From how bass guitars make excellent weapons to why feminist artists were so inspiring, Jon King tells Elizabeth Aubrey about the things he learned bashing the fash with Gang Of Four
To Hell With Poverty!, the new memoir from Gang Of Four singer, singer, lyricist and producer Jon King, is an account of his journey from South London slum to recording at Abbey Road with all the twists and turns of navigating the capricious music industry along the way. There are tales of band bust-ups and reconciliation, making the cover of the NME, getting chucked off Top Of The Pops, having their music censored (twice) and crashing and burning in America. At the forefront of the narrative, however, is the political stance of the band that ran at odds with the both the mainstream and far right in late 70s and early 80s Britain. Gang Of Four’s left-wing views often made them the target of The National Front, who’d crash their gigs looking for trouble – and the band made sure they got it. Bassist Dave Allen would wield his guitar at the NF thugs and the rest of the band frequently leapt in to fight them. With rather less punching involved, Gang Of Four also became one of the key voices in the Rock Against Racism movement in the north of England. The book tells stories of bust ups with the police, the racism they witnessed daily and how feminist bands like The Slits were an inspiration. “My ambition wasn’t to make money, but to change the world,” King says, reflecting on the legacy of the band. “Some of our songs are still horribly relevant but I wish they weren’t.”
Standing up to fascism meant standing up for my friends
In the 1970s, I went to a demonstration in Leeds against the National Front while I was studying art in the city. The council had banned them from marching through Chapeltown in Leeds. My Afro-Caribbean, African and white friends all lived in Chapeltown of course and that’s where they wanted to march: it was intentionally provocative. Despite the ban, the NF managed to get a meeting inside a local hall and I don’t know whether or not they deceived the council, but they decided they wanted to walk down to the railway station together and of course what they were really doing was taking part in the march that was banned in the first place. I remember protesting and shouting ‘The National Front was The Nazi Front’.
The police were our enemy
Things got out of control at the protest: it was entirely on the National Front’s side. The moment it got out of control, the cops reacted. I was truncheoned down by a cop and whacked on the forehead: I dropped to the ground. My interactions with the police at that time were never positive. I have great sympathy with people who are trying to keep the law, but that wasn’t what they were doing. All the ones we encountered at that time were aggressive blokes who liked asserting their authority. The recent trouble in Türkiye really struck me because I was sort of like one of those people in the crowd too.
There were unlikely allies on the streets
The irony of the NF demonstration was that the NF eventually went into the middle of the railway station and met Leeds United fans coming off the train from London. This was in the middle of peak football hooliganism and Leeds United fans at that time were among the most notorious football crews. The Leeds fans just thought they were all cockneys and so attacked them, which I thought was a kind of poetic justice!
Fighting fascists is hard
It was extremely tense sometimes waiting for the next battle with fascists at gigs. There was often a lot of trouble and they’d come along just to cause bother. With Gang Of Four, The Mekons and Delta 5, we sort looked out for each other at that time: we were the first set of bands in Leeds who identified as being of the left. A very good friend of ours had life changing head injuries through the violence. They came into Leeds university at a gig and threw a fire extinguisher at his head: he nearly died and was affected for the rest of his life. It was a very dark period.
