Original subtitles

[dramatic operatic music]

[gentle music]

- Well, I've been to Hastings

and I've been to Brighton.

I've been to Eastbourne too.

So what, so what?

And I've been here and I've been there.

And I've been fucking everywhere.

- I saw them up at Brixton in 1982.

Saw The League then.

Were hooked ever since that day.

- They're fucking good 'cause they piss people off

and that's what it's about

and the Anti-Nowhere League are

the best at pissing people off.

- So what, so what, so what, so what

you boring little cunt.

- They're local heroes.

So it's a homage.

- Well who cares, who cares what you do?

Yeah, who cares, who cares

about you, you, you, you, you.

- I've been a League fan since the early days, '81.

It was that fuck-off-attitude I loved.

Today, they still got that attitude.

- They're the Anti-Nowhere League

for a fucking reason.

We hate every cunt.

- Well I've fucked the Queen.

I've fucked Bach.

I've even sucked an old man's cock.

- So fucking what!

["So What!" by Anti-Nowhere League]

♪ I've been to Hastings and I've been to Brighton ♪

♪ I've been to Eastbourne too

♪ So what, so what

♪ I've been here and I've been there ♪

♪ And I've been every fucking where ♪

♪ So what, so what

♪ So what, so what you boring little cunt ♪

♪ Well who cares

♪ Who cares what you do

♪ Who cares

♪ Who cares about you

♪ You, you, you, you ♪ Well I've fucked the Queen ♪

♪ And I've fucked Bach

♪ And I've even sucked an old man's cock ♪

♪ So what, so what

- And I've fucked a sheep.

I've fucked a goat.

I rammed my cock right down its throat.

["So What!" by Anti-Nowhere League]

♪ So what, so what you boring little cunt ♪

♪ Who cares

♪ Who cares what you do

♪ Who cares

♪ Who cares about you

♪ You, you, you, you

- I started the Anti-Nowhere League as a name,

but you know without Nick, it would not have got further

than Tunbridge Wells, first bottom of the row.

You know, it was purely Nick and my brains together,

created this sort of image

and everything else about the Anti-Nowhere League,

that has carried on to this day, really.

["So What!" By Anti-Nowhere League]

♪ Who cares

♪ Who cares what you do

♪ Who cares

♪ Who cares about you

- To go around the world to play to audiences,

to get paid for the privilege,

to get women chucking theirself at you

and people giving you drugs and drink.

It don't get any better than that, does it?

I mean, how many people to get that chance, you don't do ya?

So yeah, it was good.

It was very, very good.

["So What!" By Anti-Nowhere League]

- Local people, like your mates of Tunbridge Wells

we grew up with, they all backed us.

We sort of flew the flag for a lot of people.

- Yeah, definitely.

- Who were just saying get out there son,

do it, go on, get out there.

You felt like you was an ambassador for your rogue friends.

["So What!" By Anti-Nowhere League]

♪ So what, so what

♪ I've fucked this

♪ And I've fucked that

♪ And I've even fucked a school girl's twat ♪

♪ So what, so what

♪ So what, so what you boring little cunt ♪

- It was a real fun 18 months to two years,

from the day that I put them on. [laughs]

It was non-stop madness really.

♪ You, you, you, you, you, you, you, you ♪

- Anti-Nowhere League was one of those bands that just

exploded like a star and the ripple

would carry on forever.

- Nobody gives a fuck anymore.

- There's not a band around today that's got the balls

to even stand up and say, you know what,

I think you're all cunts

and I'm gonna take the piss out of you.

There's no-one.

It's dead.

We need that attitude to sustain, to survive.

["English Country Garden" instrumental]

- [Nick] Tunbridge Wells always had a reputation of being

the expensive place to live, best place to school your

kids, conservative, like respectable town.

And it's not true.

- [Winston] Tunbridge Wells is known to be a predominantly

middle class and upper class area.

Really you've got far more working class

and a lot of poverty in Tunbridge Wells

than people realize to be honest with you.

- Tunbridge Wells, you know, that's posh isn't it?

It's like, actually not all of it.

If you've got no money, it's just as fucking tough

in Tunbridge Wells as it is in Brixton.

- It was a very repressive place to grow up,

because of the lack of any kind of tolerance.

- It doesn't know what it is.

You know, it's near London, but is in the country.

So they try to behave like Londoners,

but they're not Londoners you know,

they're just Kentish people, you know?

- The rich have to have somebody to take the rubbish out,

and that was the Anti-Nowhere League.

- There was a great bond between the outcasts

of Tunbridge Wells.

Luckily enough, I was brought up on the bad side of town.

We were the rough element.

- Well I was born in Tunbridge Wells

but by the age of four we moved to Southborough

which is just on the suburbs of Tunbridge Wells.

There's this big area called the playing fields,

where all the kids used to play.

And we lived one side, and Nick lived on the other side

of the playing fields, the other side of the village.

And I mean, living there was fantastic really.

- I grew up on this flagship estate.

The Woolley Road Estate was modern living

for council tenants.

Once you're on a council estate, you've got to work really

hard to get out of it.

You're pretty much bred for road sweeping or brick laying.

- I was lucky.

I was brought up in a cottage that my old man got

as part of a job.

He was a printer my old man, and it was a tied cottage,

it went with the job.

So I didn't live on council estates,

but I had lots of mates that lived on council estates.

And there was always that you know, like drunk blokes

beating their kids and beating their wives.

- That was the house I was brought up in.

Over there, number 35.

My bedroom was just above the front door.

And as a three or four year old kid,

I used to climb out the window,

drop down off that sill and sit onto the concrete ledge

above the front door.

That's where I used to sit.

Watching people.

'Cause my Mother was never at home, so she didn't care,

didn't think it was unusual, a four year old kid had been

climbing out top window.

She was always working.

My Mother was born in Gravesend in Kent.

She grew up there during the war.

Had a lot of brothers and sisters.

Spent all her time looking after kids.

I had two older sisters.

Their Mother got fed up with kids time I came along.

She wasn't really around.

Me old man was a bit of a war hero.

Him and his brothers.

He was in Burma, he was in Africa,

and he was out in Europe and he got stuck on Dunkirk.

He said it was unbelievably bad.

My Dad was a good bloke and I loved him dearly.

But you know, he didn't know how to be a Father really.

You know, I know I looked up to him,

and he was a tough bloke.

He'd be a mate, but there would be no guidance.

I was literally out on the road on my own.

And I found gangs much more family than family life.

I'm not gonna dis them, 'cause they did what they could.

- My Dad was the managing director of a decorators

merchants.

And my Mum used to be a secretary.

Yeah, she worked part time.

She was always around for us.

You know, she didn't really, we weren't left on our own

or anything.

Encouraged us to do whatever we wanted to do.

Couldn't ask for more really, as far as parents go.

- I wasn't a very pleasant little kid.

Little fat faced kid, with a terrible lisp coming out.

[hisses]

That one.

It was just, always the starting block for the bullies.

Sort of give me a slap and that if I didn't say

[lisping] six pound worth of sausages.

And they'd hold me down and write cunt or bollocks

on my face and things like that,

which is normal on a council estate.

I learnt more from those horrible bastards on the estate

than I could have possibly done if they weren't there.

I took myself off to judo, karate, boxing,

everything possible to better myself.

And then yeah, I made sure every fucking bully paid.

Nobody done that to me again.

- [Chris] We had woods nearby so we'd go play in the woods

all the time, riding on bikes, pushbikes.

- There was all these trees that we used to hang out with.

We'd say I'll just meet you over the pine ears,

or old man oak.

It was better than the council estate.

And you were pretty much free up there.

You could climb trees, you could be yourself without

you know, gangs of kids on the estates

giving you grief.

Here he is.

The oldest man on the common.

We spent many happy times here.

Meeting up here.

But he's magnificent, you stand here, you can see his face.

That's his eye.

And you can see his eye and his eyebrow and his mouth

and stuff.

It looks straight out of Lord of the Rings, doesn't it?

To us, that was magic.

As we grew older, it was the South Bootboys,

which were the skinhead gang I was in.

We were kings of the common.

- I remember being chased by Nick when I was about 11.

Yeah, him and his gang.

When they came along, you made sure you got

out the way quick, otherwise, you'd get a swift boot.

I would never say Nick was a bully.

I remember one of his other mates punched me once

and Nick goes, oh leave him alone chav, you know,

it's not worth it, sort of thing!

Thank God for that!

He was the leader of his group.

When I was a kid, I wanted to be a rocker.

When we used to go down to Hastings, with my Mom and Dad

in the car, me and my brother would be sitting

in the back seat, and you'd hear all this loud

old trike motorcycle was coming past.

And we'd be looking round at them and my Mom would say,

don't look round at them!

Don't look round at them!

And I was like, I wanna be like that!

No you don't!

Yes I do, yes I do!

[laughing]

- I don't think I've ever really looked up to anybody.

Not tried to emulate anybody or anything like that.

- Mother thought I was out of control.

She thought religious sort of all boys school

was going to be the job for a naughty little boy.

- Huntleys secondary modern,

and that's where I first met Nick.

- [Nick] Winston was a right horrible

little shit he was, really.

Well, he had to be to go to Huntleys.

- I was probably a little bit more wild than most.

Probably nowadays they would say I'd got ADHD

or something like that.

But in those days, you was just like a naughty kid

and you got smacked and you got beaten, you know.

So, and not only at school,

I mean also by me Father as well.

- [Nick] The teachers were mental.

Well they are in most of these religious schools.

- It was quite a brutal school, yeah, definitely.

If you done anything wrong at school, got caught smoking

or you spoke out of turn, you got the cane or the plank,

or the slipper and they were some things that would make

a grown man cry, they hurt so much!

Well I think corporal punishment's a great thing

to be honest with you, 'cause I mean, it makes you a better

person in the long run.

- I went Skinner's Grammar School.

We used to run away from Huntleys because they used to try

and beat us up after school.

And this is a daily occurrence.

[laughing]

- I think we just working class always that never really had

much of an education, you know.

And it was just, and they were sort of nice boys that come

from well-to-do families that was getting

a decent education.

I think sour grapes in some respect

and them being ponces really.

- To know Winston was to love him.

He was always the one that had the cigarettes,

he was always the one who had a bottle of drink

up his jacket, he was always the one who was up the fish

and chip shop at lunch time, even from the early days,

he was a right rogue.

- I got expelled from Huntleys in the second year,

and I got put in the care of the local authority

for being beyond parents control.

I was sent to approved school, about 11, 12.

And that was quite an hard regime, 'cause it was boys

there up to the age of 18, from all over the country.

I was bullied all the time, I mean it was a dreadful place.

And you never got let home, my Father would never come

and visit me, me Mother used to come about once every

two months.

You know, you were sort of left by yourself

and in this really, really hard regime.

It broke a lot of kids there and all that,

you know and you had kids

that were sort of attempted suicide.

I started to get into drugs and all that

and I had my first trip on acid when I was about 12.

You know, a lot of tab and micro dot then,

was what people did.

Try anything sort of once, but I mean it didn't sort of stop

at once really, with me.

- I started on the farm, round about 11 to 12 I think.

Young skinhead, you need to buy Ben Sherman shirts,

you need to buy stuff.

We were cheap labor.

We'd drive tractors at 11, 12, 13, you know.

Little kids, couldn't see over the fucking steering wheel

in the tractors.

And we rolled 'em, many kids rolled tractors with loaded

potatoes up.

Help!

This fucking tractor rolling sideways,

kid leaping off one side, it was quite normal.

How anybody didn't die,

I mean it's just one of life's mysteries.

- It was like out of approved school on the Friday

and in to full time employment on the Monday.

I come out of there when I was 14 and a half.

My old man had got me a job as an apprentice panel

beater in a garage.

In those days, most blokes had motorbikes and all that,

and there's me old man had a motorbike.

Just got involved with them.

It was the first thing I really felt happy with, really.

- Skinhead, reggae, went hand in hand.

- It was weird that we all got into sort of black music,

because you could understand

if you lived in sort of Wilsden or somewhere like that,

but sort of Tunbridge Wells in those days was like really

unusual for Tunbridge Wells, having a couple blacks

in Tunbridge Wells.

- If you was black, you was treated like royalty

really, weren't they?

- All the older girls wanted a black boyfriend,

my sister, she used to go up to Lewisham and had like

a black boyfriend and that sort of thing.

It was just...

- Reggae.

- My Mom started playing acoustic guitar.

I watched her and I thought, ooh, I fancy a bit of that.

13 or 14 I started.

And I sort of taught myself really.

I idolized Marc Bolan.

I loved all the early stuff they did, Get It On,

Jeepster, Hot Love.

I wanted to start a band, but I could never find anyone

who'd have me, 'cause I wasn't good enough.

- One of my friends, sort of the greasers,

I saw him with a book, and I just said,

what's the book about?

Oh, it's about Hell's Angels, California Hell's Angels.

So I said, well can I have a read?

I read the book inside out, and it just opened the world

up to me, instead of being in Tunbridge Wells

and Southborough.

These guys were doing this in California,

riding these motorcycles, and they were just outlaws,

and they were just you know, wild west.

And it just, wow, you know.

I'm gonna do that one day.

- Nick was a skinhead up 'till the age of about 16.

And then he got a bike, and became a greaser.

- I bought this first motorcycle,

he had his first bike,

and then we all got a little gang together.

We were the Tunbridge Wells rebels.

- [Chris] Winston was in the same gang as well.

- On my 17th birthday, luckily I went straight

on to a Norton Commando, which was a big bike.

We all had chops.

- In those days, you didn't buy them like, you know,

buy yourself an image nowadays, you'd go to a local shop,

and they'd build you something.

In the '70s you had to make everything,

you couldn't buy anything.

- You had to go round and get your mate to weld a bit up,

and try and find somebody who could paint

that or chrome that.

You made it up as you went along.

- You'd make them, and then you'd go out on the road

and it would break, and you'd make it again,

weld it a bit stronger and it would break.

And it was a process of learning.

Everything was, it was great,

and it taught you, if you want something just go out

and do it, just go out and make...

You know, if you wanna do something, just do it.

Try and do it, even if you fail, have another go until

it works.

And that was our sort of philosophy really.

- If you want to build this magnificent

uncontrollably unrideable pile of fucking shite,

then nobody'd stop you, you know.

- We'd used to go over Broad Oak Village Hall

to local dances.

- Mashing people up.

- Yeah, it was always the thing in those days,

you were there to like, you know the villages and places

like that, the girls was easy lays.

That's why we used to go there.

- We used to go for the fights.

- Yeah, but there used to be more, there was more happening

in the villages, yeah, than there was in Tunbridge Wells.

- I mean sometimes I had to take a kicking.

Because if they got into a fight, if you run off,

that would've been it, you know.

So you had to jump in, not that you could do much,

but you jumped in as well.

And yeah, it's just that sort of camaraderie

that was, I think it was good.

It was, you know, it sets you up really.

- Together we was a formidable force,

and people liked to come along and think they could

take you on, but they fucking couldn't.

- Bought myself my first Harley and then obviously

you know, you're in the big boys' league.

You'd meet up with other guys and they'd say,

oh, prospect with us and stuff, and it just goes from there.

And then you have your initiation, pledge your loyalty

to everyone, and then you're in there,

running with your brothers.

- Well, I couldn't join the local Hell's Angels gangs,

'cause I wasn't cool enough.

So I thought, I know, I'll do a parody one.

So we called ourselves the Slimy Toads.

We had a picture of a toad on the back of our jacket.

- It was sort of a bit like a Monty Python's take

on a...bikers.

- Yeah, no, I think there's about four of us in there.

I think we lasted about three months.

[laughs]

It's great fun.

- A fucking weird bunch, but they found it funny.

- Wasn't really my thing to be in the back patch club

to be honest with you.

Although I was quite an obnoxious bastard,

and I probably could've been quite good

in a back patch club with all the dirty,

earning your wings and all that sort of stuff.

- You would have been the best.

- I was quite happy being, I s'pose being a little bit

of a conformist and all that really.

- You were still a skinhead, really,

weren't you? - Yeah.

- You rode a motorcycle, but really, used to hang out

down the Roebuck, and the Roebuck was a notorious

skinhead haunt.

If you walked past the Roebuck, you can guarantee a fight.

- Everybody crossed over the other side of the road

when they walked past

it and all that. - Yeah.

- [Winston] And it's now a Muslim temple believe it or not!

- It was, I think 1977.

And I saw T-Rex and The Damned advertised.

And I got two lots of tickets for The Rainbow

on the Friday night.

I went with Winston and myself.

- Me and Chris went to London, and we see T-Rex

and the The Damned were supporting.

And was really taken by The Damned.

- The rawness, the rawness of the guitar playing,

was what I loved.

I was thinking, this is what I want to do.

[laughing]

- Music wasn't important.

It didn't mean anything to me then,

as I chasing round Europe with bike gangs.

We didn't take any interest in punk,

because it just wasn't our scene.

- All the other greasers hated it.

You know, Nick hated it, he was into Genesis.

- My mind was completely out with the bike club.

Riding across Europe, 25 choppers, all together,

flying the same colors.

Just your cut-offs on, the sun shining, no crash helmets.

All spread out across the Autobahn.

All throwing great big packets of blue speed at each other.

[laughing]

Pull over the side of the road and everybody'd be cutting

all this speed out and buck knives.

And we'd ride for four days without stopping sometimes.

Fucking great blokes.

They were big, hairy, tough bastards.

'78 was the golden moment for me.

It was living the dream that I always thought

that I was going to.

- We had this local nutter in Tunbridge Wells called

Speedy Sparkle.

Because I was so desperate for someone to sing,

I went up to him and said, look, there's a talent contest

next week, do you fancy having a go with me?

'Cause, you know, I wanna play guitar.

I've got two songs that I've written, I said,

but I can't sing to save my life.

He goes, all right, I'll do that.

[laughs]

So, I taught him these songs

and we turned up at The Harvesters in Tunbridge,

and I was really nervous 'cause I'd never done anything

like that before in my life,

you know played in front of everyone.

If we didn't come last, we came second to last.

I didn't give up.

I was determined I was gonna play and I didn't know how.

- And I'd settled down, 'cause I'd had twin girls.

So I was trying to be sort of like a decent citizen

and responsible Father, and responsible husband,

if there could be such a thing.

- Winston stayed with the skinheads scene in Tunbridge Wells

and he was notoriously known, henchman in Tunbridge Wells.

He was, any trouble, Winston was there.

- I used to do like three or four nights security

at different nightclubs round here.

I used to deal drugs on the doors,

deal speed to all the soul freaks and that sort of thing.

I was bringing in 120 a week, just for giving the people

a cuff round the ear, and throwing them out

when they're pissed up, so it wasn't too bad

to be honest with you.

- 1979, they had a little punk concert at Speldhurst

Village Hall for all local bands.

And I saw that and thought, that's it!

If they can do it, I can bloody do it!

And I asked a few people, I said do you know anyone

who wants to start a band?

This bloke come up to me called Chris Elvy.

He goes, well I play bass, I've got a bass guitar.

I said, oh right.

Started playing, and I wrote about five or six songs,

every song I ripped off.

I had the T-Rex or an old rock and roll song.

And they were doing another one of these concerts

for local bands.

- He said we're gonna be playing down the local hall,

as a three piece and he said to me,

come along, and I said yeah, of course.

It was pretty awful.

But there was something about Magoo's guitar.

- My guitar playing was, I got away with it,

but my singing was really rubbish.

- He said I've tried to sing and play the guitar,

I can't do it.

So I said, well I'll have a shot at it.

- Of course you can mate, you know.

I didn't know what he'd sound like.

But he came to the studio.

We had this, we used to practice behind this record shop.

- If you've not ever sung into a microphone before,

it's very powerful.

That thing sitting there looking at you.

It took me about 10 minutes to try and make a noise.

All that was coming out my mouth was squeaking.

Eventually, I started shouting, and he went,

that's fucking awful.

- He nailed it.

I said yes, that's definite mate, from now on,

you're the singer.

We just went for it after that.

I thought of the name about two years before the band.

I was very frustrated with some of the people I worked

with, and I then started calling them nowhere's.

A nowhere person was someone who maybe would have a dream

and didn't chase it.

Didn't chase anything he wanted to do.

Waste of time, isn't it?

You've only got one life.

And I said, right, I'm starting up a political party,

and I said, I'm gonna call myself the Anti-Nowhere League

and I'm gonna be President.

[laughing]

Used to make all these rules up

and pin them on notice boards, just to annoy people at work.

We started the name Anti-Nowhere League and that was it.

It stuck.

- The band, they was all right,

I mean they were just playing a load of old

rock and roll, Numbers, Eddie Cochran

and stuff like that.

I can't remember what happened, but I know the bass player

they had didn't fit in at all.

I mean, he looked like a spare prick at a wedding.

- He didn't really fit in with what we wanted the band

to be at the time.

I said, well who can we get as bass player?

I said, 'cause I really don't like musicians at all.

- And I said, I know just the man.

- I can't remember if it was Nick or me,

but we both said Winston.

- Winston.

- Yes!

- He said, that's fucking dangerous.

- The one person, the one character that will fit

in with us two.

- 'Cause he was known as a complete headcase, Winston.

- [Chris] Nobody else would do.

- Bones said, this is either gonna be the best thing

this band's ever done, or it'll be the biggest mistake

of your life.

Driving down the high street, there he is,

and Winston was walking down with his missus.

I went, oi, Winston!

- Do you wanna play in our band?

And he goes, what d'you mean?

He goes, do you want to play bass guitar in our band?

We got a gig at the weekend.

- I went, well I can't fucking play guitar!

- We'll teach you, but do you want to?

We want you in the band!

It's as simple as that!

- We turned up at his flat, and he's got a new bass

there, got a new amp, he's got everything.

Completely sourced.

- I sold my reccy collection, about 450 quid,

to buy my first bass guitar and amp and that.

So that's how committed I was to the band.

- So I didn't know anything about playing bass.

But I taught him how to play the songs.

- I mean, everything they was playing in those days

was Ade, so I mean, you know, my granddaughter could

bleedin' play it!

- We had a couple of practices and on the Saturday,

we dove up to Lakenheath US Army Airbase,

and we're playing to sort of real big heavy bikers.

- Nick couldn't sing, Chris could only play

three chords I think.

And Bones, who was the drummer, well you could have played

it on a saucepan what he played.

And when you're playing to a bunch

of drunk drugged up bikers and it sounds like Eddie Cochran,

come on Eddie, or whatever, it don't really matter does it?

- It was a bloody awful row.

[laughing]

[punk rock music]

We had about five or six songs that are really dreadful.

- It's just made up as you went along,

so if you did your version of you know,

Born to be Wild, it would sound nothing like

Born to be Wild, that was what punk was about.

[punk rock guitar music]

- You know, if you find something you like,

drag it in, nick it, use it, change it.

Just choose the good bits and then put them in our songs.

And then suddenly you create something yourself,

you go wow!

Where did that come from?

Oh, I like this, this is good!

- Don't bother trying to write songs,

just rip some other fucker's off.

- You know, cheat, yeah cheat.

[punk rock music]

I think Nick and I inspired each other an awful lot.

You know, he'd have an idea, I'd have an idea,

I'd come up with a riff, he'd come up with a subject.

- When him and I started writing together,

it was a simple recipe, you know.

He laughed, my foot tapped.

And if together we would both look down at each other

and he was giggling and my foot was tapping,

we were on the right mode for song writing.

- The whole song writing subject matter

was taking the mickey out of someone.

You know, some poor unfortunate person somewhere,

you know whoever we saw them when we used to laugh

about this, write a song about him.

It'll get him, write a song about him.

- It was a lot better than punching people.

You know, I found it a real great help.

Writing songs, writing horrible songs,

didn't get me in so much trouble as doing horrible things.

[punk rock music]

- None of us were punks.

We jumped on the punk band wagon,

'cause we couldn't play very well.

We were bikers playing punk music.

- We just went on and just got popular really.

You know, got popular locally.

- But we wanted to play in London.

We really wanted to play in London.

One evening I was reading a music paper.

And I saw The Damned were playing up at Canning Town

at this place called The Bridge House.

I phoned Nick up, I said, shall we go up

and ask if we can support them?

- I didn't really know much about The Damned.

Magoo thought they were good and it was his idea

saying right, we gotta get on tour with these guys.

How do we do that?

- And he rightly said, they'll get bands every day

asking to support them.

He goes, offer them some money.

He says, don't ask 'em.

He says, bribe them!

So we went up to Canning Town, Nick and I.

We saw the drummer there, Rat Scabies.

Never met him before.

- That was it, collared Rat in the bog.

- These sort of piles of dirt with tattoos shuffled up.

I would have almost certainly been intimidated.

- Hello Rat, we play in a band in Tunbridge Wells,

of course, he couldn't care less.

We'll give you some money if we can support you.

- The Damned were really broke at the time.

And I just remember thinking, well if these muppets

want to give us a couple hundred quid to come on the bill,

then we'll put them on, you know, why not?

- A week later, he phoned me up.

He said, we've got three gigs up north.

Shrewsbury Town Hall, Walsall Civic Hall

and Retford Porterhouse.

Said, do you wanna do them?

Will we?

Bloody right we will!

So we did.

- We had no money of course.

We had a van.

Dogs in the van.

Equipment in the van, we slept under the van in the snow

some nights.

- We drove up to Shrewsbury.

The Damned were there.

We watched their soundcheck and I'm going,

bloody hell, this is amazing, I'm actually this far away

from The Damned!

You know, 'cause they'd be my idol.

We played, and we actually blew the place apart,

it was brilliant.

The audience went mad.

- We are the League!

["We're The League" by The Anti-Nowhere League]

♪ Another boring night

♪ I'm feeling pissed

♪ My head's fucked up and I'm in a mess ♪

♪ Too many drugs that make me high ♪

♪ I wanna cause havoc, I wanna die ♪

- What the fuck is this?

They can't play, their songs are fucking totally obnoxious.

The audience fucking adored them.

It was just kind of, we don't give a fuck

what you think of us.

Here we are, we've done this, we've made this.

This is the League.

Take 'em or leave 'em.

- We'd never played on a stage before.

You know, we'd only played ground level

to sort of bikers.

And suddenly we were playing on this big stage,

and there's people shaking their fists at us,

they're spitting us, so we were shaking our fists back.

And the weird thing was,

this is where the biker thing come in.

We weren't phased by it.

The adrenaline rush was so great,

that it just made us play harder.

♪ Well we are the League

♪ And we are mad

♪ We are the League and the music's bad ♪

- They were proper hard nuts.

That's why they managed to carry it off,

with all these dreadful songs.

♪ We are the League

♪ We are the League

♪ The Anti-Nowhere League

- The Damned loved us.

We had a great time with them afterwards.

I was out, just completely on cloud nine,

'cause I was with the heroes of my life.

The Damned were my heroes, and I was drinking with them,

as an equal, not as like as a spectator.

- We had loads of speed, loads of amphetamine and all that,

and served them up and it was just like a really, really

good weekend of acting up and taking drugs

and everything else you do.

- They were a lot of fun to hang out,

'cause they all had this sense of humor

that went with misery.

- You've got to remember at that point,

we didn't have any money to buy food, did we?

So The Damned used to feed us, didn't they?

- We'd got to the point where we could say,

oh, if we're gonna play, then we want 24 cheese and tomato

sandwiches, and you know, so we'd have food in the dressing

room, and I remember we'd turn up and they'd all be sitting

there, sort of all blankets and things.

And they'd come in and they'd see this food

and it'd be, is it all right if we have some?

'Cause they were really polite as well.

That was the odd thing.

- I think it was Sensible and Magoo's birthday.

- [Chris] So we said, yes, get a hotel for the night.

And we thought, we're a rock and roll band now,

we're in a hotel, we gotta party.

- The Damned obviously came to our room.

I think either Sensible or Scabies had some pyrotechnics,

and ended up blowing this fucking wardrobe to bits.

[loud explosion]

- We blew everything up, you know, and the whole,

smashed, trashed the room totally, you know.

And then said goodnight.

And left us in this pile of...

In the morning everyone's waking up with a hangover,

going fucking hell, we're gonna have to pay for this,

we've got no money.

- Well I remember the next day that we had to piece

all this wardrobe together and we had to prop it up with

matchsticks and bits of cardboard and everything.

And so we could all, so we could leave the hotel.

- Yeah, we got away with it, yeah.

- It was a great evening.

[laughs]

It was really good fun.

[laughs]

- Well I'd joined a few and certainly six,

and I finished with them in '80.

You've got to give full loyalty.

You can't flit between, I'm your mate today,

but by the way, I'm going on tour tomorrow, you can't.

So that's when I had to say to the rest of the club,

I'm now in a punk band.

Please don't kill me.

- After we'd done those three,

John Curd decided he wanted to get involved with them.

- I discovered them in 1981, and I just thought it was

such a brilliant name, the Anti-Nowhere League.

Anybody with a name like that was bound to be quite creative

people, you know, and they were.

- And he didn't have any of their phone numbers,

nobody knew how to get hold of them.

- I'm reading melody maker.

And there's an advert, Apocalypse Now tour,

and it's got Discharge, The Exploited,

Anti-Pasti, Chron Gen and at the bottom,

Anti-Nowhere League.

And I see it and went, that's us!

We're in the music papers, what's going on there?

So I phone up the promoter, and I said,

I've seen this advert for a gig.

I said, you've got our name of our band on it!

- And I said, do you want to do it?

And he said, yes please!

- We are the League and I hate people!

- A load of the fans, I think they had a couple of coaches

from Tunbridge Wells followed us up there

and wanted to see us play.

And we went down a fucking storm.

- We were playing on a massive stage, to 2000 people.

["I Hate People" by Anti-Nowhere League]

♪ God I wish that I could hide away ♪

♪ And find a wall to bang my brains ♪

♪ I'm living in a fantasy

♪ A nightmare dream, reality

♪ People ride about all day

♪ In metal boxes made away

♪ I wish that they would drop the bomb ♪

♪ And kill the pigs that don't belong ♪

♪ I hate people

♪ I hate the human race

♪ I hate people

♪ I hate your ugly face

♪ I hate people

♪ I hate your fucking mess

- I'd never seen anything like it, you know.

Nick was, had these big thick chains, that criss-crossed

across his chest.

[laughs]

He was waving this massive great ax around and smashing

it into the stage, and I just thought they looked

fantastic and were fantastic.

They went down a storm with the people

at the Lyceum that night, that's for sure.

♪ I hate your fucking mess

♪ I hate people

♪ And they hate me

- They'd go onstage, and they'd play and they'd sneer

and they weren't very good, and Magoo had the guitar

in open tuning and played everything with one finger and...

- We were so different, I mean, I think at that time,

we was all covered in tattoos.

We looked like a bunch of fucking toerags really.

You know, and I mean Nick wielding an ax

and screaming I'm a child molester and things like that!

♪ God I wish that I could hide away ♪

♪ And find a wall to bang my brains ♪

- And after that, I put them on at the Lyceum

supporting the Dead Kennedys.

- And then we were playing with The Clash.

It was just an incredible thing.

And all we did, walking on stage and took the piss

out of The Clash audience, saying that they were all

bunch of wankers and that, and then The Clash

wouldn't come on unless you spat on them.

[laughing]

Of course, that pissed The Clash right off.

- You remember who pays your wages, who pays your money

and everything else.

And then you told them they're cunts, that's great.

I tell you what, they won't come again.

- [Woman] You speak for yourself!

I like being called a cunt!

- They were hard guys.

And they were in a bike gang and you wouldn't really

want to argue with, especially Winston,

and especially Nick.

- We were the young pretenders, who were just pissing

on their parade.

- It was sort of like, larger than life you know.

None of us ever expected it to sort of happen,

I mean the way we thought about it, we was a fucking poxy

old band from Tunbridge Wells.

I mean, we knew fuck all about the music business.

- It was exiting, but it wasn't you know,

you wasn't musically inept to think that you can get

a future out of it, you know.

- Our drummer, Bones, I don't think he really wanted

to commit long term.

I think he had other things he wanted to do.

- He was, I think went off to become a gold bullion dealie,

or something.

- We realized we needed a more powerful drummer.

Winston knew PJ.

- PJ, Christ Almighty, well that's a story in itself.

He was, or in those days, called a Persian.

And he was always in the local pub which was The Bristol,

he used to go in there and he'd be playing the fruit

machines.

And I give the nickname, the nickname's PJ's Persian John.

That's what it stands for.

- Pj was a bit of an outcast, really.

He came here obviously from Iran.

We didn't know him from Adam when he first turned up.

- PJ was playing for a band believe it or not,

called The Ayatollahs.

We had him come and play with the band.

- I didn't know their songs at all.

So we went for a rehearsal, and they started playing

their songs, and I just played them.

One after the other.

Bang, bang, bang, bang.

12 songs, done it.

And they went, they said, do that again?

I said yes, let's do it again.

We did it again, exactly the same.

And that was it and it stayed like that forever.

- He was the last link, we needed a good drum sound,

a very powerful drum sound behind us.

That just made it, you know, we had the raw sound

of the guitar, Winston's bass and persona,

Nick's vocals and persona.

For a while, it was absolute dynamite.

We were there.

- It was here, I actually got him a cake, there was this

obnoxious bike gang, singing these fucking obnoxious

songs, you couldn't get a more obnoxious line up than them.

And to top it off there was an Iranian drummer,

the most hated nation in England at the time.

It was an accident waiting to happen.

- It's an horrible story, but it's I mean,

it's part of the Anti-Nowhere League folklore and all that.

When PJ first joined the band,

we had loads of sort of skinhead followers and that.

And 'cause a lot of skinheads at that time was you know,

sort of racially motivated or racist and all that,

we thought, what are we gonna do?

We've got an Iranian joining the band,

but you know, were gonna lose a lot of fans and everything.

So we made PJ wear a stocking on his head.

- Yeah, the fuckers, they did.

You know, why would you do that?

I've no idea.

- I really can't remember if it was a thing because

we had noy following or if it's just because we thought

he looked ugly.

[laughing]

- He wore the stocking, it was one leg of a pair of his

wife's tights.

[drumming]

Anyway, we said we'd have this big unveiling

that if he played with a stocking on his head,

he'd be like the mystery drummer,

and we'd do a big unveiling sort of weeks later,

but we never ever did.

I think we just made him take it off one night.

- I thought it was a joke.

I thought it was a joke.

I mean, what can you say about how people

behave in those days, you know?

With foreign people.

You know, you know, that's just the way it was, you know.

You couldn't do anything about it.

[punk rock music]

- John Curd was a major player in our career move

from Tunbridge Wells to London.

- I'd started up a record label.

It was called WXYZ and they were the first band

on that label really.

Then it all kicked off from there.

- We were going in to do a demo but we financed

it ourselves.

And there was a couple of songs on it, you know,

including Streets of London.

["Streets of London" by Anti-Nowhere League]

♪ Well did you see the old man

♪ Outside the Seaman's mission

♪ Memories are fading with the medals that he wears ♪

It was my idea to do Streets of London.

I did like listening to folk songs there,

and I did like Ralph McTell's Streets of London.

It was pretty awful, when we first started to play it,

'cause Magoo couldn't play at all, so we had to cut the song

to the couple of chords that he could play.

♪ Don't say to me

♪ That your sun don't shine

And then of course we had to butcher it down

with the lyrics and stuff.

♪ And have you seen the old girl ♪

♪ Who walks the streets of London ♪

♪ She ain't got no money

♪ And she's all dressed in rags ♪

♪ And have you seen the old girl ♪

♪ Who walks the streets of London ♪

♪ She carries her old knickers

♪ In two polythene bags

♪ So how can you tell me you're lonely ♪

- John Curd got us to come up to Maida Vale Studios

in London.

He said right, he said, I want you to record your cover

of Streets of London as an A side.

He said, and do So What? on the B side.

And we thought, well that's the worst song in the set!

He goes, no, no, everyone loves it, trust me.

- So fucking what?

["So What?" By Anti-Nowhere League]

- And I'd already written So What?

And the whole subject of it was there,

but once Nick and Winston got their teeth into it,

and we'd had a few drinks when we were recording it,

the subject matter got lewder and lewder.

And it was funnier and funnier.

♪ And I've been there

♪ And I've been every fucking where ♪

♪ So what, so what

♪ So what, so what you boring little cunt ♪

And the more we had to drink, the ruder we had to be.

♪ And I fucked a sheep

♪ And I fucked a goat

♪ I rammed my cock right down its throat ♪

♪ So what, so what

♪ So what, so what you boring little cunt ♪

We all take the blame for it.

I fucked a goat, I think that's the funniest thing actually.

[laughing]

I think that's quite amusing really.

- 'Cause then you had two extremes there if you think.

You had a folk song that was punk-rocked up,

and you had this mad, obscene So What? on the other side!

[laughs]

Quite funny the whole thing.

♪ Well who cares

♪ Who cares what you do

♪ And who cares

♪ Who cares about you

♪ You

- He virtually posted half of London

with these big A1, A0 posters of us and the big fists,

and Streets of London So What? double B side.

They were pretty much all over London.

It was a real buzz driving through London

and seeing them.

- We were all chuffed when it got into the bottom

of the charts.

- [Chris] It was flying off the shelves,

it really was selling.

- I've had skank, I've had speed,

I've jacked up until I bleed.

- I had listened to the lyrics and thought they were

a bit out of order, but it didn't occur to me that some

straight twat out there, was gonna complain about it.

- And who cares, who cares about you, you, you, you?

- Some straight guy had bought the record

or had heard about how obscene the B side was.

And made a complaint to the police.

- So fucking what?

Yeah.

- It's not really a surprise is it?

I've fucked sheep, I've fucked goat, you know,

come on, really, please.

- So the porn squad raided these offices.

And took every copy they could find.

And they went down the pressing plant

and confiscated the, that makes the records, the stampers

that makes the records.

They confiscated that and they confiscated

anything that had their name on it.

And I got taken to court.

It was just absolutely ridiculous, the whole thing really.

- When they seized So What? I mean, that was massive press.

It was in all the papers.

And it just did nothing but help us.

- One of the most fantastic things that happened,

we managed to get Nick on the front cover

of The Sounds.

And Nick looked great.

You know, he was a big guy, he was six foot two,

six foot three.

You know, had that mad hair.

And the chains and the ax.

It's beautiful, it's perfect.

- And they had their own little magic bubble,

and that was the thing,

the League were this little, at that one point in time,

they'd got it exactly right.

And there was nothing that they could do that would

make it go wrong.

- We were sort of kick-started into this nearly

semi-stardom, and it's a real weird buzz,

but great, I mean, I left work immediately.

I thought, this is it, you know.

Don't need to work anymore.

[phone ringing]

- It had caused such a stir that record.

That's how we managed to get on Top of the Pops.

- We were selling a fucking lot of records.

They said, well you can come up and do Top of the Pops,

but the singer must not bring an ax.

It's like having Tourettes, innit?

I must not bring an ax, I must not bring an ax.

Yeah, gotta have to hadn't I?

So, that was it, I stuffed an ax up my shirt

and that was it.

- We turned up at BBC studios and as we got in the lift,

there was Kenny Everett and Billy Connolly

getting in the lift.

Well, Kenny Everett was like a right pompous little prat.

- We was definitely the sort of shitty,

did not like at all.

And I still think he did that Sid Snot thing

because of us.

- Hello transvestite bashers.

Sid Snot here with a little tale about our friends,

the animals.

- [Nick] I think that character came from us.

- We got as far as the dressing room,

and then we got kicked out.

- It all kicked off I think.

We was gonna bash up Haircut 100 or something,

something kicked off anyway.

And something usually does.

- You've got Nick wielding that ax and everything,

and they wouldn't allow us on in the end.

- I was so upset about that.

'Cause it could have gone bang from there.

But I mean had they got on, I think that would have

stormed up the charts that record.

- At the time, we didn't really give a fuck to be honest

with you, it didn't really matter.

["So What?" by Anti-Nowhere League]

- Poor blokes.

As in normal bands.

Haven't got any interest in nothing at all.

We don't believe anything what anybody's ever told 'em.

We've got respect for absolutely nobody.

Who cares about absolutely nothing.

And produce a row, which nobody's every heard before.

People try and say what we are,

they try and put it together.

They say the Anti-Nowhere League are this and that.

But if we don't know, I'm sure that people who have seen us

don't know.

Like I say, we do things, 'cause we like upsetting people.

We like laughing at them.

We find their whole human race totally stupid.

We've got our own morals we live by.

You know, respect for one another, we have.

But we have no respect for anybody else.

At all.

- [Winston] Just being a truly obnoxious bunch of bastards.

So it got us somewhere really.

- You know, it was punk rock metal biker gang madness.

- Me, I always used to like outdo the person that was

doing something exceedingly dirty and disgusting.

I could do something far more exceedingly dirty

and disgusting than they could.

- He had no stop button, Winston.

He didn't have a sort of better not do that button.

[laughing]

Anything you said to him, that was it.

You know, you was in peril.

- Class act our Wins, you know, class act.

[laughing]

In many ways.

- Do you understand what class means?

His dares really.

And Winston used to do some pretty crazy dares.

You could dare him to do anything and he would do it.

- I mean, The Damned were, we were the fucking boys,

you know, we were outrageous, we you know,

we didn't give a fuck about anything.

And then the League turned up.

- It was in Doncaster Rotters' dressing room

and we were talking to Rat, and he was going,

I love touring with you lot, he goes, you're a right laugh

he says, but there's nothing that you can do that would

shock me.

Unfortunately, he said that to Winston.

Which was the wrong thing to say.

- And they had some like food laid out, sandwiches

and sort of crudites, and stuff like that.

- Captain, being a veggie, used to insist on fresh veg.

And cottage cheese.

- So Winston picks this carrot up, out of this big

plate of crudites, he shoved it in some cottage cheese,

dropped his trousers, shoved it right up his arse,

and then ate it!

- I think it was in thousand island,

it was either thousand island or blue cheese dip

or something.

I can't, and I stuck it up me arse, pulled it out

and ate it.

And everybody's like, ugh!

- Fucking hell.

You cunt.

Ugh, stop, stop, stop!

That's it, I'm done.

And it was at that exact point I went,

I'm not the fucking most outrageous

punk rocker in the world.

These guys can fucking have it.

They've won.

- What life?

What life have we got?

- John Curd did a lot for us.

The main thing I think that really worked for us

was the tour of America.

- [Winston] The tour with the UK Subs was called

Hardcore Storms America.

And it was bloody brilliant.

We went down a treat.

- [John] It made a great package.

It did really well right round America, north, south,

east and west.

- [Nick] UK Subs introducing the Anti-Nowhere League.

- They played the Peppermint Lounge, I remember that well.

In New York.

- You cunts, we took a few fuckers anyway.

- Oh fuck off home then.

- This west one's our new single, so you gotta go out

and buy it, all right?

- Don't fucking go out and buy it, we don't want your

fucking money. - Tossers.

- We were out of control at that point.

It's called Let's Break The Law Tonight.

We were in the land of cocaine dreams.

Everywhere you went, everybody had cocaine.

Wasn't like a dodgy little place in the back of a bog hole

in London.

These blokes had fucking bags of it.

[laughing]

["Let's Break The Law" by the Anti-Nowhere League]

I don't think we slept the whole tour.

It just got worse and worse you know.

♪ I'm going out on the streets and I'm feeling high ♪

♪ But you wanna fight me and I dunno why ♪

- And we did something that's never been done before,

actually in my opinion, we did something called

flight hop.

So it was $1000 per person, and you could fly anywhere

you wanted to.

But if the plane was full, peak, you couldn't get on.

But generally speaking you got on.

Just carried their guitars.

And the promoters had to supply all the equipment

at the other end.

- We were just in an aero plane all the time.

We had a cheap ticket with Republic Airlines,

so we'd end up doing three or four flights a day,

you know, one, two, three, four.

- Getting from A to B, you might have had to go XYZ

to get there, you know.

- It was horrendous.

It was just awfully boring.

- [John] It was a band then mind

and it was a quicker way of doing it.

- Now bearing in mind, that was the time of the Iranian

hostage siege.

So feelings between Americans and Iranians weren't really

that good.

And PJ was obviously an Iranian.

So we're walking through customs,

and the alarms go off, 'cause he's got a bullet belt,

it was fashionable at the time, bullet belt.

Security guard goes up to him and says,

hey boy, what you got round those belt?

What's on your belt?

And PJ wisely says, bullets you cunt.

What do you think they are!

And within a minute, his collar was pulled up,

and he was off.

I think we had to do a couple of gigs with the UK Subs

drummer.

- His passport was always a pain in the arse, you know.

Everything about PJ was a pain in the arse.

- He just was a liability, I mean, Nick'll tell you that

and Chris'll tell you that.

- PJ got such a rough end of the stick, didn't he?

He was, first of all, he was a great fucking drummer.

But his English wasn't very good.

And I know Winston used to give him shit all the time.

- When he'd say something, it wouldn't come out like

it was mean to come out, 'cause if he pulled a girl,

he'd say she had lovely eye.

Well you know, she had two eyes, so she had lovely eyes,

she didn't have lovely eye, did she?

So just things like that and you think,

well you know what, you don't make no sense mate!

- Obviously my accent was awful.

And very difficult getting a word out,

without someone saying something about it.

- I got boxing boot.

Well, no, you got a pair of boxing boots.

It's...we had some fun actually.

- I know they were having a laugh.

It was all one sided as far as I'm concerned, you know.

- He was the whipping boy, I guess.

'Cause he wasn't Tunbridge Wells, he wasn't one of them.

- He was a winger, he'd never stop moaning and winging

all the time.

And...er, Nick...

It was always Nick he would be moaning at.

♪ One, two, three, four, why

♪ Why me

♪ Why

♪ Am I so ugly

- God, flying here was just hell.

You know, three, four times a day, going up and down.

I think everyone went on a strike,

we just went to the bar.

Basically, everyone ordered a bottle of tequila.

Got on the plane.

Spewed everywhere.

- The guitarist, he puked up on the seat.

And someone else stuck their hand up the cleaner's skirt

and it wasn't me.

I don't know...no it wasn't me.

- I always thought it was you!

- No it wasn't me, no I was, hand on heart,

it wasn't me.

- And the Captain came up and said right,

I'm not flying this plane anywhere,

because you, until you lot get off, and everyone was going

fuck off you old cunt, fuck off you old cunt.

We'll fly it then, you old cunt.

- And next thing, the police are saying, come on,

off you go.

- The next thing we know, they've forcibly frog marched us

off the plane.

But no, it definitely wasn't me that put my hand

up the cleaner's skirt.

- Got us off and into a hotel for the night

and you know, had to cancel the next show.

- We had this big flash Holiday Inn with food

and swimming pool and everything like that,

so it was like a bit of a win double really.

- Every tour we'd have stopped for a month.

Then I don't remember a month of it.

- It was about three months.

- Oh right, let's go, mother fucker!

- The first two things we had in the charts was one was,

Streets of London/So What? and then I'm pretty sure after

that it was, it was I Hate People.

- Hello rakers.

["I Hate People" by Anti-Nowhere League]

♪ God I wish I could hide away

♪ And find a wall to bang my brains ♪

♪ I'm living in a fantasy

♪ A nightmare dream, reality

♪ People ride about all day

♪ In metal boxes made away

♪ I wish that they would drop the bomb ♪

♪ And kill you bastards don't belong ♪

♪ I hate people

♪ I hate the human race

♪ I hate people

♪ I hate your ugly face

♪ I hate people

♪ I hate your fucking mess

♪ I hate people

♪ And they hate me

- We had a the League album, went top 20,

and I think it was number one in the independent chart.

I think we started taking ourself

a little bit more seriously than what we had done

in the past, because obviously we must have had something

to warrant, or generate all those sales.

- I still think it's a great album that should

be in the top 100 albums in my opinion.

- Curd lifted us up.

We knew he was selling millions of our records,

but keeping us on the road, and we had nothing.

- They didn't sell millions.

I wish they had. If they had, we'd all be millionaires,

we'd all be out there driving around in big cars.

- Gonna be thrown out my house,

I can't pay £3.50 a week rent.

- Groups are always like, it's always somebody else's

fucking fault, and they never got paid,

and they were due millions, and it's all a load

of bollocks to be honest with you.

- So then I had to go and sign on the dole,

which I really hated.

That was the worst for me.

So I used to have to go and dress up,

grease me hair back and wear fucking nutty glasses

and me you know, an old coat and stuff like that,

and go in there...

And I had to do that fucking performance every week

to go down and get a £10 dole money.

- Why do you think we all chose assumed names?

I tell you why, it's 'cause Chris Miller went to sign on,

and Chris Miller was in the paper, and the dole office

would find out.

Rat Scabies was a different character.

- It's a case of changing peers or get a job and join

the scrounge.

♪ So fucking what

["So What?" by Anti-Nowhere League]

♪ Well I've been to Hastings

♪ And I've been to Brighton

♪ I've been to Eastbourne too

♪ So what, so what

- The tour had to be called the So What?

tour didn't it, really?

That was the first headline tour they had.

♪ And I've been there

♪ And I've been every fucking where ♪

♪ So what, so what

♪ So what, so what you boring little cunt ♪

- Stewart Copeland, the drummer of The Police

had come on tour with us and made movie he called

The So What! movie.

- On punk bands.

In order to put out on the television though.

No, cinema.

Is it legit, you know?

- It was my first film.

I had no idea what goes in to making a film.

- First they go left.

- I kinda liked it, because I grew quite fond

of those bands.

And I did enjoy watching them.

- [Nick] We were gonna come in

and be all nice to you tonight.

Tell you how much we loved you all.

But we'd only be fucking lying.

- I probably went out there to shoot my good buddies

in Chelsea, but they were supporting

the Anti-Nowhere League.

They were a pretty happening band, actually.

When the Anti-Nowhere League came on,

there was kind of a sense of an upgrade.

["Streets of London" by the Anti-Nowhere League]

♪ My fair lady

♪ Well did you see the old man

♪ Outside the Seaman's mission

♪ Memories are fading

♪ With the medals that he wears ♪

It all had a kind of a greaser look to it.

Animal's hair was not buzz-cut punk.

He had long hair!

Dude, you got long hair going on there!

You know, and I'm not even sure if that was allowed

by punk rules.

He was a big guy with a lot of presence onstage.

He was a little more hostile than most.

Magoo, I remember the top hat.

And the drummer, yes, some strange ethnicity.

He had a problem, a cloud over him.

You know, he was kind of more mysterious

than the others, kind of culturally distinct

from the others.

I remember Winston.

Winston has the visual, he was kind of,

short blond hair, he looked like a member of Village People.

Real hostile.

- I went on to wear like a leather gay's hat.

And it was known in the King's Road.

They were sold as Winston hats!

So whether people thought that I was the other way

or whatever, I don't really know.

- He loved it, didn't he?

He was a gay icon.

Winston was a gay icon.

- I had a pair of leather chaps made in the King's Road,

so we must have been sort of like a punk version

of Village People or something!

♪ Don't say to me that your sun don't shine ♪

♪ Well let me take you by the hand ♪

♪ And drag you through the streets of London ♪

♪ I'll show you something

♪ That'll make you fucking sick ♪

- We were starting to get a bit bored with it all.

And unfortunately, Copeland got us at that period of time.

I fucking hate this.

I get up at the fucking peak, take you out in the mornings,

don't get nothing to eat, don't get no fucking money,

nobody gives a fucking shit.

Here, go on, run in that caf, I'll film,

run in that cafe and smash it up.

- [Winston] All the things that people expect you to do.

- Yeah, go on, beat that bloke up.

Oh fuck off, he ain't done nothing!

- Oh, I did a lot of that.

I got the punks to pull down their pants,

and I was trying to get the punks to be photogenic.

Could you like, break something?

[laughing]

Could you do something, anything?

Come on, your world is a piece of shit,

aren't you a little bit mad?

Hey, let's do some anger!

- What, no, I got a fucking hangover,

and I really wanna go in there and have a cup of coffee.

[laughing]

The more people expect it, the more we backed off.

- They had a pose of seen it all before.

They had kind of a fin de siècle vibe about them,

and I'm sure that's an expression that Animal used

all the time.

- Copeland's film was dull.

I think he wanted us out on the road being wild,

but if you remember at the time, we were fucking pretty

much burnt out.

- I remember when So What! opened in New York.

I think it played for one night.

I believe there were...

Three people in the theater.

And I remember, that there was applause.

I think when the end title roll start, oh yes!

Fuck, thank God!

- I think really, we peaked.

Streets of London, So What?

Six months before and six months after was the peak.

And we couldn't follow it up.

We couldn't write better songs than the earlier ones.

We got to the point where the songs we needed to write,

we needed someone clever in the band.

And we all talked about it, said well,

we need a lead guitarist, 'cause I was really only

a rhythm guitarist.

- Chris just lost his...

- He lost his confidence. - Absolutely.

- And he lost interest in it,

to be honest with you, I think.

- We'd been in the public eye for about a year.

And we just wanted a slightly different sound.

And we got Gilly in the band then.

[guitar music]

- Guess that one.

I first met PJ in the, I'd say, '78 or '79?

And we formed the band The Ayatollahs.

And he phoned up out of the blue,

and I hadn't seen him for ages.

And he said, do you want to join the Anti-Nowhere League?

And I said, actually, I'd love to!

- We were good friends.

Maybe I felt like wanting my friend to come and play

with me, you know?

- So I drove up to Tunbridge Wells,

and met Nick and he gave me the first album,

with basically things crossed out.

He said, if you learn these bits, learn these songs.

And I worked everything out.

Note for note.

And it was a joy.

Nick used to come over a lot and we used to write songs

together.

We started doing demos.

And they were all sounding very, very good.

♪ We see the boys all run

♪ At the sight of a gun

♪ The men lay down and die

- When I came along with the second album,

the Branded album, following up We Are The League,

Curd had just lost his bollocks on putting Motorhead

on at Wembley.

Hundred thousand pounds I heard, he owed.

It was a lot of money back then.

- No, it's bollocks.

I made a lot of money out of Motorhead.

I sold out a week at the Hammersmith Apollo

as it was called.

- So he needed all his money from We Are The League album

to pay this debt off.

So when I come along with the Branded album,

he said, oh, it's stupid that is.

- Well yeah, when Nick brought his,

the demos of the, for the new album, I just thought

it was all too lame for me.

There was no balls, no bollocks, you know.

And in the Anti-Nowhere League you think of like,

balls and bollocks really, don't you?

♪ Why do we laugh a lot

♪ Why do we cry a lot

♪ At the things that people say ♪

♪ 'Cause we are branded

♪ We are branded

♪ And from the cradle

♪ We are commanded

There was a guy that worked for me called Stewart Lyon,

and he came up with a brain wave, which was to take

them to Yugoslavia.

- We was the first Western band to record a live album

in an Eastern Bloc country.

And I think it was just one of these hair brain,

scatter brain bleedin' ideas our record company

come up with.

- We found a radio station which was called Belgrade Radio

I think.

We blagged them into using their live recording

machine that they had.

We went out on the road, and recorded probably about

eight or 10 shows, and made the album.

- My first engagement, live engagement,

which was Live in Yugoslavia.

It was a baptism of fire, definitely.

- You can't believe how we went down, it was unbelievable.

It's like when you hear these live albums of massive

bands, you know, say for argument's sake, Pink Floyd,

or Led Zeppelin and all that, the audience would always

before we went on stage, was, I mean, talk about a buzz.

You couldn't have got much more of a buzz, you know.

It was yeah, a real good gig.

- We took the Live in Yugoslavia tapes into Rockfield,

in Wales, where we had them mastered.

While we were there doing this, I went out,

wandered outside and I saw wandering across the yard,

some bloke where I vaguely recognized him,

in wellingtons.

And he had the same hair as me.

And he got closer and closer to me

and I realized it was Robert Plant.

And he came over and said, hello, I just came to see

what you're doing.

And anyway, he was a really nice bloke.

And he came in and sat next to me while we were doing this,

and listening to it, and he was going like this,

really getting very excited by it.

He said, that reminds me of my first album!

And I thought, well it's not that bad then is it?

And of course, Robert Plant was doing a song called

Big Log then, and I went over to listen to that,

him doing that as well and it was absolutely beautiful.

And then he wandered off, with his wellies,

never to be seen by me again!

- We released the live album and it done,

as far as I remember, it done really, really well.

- Yeah, it sold all right.

Got all the hits and more on it.

- Live in Yugoslavia sold a fucking lot of records again,

off the back of We Are The League.

But of course, all the money was pocketed

for all these debts he had.

[plane engine roars]

- American tour was in June, 1983.

Couple of months I think it was.

We got well looked after on this second tour,

because we were a little more established.

- In those days, they had MTV jukeboxes in sort of clubs

and all that, and you know, our video for Streets of London

was one of the most played there.

So, going into the Peppermint Lounge,

people already knew me and you think,

fucking hell, I've come from like Tunbridge Wells,

Tunbridge Wells, I'm in New York and people know me.

You know that's quite a buzz really.

- Winston and this porn queen fell for each other.

Her name was Annie Sprinkle.

And she used to do dirty cassettes.

And they had great fun together.

- One was called Annie Sprinkle, the queen of the stream.

And Veronica Vera and I can't remember

who the other one was...

Oh, Long Jane Silver, she was an amputee.

So she only had one leg!

So I had my liaisons with them.

[whistling]

And I got taken to a sex club in New York,

which was down in the meat packing area of New York,

which was called The Hellfire Club.

I couldn't believe it, I mean, that was like a real

eye opener.

And I remember someone giving me a sniff of amyl nitrate,

I think it was butyl nitrate over there.

Well, I took so much of it, I collapsed on the floor.

When I woke up, there was all these blokes with their

pricks out over the top of me!

- Yeah, yeah that's right, yeah, yeah, yeah,

he was in the bog and they all wanted to piss on him,

I think.

- And it was quite, quite, quite weird!

- The gays loved him.

Because he was muscly, blond hair, tattoos,

good looking.

- I always had a saying that I would try anything twice,

just in case I didn't like it the first time.

- I was the same.

I was the same, I embraced it.

It was exactly that, it was sex, drugs and rock and roll.

I'm unashamed to say that I enjoyed it.

This is the dream.

It even made Motley Crue look lightweight.

It was that indulgent.

- It was like being in a Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,

it was like, wow, all of a sudden,

these boys from Tunbridge Wells were whipped out of our

shall we say... - Comfort zone.

- Yeah comfort zone of Tunbridge Wells, into the world,

where everything went.

And everything you could absorb.

- [Winston] In fact, it were the sweet shop syndrome,

that's what is was, wannit? - It was, it was just like,

sex drugs and rock and roll.

- [Winston] You could have as much sex as you wanted,

as much drugs, you know people were giving you drugs,

not often you have to buy them.

- I know.

And even if you didn't want them, you take them.

- And being totally obnoxious to people,

and people really liked you being obnoxious to them.

= Yeah.

- I mean it don't get any better, does it really?

- There were some very distressing and powerful things

going on at that time for us,

because we were overindulging.

- The fun turned into the darkness.

Me pulling Winston in a hotel room out of New York,

he wanted to kill himself, you know.

He'd done so much gear and Billy Idol's car

was just down below the hotel.

He said, I'm gonna throw myself on the roof of that.

We were 50 stories up.

And I'm pulling him back in.

Saying, Winston, don't.

He said my head hurts, I can't fucking do this anymore,

I can't fucking do it.

And I've got one foot up on the side of the window,

pulling him in the window, you know.

- You take drugs and you get to a certain high,

and then you keep taking them and then you just sit

in the corner and you're sort of hyperventilating.

- The worst thing I ever done, I locked, I was with Magoo

one night, drunk, drugs, stupor, you know, really upset

him and it cut me bad.

I thought, I don't do things like you know.

These four boys from Tunbridge Wells are now well out

of their depth.

We were just burning and spiraling out of control.

- You then learn that being in a band ain't really

that glamorous.

It's not really what you want to do

for the rest of your life!

- If we hadn't of been friends as from before school,

and known each other through bikes

and all that sort of thing, I don't reckon we would have

lasted as long as we did to be honest with you.

I mean, we'd all fall out with each other

on tour and all that, but we'd have a like a heated argument

and all that, and then it'd be forgotten, you know.

- Apart from a little young drummer.

- Yeah, yeah.

[laughing]

Well PJ leaving the band, I mean,

I think it was on the cards, 'cause he was,

he was getting a bit of a liability.

- Bless PJ, as much as I love him now, he was a real pain

on tour.

- We went to Spain, we did a gig out in,

I think it was Madrid.

- However, when we got off the boat, there was a big

hold up, and we suddenly realized that PJ wasn't with us.

And he'd been hauled over by the Spanish customs,

and put on a boat back.

And he was seen as being uninvited.

- And John Curd kept him on the ferry for like two days

or something, going between France and England,

because nobody would admit to having him,

or giving him the right work papers and stuff.

- There'd always be something like that would happen

with him, it would be an absolute bleedin' nightmare.

- It does happen all the time in bands,

but because he wasn't one of the old gang,

it was different.

It was just so easy just to out him,

than it was trying to patch up,

which you would with your mates.

- I got the task of saying we didn't want him in the band

anymore and I remember him saying to me,

it shows what sort of cunt you are.

You made me wear stocking on head.

[laughing]

- Carrot crunches.

Haha!

I just suddenly heard that they had another drummer!

[laughing]

And I thought well, fine.

Where's my drum kit?

And they said, what drum kit?

I went, my drum kit.

We don't know what you're talking about.

They took my drum kit, and I think my lucky

underpants as well.

They was yellow.

So yeah, that was it, that was the end of me playing

with Anti-Nowhere League.

- Poor PJ.

- Kentish people.

- We were just, little bit then, wondering where

do we go from here?

We'd upset everybody.

How many times can you upset people?

Should we just fuck off and disappear?

Which we should have done in a way.

- The way we saw it, punk was sort of dying a bit.

We needed to get into another sort of sphere of music.

- And I suddenly thought, am I going to spend another

few years going out doing So What? over and over again?

As a man in his 30's?

The business of actually dressing up in leather trousers

and often not wearing a top or just a leather jacket

didn't seem as appealing.

I couldn't be gobbed at forever more, you know.

- Gilly was probably the only musician,

or proper musician in the band, and I think his influence

really over-influenced us, if anything, didn't it really?

- In a way, I don't blame Gilly, I blame a little bit

Chris because he gave the reigns over to Gilly,

didn't he?

- I got very lazy, because we were looking for a change

in direction that we couldn't do ourselves,

so we let Gilly do a lot of the song writing.

- Through 1983, into '84, we started doing demos.

John Curd loved the songs we were doing,

he loved where we were going.

He was very excited about it,

he put us into a recording studio.

- We recorded with a big name producer, Chris Kimsey

who does Rolling Stones.

We used to love dropping his name, it was great.

Oh yeah, we're with Chris Kimsey,

rock and Rolling Stones producer.

- Chris was incredible.

He gave us some magic.

["Out On The Wasteland" by Anti-Nowhere League]

- We're gonna get a really big producer in,

produce this really horribly musical song,

and we're gonna be massive!

You know, we were deluded enough to think that.

♪ Nomadic man

♪ Cold and mean

- We were getting comparisons to being like bands like

MC5, in one we were compared to Steppenwolf

would you believe?

But we weren't forcing that change, it was just happening.

- It died a death, that single.

It was terrible.

- At that time, we was a reasonably successful band.

- We were selling millions.

- We wan't getting you know, the money in,

I mean Curd, we got well and truly fucked

to be honest with you.

- Yeah.

- Well, we were all short of money, you know...

It was difficult being an independent record label,

and it was difficult with the music they were doing.

Maybe that's why Nick wanted to commercialize it.

And I remember having a meeting with them,

about the whole situation and I just, you know,

maybe I've shit myself in the foot, but that's what

you wanna do, that's what I think, let's just forget

about it and you know, still be friends.

- You know, it ended up in fisticuffs and that was it,

you know.

- Yeah, we had a little bit of a fight-ette.

- Oh no, they went to it one day.

And apparently it was like it lasted for about an hour.

- I think we're talking about five minutes, maybe.

Not fighting for an hour.

I was really furious with them, it was fucking stupid!

There was a big future for them in America.

If they kept to what we originally were gonna do,

I think they would have ended up making a lot of money.

- We just wanted obviously to sell records,

make money, but you know, follow the rock and roll dream,

like you know, like everyone does.

But, like with all untalented bands, their first album

is brilliant, and their, unless they're brilliant,

they will never, ever write an album

as good as their first one.

- Up pops Doug Smith, Bronze Records.

So we went along with a demo.

And Doug said they were amazing, he said these are the best

rock songs I've ever heard.

So he said, I'll put up 20 grand for the album.

20 grand, I mean, to us, it was like fucking 20 grand,

you know.

Christ almighty, all we've got to do is go to the studio

and do that.

If we do it for five grand, we have 15 grand between us,

life's gonna be pretty good, we're back on the road again.

["Crime" by Anti-Nowhere League]

♪ Brother to brother

♪ Man to man

♪ Nation to nation

♪ We enter the age

♪ Of crime

- One of the most peculiar things about this album

called Perfect Crime, was where it was recorded.

It was called ICC Christian Studios in the nearby town

referred to of course in So What? as Eastbourne.

- We got 10% off, if we said we were Christians.

- It wasn't our idea to go to this Christian studio.

It was the most peculiar thing.

I mean, if you wrote a comedy script,

no-one would believe it, would they?

[laughing]

- Why, no, I know, it was just an awful time.

We just wanted to do anything.

You know, half of us were thinking of chucking the band in.

Nick never wanted to chuck the band in,

but I think Winston and I were sort of getting a bit,

oh God, really?

- We totally and absolutely lost the plot.

We were headed into a territory we always said

we didn't want to go to.

- It was a drug fueled cacophony.

- We thought we could get in there and produce it with

a sound engineer and that.

Obviously we couldn't.

It shows how we'd got up our own arse,

we had Dave Steer playing keyboards for us,

looking like fucking... - That's it.

- We should never have put bloody keyboards on it.

It was the most awful thing to do.

It was just dreadful.

I will put my hand up, because I was so keen

to be of the '80's.

- We went along with it, we're guilty.

We're not trying to put the blame on anyone. We were lazy.

Yeah, that's good.

And it's like the King's New Clothes, oh he likes it,

so it must be good, I'll like it.

- Our drummer at the time had a septic bollock,

do you remember?

- [Nick] Oh, I remember that, yeah.

- Jonathan Birch, our drummer, he had a septic bollock.

He had to have it in a sling!

And every time he's gone and hit the bass drum, he's oh!

[laughing]

- He had it in a sack, like one of those hair nets!

- Yeah!

[laughing]

- Like in a hair net, his bollocks.

- Like the hair net or the ones you put your washing in,

that you get in the washing machine.

Yeah, his bollocks was in a sack.

Poor bastard!

- He was drumming with his legs wide apart, and this

swinging bollock! - That's it.

- [Nick] Like in a hair net.

- I think in the end, we had to, we sampled something,

'cause the bass drum was crap, 'cause he couldn't hit it.

- And it was awful, all of it.

- We went along, I don't know, about two, three weeks later,

sporting the first cut of the album to Doug.

He heard the songs and just sat there with his head

in his hands in his office.

[laughing]

And we was there sort of like looking at each other.

And he said, what the fuck have you done to my songs?

[laughing]

We went, what?

What's the matter, what's the matter?

They're good, ain't they?

He was, oh, fucking hell, fucking hell, you know.

- I was almost in bloody tears over it,

because it was such a disaster.

- He nearly had a breakdown over it,

'cause we'd absolutely fucked him.

We still at that time, went on television playing,

thinking that we were the next Duran Duran.

♪ I had a vision of a new world ♪

♪ Another Eden in a southern place ♪

♪ There's no way from the Western wars ♪

♪ And in this land we shall start again ♪

We'd gone past the point of self-destruction.

But we'd come out of it as this fucking nancy band.

♪ We'll be open for the chosen few ♪

It was just so not Anti-Nowhere League.

- You sell-out wankers.

Why would you do such a heap of trash as that?

- [Nick] Strange things drugs and money does to you.

- We lost it big time.

We fucked up to be honest.

- Yeah, that's when we knew it was the end.

[audience cheer]

I met the missus anyway.

She came along in '84.

We finished the band about '86 really.

That was it, we went off, her and I.

You know, getting a life together.

[church bells ring]

- I got a publishing deal and went off and worked on that.

And that was the end of it for me.

- We held on in there for a bit.

And then we decided about '88, '89, do you know what?

Shall we just call it a day now?

And we did a final farewell at Victoria Hall, Southborough.

[audience cheer]

- How are you doing, all right?

Welcome to the final farewell.

["Let's Break The Law" by Anti-Nowhere League]

♪ I'm going out on the streets and I'm feeling high ♪

♪ But you wanna fight me and I don't know why ♪

- It was my stag night, it was probably the best stag night

a person could ever have really.

It was a bloody good gig, wan't it?

♪ But you turn on me, all I see is blood ♪

- PJ came along I think and played on there as well.

- It was punks there, but then it was bikers there,

then there was like, I think some of the band's parents

had even come, and sat in the box upstairs.

Rather than go off on a fart,

we went off on a fucking bang, you know?

♪ And they hate me

- Yeah, fuck off!

[audience cheer]

- That was it really.

We weren't gonna do anything else, until Metallica

released So What?

- So fucking what?

["So What?" By Metallica]

♪ Well I've been to Hastings

♪ And I've been to Brighton

♪ And I've been to Eastbourne too ♪

♪ So what, so what

- JB phoned up and said, oh they're covering So What?

So what, you know.

And he said, yeah, metal band.

So fucking what?

He said yeah, but they're really big!

You know, we got to go along to see them, you know.

I don't want to fucking want to see them, you know.

I'm not interested in music anymore.

- We thought it was sort of like, much ado about nothing

to be honest with you.

With hindsight, I mean it was quite a big deal,

wan't it really?

- I'd no idea they'd want me on stage with them, you know.

JB said, I'll drive you up there now, they want you

on stage now, yeah you got to help them there.

So he kept screaming he'll pick me up.

Yeah, he drove like a lunatic, got us there,

but I was shitting myself.

Half of me was going, go on it'll be great up on stage.

The other half was going, fuck off, you old bastard!

Get out of it, quick as you can, run!

- Invite someone up here to do some singing for us.

His name is Animal.

- And I sort of...oh, go for it.

How you doing, all right?

[audience cheer]

It's a real number they've just fucked up from us.

And they ain't fucking paid me yet all right?

[audience cheer]

It's called So Fucking What!

♪ Well I've been to Hastings and I've been to Brighton ♪

♪ I've been to Eastbourne too

- They gave me the bug again.

♪ Who cares, who cares about you ♪

♪ You, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, ♪

♪ Everybody is so fucked

- Metallica released So What? and suddenly there's a load

of money kicking about.

And we were being offered big gigs again.

We jumped on board and had a second shout at it.

It was a bit of fun for a while.

- Yeah!

Everybody changes.

And I think the band members had their own changes,

they had their own jobs, they had their own families.

Oh, I can't come tomorrow night, missus is out,

I gotta look after the kids.

There's a million reasons why you can't get five blokes

in the same room.

Obviously we decided then that, I decided that

the Anti-Nowhere League would be a long mission.

["Skull and Bones" by Anti-Nowhere League]

♪ Are you ready boys?

Band members would come and go as they want to come and go.

But for me personally, it was always ongoing.

["Skull and Bones" by Anti-Nowhere League]

It was a struggle.

But because I liked performing punk music

and as simple as that, I pushed on with it.

["Skull and Bones" by Anti-Nowhere League]

- Nick, he is the Anti-Nowhere League really, isn't he?

["Skull and Bones" by Anti-Nowhere League]

- I think Animal carries the band.

I think perhaps if you lose Animal,

then you lose the League,

but the new lads slot in very well.

- There's been a lot of lineup changes over the years.

I think the band now, as it is at the moment,

it's the best it's ever been.

There's a chemistry now, raw chemistry between everyone

in the band.

And it can only get better from now on I think.

- It usually starts off that people are roadies first.

That's usually the thing, you roadie with us for a long

time, they're like, if you're gonna run prospect

for a bike gang.

- I was driving, lump lugging gear, I was helping out,

you know.

It was so cool to be like, oh, I'll be you know.

Even with Winston taking the piss out of you all the time.

[laughing]

It's quite funny.

- Barnsy had been with us forever.

We tried having people out of town.

It don't work, Tunbridge Wells people have,

they're a certain breed.

Tommy was a prime example.

He roadied with us for years.

And now he's taken over, he's an amazing guitarist.

He's such a rock God.

He is, he doesn't realize it.

But he is fucking amazing.

- I got involved with the band through,

it was actually through a friend of mine.

He was working for the band as road crew.

And then yeah, basically they needed someone else

who sort of knew what they were doing with guitars

and drums, and he just asked me if I wanted to come away

for a weekend and that was it really.

I was road crew for four years, and then ended up joining

as guitarist.

- Sammy is a very good friend of Tommy's.

They've played in smaller bands in the past.

Tunbridge Wells guy, bit of a crazy guy, Sammy.

He fits in quite nicely.

I first got involved with the League through Tom.

We were teenagers together, basically.

Went different schools, but used to ride BMX bikes

when we were kids.

Obviously he was roadying for the League for years

and years and years.

I think probably the most civil conversation

I've ever had with Nick was the day he asked me

to join the band, when we were down the pub

with his wife, and I think other than that,

I don't think he said fucking once!

It's like a full stop to him, innit?

[laughing]

- Punctuation.

[laughing]

- I go on stage no different than I'm going

into a bare knuckle fight.

It's no difference.

It's me versus them, and there's a last man standing.

If you had a fight, you're gonna go down,

or you're gonna stand up, it's the same attitude.

Happy Christmas!

[crowd cheer]

["Can't Stand Rock 'n' Roll" by Anti-Nowhere League]

- He's still as angry as he ever was.

- [Sammy] What is he not angry about?

Nick is angry about absolutely everything.

But then that's what gives him his edge over everyone else,

it's 'cause he's so wound up.

- Yeah, other car drivers, people on the road.

- People riding bicycles.

- Anger is dope, and anger is good fun.

Anger is warm, it's empowering, it's like a good curry,

it has a glow to it.

[inhales deeply]

Few things are as satisfying as a towering rage.

♪ I can't stand rock and roll

♪ Fuck it up your arsehole rock and roll ♪

- He dragged a fan onstage last week and punched him,

'cause he threw a beer at him!

At 62, still beating people up in front of everyone else.

It was great fun!

- After going to an Anti-Nowhere League gig,

I just feel really energized.

It just makes me walk away pleased and smiling.

I'm just sort of buzzing round like a five year old

at Christmas time.

This is the sort of band I'm after.

This is the sort of heaviness I'm interested in.

It feels like somebody's just basically smashing my face in,

it sort of just goes like that.

It just sort of sets me off, I'm just like,

yeah, this is brilliant, this is awesome!

And it's made me do the typical thing like,

Vyvyan from The Young Ones, I'm pogering about,

just doing stuff that makes me look like a complete

idiot, but I know for a fact, this is my world,

I don't care!

- And that's all!

[crowd cheer]

- Most of the time, you can't go round smashing plates,

and punching people in the face.

But at an Anti-Nowhere League show, you can.

- I hate people!

[crowd cheer]

- You know, they're boxed in in this little cage in life

and when they come to an Anti-Nowhere League show,

that's their chance to jump out and punch someone

in the face.

And then they can go back to being normal people afterwards.

- Yeah, I think that, at the garage show,

someone actually got knocked out.

- Yeah, probably.

["I Hate People" by Anti-Nowhere League]

- I hate people.

I hate every cunt!

- Well the Anti-Nowhere League exists on the planet

to do and say that which should not be done or said.

And if anything that they do say, or sing,

is acceptable, that's it for them.

- We've always believed in freedom of speech.

It's what punk music's about.

So I say to you brothers and sisters,

don't be dictated to what you can and cannot say.

[crowd cheer]

You're feeling a little bit like me.

In the way that we know we are the last cowboys.

When we wrote songs in the past, So What?, I Hate People,

Animal, child molester, you know, I'm your next door

neighbor, you know, all these songs, it was a bit of fun.

Obviously now we're in this new age, where probably old

people like me shouldn't be anyway, you get into trouble,

you're not allowed to say it anymore.

The day the world turned gay to me, was just funny.

You know, and it always will be.

- You know what, if you start burying things,

and saying you can't do this, you drive it underground,

and as soon as you drive it underground,

there's no opportunity to say, you are wrong because...

♪ I sat beside the wall

♪ But no-one stand at all

♪ I stand convicted for a crime I do not know ♪

♪ You are the judge

♪ You are the jury

♪ And all my life has been the same old story ♪

- He's got the front to say it.

You know, I don't care, I'll say it.

I'll wear glasses and I'll say it.

You know.

Does he mean it?

No.

[bike engine rumbles]

- Fucking Anti-Nowhere League, how deep do you wanna go?

Really, spare me.

- The appeal to young people with the League

is it's two fingers to the establishment.

It's purely simple that.

It's what it is.

- So my Dad Got it into me, and then I introduced

it to Jody, and ever since.

- I've just loved them.

- We've brought my Mom and Dad back again to see them again.

'Cause you've just gotta see them.

- Following them around the country when I can,

two or three gigs a year.

Particularly if they're in London.

And I love it.

God bless the League!

- We are the League!

["We Are The League" by Anti-Nowhere League]

- When you're an uneducated come from Tunbridge Wells,

and I'm an uneducated come from Redhill which is just

down the road, you know, it's like, yeah,

we get out of that,

and to move into a different place.

It's like walking on water.

And they managed it, and for that, they should be applauded.

["We Are The League" by Anti-Nowhere League]

- Tunbridge Wells people spend their lives saying

I'm gonna leave this town.

And then when you leave it, you suddenly say,

I wanna come back.

- What keeps me in Tunbridge Wells.

Well this is the question we all ask ourselves

all the time.

Because, it's an awful place to be in.

["We Are The League" by Anti-Nowhere League]

- It was weird, we'd be away on tour you know,

and we'd be like you know, doing American and Canadian

tour, or whatever, but couldn't wait to get back

to Tunbridge Wells.

It was like a magnet drawing you back all the time.

You know, I s'pose it's home, innit really, you know?

- I'm still here.

I own the place.

[laughing]

I'm only kidding.

[laughing]

I own half of it.

["We Are The League" by Anti-Nowhere League]

- I'm still here, I've moved out a couple of times.

I'm back now.

I'm a homing pigeon here.

Thank you brothers and sisters!

We salute ya!

We salute ya!

[crowd cheer]

We're in the hands of the punters, we always have been.

And this is it.

Punters will tell you if they want to see you or not,

and I think, you know, I'll be the first one to know

soon as they tell me to fuck off.

I will do it all the time until they tell me to fuck off!

[motorbike engine rumbles]

- [Interviewer] Is there anything you'd do differently?

- Yeah, I had sauerkraut and bratwurst in Germany

and I didn't like it.

That's about the only thing.

I didn't like sauerkraut and I didn't like bratwurst

sausage, but other than that, everything I've done,

I've enjoyed.

[dog barks]