MAKING OF THE ALBUM: The Clash – London Calling

Having returned from their Pearl Harbour Tour in the US in early 1979 The Clash decided to fire their manager, Bernie Rhodes, and sign with Blackhill Management. With Rhodes out of the picture, the band were forced to relocate to a new practice room and soon found themselves at an isolated location called Vanilla Studios in Pimlico, where they began to rehearse material for their third album. Preparations were pleasant for all four members, who enjoyed the solitude of the studio as the band were able to bond and work on new material. Even as these sessions commenced in May, the band released an EP entitled The Cost of Living, which would feature a cover of the Sonny Curtis and The Crickets 1959 classic I Fought the Law as the lead track.

Rehearsals lasted at Vanilla for three months, which allowed the band to lay out the entire album in demo format, in between playing football. The task of producing the album fell to Guy Stevens, who had built a reputation during the 1960s and 1970s through his work with artists such as The Who and The Rolling Stones. Sesssions for the album commenced in August 1979 at Wessex Sound Studios, where Sex Pistols had recorded their notorious debut, Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols, two years earlier. Moods were high and the band felt positive about the songs that they had written. Stevens, an understanding and supportive producer, proved to be the ideal collaborator and allowed The Clash to experiment with various different styles, including reggae and ska.

Most of the lyrics to the album would be written by frontman Joe Strummer, although guitarist Mick Jones would also have an influence on many of the songs. For the title track, London Calling, Jones instructed Strummer to rewrite the lyrics to the verses as he felt they were not suitable, whilst Clampdown resulted from a song that Jones had composed called Working and Awaiting, which was at first reworked into another track called Fo Fuck’s Sake. Spanish Bombs was inspired during a taxi ride back from Wessex in the early hours of the morning, when Strummer was talking to his girlfriend, Gaby Salter, about bombings in Spain. Despite Stevens’ somewhat unconventional approach to working, sessions ran relatively smoothly and the majority of the incidents that took place during the recording of the album would amuse the band.

As soon as the sessions were wrapped, The Clash returned to the United States to perform a series of shows throughout September and October, which saw them touring with Bo Diddley, Dead Kennedys and former New York Dolls frontman David Johansen. Meanwhile, the album was mixed by Bill Price (who had co-produced the Sex Pistols record), under the supervision of Stevens. The front cover of the album, which saw bassist Paul Simonon smashing his guitar on the ground, was taken by photographer Pennie Smith during a show at the Palladium in New York after the band had returned to tour America. London Calling was released in the United Kingdom on December 14th 1979 (and the following month in the US) and received rave reviews from the press, who praised The Clash for the mature direction that the band had taken. At the band’s insistence, the record was sold at normal price, despite being a double album and featuring nineteen songs. Three of the tracks were released as singles and all performed moderately well, with both London Calling and Train in Vain amongst their most famous work.