by Kevin Brooks
‘They’re ours,’ William told him.
‘Ours?’
‘Yeah …’ He looked at Curtis. ‘You said you could do with another guitar, didn’t you?’
‘Well, yeah, but –’
‘You can have whichever one you want,’ William said. ‘I mean, I don’t mind having the crappy old one …’
Curtis stared open-mouthed at him. ‘You are joking, aren’t you?’
‘No, you can have the new one –’
‘That’s a ’68 Telecaster,’ Curtis said, almost reverentially, indicating the older guitar. ‘It might even be a ’66. That’s like … I mean, that’s like the god of guitars.’
‘Really?’
Curtis shook his head in utter disbelief. ‘Where did you get them from?’
‘It’s probably best if you don’t ask,’ William said.
‘Are they stolen?’
‘Well, like I said …’
‘Don’t ask.’
‘Right.’
Curtis turned back to the guitars, his face a picture of pure delight. He looked like a child on Christmas morning.
‘So …’ William said, sharing a smile with me. ‘Are we going to practise or what?’
By the end of that week, William had learned all the songs and we were more than ready to start playing as a four-piece band again. And when we did start playing – at the Conway Arms on Friday night – we all knew, straight away, that something special had happened. We’d always been a great band, with great songs and tons of energy, and Curtis had always been a stunningly good, and naturally mesmeric, frontman. But now that William had joined us, we’d suddenly become so much more than just a great band. We were a special band now. The kind of band that really means something. William’s presence had taken us to a different level.
It’s hard to describe exactly what it was that William gave us. There was his guitar playing, of course, which somehow managed to make every song sound a hundred times better. And his singing, his understated harmonies, which added tones to Curtis’s vocals that simply hadn’t existed before. And then there was his stage presence – his weird little dancing movements, his jerky legs and twitching feet – and the way he somehow induced us all to interact with one another on stage, creating a sense of energy and emotion that mirrored the music and gave it more passion.
But above and beyond all these things – as crucial and pivotal as they were – it was William’s relationship with Curtis that changed us the most. Again, it’s a difficult process to explain, and it was a relationship that was to change so much over the coming months that it’s almost pointless trying to describe it, but in those early days – before it all began to go wrong – there was an incredibly strong creative dynamism between the two of them.
It was clear from the start that Curtis respected William as a musician. And although his attitude towards him as a person wasn’t quite so clear – at least, not at first – it was obvious to me that, while he’d never admit it, Curtis was slightly in awe of him. He’d do virtually anything to disguise it – mocking William all the time, teasing him, laughing at him – but there was always an underlying feeling that if ever William told him to stop, or told him to shut up, or just looked at him in a certain way, Curtis wouldn’t hesitate to do what he was told.
But William never did tell him to shut up.
He was always content to just smile quietly to himself and totally ignore him.
And when William began making suggestions about how to improve some of our songs, which he did after a couple of weeks, Curtis not only listened to him – albeit grudgingly at first – but in the end he actually agreed with him. Which, for Curtis, was almost unheard of. But there was no doubt that William’s input did make the songs better.
One of the first things he questioned was why we played everything so fast.
‘We’re a punk band, that’s why,’ Curtis told him. ‘We play loud and fast.’
‘Yeah, but why?’
‘Why not?’ Curtis grinned.
‘I just think –’
‘It’s all about energy, OK?’ Curtis snapped. ‘It’s about power and speed, simplicity. Three-minute songs, no solos, no fucking about –’
‘Just like everyone else, you mean?’
‘What?’
‘All the other punk bands. You want to sound just like them?’
‘No, of course not –’
‘I thought punk was supposed to be about doing your own thing?’
‘Well, yeah …’
‘So why copy everyone else?’
‘It’s not copying, it’s just …’
‘Listen, Curtis,’ William said quietly. ‘You write really good songs, OK? I mean, they’re really good songs. But you don’t need to play them all at a hundred miles an hour. They’ve got enough energy already. And they’ll sound even better, and even more powerful, if you play them just a little bit slower.’ He looked at Curtis. ‘The energy doesn’t come from how fast you play, it comes from the song itself. The power comes from the way you play, not the speed. Look, I’ll show you what I mean.’
And he showed us, playing the chords to ‘Stupid’ at a slower speed and with a slightly different rhythm, and he was right – it did sound better. More powerful, more emotional, more energetic, more everything. And it was the same with most of the other songs too. A slight change in tempo here, a different rhythm there … and, all at once, it was as if we had a brand-new set of songs.
Better songs.
A better sound.
A better band.
Curtis got it all straight away, naturally finding the new rhythms and the new ways of playing each song, and once he’d shown me what he was doing, I quickly caught on as well. But Stan had a few problems at first. It wasn’t that he couldn’t change the way he played, or that he didn’t have the ability, he simply needed someone to tell him what to do.
‘Like this,’ Curtis kept telling him. ‘Duh-dah-dah, duh-dah-dah … chshh, chshh … just play it like that.’
And Stan kept saying, ‘What does that mean? Duh-dah-dah, duh-dah-dah … chshh, chshh …? That doesn’t mean anything to me.’
But then William stepped in. ‘Here,’ he said, unstrapping his guitar and moving over to Stan. ‘Let me show you.’ And he just sat down at the drums and showed Stan exactly what to play and how to play it. Just like that. It was incredible. And he was good, too. A really good drummer. Not quite as good as Stan, but not far off.
It was something we’d all get used to over the months to come – this ability of William’s not just to play almost any musical instrument, but to play them all really well – and eventually we’d get round to incorporating all kinds of different instruments into the band – violin, banjo, accordion, harmonica – all of them played by William. And that was another thing that made us special and gave us the edge over other bands – we weren’t just another guitar/bass/drums outfit any more. We were different. We had more depth, more variety … more everything.
It wasn’t all down to William though.
As I said, in the early days, there was an incredible creative dynamism between him and Curtis, and while William may have been the one who suggested new ideas and new ways of playing the songs, it was still Curtis who wrote them, and he never just accepted William’s ideas, he built on them, he developed them, and he also worked them into even better songs, which William in turn would further improve with yet more ideas.
Of course, it wasn’t always a tension-free process, especially towards the end. But even at the beginning there were times when Curtis would suddenly revert to his old untouchable, uncriticizable self.
I remember one occasion, about a few months after William had joined us, when we’d just finished playing ‘Naked’ at a rehearsal, and Curtis was having a quiet word with Stan about something, and out of the blue William suddenly said to him, ‘Is it “Idle black eyes” or “Idol black eyes”?
’
‘What?’ Curtis said, turning to him.
‘In the first line of the song, you know – “Idle black eyes and drug-yellowed skin” …?
‘What about it?’
‘Is it “idle” as in “lazy”, or “idol” as in “God”?’
‘I-D-L-E,’ Curtis said, spelling it out. ‘As in lazy. Why?’
‘No reason, really,’ William shrugged. ‘It’s just …’
‘Just what?’
‘It reminds me a bit of a line from a Rimbaud poem, that’s all.’
‘Yeah?’
William nodded. ‘From “The Illuminations”, a piece called “Childhood”. There’s a line that goes something like, “That idol, black eyes and yellow mane …”’ He smiled at Curtis. ‘Do you know the poem I mean?’
‘What are you trying to say?’
‘Nothing. I was just –’
‘Are you accusing me of stealing my lyrics from Rimbaud?’
William held up his hands. ‘No, no … not at all. I just remember the line for some reason, that’s all. And I wondered if you were alluding to it or anything, you know?’
‘Alluding to it?’ Curtis sneered.
‘Yeah.’
Curtis just stared at him for a while then, his eyes hard and cold, and I got the feeling that he wanted to take it further, that he wanted to really let rip at William, but something was holding him back. And that something, I guessed, was the fact that William was probably right. Curtis was always reading Rimbaud, he loved his stuff, and although I was pretty sure that he wouldn’t blatantly steal from him, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if – as William had suggested – he occasionally alluded to Rimbaud’s work in his lyrics.
Eventually the coldness left Curtis’s eyes and he decided it was best to just laugh the whole thing off.
‘What the fuck do you know about Rimbaud anyway?’ he said, grinning at William.
‘Not much,’ William replied, putting on a mock Irish brogue. ‘I mean, what would an ignorant bogtrotter like me know about nineteenth-century French poetry?’
‘Exactly,’ Curtis said.
And that was the end of it.
Although, in hindsight, it was only the beginning.
People soon began to take notice of the new-look Naked. Although we’d already built up a good-sized following, and our Friday-night gigs at the Conway had always attracted a fairly big crowd, it wasn’t until William joined us that we really began to take off as a band. And it all happened relatively quickly. Within a month or so of our first gig with William, the crowds at the Conway had almost doubled in size, and the atmosphere at the gigs was becoming more and more crazy by the week. More people, more fans, more madness, more singing and dancing … every time we played it got hotter and bigger and louder and better …
We were on the way up.
We were Naked.
We were hot.
As well as playing the Conway, we began getting other gigs too. They were still mostly pub venues – places like the Red Cow, the Nashville, the Pied Bull – but the pub circuit was where it was happening at the time. The crowds were good, the gigs were always advertised in the music press, and most importantly – at least from Jake’s and Curtis’s point of view – there was always a pretty good chance of being seen by journalists and record-company people.
The record companies were just beginning to show some interest in bands like the Sex Pistols and Naked around then, but it was little more than just interest. The punk scene was still in its early days, and while it was creating a lot of buzz around London, it was yet to really take off anywhere else. And even in London, it was still pretty much a word-of-mouth phenomenon. There were constant rumours about various other punk bands getting together, but in the spring and early summer of 1976, the only real punk bands who were regularly gigging were Naked and the Sex Pistols. The Clash and the Damned wouldn’t make their debuts until July that year, and both Subway Sect and Siouxsie and the Banshees didn’t play live until September. So although the record companies were aware of punk, they were still a long way from buying into it.
But that didn’t stop Curtis and Jake from pursuing them. To Curtis and Jake, a record contract was the be-all and end-all. Without a record contract, a band was nothing. But with a record contract … well, that was it. That was the dream. To make records. To sell records. To become stars. As far as Curtis and Jake were concerned, that’s what it was all about. Getting a record contract.
As for the rest of us …
Well, Stan – as usual – was happy enough with whatever came along. If we got a contract, fine. If we didn’t, so what? Stardom didn’t mean much to him. He just liked playing the drums, and it didn’t really make any difference to him if he was playing at the warehouse or playing in front of a hundred thousand people.
William, too, seemed perfectly content with how things were. It was obvious that he loved playing, that he loved the music, but the rest of it – the social side, the business side, the whole sex and drugs and rock ’n’ roll thing – well, that didn’t appeal to him at all. He didn’t have anything against it, and it never bothered him what anyone else did, but – for the most part – I think he just found the rock ’n’ roll world a bit ridiculous. The only time he ever showed any interest in record contracts was when the subject of money came up, which at the time, in view of his otherwise unmaterialistic outlook, I found quite odd. But there was a lot about William that I didn’t know then, a lot that I didn’t understand …
There was a lot that I didn’t know about myself too.
Did I want to be famous? Did I want to be a rock ’n’ roll star? Did I want to make records and play big venues and have my photograph taken all the time?
I didn’t know.
Did I want to stay at school and go to university? Did I want a career? Did I want to fall in love and get married and buy a nice house and have a family?
I didn’t know.
Did I want to stay with Curtis for the rest of my life?
I really didn’t know the answers to any of these questions, and most of the time I didn’t even bother thinking about them. I just lived every day as it came. Being with Curtis, hanging around with the band, playing gigs all over the place …
It was all OK.
And from February onwards, after William joined the band, I started enjoying it all a lot more. There was still a lot going on that I didn’t enjoy, in particular the growing sense of violence at most of the gigs, which Curtis continued to both encourage and thrive on, and I still didn’t like most of the people involved in the music business – the other bands, the hangers-on, the wheelers and dealers, the groupies, the predators, the drug addicts and crazies – but I was learning all the time how best to avoid them. It was actually a lot easier to avoid them now that William was around, because he didn’t like them either. And while he’d quite often just disappear on his own after a gig or a rehearsal, sloping off quietly without saying a word, we’d also sometimes sneak away together for a bit of peace and quiet. Stan and Chief might join us occasionally, but mostly it’d be just William and me. And mostly we wouldn’t really talk about anything. William might smoke a cigarette – if he’d managed to cadge one off somebody – and we might share a bottle of beer or two, and maybe talk about what had happened that night – the gig, the songs, the people we’d seen …
But it never went much further than that.
Which was fine with me.
Or so I kept telling myself …
The truth was, I wanted to know more about William. I wanted to know who he was, and where he came from, and why … I wanted to know what he thought about things, and how he felt about things. I wanted to know where he lived, who he lived with, what he did when he wasn’t with the band …
I wanted to know all about him.
Purely out of curiosity, of course. There was nothing more to it than that.
> Or so I kept telling myself …
But I never pushed him. If he didn’t want to talk about himself, that was his right. He didn’t owe me anything. He didn’t have to open himself up to me. He didn’t have to share with me the secrets of his heart …
But on a warm night in May, much to my surprise, that’s exactly what he did.
18
As far as I was aware, the party at the squat that night wasn’t actually in celebration of anything, it was just a party. A Saturday night free-for-all, just for the hell of it. There were no invitations, no guest lists, no limits. The door was left open all night, and anyone who turned up was welcome, as long as they brought something to drink or smoke or snort or whatever. And even if they didn’t bring anything, no one really cared. It was that kind of party.
I wasn’t looking forward to it at all.
I’d seriously considered not going, but I was practically living at the squat by then, and not going would have meant either going back home to Hampstead for the night, which wasn’t particularly appealing, or going somewhere else for the night, which wasn’t really an option, because I didn’t have anywhere else to go. And besides, even if I didn’t go to the party (not that I’d actually have to go anywhere), Curtis was still going to be there – he wouldn’t have missed it for the world – and I knew that if I wasn’t there with him I’d probably spend the whole night worrying about him, wondering what he was getting up to, who he was with, how much he was drinking/smoking/snorting/whatever …
And I knew that he would get wrecked.
Although he’d cut back on his drug use to a certain extent since that night at the Valentine’s Ball, it was still very rare for him not to be under the influence of something – a small joint in the morning, a couple of beers in the afternoon, a line of speed most evenings. The only thing that had changed, really, was that he’d learned not to take too many drugs all at once. Or, at least, not when I was around anyway.
So I didn’t doubt that he would get stoned out of his head at the party, whether I was there or not. But if I wasn’t there, there was a pretty good chance that he’d not only get stoned out of his head but he’d take the opportunity to drink and smoke and snort himself into oblivion. And I simply wasn’t going to let that happen.