The Stranglers - Biography
By Scott Feemster
The Stranglers are one of the longest-living and most enigmatic bands to emerge from the initial punk rock explosion in Britain in the late 70’s. They never really called themselves punk, yet were lumped in with the punk scene because of their dark imagery and their habit of playing with many of the punk bands. The Stranglers prominently featured keyboards at a time when the instrument was probably at its lowest in popularity. They never had a classifiable “sound,” yet their songs are almost instantly recognizable to anyone who has ever heard them. The Stranglers have had hit songs, yet never went out of their way to pander to any certain audience. In short, The Stranglers deserve to be recognized as one of the great English bands that came out of late 70's punk.
The four original members of The Stranglers were all musicians before the band formed, and all came from wildly different musical and personal backgrounds. Vocalist and guitarist Hugh Cornwell was a biochemistry graduate from Bristol University who also played in blues and pub-rock bands. While studying in Sweden, he formed a band called Johnny Sox and, unhappy with his career in research, convinced his bandmates that if they really wanted to make a go of the band, they needed to move to London. The band arrived, minus their drummer, in 1974. Drummer Jet Black (real name Brian Duffy) was a successful businessman in the county of Surrey, Southwest of London, who, at one time or another had owned a domestic beer brewing company, a fleet of ice cream vans, and, by 1974, a retail Off License store (that is, a beer and liquor store). Unhappy with his life as a businessman, Black took up drums again and starting gigging in the pub-rock circuit, looking for musicians he could form a professional band with. After answering an ad in a British music paper, he met up with Cornwell's drummerless Johnny Sox. Jet sat in with the band during a rehearsal, and was intrigued enough to offer them a flat above his liquor store if they were determined to become serious as a band. As it turned out, Cornwell was but the other band members were not.
Jean-Jacques (or JJ as he is commonly referred to) Burnel was a young classical guitarist who had performed with symphony orchestras, but at the time of his chance meeting with Black and Cornwell, was looking forward to traveling to Japan to study one of his other great passions, karate. Cornwell and Black liked Burnel, and Burnel was a songwriter who had always harbored a secret ambition to play bass, though he had never actually played one. Cornwell, fortunately, happened to have a bass, so Burnel was in. The band was temporarily completed by a friend of Cornwell's from Sweden, guitarist/keyboardist Hans Warmling. The new band started playing around the Guildford area of Surrey, using a variety of names, eventually settling on The Guildford Stranglers. The name of the band itself reflected the dark humor the band would become known for. Demo tapes were recorded, but they didn't make any headway, and Warmling quit the band and returned to Sweden. The band placed an ad in a British music paper in 1975, looking for another guitarist or keyboardist, and keyboardist Dave Greenfield answered the ad. Greenfield was a veteran of many groups, having even toured military bases in Germany. The other Stranglers instantly liked Greenfield's style, so he was brought on as a member.
The band shortened their name to The Stranglers and started aggressively practicing and playing the London pub circuit, eventually signing a recording contract with United Artists in late 1976. The band had already developed a rough-and-ready sound that had more to do with garage bands of the late 60's than with most of what was going on in the middle 70's, and because of this and their short hair and penchant for wearing black on stage, they attracted a younger crowd that were also attending gigs by newly formed punk bands. The band were also tapped to be the opening act for the first British tours by two iconic American proto-punk artists, The Ramones and Patti Smith, cementing the perception that The Stranglers were a punk band as well.
The quartet capitalized on their newfound notoriety and quickly entered the studio to record their first album, Rattus Norvegicus (United Artists) in 1977. The album was recorded and mixed in one week, and a double A-side single was released with the songs “Peaches” and “Grip” on either side. Both songs were a hit so the band quickly returned to the studio to record more material and added some leftovers from their first sessions to produce a follow up album, No More Heroes (United Artists), also released in 1977. The Stranglers scored two more big British hits with the singles “No More Heroes” and “Something Better Change,” both off of the album. Within 18 months of releasing their debut album, The Stranglers were ready to release their third album, Black And White (1978 United Artists). This album showed the band moving away from the garage punk sound of the first two albums, though it continued with the darkly absurd lyrical slant the band was becoming known for. The band was occasionally branded as being misogynistic and crude, but in hindsight, some critics seemed to have missed the underlying satirical edge the band maintained.
The first three Stranglers albums and a string of hit singles assured them a following, and the band used the chance to produce a fourth album that was more layered and nuanced than the first three, 1979's The Raven (United Artists). The band’s lyrical obsessions went farther afield, too, this time taking in subjects as diverse as Nordic folklore, heroin addiction, genetic engineering and extraterrestrial visitors. The track dealing with extraterrestrial visitors, “Meninblack,” led to The Stranglers’ next project, a concept album released in 1981 called The Gospel According To The Meninblack (Liberty/EMI). The album didn't do well with either the critics or their fans, possibly due to the subject matter. The band, however, continued to tour and went back in the studio to record-- true to their obstinate nature-- another concept album. La Folie (Liberty/EMI) was released in 1981, and the concept subject this time was love. The album appeared at first to stall in the charts, as had their previous effort, until the single “Golden Brown” was released, a beautifully crooned, harpsichord-driven paean to heroin, desertification, imperialism or toast, depending on which band member was asked. The single went on to become one of EMI's biggest singles for many years to come. The Stranglers were now at the end of their contract with EMI, and were contractually obligated to deliver a greatest hits collection titled simply, The Collection 1977-1982 (1982 Liberty?EMI). The band recorded a new single for the collection, “Strange Little Girl,” which, in a characteristic ironic bent, was an old song that had been offered on a rejected demo tape that had been submitted to EMI years before. The Stranglers had the last laugh when the song climbed the British charts.
The band next signed with Epic Records and released their first album with their new record company, Feline, in 1983. The album was embraced by critics but fell short of the sales of their previous album. The band continued to expand their sound, using acoustic guitars and electronic drums for the first time. By 1984, and the next album, Aural Sculpture (Epic), the band featured a 3-piece horn section, which heightened the rhythm and blues feel the band always had. The band featured the horn section on record and in live performance until 1990. The next Stranglers album came in 1986, a sort-of concept album mostly concerning environmental issues entitled Dreamtime (Epic). The album also marked the first time the band had used pedal steel guitar on any of their songs. During the course of The Strangler's contract with Epic, one of the label and band's biggest hopes was to break through to the larger American audience, something The Stranglers had largely failed to accomplish. The band toured the US regularly and by 1990's release 10 (Epic), the band seemed to be poised to jump from their cult status to something bigger. They released a cover of ? and the Mysterians’ 60's garage hit “96 Tears,” hoping to crack the U.S. charts, but nothing happened and the album stalled. After the band failed to get support for a tour in America, Hugh Cornwell decided he had tried as best he could with the band and couldn't see it growing any more musically, so he opted to leave. Cornwell continued on with a solo career, releasing several albums that were moderately successful in the UK throughout the 90's and 2000's. The “classic” line-up of The Stranglers was no more, but the remaining trio decided to carry on.
Burnel, Black and Greenfield recruited old friend and ex-Vibrator member John Ellis to fill in the guitar slot, and both he and Burnel briefly took over vocal duties until the band found a new singer, Paul Roberts. The newly revived line-up ditched the horn section and returned to a harder, less produced sound hearkening back to their beginnings. The band members also founded their own label, Psycho. The band recorded four albums together throughout the 90's: 1992's Stranglers In The Night (Psycho), 1995's About Time (When), 1997's Written In Red (When) and 1998's Coup de Grace (Eagle). Ellis left the band in 2000, and the remaining members immediately drafted another old friend, guitarist Baz Warne. The new version of The Stranglers recorded one album together, Norfolk Coast (2004 EMI) before Roberts departed amicably in 2006. The group was back to a stripped-down four piece, with Warne and Burnel splitting vocal duties. The new line-up recorded the 2006 album Suite XVI (EMI) together, continuing on with the stripped-down sound featured on Norfolk Coast. With the band now over 30 years old, The Stranglers show no signs of stopping, and continue to be an enigmatic presence in the music world.