“Seeing Wilko and Dr Feelgood was a real lightbulb moment,” he recalls. While Genesis and Pink Floyd were reaching for outer space, Gill was listening to The Best of Muddy Waters and dreaming of emulating the style of Canvey Island’s finest duck walker, Wilko Johnson. The 59-year-old’s minimalist, often abrasive style was forged in an era when convention dictated more was always more. Vincent – the latter recently proclaimed him as her favourite guitar player ever along with Marc Ribot. Gill’s riffing would echo down the years and inspire everyone from The Edge to Franz Ferdinand, Bloc Party and St. When combined with the chant-like vocals of Jon King, whose lyrics ranged from Marxist critique to social realism, it was an intoxicating mix.Īlong with contemporaries such as Public Image Ltd, Gang of Four incorporated funk and dub influences at a time when guitar music was rapidly evolving from the snarling three-chord thrash of punk. They pioneered a stripped-back sound built on robotic drums and bass, like a Krautrock-inspired Chic, over which Andy Gill’s guitar would chop in and out with bursts of freeform noise. Gang of Four would go on to release seven albums over the next three decades. That timely intervention led to the 1978 release of a stellar EP, Damaged Goods, which won the group a deal with EMI. “I didn’t want to have a situation where I’ve gone, 'okay, goodbye to the old singer… and hello to the new singer,’ ta da!” – Andy Gill “It was Andy Corrigan, who was the singer in The Mekons at the time, who told Bob: ‘You shouldn’t be mucking about with The Mekons – it’s the Gang of Four you want.’” “We were all feeling a bit passed over,” he laughs. With a much-anticipated new album, What Happens Next, out on 2 March, 36 years after the group’s debut, it’s hard to believe they thought their chance had once gone. It’s a story that Andy Gill recalls fondly when The Skinny calls him one freezing Sunday evening in January. The band was The Mekons, still touring to this day, and then good pals with Gang of Four. Some 20 years before, as a jobbing sound engineer, Best had recommended a group of students at the University of Leeds to Bob Last, founder of Fast Product. It was Best who commercialised the cloning technology responsible for Dolly in the late '90s, making millions for The Roslin Institute that pioneered the process.
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