We recently caught up with Joe, after rehearsals in London

Strummersite - So where are things at with the new album?
Joe - I don't know. No idea. It could explode at any moment.
You've been playing some good, new stuff this year. Songs like Get Down Moses and Guitar Slinger Man.
Yeah, we're still working with 'em. I don't want to make up any bullshit, but we've got a lot of music at the moment.
How's the relationship with the record company?
We've got a fantastic relationship.
How did it come about?
A guy called Jason Rothberg introduced me to Tim and said you should talk to this guy. It saved me a lot of trudging around. I certainly didn't want to get back to being lost in a corporation, in some bottom drawer.
Is that where you felt you'd been consigned?
Yeah, you can get lost. Hellcat/Epitaph didn't mind doing a one-off. One-off deals are much better than being enslaved to a three album deal, or five or ten albums. Then, you're locked into that company no matter what happens. People come and go. The thing that usually happens is some guy gets really keen on the group, signs them to a big company, coz he's a hot A&R man, and then in a year or two he jumps ship. they seem to move round every few years. As soon as your champion leaves…
You get relegated?
Yeah, and you can't sign to anyone else. That's the thing you've got to avoid. That very often happens.
With the benefit of hindsight would you have done things differently?
Yeah, we could have thrown our weight around a bit. Once you sign the damn thing you're fucked.
When you're an aspiring young band you'll sign anything?
Exactly. It's really like child abuse. They know that you're young, keen and stupid. They really take advantage of that.
You think The Clash were taken advantage of?
I think they take advantage of everybody. They'll do anything to get a record out there. They're trading on your keenness, your eagerness.
Were there major players interested when the Mescaleros formed?
No! [Joe laughs] None at all. It's true…none! Mercury only picked us up when we had a little stint with them over here and in Europe. They came to see us do some shows, like the one in Paris [December '99].
Yeah, that was a fantastic show. However, it sometimes seems that the band are more appreciated in the US.
They seem to be able to get into things. They're not so retro. Also here we're locked into the pop thing - making money for all those people. That's what the industry's really into - money.
Do you think you've denied yourself anything by signing with a smaller record company?
No, not at all. In fact they've got some big bands. They're a major player whilst still being independent. They've got great bands like Rancid and the Dropkick Murphys. They're a good group and nice guys too. A lethal on-the-road outfit. They've got it figured out, what they're doing.

How did the week in NYC come about, earlier this year?
It was that guy Sean, the promoter. Simon had asked him to find somewhere different from the usual. You know, Irvine Plaza or wherever, and he came up with St Ann's Warehouse, in Brooklyn. It was a great week. It's just nice being in one place for a little bit. The previous tour took in twenty-odd shows. A different venue most nights. It was my fault. There was pressure on that tour because I booked us in to that charity show in Seattle [Groundworks benefit concert], which should have been a day off, just when we needed one. But we had to work thousands of miles away. That nearly killed everyone. Well I hope we did something for the cause.
That show has been available to watch on the internet.
Really? That's where we had the sixty foot flames! Yeah, that was brilliant. it was probably the biggest LED screen in the world. It was kind of…'ching, London's Burning…', with giant flames leaping out behind you!
Talking of London's Burning, we heard you were doing some work on a signature tune for the [UK] TV series of the same name.
Well it wasn't a reworking. It was a new tune, but we had to pull out of it because the TV people were very punchy and aggressive. You write a tune and they cut it up into little strands and then they only give you maybe ten or fifteen seconds at the front of the show. If you make some spaghetti you don't want it chopped into microsections of what it should be. It was a bit haywire and I just thought it was pissing the band off, and the TV guys were really heavy, and the money was shit.
You've worked with other directors obviously. Recently you did the version of Minstrel Boy for Black Hawk Down. Was that a close thing with Ridley Scott, or did you record it over here and ship it over for them to cut in?
No - we went there and cut it there, and walked round the sound stage when they were dubbing it. We sort of hung out with him a little bit.
It's a song you've dropped from the live set since the film came out. Is there anything behind that? (At this, Joe pencils the song into the set list for the tour).
Good point, because now we can do it with vocals. We've never actually tried to do it live, with the singing. It might make it a whole different ball game.
I notice a track on the set list called Secret Agent Man and ask Joe about it.
Well I don't think we'll play that yet. It's just something we do for ourselves.
London Calling has been recently used to advertise Jaguar cars in the US.
Yeah, I agreed to that. We get hundreds of requests for that and turn 'em all down. But I just thought Jaguar…yeah. If you're in a group and you make it together, then everyone deserves something. Especially twenty-odd years after the fact. It just seems churlish for a writer to refuse to have their music used on an advert and so I figured out, only advertise the things you think are cool. That's why we dissed Coors and Miller. We've turned down loads of money. Millions over the years. But sometimes you have to earn a bit, so everybody gets some.
Was it a collective decision to go with the ad?
Yeah, like everything is. Everything that The Clash are asked to do, we have a voting system - one man, one vote. Everything we do is still a democratic decision. If there's a split we have an aggressive discourse! There was once this whisky called Ballentine's. Pablo got on it in Spain. Now, I'm not a whisky drinker, I prefer brandy, but Pab's was going 'this stuff is really good'. It stuck in my head that he was raving about this. A couple of years later it came through that Ballentine wanted to use Should I Stay or Should I Go and we were all for it really. I was calling up Mick and he was going 'No, I can't condone the advertising of alcohol' and I said 'get out of it, this stuff is really good! Pablo's raving about it man' But, because it's more his tune, we did give a casting vote to him. Like to me, for London Calling. So Ballentine was nixed out. It was a good product.
Did you have the same discussions around the time of the Levi's ad?
Yeah, but we were all wearing Levi's and I still am. And yeah, you've got to spread it around the group. It's no use being holier than thou.
There's no feelings of compromise, doing this?
Well, putting your music to an advert is a compromise. But a good advert with cool music can turn on a lot of people. I know that when I'm watching TV and you get a good ad, it's an up.
The Levi's ones were cutting edge, with superb music.
Yeah they were great and they were ups. People enjoyed them and they were fun, and smart. It's a tough question, but I think you need to go between two extremes and try to walk a creative path.
We were getting e-mails saying it was a dubious thing to be doing.
Yeah, well you'll always get that. They should realise that we didn't sell loads of records back then.
How are sales now?
It's totally shit. I think nobody's selling records anymore. Well, certainly not us. There's a couple of factors that mean we really ought to quit. One is downloading off the internet. Why pay for something when you can get it for free? The other is these CDR burners. 'Hey, you like that record, I'll burn you a copy'. As soon as some guy gets that kit, he wants to show it off. You go round his pad, hear a good record and he'll offer to burn you a copy. So, you've got two avenues where you can get something for free. It's human nature and that's a really big problem, if you're a kind of pond-scraping group like us. You know, every sale counts for us, because we're trying to break even on every record. If not, you're out, you're off the board. So you need to break even to continue with your 'Go chip'. If you can't go again, well it's tough, it's over. A lot of us are really only one trick ponies. This is all we can do, and I think the only moral thing to do would be to only download gigantic groups, because they won't be hurt. I think if you're copying, or downloading small or independent groups, you're really hurting them.
Hasn't copying always existed though Joe? You remember the old vinyl, inner sleeves used to have the cassette and cross-bones logo with the slogan 'home recording is killing music'.
But you can now make a perfect replica. I personally would not download or burn a group that has to count every sale.
That's why the version of 1969 available as a download from Strummersite is incomplete.
Yeah, good.
Do you spend much time on the internet?
Luce, my wife, can do it, so I sort of peak over her shoulder. It can't be that difficult can it? How many buttons do you have to press?
Not too many!
How many? How long have you been into it?
Well since about '95, but things have changed an awful lot. I was reading recently about the degree of state censorship of the net in China. They can dictate what you have access to.
Typical. They wouldn't let that go free, they're too frightened. The ruling class wouldn't allow that.
It just shows how scared of information and education some regimes are.
How do they limit it? I wonder how long they can keep it controlled like that. Do you think they can police it to that extent here?
I think something's been created that they don't really know how to control.

So what's keeping you going still Joe?
Mackerel and rice. Enthusiasm. Cynicism can age a person. It's a negative energy. It can drain your energy supply. If you're enthusiastic about things…it's about sensing the possibilities. People who are cynical can't see any possibility in anything. Like a creative idea or something that excites you. You've got to be able to keep seeing the possibilities, having new ideas. I love those conversations where someone goes 'you know what someone should invent…' and you all come up with something really stupid. I like talking about how things should be. I hate listening to someone's boring anecdotes. OK, if they're pithy and have a good punchline and they're not too long. These could be great moments, why waste them? The possibilities are there. You have to bludgeon your way out of the rut.
There's an awful lot of people telling you to stay in the rut, as you're trying to get out of it - 'This is the way it should be, the way it's always been and this is the way it's always gonna be'. It does take confidence and a bit of push to get out there, in any walk of life.
Think of Noel Gallagher. He's got all the pressures in the world on him. Oasis have a certain sound. I often feel for him because he can't really veer off and do something really weird. He feels for the Oasis fans and they like their Oasis the way it is. In a way he's more boxed in because of his massive sales. He knows that he can't veer off.
It takes foresight and a bit of bravery to break into new territory, doesn't it? Sometimes people love you for doing it, and sometimes they just think you're an arsehole.
Don't forget the pressure he's got we can't even imagine. Imagine it for the record company. They're making money the way it is and if he suddenly went clog dancing, there'd be total dismay. I feel for him because he's got all that massive following and it's weighing on your neck.
Haven't you felt that weight in the past?
No, because we moved so fast. We didn't have massive record sales. We were outlaws. No one could control us. we just drove it where we wanted to.
That's been your philosophy all along, to stay one step ahead of the game. Is that right?
Well, that would have been ideal, but we didn't have his pressure. It's a lot of pressure…I'm telling you.
But quite stultifying? In terms of ability and room to explore new directions.
Exactly, exactly.
And ultimately, probably self-destructive?
Well it's not a pretty place to be. We're lucky in a way that we're free. In a way we're in the best position of all. In fact there's very few groups these days that are free.

Joe thanks for your time. Good luck for the tour.
Yeah, say Hi to everyone out there. We'll be bringing it all back home soon.