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When he was ten, Jean-Jacques Burnel was beaten up on his way home by an older boy from a local secondary school. \u201cHe punched me again and again in front of my friends. He wasn\u2019t going to stop. He was kneeling on me telling me to give up. I said, \u2018No, no\u2019,\u201d the Stranglers bassist recalls. His \u2018crime\u2019 was to have French parents.<\/p>\n
When Burnel got home, his father Roger, a chef, put a cold steak on his bruises and told him, \u201cRight, that\u2019s it, you\u2019re going to box.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now 71 and a seventh dan blackbelt in Shidokan karate, Jean-Jacques, known as JJ, is an intriguing mix of apparent contradictions.<\/p>\n
This is a man who talks about Plato as knowledgeably as he does motorbikes. He\u2019s a trained classical guitarist who raves about Debussy but found fame in a notorious punk band; and who, despite calling himself \u201ca frog immigrant with a chip on his shoulder\u201d, was born in the rough end of Notting Hill and raised in Godalming, Surrey.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t feel at all French at all, I identified with the environment I was thrust into,\u201d he tells me. \u201cI was a Londoner, British. But I was brought down to earth by other kids identifying difference\u2026so I learnt to fight.\u201d<\/p>\n
Burnel speaks openly about his life in his new book, Strangler In The Light, packed with in-depth interviews conducted by French historian Anthony Boile. It includes dalliances with heroin and the Hell\u2019s Angels.<\/p>\n
Does it tell all? \u201cI answered the questions he asked,\u201d JJ replies with mischief in his voice. \u201cThere are probably a few things I didn\u2019t reveal, because he didn\u2019t ask me.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Stranglers, who celebrate their 50th anniversary next year, were outsiders even in punk rock. JJ single-handedly took on The Clash, who they outsold, and the Sex Pistols, who they outlasted, outside London club, Dingwalls in 1976 after opening for the Ramones.<\/p>\n
READ MORE: <\/strong> The Stranglers’ Dark Matters: King of the keys bows out on a high<\/strong><\/p>\n Both bands were \u201cexciting but fabricated, as manufactured as the Monkees, put together by their managers,\u201d he says, although he admits getting on with Joe Strummer and Pistols Cook and Jones.<\/p>\n In contrast, The Stranglers, who\u2019d been playing the gruelling pub circuit since their 1974 formation were \u201corganic\u201d. He says, \u201cWe were as punk as the Clash, they were just wusses.\u201d<\/p>\n Burnel also objected to punk\u2019s hypocritical anti-drug party-line \u2013 denying they used drugs while smoking marijuana and taking speed \u2013 and their avowed hatred of older bands.<\/p>\n \u201cOften revolutions declare a year zero \u2013 everything before is bad, anything after is great. It was all fake,\u201d says JJ.<\/p>\n The Stranglers\u2019 influences included the Doors, Captain Beefheart and jazz giant Miles Davis, which made their sound broader and richer. Their first gig, as the Guildford Stranglers, is widely thought to have been at the Star Inn in Guildford, although Burnel says it might have been a local youth centre. \u201cBack then pubs were the circuit, and it was a fantastic circuit to hone your abilities and learn how to front an audience unlike some punk shoe-gazers who had no idea.<\/p>\n \u201cWe were absolutely keen on getting gigs in pubs \u2013 you got \u00a325 a night, and your name in print in Melody Maker, Sounds and NME. But that was used against us like a prerogative term.\u201d<\/p>\n Burnel started learning classical guitar at 11. \u201cDad forced me to,\u201d he laughs but then he enthuses about seeing Segovia at the Festival Hall, John Williams at Dorking Town Hall and Julian Bream at Wigmore Hall.<\/p>\n Don’t miss… <\/strong> He also became hooked on the British blues boom. \u201cWhen I was 14 or 15 I started seeing bands like Chicken Shack and Fleetwood Mac play a pub on my doorstep in Godalming. You had to be over 16 to get into pubs, but the doormen realised I genuinely loved the music and let me slip in.<\/p>\n \u201cI saw Free when they were called the Black Cat Bones, Duster Bennett\u2026 What a privilege! Classical guitar and the blues boom \u2013 what serendipity!\u201d<\/p>\n By now he attended the Royal Grammar School in Guildford and worked weekends at his parents\u2019 French restaurant, La Chaumiere, in Godalming.<\/p>\n After reading history at Bradford university, Burnel was working as a van driver while saving up to go to Japan to pursue his karate black belt. He joined The Stranglers by accident after picking up a hitchhiker who was in a band called Johnny Sox with Hugh Cornwell and Jet Black. When founder Hans Warmling went home to Sweden, Hugh came knocking on JJ\u2019s door.<\/p>\n Adding Dave Greenfield on keyboards, they became the Guildford Stranglers, and then The Stranglers, whose platinum-selling 1977 debut album Rattus Norvegicus spawned three Top Ten hits, including Peaches and Something Better Change.<\/p>\n Golden Brown, their biggest smash, came five years later, despite record company opposition.<\/p>\n \u201cWe forced EMI\/Liberty to release it so it was a great moment when it won a Brit award. It was a vindication I suppose of our insistence.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Stranglers didn\u2019t fit into any marketing niche; our strength was our willingness to explore different sounds.\u201d<\/p>\n You can hear LSD influences on certain early songs. JJ even admits trying karate on it \u2013 \u201cthat was silly, thinking the punches looked beautiful\u2026until I got hit\u201d.<\/p>\n In 1979, Cornwell persuaded the band to take heroin for a year for artistic reasons, \u201cto what would happen to our music; Jet and Dave were sensible and quit after a couple of weeks, Hugh and I headed into a dark necromantic abyss.\u201d<\/p>\n He kicked it after a year through will-power. \u201cI don\u2019t have sympathy with junkies, if you want to get off it you will. Who wants to be dependent on anything?\u201d<\/p>\n
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