1. Can you give us a brief run through of the origins of the band; How old you all were, founding members, influences, original aspirations etc?

“Matchi” [the bassist, John Marchington] & I [the vocalist, “Cess” or Shaun Stiles] formed the Violators in Chapel-en-le-Frith, a rural town in the High Peak District of Derbyshire, in early 1979.  It followed the demise of our former band, The Dismal Sports, whose line up included Paul Hines later of The Test Department. After a few initial changes the Violators final line up included Helen Hill on vocals, Anthony Hall [Ajax] on drums & Mark Coley on guitar.  Creating the band was our way of escaping the boredom that life had to offer in a northern town with high unemployment. It was also a good medium by which we could vent our anger creatively. I suppose the only aspiration we had for the band was to be a fairly popular underground punk act.  We had many musical influences.  I suppose we all became mates ‘cos of the early punk movement. Yet, I think, what influenced us the most were the ‘so called’ post punk bands of the late 70s. Bands like Joy Division, The Fall, The Slits, Magazine, Public Image Limited, The Banshees & The Cure, which we’d go & watch play the Manchester club circuit   We saw them as experimental punk bands rather than another genre of music, & what we really admired was they were not allowing themselves to be stereotyped. In a way, it was these bands that gave Manchester its pulse & helped to create a D.I.Y ethic within the punk scene, something that the movement in the south didn’t have until perhaps Crass & the anachco bands emerged.  Cos’ we only lived about 24 miles south of Manchester, it became our play ground as young punks. So Manchester itself & its first renaissance influenced us greatly too.

2. What are your memories of the time the band formed, both in terms of the musical climate and the every day problems of being a teenager in Thatcher’s Britain?

 At that time, there was a feeling within the punk movement that most of the early punk bands had or were selling out. I mean, ya had The Clash in the states trying to become bigger than God, & a lot of people lost faith (if you’ll excuse the pun) in them & the movement. That’s another reason why we picked up guitars, I guess. They’d let us down, so it was up to us to take the movement where we wanted it to go, if ya know what I mean. Politically, it was a time of high unemployment, boredom & riots. The country was fucked so the political landscape was perfect for circa ’82 Britpunk, as I’ve now heard it been called, to flourish & there was lots of issues to get our rotten old teeth into.

3. Did you play many gigs and do any tours? How far outside of your local area did you get to play?

 I think the furthest we played was the now infamous Skunks’ gig in London, Islington. We’d consumed a lot of illegal substances prior to that gig, & it shows. If you’ve ever heard the bootleg of that gig, you’ll know what I mean. I not only forgot the lyrics to Live Fast, Die Young, but also forgot what it was called. I think I introduced it as No Room Left in Hell. Now ya can’t get much more out of it than that, can ya?  There was a lot of violence which accompanied punk gigs in those days, & due to the media focus local city councils began to close the clubs. So with fewer venues, we found it virtually impossible to procure gigs for ourselves.  We may have done better if we’d had a manager, but we were never into that sort of thing. Having a manager smacked too much of being part of the music industry, & that was something that we had no interest in at all.

4. A lot of bands at the time seemed keen to find a manager and sign to big labels, was that ever a consideration for you?

 

 No that was not what we were about at all. We saw large record companies as parasites.  They’re not interested in nurturing & promoting original talent. They were in it for the cash alone.  So we wanted no part of that big record label shite!  So from the outset, we only thought that a small independent record label would be good for us as a band.

5. You became closely linked with Blitz and Attack, what sort of association did you have with those two bands? Did you know them before you formed the band? 

 

Yeah, we all attended, or didn’t attend, the same schools in the area, so we all knew of each other, if only by sight, long before the advent of punk. But it was punk that brought us together as mates &, I suppose, we became a closely knit community. It helped us fight all the hostility that we uncounted ‘cos there was so much ignorance about & bigotry aimed towards punks at the time, especially in rural areas. I suppose that’s why we spent most of our time in Manchester. There was less oppression for us there. Cities can handle change, ya see.  Rural communities are far more conservative in that respect. 

6. How did you come to be on No Future Records, because you seemed to have different influences, at least musically, than a lot of the bands on that label? Is it true that you were asked to sign a contract saying you wouldn’t swear on your records?

 I suppose, by accident really. Mackie out of The Blitz gave us a copy of their first release, so Helen sent an early violators’ demo to them. They contacted us saying they were interested in putting two of the tracks on a compilation album, Country Fit For Heroes, & would we be interested in a deal? Yeah, we thought, we’ll have some of that!   We just wanted to get our music out there, & there wasn’t too much to consider really. It was early days for No Future Records. It hadn’t really established itself as a label at that point.  All we had to consider, therefore, was that it was an independent punk label, & that was good enough.  It turned out to be a rather strange relationship, mainly ‘cos Chris Berry (No Future boss) seemed self-absorbed with The Blitz. I suppose they were making him the dollars, & as a result, I think, that’s where it all went horribly wrong for them & the bands on that label.  Chris seemed to get wrapped up in the money side of things very quickly. What the bands were trying to do creatively became second place to him.  As a result, soon after, Helen & Coley dearly departed, Chris wanted us to sign a contract that stated we weren’t gonna swear on any future recordings. He also announced that No Future was gonna become Future Records. To indicate a new philosophy, I suppose. Don’t know, ‘cos I couldn’t be arsed to ask.  The band knew, at that point, we were in the wrong place. I don’t hold it against him at all. He was just trying to make a bit of cash, & we are all human, aren’t we?  Evidently, some of us are all too human!

7. With you use of two vocalists and snatches of Thatcher speeches on your records did you ever feel that maybe you were closer to some of the anarcho bands of the time rather than your label mates?

 Yeah, there’s a lot of Crass’ influence in the early Violators’ recordings. I heard Feeding of the 5000 in ’79 & thought this is it.  I thought, & still think, both Crass & the Poison Girls were a real injection of something vital within the movement. Their attitude was exactly what was needed at the time, & they epitomized what the true punk ethics were about. I saw them on numerous occasions from ’79 to ’84, & on each they just restored ya faith in punk. Government Stinks is very much inspired by Crass. Nevertheless, we nicked the drum beat from Joy Divisions’ Love Will Tear Us Apart for it too. A fusion of Crass & Joy Division: I’ve never thought of it like that before!

8. I remember loving “Gangland”, but it was strange then, as now, to have a single that was almost six minutes long, did you get any negative reactions to that song?

 

 I remember a reviewer (I think it must have been Gary Bushell) describing it as sounding like street level Joy Division. So we were pretty pleased about that. But, yeah, we did get some negative reactions, yet strangely only from the record company. On technical grounds, they complained the duration of the track would diminish the quality of the sound when transferred to vinyl.  We had to laugh at that!!  We pointed out, that it didn’t matter about the quality of the sound being slightly diminished. Some of the best punk we’d heard is piss poor when it came to sound quality. It’s the spirit of the track & what it has to say that’s important. Not the fucking sound quality! I mean, Gangland’s not even recorded at concert pitch, so what’s all the worry about. Come on get real, for fucks sake!  They took this as a valid argument & our original recording was put out on vinyl, unlike Life on the Red Line.   Our whole idea behind producing Gangland was to be unconventional as we could possibly be.  We believed that punk was becoming convention mainly ‘cos a lot of punk bands were merely tying to imitate their heroes. It was our way of braking out of that box & telling others to do the same. I don’t know if anyone took notice, & we were perhaps a little over ambitious with Gangland yet it’s still a great track all the same.  It was voted one of the all time 50 best singles by the membership of shredding paper, an internet music site. I pissed myself laughing when I read that, ‘cos we beat dinosaur rock bands like U2. Then I got to thinking, yeah, why not. Just ‘cos a single by a hardcore punk band was experimental & ambitious, why shouldn’t people think it’s a great fuckin’ number.  Thanks to them for having balls!

9. What’s the story behind the cover shot of you dressed in Clockwork Orange style clothes, because other bands also used that look?

Prior to the Gangland single photo shoot, neither Ant nor I had heard of The Addicts or Major Accident. We had merely thought that “little, Alex’s droogs” were British literatures’ ultimate gang, & an image fitting for the cover of a track called Gangland.  We also saw it as a means of pointing out how uniformed the punk style of dress was becoming during the period.  So, I guess, it fitted in with our philosophy

10. Was it a big shock when Helen and Coley decided to leave? I know you replaced them, but did you think that without them the band could ever be the same?

 Yeah, it was quite a shock. Yet we didn’t hold it against them. Obviously, we made an effort to persuade them not to leave.  I mean, we’d worked fairly hard to get to the position we had in a short space of time.  We’d just produced & were about to release two of the best britpunk recordings on vinyl, Summer of ’81 & Live Fast, Die Young.  So, I guess, we just thought fuckin idiots, what a stupid thing to do.  They’d made their minds up to throw it all away, on whoever’s advice & for whatever reason, so there was little we could do.  The real shock, I suppose, was that they wanted to take the name with them.  I mean, we could quite happily see them depart to get something else together, but for them to think they could take the name of a band they had left, a band that they were drafted into, now that was a real kick in the balls. At that point, we began to get a bit pissed off with them, obviously. I mean, wouldn’t you? So we had to threaten them through the legal system.  It did the trick ‘cos they recorded a three track demo under the name of Taboo.  In the interim, however, we’d gone & recorded Life on the Red Line & Crossings of Sangsara.  This was the only way, according to our legal advice, that the Violators’ name would remain our property.

11. What did you do after the band split? Did you continue to play music, were you in any other bands? 

 

Matchi & I decided to kick music in the head at that point. We both left Derbyshire to live in London &  with the idea of going back into education.

12. Have you kept up with the changing face of punk rock through the years? Do you think punk is still valid in the 21st century and would you say you still listen to punk rock these days? What was the last album you bought and do you have any particular favorite bands at the moment? 

Yeah, I still like punk, I can’t get away for it & wouldn’t want to. I mean, punk was a large part of my life.  A way of life even!  It’s what inspired me & motivated me. Nowadays I hear it in bands that others may not strictly think of as punk bands.  I don’t buy records; I steal them off the internet. It saves my cash for other things & I get access to all the music I want for nothing. Technology’s great, isn’t it?  One of my favorite albums that I’ve heard in a long time is the Transplants’ first album. It has the power & originality to blow me clean away.

13. Would you say your political outlook is the same or has age mellowed you at all? 

It hasn’t altered that much. Politically speaking, I have swung extreme far left, to far left & back again.  I’d class myself as an anarchist during the period I was in the band. Then during the end of the ‘80s I began to believe that we could achieve change through parliamentary democracy. Yet the Blair Government out doing the Tories has illustrated to me that when the left or right take hold of political power they just maintain the status quo for the ruling classes.  I’d prefer to see a revolutionary socialist movement dismantle parliament once and for all. Then perhaps we’d get a more egalitarian society.

14. What did you think of Ian Glasper’s “Burning Britain book? And were you surprised that Captain Oi wanted to re-release all the Violators songs on CD, especially as they had already come out on Harry May Records?

 I thought it was very good. I like Ian a lot, he’s a good lad, but I was a bit disappointed that he published the first draft I wrote for the Violators’ section by mistake, rather than publishing my final draft. Yet it still gives a good over all view of the band & the socio-political landscape which produced us.  So I’m not complaining…. Really!  I wasn’t surprised with the re-release either ‘cos they’re great punk tracks. 

15. There’s a new song on the Captain Oi release, what is the line up that did that recording, will we ever see Violators playing again and have you seen any of the other band members over the last 20 years? Have you been asked to reform for the Holidays In The Sun or Wasted festivals? Would you even consider it, and have you been to any of these weekends? 

The line up for Everything’s in a State of Decay was me (vocals & guitar); Stephen Middleton (bass) & Mark Broxup (drums).  I didn’t have too much time to get that one together ‘cos of the release date of the Violators’ cd.  Yet, I think it’s one of the best things I’ve done.  As a result, we’re planning to go back in the studio in December to record an ep. We’ve created some great punk classics in the making for that.  Yeah, I sometimes bump into the other band members & it’s always nice to see them. We share a history & we had some great times together. The only one I am in close contact with is Matchi, Ant too, until his untimely death in 1987. We’ve managed to remain mates throughout.  We are hoping to play either the Holidays In The Sun or Wasted festivals, or both, next summer.  I see nothing wrong in doing them as long as the new bands are given they place on the stage too.  Not many had the opportunity to see the Violators’ play live, I think, therefore, it’s about time they got the chance, don’t you?

16. What is your favorite memory of being in the Violators? In hindsight, would you change anything? 

Just having direction & something to do was good for a teenager at that time. Change anything? Yeah, I wish we’d been a bit more prolific with our output. We could at least recorded all our set before the split.  I suppose, that gives you an example of not only the quickness of their decision to leave but how unexpected & totally unconsidered it was too.  End of story!

17. Where can people find out more about the band?