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Interview with
BAZ WARNE
from
THE STRANGLERS

(17th April 2023)

Interview with Colin Reid

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Amnplify: Hello Baz, it’s good to see you, mate.
Baz: And you, mate. How are you?

Amnplify: Yeah, very, very good. It’s the first time I’ve done a zoom meeting, ever, and I was like, ‘Oh, I don’t know what’s going on’ you know? I was very happy when your face popped up on the screen there.
Bazz: (laughing)You can’t say that about this face too often! So where in Australia are you?

Amnplify: I’m in Adelaide.
Baz: Adelaide? First port of call for us.

AMNplify: Yeah. First one. I’m very excited and I guess the whole of Australia is pretty excited because I think you’ve already sold out two gigs and you’ve moved to a bigger venue in Brisbane?
Baz: The response has been brilliant. I think the last time we played there (Brisbane), um, they might have been a little bit underwhelmed by the turnout. I mean it always looks jammed in there to me but anyway they put us into a smaller place this time around and then instantly regretted it so and I think they’ve sold really well. I mean to be honest with you when was it, 2019? I think it was..

AMNplify: 2020, February 2020 yeah.
Baz: Oh, that’s right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well remembered.

AMNplify: Well, yeah, it’s sort of bittersweet memory really, because, well I was lucky enough after the gig in Adelaide to have a bit of a chat with JJ and then with Dave. And so it’s sort of very of…you know…it’s going to be a very emotional time, isn’t it, really? It must be emotional every time you play now?
Baz: Yeah. Yeah. It’s, um, it’s something that, um, we’ve had to get used to. And it’s also something that we, if I’m perfectly honest with you, we weren’t entirely sure whether or not we were going to continue at all after we lost Dave. It was only when we, um, revisited the recordings that we’d made, which eventually became Dark Matters that we really knew that the first thing was to at least finish the record as a tribute to him. Then people started asking us are you going to play? And it was um, you know, I mean, it, it was, it was almost like, well, how do you replace the irreplaceable?
Then we found a guy that is everything and, and dare I say it more, you know, um, someone who plays like Dave did 20, 25 years ago.

AMNplify: This is Toby?
Baz: Yeah Toby Hounsham. It seems like God must be a Stranglers fan because, um, you know, we were delivered this bloke, um, who was a Dave disciple, a Stranglers fan, but a Dave disciple first and foremost and he absolutely nails every single brief. You know at the first rehearsals that I did with him, uh, JJ wasn’t physically in the room as JJ lives in the south of France and the three of us live in England. So the first rehearsals that we did, um, with, with Toby were very emotional for me. I mean, we had Dave’s old keyboard rig and there’s another guy standing behind it who I’d never met before.

AMNplify: yeah, wow, that would have been hard
Baz: and then all of a sudden, he started playing the licks with the sounds, and I had to stop, because I wasn’t prepared for it. I really wasn’t prepared for it. At the end of that day I rang JJ and said to him, if you’ve got any reservations about the ability of this guy, um, throw them away now because he’s amazing! So we took him out on the road in, in November of last year to do some gigs in France as a warm up for the UK tour. And it was, it was astounding, you know, um, and it still gets us to this day, if I’m perfectly honest with you Colin, you know, it really, really does. So, um, but yeah, yeah, yeah onward and upward, I guess. I mean, Dave would be, you know, (effects Dave’s voice) “What’s…What’s that bastard doing? Playing all my licks”, you know? And then he’d go, “he’s really good, wow, he’s really good” So we, we think Dave would approve. And we got the seal of approval from Dave’s widow, which meant a lot to us.

AMNplify: Oh, really?
Baz: Yes and Toby did as well. I saw her and Toby having a big palsy up at one of the gigs that we did in England. It was very emotional for her. I mean, very emotional. You know? I mean, you’ll see for yourself, you know? You’ll see for yourself, I’m sure.

AMNplify:  I’ll look forward to it. I heard has he and I’m not quite sure on this story, but has one of Dave’s old original keyboards resurfaced.
Baz: Oh, yeah, You’ve heard about that?

AMNplify: Yeah. Is that true?
Baz: Well, as far as I’m aware, um, the story in a nutshell is that, somewhere where The Stranglers used to rehearse back in the day, some old warehouse somewhere where they used to leave or keep their gear there and obviously, more often than not, especially those old analog keyboards that Dave used to use in the 70s, they would fuck up, you know, all the time. So, he would invariably just throw them away. Anyway, these people were clearing out this area and they found one and, um, they got in touch with the guy that runs our website and said, “Look, we’ve got an old Stranglers keyboard. Do you want it?” And, and the guy was like, “Well, anything to do with The Stranglers? Yeah, of course”. Little did he realize that it is in fact, actually the original Cembalet, which is the one that makes the ‘No More Heroes’ sound and all of those songs ‘Peaches’ and all those amazing songs from the from the first few albums, basically, it’s got ‘Stranglers’ stencilled on it. Um, it’s an old horn Cembalet with cigarette burns on it. It looks like somebody’s been hammering cricket stumps in with it! It’s in such a mess. There’s an original picture of Dave using it, in a black and white still of Dave using it in London in the 70s somewhere and when I compared, because I love this kind of thing, I really do love this kind of thing, and when I compared the pictures above the ‘g’ Of Stranglers, there’s a big bash where somebody dropped it and it’s had a ding and if you look at the one that Toby’s got, it’s the same one. It’s the same one. When I told JJ the story and showed him all the photographs, he was speechless you know? Toby, he’s found someone in the south of England where he lives who can restore it and he’s going to make a movie about it and he’ll post it online for the fans to see. So that story will come to light. It’s so cool, isn’t it?

AMNplify: Yeah, it is. It’s incredible.
Baz: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, as a, as a geek, as a geeky geek I love that, you know? But to prove that, the provenance of it! I mean there was a little light bulb went on above my head when I saw the I compared the two pictures and I said to my wife, “Jesus Christ, it’s the same one”, you know so wonderful.

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AMNplify: Hey I think I really liked the album , by the way.
Baz: Um, thank you. Thank you.

AMNplify: I listened to it a lot when it came out and I’ve been listening to it again, you know, prior to having the chat today. It’s actually a really good album, isn’t it? Really stands up well and there’s a lot of good stuff on it.
Baz: well, thank you. I mean, considering the circumstances under which it was made, I mean, we all we all I mean, I’ve got a studio here at home just next door, actually and, uh, so I recorded most of my parts and stuff here and it was all done piecemeal. Um, and it took an inordinate amount of time because, you know, when you’re not in the same room, you have to make phone calls and say “I don’t like this bit or The keyboards need to turn up or Can you turn the guitar down in this bit?” And it’s very difficult to articulate what you’re feeling when you’re not sat next to the engineer. So it took a long time. Um, and in actual fact, I listened to it in the car not too long ago and when you’re making a record, you don’t listen to it very much after it’s made because you’re sick to death of hearing it, you’ve listened to it 100 times. Yeah but listening to it again it is a really good record, even though I say so myself.

AMNplify: I think you played, ‘This Song’ live last time around and it went down well. It’s a great song and I love the video with Stuart Pearce and all the stuff they get up to in the video.
Baz: (laughing) He’s a pal of ours and when we asked him he was flattered. He gave a whole day of his time. He’s no stranger to media, so he knew exactly what to expect. They really put him through his paces. And when I saw the final edit, I just rang him up and we just laughed. And then he came to see us and when we played it, there’s a bit in the video the bit where you see him for the first time you see him, he sort of drops down behind the wall and when he stands up, he straightens his tie like, you know, as if to say, “Right!” and as I went to the mic to start singing, I did that, you know, and apparently his missus told me he just about pissed himself laughing, you know. So, yeah, he’s a good egg Stu, he’s a really good pal.

AMNplify: I like those stories. I’ve read something about him when he was playing for Nottingham Forest and when they’re going on away game and he would get a “Sounds” or an “NME” just to look at the gig guide so he could find some punk gig to go and see whenever he was, you know?
Baz: Aye yeah, yeah he does that. There’s a big festival in the UK called Rebellion, which happens every August, big punk festival. And, uh, Stu goes for the whole three days with a handful of his pals. He plans out what he wants to see and he goes to the thing, stays in a scabby B&B on the seafront in Blackpool somewhere. They cost about 25 quid a night and really gets into the vibe, you know, um, yeah, he’s great. He comes to see us all the time, so it’s fantastic, fantastic.

AMNplify: When I see you in Australia, I always end up meeting somebody in the crowd and these are people from Brisbane or wherever and travel down, they follow you around the country you know, it must be great to have fans like that?
Baz: Yeah, these people they do all they do all the gigs in Australia. We get that here too. I mean we’ve just come back from a fairly long European tour. We did some gigs in Spain and France and there’s a lot of Brits that did all of them, you know, they take like a month off, they take a month off work, you know, and then all the travel and the hotel expenses and all this type of thing and then not to mention getting into the gigs, but it’s a way of life for them. I think they like to come to far flung places as well. I mean, the last time we were in Australia, there was quite a few Brits came over because it’s the other side of the world and it’s a pilgrimage. Japan was the same, you know? There’s 50 of them turn up in a bar in Japan. You walk in for a pint and you’re greeted with faces that live in Epsom or somewhere. You know, it’s just… it’s the strangest thing. It’s the strangest phenomenon but we are eternally and forever grateful you know?

AMNplify: Yeah, I met some of them last time around and they were really good people, they were really nice. I remember there was about 5 or 6 of them bang on the front fence, you know, right in front of the stage and they’d been to every gig on the tour. I think you had the ‘The Gooch Palms’ supporting you and when they came on stage they recognized them and the guy from the band, he was chatting to them across the barrier because they’ve seen these people at every gig of the tour. That camaraderie between travelling Stranglers fans and the support band, it was really cool.
Baz: Aye they’re wonderful. It’s a real it’s a real experience. The only real downside to it is that it’s over so quickly because it’s the other side of the planet. Everything has to align in terms of expenses and travel and shipping and freight and everything. So you get there, you do the gigs, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. I think we’ve got a day off in Adelaide actually, after the three, the initial three Kiwi gigs and then we’ve got a day off in Adelaide and then there might be a day off towards the end, but they’re all back to back. I mean I think we do five days, we do five gigs in about eight days or something, so it’s always whirlwind. Some of the earlier tours that we did there, we had a little bit more time to look around, you know, and to see things. I mean, I think in my time, I think this is probably my fifth or sixth visit to Australia and it never gets it never gets tired, it never gets old. What a place! I love it, love it!

AMNplify: So will we get much off the new album getting played? There is a lot of strong songs on it.
Baz: I think it’s important. I think it’s important to do that. You don’t want too many, so probably in the UK we maybe did, all tour for an entire evening, we maybe did 5 or 6 including a couple in the encores. There’s a very sparse acoustic thing on the the album about the lines on your face and we do with the “And if you should see Dave” as encores. It’s a bit of, just me and JJ. it’s a bit of a showstopper actually. I’m not entirely sure how many we’ll actually do Colin when we get down there. There is a great song on the album called “Last Men on the Moon”, which requires, um, a baritone guitar and it’s so expensive to bring a baritone guitar to Australia. So you think, okay, well, I’ll rent one on the other side but it’s just a fortune and so that kind of renders that song not doable down there but I would say with a sort of certainly they’ll be 3 or 4 songs off the new record. I won’t tell you everything but there’s some surprises.

AMNplify: Uh, it must be hard, though, because it’s such a big back catalogue. So many great songs. Something’s got to be left off?
Baz: Yeah. And therein lies the rub. I mean, we spend an inordinate amount of time, um, batting setlists across the ether to each other; me and JJ trying to work out what we’re going to play and inevitably someone’s going to be disappointed. Even in the band, you know, “I want to do this one. I’d love to do that one” . And it’s like, Well, you can’t do them all you know? We’d be there all night. I mean, as it is, we play for about an hour and three quarters which is quite long time. So there’s plenty there for everyone but as you say there is inevitably someone who is going to be disappointed. It just can’t be helped, you know?

AMNplify: Do you ever mix it up? Do you always play the same 18 songs night after night or do swap songs in and out of the set?
Baz: We have a pot that we’ll start with of maybe 30 tunes, maybe a few more, and inevitably, after the first 3 or 4 gigs, we start messing stuff around, moving stuff around. Then if it works, in terms of pacing and timing and tempos and all that type of thing, that’s very important. A lot of people just throw their songs in, but you’ve got to put some thought into it, you know? So inevitably if the set list works, then we’ll tend to keep maybe, you know, the lion’s share of it and just do things as and when. There’s so many songs that we could do and you know, as you come out of a venue there’s always somebody in the street who goes, “Why didn’t you do such and such?” And it’s like, “Oh, bloody hell, you know what I honestly don’t know. We just haven’t got time to do everything, you know?” So, yeah it’s a nice problem to have though. It is a nice problem isn’t it?

AMNplify: That’s cool. Hey, are you do doing New Zealand first or New Zealand after?
Baz: Uh, we’re doing it first this time. I’ve got my brother who lives in Wellington. Yeah. Um, so I’m going to go down, I’m an actual fact I’m flying out on Monday. Um, I get to Wellington on Wednesday. Two days to get there man!

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AMNplify: Two days?!? Who are you flying with?
Baz: (laughing) It’s just the time zones and all that shit. So I’m flying to Dubai in the Middle East and then down to Melbourne and then out to Wellington. I’ll arrive there on next Wednesday and, I’ll stay with my brother until the following Tuesday morning and then I’ll fly down to Christchurch and do the first gig, then back to Wellington then Auckland and then we fly from Auckland to Adelaide.

AMNplify: Was your brother all right in the recent cyclone? It hit the bottom of the north island pretty bad.
Baz: Oh, yeah, yeah, he’s fine I mean, he’s a hardy beast my brother. He’s lived in New Zealand now for, um, 6 or 7 years, I think, so he’s kind of well used to it all. I mean, in actual fact, the last time we were down there, we played New Zealand at the end and I went to stay with him and I got home to the UK with about ten days to spare before lockdown happened. I was contemplating staying for a while longer and if I had done that, I would have been down there for eight months!

AMNplify: Just as well you didn’t or else then what happens to the album? Then you’re stuck down there. There’s no mixing. There’s no finishing the album, is there?
Baz: Absolutely. So many things wouldn’t have happened..

AMNplify: You must have so many of these interviews. I’m conscious that I don’t want to take up your time with the same old questions..
Baz: Hey, listen, listen I’m enjoying it, we’re both here so lets embrace the technology that’s enabling us to talk from the other side of the fucking world to each other! So you ask me whatever you like. Honestly, ask me whatever you want.

AMNplify: All right. What was your one gig that really stands out as being the great and one, if there is one, where you think fuck everything went wrong? Like you’ve talked about having maybe hiring a guitar and I reckon I saw you at the Thebbie , I don’t know, 2 or 3 tours ago and the keyboards that David hired they all stuffed up.
Baz: Oh yeah, I remember that.

AMNplify: So to fill in time you were just telling jokes while Dave and the techs are trying to fix this thing and then I think last time again at The Gov, something happened with the drum kit or something. I hope its not just dodgy Aussie hire gear
Baz: Well, I mean, that’s not just Aussie. It happens everywhere. But, I mean, basically when you’re traveling so far, obviously you can’t take all of your equipment. So we take essentials, absolute essentials, like our first guitars. Me and JJ bringing one guitar each and then we rent spares at the other side in the hope that you’re not ever going to need to use them. They’re just there in case you snap a string. So yeah, things like that happen.
But as for stand out gig for me, the one that always springs to mind was when we played Glastonbury in 2010 or 11. We played on the Friday afternoon, I think it was about some bizarre time like 1:40pm or something when we went on there was 80,000 people turned out to see us. Now the previous year, Lady Gaga had had the same spot and she got 35,000. Apparently the word is, is that we actually played to more people than U2 did and when they did the poll at the end of the festival we were in the top 4 or 5 bands, I think, of the whole thing. It was a it was a bright English summer’s day, you could see Glastonbury Tor in the distance and when we walked out on stage we had an hour and you could just see this sea of people. I mean, you know, we’ve done some colossal festivals and you never cease to marvel at how many people come and you look down and it’s just a sea, you know? Glastonbury was something special. We came in not knowing what to expect and when we walked out onto the stage, the place just exploded and we had an absolute ball. There was flags and banners and then we had to leave because well actually, actually aye I’ll tell you the best gig and the worst gig were in consecutive nights. The first, the first one was Glastonbury, and then we had to fly to Bratislava or somewhere to do a bike festival the next day, which 750 stoned, hairy, smelly hippies turned up in a windswept field somewhere in the Baltic States. We had to get up at four in the morning, we couldn’t stay at Glastonbury and watch what we wanted to watch and it was a huge, huge disappointment. Um, so aye probably that year we did the best and worst gigs within 48 hours of each other.

AMNplify: Well, that’s probably actually a good thing because how do you come down from playing 80,000 people? You know, the next gig is always it’s going a come down to be so you might as well have a real crash so you can come back up again quickly.
Baz: I tell you we came down mighty hard. We came down mighty fucking hard, I’ll tell you with a bump.

AMNplify: You say it’s back to back gigs in Aus, are you gonna have time to do any motorbike rides with JJ?
Baz: No not this time. Not this time. The time before last me and JJ stayed on with the road manager, and we got some bikes from Perth, and we went down to Margaret River, um, and had a three-day bike trip. Never to be forgotten. Um, I looked on the map at the time and all of Australia was bright orange with heat and where we were was blue with rain. A tiny little corner of Australia, blue with rain down in the southwest and we got absolutely saturated, but we had a great time. This time, unfortunately we’re not going to Perth.It’s unfortunate because we’ve got some really good friends in Perth who put us up and we stay with them. And so that’s going to be a little bit of a downer. But you got to do you got to do what you got to do, you know?

AMNplify: I’m glad you always come to Adelaide. A lot of times Adelaide gets missed by touring bands, you know, and if you want to see some band you have to get on a plane and fly somewhere. Like, it is good that The Damned are actually coming this tour which hadn’t done in bloody years and last time in 2018 we had to fly to Brisbane to see them. We have to be like all the people that we meet at Stranglers gigs and travel to see the bands.
Baz: Funny you should mention The Damned because I’ve been doing an outside project called Wingmen with their bass player, Paul Grey.

AMNplify: Oh, great I’m glad you brought up Wingmen.  I’d meant to ask about that.
Baz: It was something that was born out of lockdown and boredom! We did a little tour in January, and that was fantastic, it went down really well.
Yeah, we always come to Adelaide its for the pies, of course. I mean, you’re famous for your pies, aren’t you? Those grizzly, those big old grizzly Aussie pies that you get, you know, the ones that you can’t walk or shit for a week after you’ve eaten one of them!

AMNplify: Just for that I’m going to bring a pie to the gig and chuck it at you on stage.
Baz: Yeah, go ahead. Go right ahead. I’ll only throw it back. I’ll tell you, I will!

AMNplify: Hey, this has been cool. Thank you so much for your time. It’s been brilliant, I’ve really enjoyed chatting.
Baz: It’s a pleasure. and listen, if you get if you do get to the gig try and make yourself known and we’ll we’ll have a pint if we can, you know?

AMNplify: All right. Good on you. I’ll take you up on that. It’s actually my wife’s birthday on the 18th, so for her birthday present we’re going to The Stranglers.
Baz: What’s your wife called? What’s your wife’s name?

AMNplify: Julie.
Baz: Okay, that’s easy. My first wife was called Julie. That’s easy to remember. I will. I will mention “Happy birthday Julie”. I bet you I won’t forget. I’m really good like that.

AMNplify: Thanks so much! All right. you take care of yourself. See you next month. Take care. Cheers, man.
Baz: You too. Cheers. Bye.

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Press Release October 2022 below

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SBM & DAVID ROY WILLIAMS PRESENTS

THE STRANGLERS
Announce Australian Tour Dates
April 2023

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“A magnificent evening of 70s punk nostalgia, packed with power, energy and aggression… ”

British iconic punk and new wave rockers, The Stranglers, have announced they’ll be touring Australia, playing shows across five cities in April 2023.

First forming in 1974, the band’s no bullshit attitude saw the band blaze an experimental trail, from Art Rock to Goth to New Wave Pop, inspiring a wave of prog rock guitar players and confrontational vocalists to find their roots in The Stranglers’ unabashed confidence.

Promising a set that will be covering tracks from their extensive catalogue spanning over 45 years, fans can expect to hear timeless hits like ‘Golden Brown’, ‘Always the Sun’, ‘No More Heroes’, ‘Strange Little Girl’ and ‘Peaches’.

The Stranglers have scored 23 UK Top 40 singles and 19 UK Top 40 albums to date and recently released their eighteenth studio album, ‘Dark Matters’ which debuted at No 4 in the UK Charts.

Don’t miss being swept up high on the wave of The Stranglers’ powerful sound, pounding rhythms, soaring melodies, quirky humour and thrillingly daring musicianship for an exhilarating live experience

Go see them while you still have the chance!

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Follow THE STRANGLERS
Website – Facebook – Twitter – Instagram

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AMNPLIFY – DB