THE MOJO INTERVIEW
Keeping The Stranglers afloat, defying punks and prudes, despite losing “bitter” Hugh, “genius” Dave and a year on heroin, has taught Jean-Jacques Burnel a thing or two about rock’n’roll: “It’s not dyeing your hair with Just For Men.”
Interview by JAMES McNAIR • Portrait by COLIN HAWKINS
CHATTING TO MOJO OVER A FISH RESTAUrant lunch in the port of St-Laurent-du-Var, Nice, Jean-Jacques Burnel is recalling a recent TV chat with the UK’s Channel 5 News. “You’re the only original one still in The Stranglers,” noted the show’s hapless anchor. “Keep in touch with the others?” Burnel’s riposte sidestepped his long, ongoing estrangement from former frontman Hugh Cornwell, but not late bandmates Jet Black and Dave Greenfield: “I said, Yes, but only through a medium.”
Irreverence being a keynote of his half-century with the band, such black humour figures. In his 2023 memoir Strangler In The Light, Burnel’s co-writer Anthony Boile characterised The Stranglers’ ethos as a blend of “brutality and sophistication, crudeness and intelligence”. Burnel – their belligerent karate ace and co-provocateur
Colin Hawkins, Gisela Schober/Getty
– seemed to relish a bit of aggro with rival punk acts and journalists. And when the group was accused of misogyny or jumping on the punk bandwagon, physical altercations often ensued.
Happily, today’s encounter has a rather different tenor to that which, in 1978, ended with writer Philippe Manoeuvre gaffer-taped to the Eiffel Tower 400 feet up after “bugging” Burnel. Now 73, bellicosity in check, the well-preserved bassist – “I can still kick arse; I’m not decrepit yet” – chats about the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region’s rosé vineyards, and enthuses about Strangebird, the local blues covers band he moonlights in with The Yardbirds’ Jim McCarty. “It might seem like overkill, but I still love playing live,” he says, sipping a vin blanc with crème de cassis. “You’re imbibing it all, getting a hero’s welcome.”
Purveyor of Peaches’ meaty, over-driven bass hook – and co-writer of such indelible punk classics as Something Better Change – Burnel brought Gallic cultural kudos to The Stranglers, not just menace and good looks. Born in Notting Hill to French restaurateur parents from Normandy, he’d studied classical guitar and processed the pop nous of yé-yé, the reach of Debussy, and the lyrical depravity of Serge Gainsbourg before hooking up with his Stranglers bandmates in Guildford, Surrey in 1974.
Cross-pollinated with drummer Jet Black’s jazz background, Dave Greenfield’s prog-rock inspired keyboard arpeggios and Cornwell’s love of The Velvet Underground and The Doors, such influences primed The Stranglers – initially hard-gigging pub rockers alongside Dr Feelgood et al – for longevity. With 1977’s Rattus Norvegicus, they emerged as one of punk’s most potent, idiosyncratic and commercially successful acts, Cornwell – and occasionally Burnel – handling vocals.
Today, ahead of Stranglers dates in Australia and New Zealand and a UK tour, Burnel clearly relishes being the band’s de facto custodian/ figurehead, yet he’s quick to point out that current singer/guitarist Baz Warne has ably fronted The Stranglers for 18 years. “There won’t be a Stranglers after I’m gone, though,” he adds. “It’s been discussed.”
You’re a
Shihan
, or chief instructor in karate, black belt 7th dan. Does that explain your durability?
I think so. Even this morning I was doing weighted squats and kicks, but the milometer is accumulating.
When did you stop competing?
I stopped tournaments at 41, but I should have stopped much earlier. My last one was here in Nice, actually. I met the French champion – who was Number 2 in the world at the time – and he knocked me out live on Eurosport. You can look it up.