When we do make it we’ll start our own label and give all these wee bands a chance.”

The Defects | Carry out Punk . . . On A Stretcher?

What was London like —were you well received?

Buck: “It was really good. I was surprised. The Drones went on first and it’s funny cos I’ve got a Drones LP in the house and before the tour I’d thought they were brilliant, would love to have seen them live and then it ends up with them going on before us. We were told not to expect much at the time but everyone got dancing, all these punks doing the tango. It went down really well. Like, Gene October was saying, ‘Fuckin’ great band, don’t give a shit what anyone else says’. In fact now we’ve seen Chelsea, Chron Gen, and Anti Nowhere League 24 times.”

Glenn: “It’s great experience. At the end of it all you’re really good, you know your songs backwards, never forget ’em.”

What does being a ‘good band’ mean?

Buck: “Knowing your songs. Being good on stage. If you go and see a band and they just stand there it’s useless, it’s . . .

Gary: “Hold on, the red light on your tape’s just gone off.”

What? Ah . . .

Click.

I LEAVE the band hunched around the cafeteria space invader —the perfect microcosm: spending all that effort, will and cash on a pretty, bleeping game you can never win anything from. Pure rock and roll. So what are The Defects? Really nice people. But more importantly they’re Belfast’s, Ulster’s, the UK’s very best punk band. That’s really saying something.