Mojo - The Music Magazine

Boarding school, progressive punk, hard drugs, and the survival of the strongest…

MOJO: Did you always have a vision of how The Only Ones should sound?
Peter Perrett: It kind of evolved. I had England’s Glory before that. We were kind of a school band except we were just leaving school – all learning to play our instruments. But in a way that frustrated me as wanted everyone else to be better than me! So, when I was getting The Only Ones together I wanted people who could express themselves in any way they wished to.

It went against the punky ethos of not playing anything flash. So we stood out and that helped us in a way, as were one of the most interesting bands to go and see live. That’s why Johnny Marr is quoted as saying we were his favourite band of that time. My songs were always my songs, but the four musicians all had different influences. John [Perry] was sort of a West Coast American guitar player. [Alan] Mair was Motown and [Mike] Kellie was a really solid rock drummer. That was another thing that was unusual: [The Clash’s] Topper Headon was the only other drummer that could keep time around then (laughs).

You say you wanted a band where everyone expressed themselves. Well, you certainly couldn’t accuse John Perry of not expressing himself.
Nowadays he’d probably say that he overplayed a little. Back then the monitors were so terrible I was constantly fighting to try and hear myself over his guitar – playing lead all over the vocals and everything (laughs).

Originally Glenn Tilbrook was in the line-up…
Well, he was already in Squeeze with [Peter’s wife] Zena’s brother Harry Kakoulli, who had played with me in England’s Glory. Glenn didn’t have anywhere to live so he moved in with me and he enjoyed playing with both bands. But it’s hard to play in two bands that are gradually getting busier and busier. Also, him and John weren’t exactly the best of friends. The final time he played with us, John went over and just unplugged him in the middle of a lead break – not really a friendly thing to do. Glenn stormed off, quite upset, but I think he was happier with Squeeze in the end.

So John’s executive decision was endorsed, or at least tolerated, by the rest of the group?
Yeah, in bands it’s survival of the strongest.

How much of your background ends up in The Only Ones’ songs? They seem to reflect a hostile world where people are dangerous and untrustworthy…
Yeah, at the age of eleven I was sent to boarding school, where the world is a very hostile place. You miss your parents and you’ve got all these big boys doing horrible things to you. It’s a pretty scary place, and after four years I managed to get myself expelled.

Which school did they send you to?
My first school was called Bancroft’s on the edge of Epping Forest. I got a scholarship to go there because I was brainy. I got expelled from there when I was 15 and then went to Haberdashers’ Aske’s in New Cross. One of my classmates was [Cockney Rebel singer] Steve Harley – called Steve Nice back then. He was one of the only two people who were into Dylan; the difference was he was a skinhead and I was a longhair.

Not a world that suited you, then?
If you were a non-conformist, the world was very antagonistic. Eventually I got a job that lasted three hours before I got the sack, just because the boss saw me.

He just didn’t like the look of you?
Well I had hair down to here. I was a messenger in the city, carrying parcels from one office to another. It cost me money to work there because it was seven shillings an hour, but the insurance stamp was seventeen and six. The fare up there was five shillings so I ended up paying one and sixpence to work for three hours and that really taught me a lesson. And that really was the only job I ever had y’know. The most money I made was as a drug dealer, drug importer. That was a respectable business back then. There’s nothing morally wrong with it at all. It’s just giving people what they want as far as I am concerned.

You saw it as just supply and demand? If we’re to accept Capitalism then why not drug dealing?
Exactly, and I cared about my product. The quality was the number one concern. These days, what they call crack cocaine has literally no cocaine in it at all. It has much more harmful things in it. I just think it’s a shame; if you are going to waste your life taking drugs, at least take proper drugs. The new generation don’t even know what proper drugs feel like (laughs).

Click to read Part II, where Pete’s drug deals fund the first album and Another Girl, Another Planet goes ballistic. Plus! Sid Vicious unplugged!