Garry Bushell
May 2008ZANI chat to Garry Bushell
Garry Bushell is a
well-known man in the world of television and journalism. He’s been
around for over three decades as a TV Pundit, a writer for Sounds, The
Evening Standard and The Sun and now as a novelist. That well-groomed
beard and beaver smile has become a well recognised image. Throughout
his career he has been a controversial character to say the least. One
of the pioneers of OI!, outspoken patriot of England and a man who’s
not afraid to shoot from the hip. Along
the way he has rattled a few cages but he’s also won over some loyal
(showbiz) friends. How has he gained such longevity? Why does he still
pop up on the TV every now and then? Last time we saw him he was
getting chucked off a plane with Bobby Davro, some ageing Page 3 girl
and Cheryl Baker.Me,
I have never been a fan because of his open affiliation with OI and his
long career with the Sun. To me, he was one of Thatcher’s children, a
man obsessed with ageing British values. But when I found out more
about him via the good old internet, the more intrigued I became with
Garry Bushell as I discovered that he was the 1st journalist to report
the mod revival in 1979 and was a stern supporter of the miners
strikes of the 80’s, the closest this country has seen to bringing down
the government. I am not going to be either romantic or complimentary to say that Garry Bushell is an enigma, but he’s a man who’s led a diverse life. When some people heard I was going to interview Garry, their reaction was why? My answer was why not. ZANI will not just be another PR webzine. I wanted to learn more about his youth, his taste in music and the sacking from The Sun in 2001. Let him declare his case and then you can judge for yourselves whether he is a bigot, misunderstood or has an over active mind that keeps churning up some good and bad ideas. So armed with a tape recorder and loaded with questions I met the man at a lunchtime dole boozer in South East London.
ZANI - You’ve had a very interesting career, what made you start your punk fanzine in 1977 & elaborate more on working with Paul Foot on the socialist worker.
Garry Bushell - I did my journalist training on Socialist Worker, it was bit of a scam really. It was a block release from a sociology course run by North East London Poly. The whole department was run by Marxists, anyone who was young and interested in the International Socialists was encouraged to enrol there for cadre training, Marxist education. They fiddled me a union card so I could get the gig at Socialist Worker. I worked with people like Paul Foot and Laurie Flynn who were inspiring.
But I developed two major doubts about the IS: one was their defence of the Paedophile Information Exchange. They set out to protect scumbag paedophiles from concerned parents, and I was on the side of the people attacking them. Secondly was their support of IRA. They supported them "critically but unconditionally" and I thought that was a fine distinction to make if someone is lying there with their leg blown off.
Then punk happened. I really loved punk, really liked the energy and ideology of punk…I started a punk fanzine called Napalm as in the Vietnam War. This was in early ’77. I did three or four issues and sold them at local gigs. But I don’t remember too much about it now due to copious sulphate abuse.
ZANI - Then you landed your career at Sounds and it seemed that you were very quick off the mark in noticing up and coming talents like U2 and The Specials and to writing about the mod revival, 2 Tone. Is that really true and around this time what where you looking for in terms of music?
Garry Bushell - I’ve always looked at what’s new coming up and what’s any good. I did back a lot of new bands as they were starting, as they were breaking. In my first week on Sounds, I wrote the first-ever review on The Specials in early summer of 1978 when they supported the Clash at Aylesbury. It was the first gig they ever did as the Special AKA. I did the first reviews of Bad Manners and the Bodysnatchers and I believe the Selector too but I missed out on Madness, someone from NME got there two nights before me.
In that first year, I covered the UK Subs, the Ruts, the Skids, The Jolt and the Members. In my second year, I covered the Chords, Secret Affair, the Purple Hearts, the Cockney Rejects. U2 brought me their demo tape and were shocked by our drinking habits. It was exciting and I was going to a lot of places were a lot of reviewers weren’t going to. I would go to Barking; I would to the Bridge House in Canning Town. Other writers would play safe and stay in the West End, they wouldn’t venture East or South East. I just wanted to see what was about.
ZANI - You seem to irritate a few people; Boy George called you the Bernard Manning of Pop.
Garry Bushell - Yeah, that was later. I was never into the Culture Club, Spandau Ballet thing. I could see why it was good, why it worked but it didn’t float my boat. I just took the piss. Boy George’s remark …..I took it as a compliment. Forget Bernard Manning’s politics, his comic delivery is fantastic.
Punk had great music and the philosophy, 2-Tone had great music and the philosophy, the New Romantics wore make-up. It was like glam rock for poseurs, tailor’s dummies with synthesisers, glam rock without the anthems.
ZANI - Let us talk about the origins of OI!
Garry Bushell - Punk was supposed to be about kids with no future, kids from the tower blocks, kids on the dole, working class kids. We are going to pick up the guitar and have our own voice. The reality was a lot of the people involved initially were middle class pretenders. The music was still exciting but the bands were frauds. Yet the first Punks inspired and ignited bands like The Angelic Upstarts and The Cockney Rejects, people who were the real deal. They were kids from tough, working class backgrounds forming their own bands.
At the time the NME were saying punk had died, but there were all these new bands saying "Hold on, we’re here, we’ve got our own voice", it was fresh again. Some great band came out of OI!, bands like The Business, The Blood, the Gonads, obviously, Blitz, the Bad Brains, and as a direct result of the early OI! bands, Rancid and the Bouncing Souls today.
Even the much-maligned 4 Skins were never what the tabloid press made them out to be. Gary Hodges was a cynic. Johnny Jacobs was a knob. Steve Pear was a socialist, He poured his heart into his lyrics. Johnny Rotten used to say "I want to destroy passers by", with the 4 Skins you believed they were going to do it.
BUT MARVIN GAYE WAS A LOT MORE DANGEROUS THAN THE PISTOLS
ZANI - The campaign did itself no favours by the infamous Nicky Crane photograph? (Who was later found out to be gay and died of AIDS)
Garry Bushell - Crane was accidentally the cover boy of the second OI! album. The original model was meant to be Carlton Leach who came down and did his muscle man bit but the pictures were shit. Just a bloke standing up against the wall gurning in the Bridge House pub, and it didn’t look good. Decca came back with their own design, they had a picture of a skinhead’s head with The Strength Thru OI! written across the skull and that was crap too.
I had a card sent to me with a great image of an aggressive skin. Which I genuinely thought had come from the Wanderers movie. I thought that’s it, that’s the image and it wasn’t until the picture was blown up and made clear that we realised he had a swastika on his arm. Stupidly we just removed the tattoo and used the image.
But I hold my hands up, it was a silly thing to do and it tarnished the bands unfairly, even though the first punks had flirted with nazi imagery quite deliberately. The middle class rock press and the Daily Mail were united in believing what they wanted to believe. It suited their prejudices. Another negative aspect of 1981 was the mad division between Mods and Skinheads that developed because both cults had their roots in black culture. I blame the band The Exploited.
ZANI - I feel that it may have a romantic notion that they are singing about class, but don’t you think most people let circumstances dictate their life and fear to speak out?
Garry Bushell - I think you are absolutely right and one of the things we tried to do with OI! We had a conference at the Conway Hall, Red Lion Square in Holborn and one of the things we spoke about was to deplore the injustices of the class system. To arrange benefits for the unemployed, to support Right To Work protests, arrange benefits for certain strikes and to just be part of the community more. That was the philosophy of it.
I think the intelligent people involved in OI! had some positive things to say. This was a terrible shame as we were mishandled, this was an extreme over reaction to OI! Half the reason was I was the only person writing about it. We had quite a radical agenda, which is why people like Atilla The Stockbroker and Mick O’Farrell supported OI!
We were talking about things like Workers cooperatives which are hardly even mentioned now. There is no pride. The builders who built the council estates after the war wanted to give something back to their class. Successive governments have destroyed that attitude. OI!
ZANI - How do you compare today’s Hip Hop with OI? Garry Bushell - I rather listen to Smokey Robinson then Tupac. Motown is my favourite music. Holland, Dozier, Holland. I don’t know a lot of Hip Hop to answer thequestion.
Garry Bushell -But Rick Rubin (co-founder of Def Jam) liked OI! He sent an e-mail to my web site, saying yea I remember this, that’s how it was.
ZANI - The future of OI!?
Garry Bushell - Dead in the water as a mainstream force in this country, still big in other parts of the world such as Japan, Malaysia and The States where new exciting bands like the Dropkick Murphys and Maninblack have picked up the baton. Who wants to see 50-year old men with beer guts on stage? It’s like when we used to laugh at the Teddy boys in the 70’s.
ZANI - You joined the Sun and Daily Star in 1985 and were they’re right up until 2001. Firstly tell us any interesting anecdotes and how do you see The Sun now? And what happened with your sacking?
Garry Bushell - I did my first shift in 1985 while still freelancing at Sounds. I left my Sounds job thinking I didn’t want to turn into a music press hippy. I wanted more people to come through like Dave McCullough and me but it didn’t happen. I left to write my Iron Maiden and Twisted Sister books and to write Youth Youth Youth, a history of British youth cults, that was never published because Proteus went bust. But I hated working from home at the time, as I am quite a gregarious person.
Then Garry Johnson got this offer to do a shift at The Sun through a record company contact. He didn’t want to do it so he said why don’t you do it, so I went for the experience. I did two days there, wrote umpteen stories cos I was out of my head on speed. They said my work was good (laughs) I did shifts at the Evening Standard and The Mirror that summer and then The Sun rang up and said we would like to do a 6 month contract. So that’s it started really.
ZANI - And the dismissal?
Garry Bushell - I wish I knew what really went on because it was all a bit strange being sacked after being there for over 16 years. My feeling was that I was old school Sun, the new editor felt I was too associated with the Mackenzie Sun, he was just looking for an excuse to get rid of me. Trying to reinvent The Sun. Look at the facts for the case against me, there were no facts. I signed a contract with John Blake to publish my novel. The Sun promised to promote it, broke their word, and Blake had in serialised in another paper, which was his right as publisher and would never have happened if Yelland had kept his promise. That was the reason I was sacked. They knew I signed a contract with John Blake. They encouraged me to sign a contract with him. Half the people on The Sun had signed contracts with John Blake and yet bizarrely they used that contract as the excuse to sack me.
I was never really part of the Sun culture, I never really socialised with them. I wasn’t going to their events. I was a bit of a lone wolf. I went to the office one day a week. I am just trying to work out in my head why I was sacked. It wasn’t anything I done, just that I wasn’t part of the new modernist sun – and that turned in to a disaster didn’t it?
ZANI - How long did Yelland last?
Garry Bushell - The Sun had its faults, no-one would deny that, but I am proud of what I achieved on the paper.
ZANI - Are you on speaking terms with Yelland, the man who fired you?
Garry Bushell - No. He’s in the States, learning to be a business manager.
ZANI - What’s your typical day, in the work sense that is?
Garry Bushell - Watching TV, working on my book, up before anyone else. Watch tapes from the night before, take my little girl to school. If it’s the early part of the week do an hour on the book, later parts write my column.
ZANI - Don’t you think the Sun became a real powerful media?
Garry Bushell - I think MP’s are more influenced by it than the public. I don’t think The Sun affects how people vote. Most of the people who read The Sun are Labour voters. It wasn’t a Tory paper but a Thatcher paper. Murdoch is a shrewd bastard, unprincipled. He seems to back the winner and therefore it creates the impression that the paper can win the election. Blair used to come to The Sun a lot.
ZANI - What are your feelings about Big Brother? Isn’t it sad that people are so enthralled by watching eight or so people desperate to be famous lounging about a house 24/7?
Garry Bushell - We have cheapened the concept of celebrity in this country, where as celebrities used to be a by-product of talent. You were famous for something now it’s an end in itself but because of this mad celebrity culture where we are churning out a glut of deadbeat celebrities and we are actually neglecting to build people with talent.
We are neglecting to find stars and I think in the long-term talent is going to suffer because of this. Melanie Sykes and Ian Wright presenting Saturday night TV, lovely people but they are not Saturday night TV.
ZANI - Don’t you feel real talent is not given the air it deserves?
Garry Bushell - How can we change it, it will be reinvented. There’s an argument that down turn in TV is inevitable and it’s going to lead to bigger and worse shit. The argument always applied to American television but it’s American television that is setting the pace now.
In proper drama you’ve got The Sopranos, OZ, The Shield, The Wire, great TV. When British TV makers said the sitcom was dead, the Yanks gave us Seinfeld and Larry Sanders. The Simpsons is one of the greatest, sharpest satires ever made.
ZANI - Jade and Victoria Beckham are prime examples of fame minus the talent, what is this unnatural obsession with celebrity culture?
Garry Bushell - I don’t know why there is a demand for it. Maybe it’s because we are no longer a religious country. We don’t have anything to believe in anymore, all the old institutions have disappeared, so we create false idols to worship.
Fame has now become the goal for everybody. It’s an escape route. It’s a more tangible version of winning the lottery. It’s become a dream for a generation. We have to start saying Victoria Beckham is not Aretha Franklin, one hundred Victoria Beckham’s aren’t even one Aretha Franklin.
ZANI - Tell us about your novel The Face, how long has this been within you and how’s it going? I understand you are writing a follow up?
Garry Bushell - I’ve been wanting to write for years and when I write, I write very quickly. Ten months it took me to write my novel. Sold 15,000 copies so far and now I’m working on the second novel. It’s a prequel and a sequel.
ZANI - How do you see England now? Is it a country you are proud of? And what about Blair?
Garry Bushell - Blair is a fantasy figure. One of those people who can be whatever you want him to be. They try and be all things to all men and you can’t be like that. It was a con trick for every one that hated the Tories and they had good reason to hate the Tories for the sleaze and the corruption. It was a great concept that we were going to create this alliance that was so broad that it was liberal, labour and social democrats.
When you look at what New Labour have created, what have they done, what will they be remembered for, what good have they done, is it going to be the millennium dome. They’ve put taxation up without us reaping any benefits from it, the public services are a disgrace, the health service is just as bad if not worse, the trains are falling to bits.
This political system stinks and it’s an illusion of democracy. I don’t think we are democratic in realistic terms. We have no control of things that change, it’s a bunch of MP’s, upper class bureaucrats and judges that make all the important discussions.
ZANI - For the record what are your political views?
Garry Bushell - Right wing and left wing are meaningless, I don’t think I am right wing. If you are going to change society and this may sound simplistic but when starting to build blocks of hatred then all you can build is hatred. If you start the basis of what we are doing is that we love ourselves. There has got to be an alternative and that is a better life for the majority of people.
Emphasis on communities again, devolves power; let people have more say in the running of their lives and decisions that affect them. The destruction of the manufacturing industry was a disgrace, they were the back bone of this country.
ZANI - You have done a lot of interesting things, what do you think is your greatest achievement
Garry Bushell - Christ, it’s corny it’s my Kids.
So Garry Bushell is a simple family man. As we parted and said goodbye I was pleased with the outcome and found his version of events an eye opener.
Nevertheless I still don’t buy The Sun and was not tempted to go out and buy the back catalogue of OI!
The thing that really shone out for me was his desire for talent to return to the TV, for the government to put something back into the communities and his love of British culture.
Garry Bushell has taken chances with his career, some good some bad but he’s not afraid to speak out and you can never take that away from anyone His love for soul music was the thing that put a smile on my face.…….you said it Garry …MARVIN GAYE WAS MORE DANGEROUS THAN THE PISTOLS.
© Matteo Sedazzari/ ZANI
