It’s not often you find yourself at a launch party for a new line of finely engineered watches and look up from the trays of canapés to see none other than Paul Simonon, the legendary bass player of the Clash, manning the turntables. But that’s exactly what happened last night as the eminently British watchmaker Bremont took over the stunning World of McIntosh Townhouse on Lafayette Street (it’s where Beyoncé shot the video for “Halo”), set Tom Parker Bowles (the food writer and son of the Duchess of Cornwall) to providing the comestibles, and filled the place with everyone from punk couturier Jimmy Webb to Sienna Miller. We grabbed Simonon before he took over the illuminated McIntosh MT5 (dubbed "the turntable of the gods," which seemed apt) and pulled him into a spare library for a few questions.
I’m dying to know how Paul Simonon ends up deejaying a watch party in downtown Manhattan.
Well, a friend of mine helped organize the events in London and here, and they wanted somebody to play some tunes, and so he suggested me. He thought it would be interesting because, in a way, the watches are quite traditional, and I suppose what I play is sort of traditional—I only play vinyl rather than use [inaudible].
Wait—did you just say beat sticks?
No, USB sticks. Ah—beat sticks! [Laughs.] You’ve just invented something, baby! There you go—now we just have to start it. Beat sticks—what, you haven’t got one?
Do you have one of Bremont’s watches?
I’ve got one now. It’s funny—about two weeks ago, the watch I did have stopped working. And then suddenly my friend asked if I’d like to do this DJ thing for Bremont, and I said, “Yeah, sure, tell me more.” And he said, “Well, they’ll give you a watch.” And I said, “Well, that’s really handy, because I need a watch.” Strictly on practical terms, it’s worked out quite nicely so far.
Do you deejay often?
I live in London, and there’s a place I deejay once a month. It’s like a social club, like I guess when you’re a kid you’d go to a pub or someplace. It’s called the House of St. Barnabas—and actually, Dickens used to sit in the garden. Apparently he wrote part of A Tale of Two Cities there. So it’s got a bit of history. And it’s a homeless charity thing—a lot of people who work there haven’t really been schooled in the etiquette of serving people, so they can be a bit rough and ready. They’ve basically just come off the street and are being introduced back into society. We’re the job, so to speak.
What about the rumors I keep hearing about The Good, the Bad & the Queen [the part-time band Simonon has with Damon Albarn (of Blur and Gorillaz), Simon Tong (of the Verve and Gorillaz), and Tony Allen (Fela Kuti’s drummer, the man Brian Eno called “perhaps the greatest drummer who ever lived”) recorded one incredible record in 2007] recording another album?
Yes—we’re going in the studio to finish something we started last year. And this time we’ve got [David Bowie’s legendary producer] Tony Visconti on board, and we’ve got the month of May booked out totally. Damon just said to me last year, “Look—if we don’t get a producer, we’re going to end up with another 10 years with, like, another 50 songs.” So we’re just going to finish the record and hopefully it’ll be out round about September or October.
Did you see the V&A’s big David Bowie exhibition (which is now at the Brooklyn Museum)?
I’ve seen it, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I thought it was amazing.
Yeah. The only thing I thought was interesting is that he did a double album for the Deram label—it had tunes like “The London Boys” and “The Maid of Bond Street”—and this period was sort of omitted from the show.
That’s true . . .
Yeah, it seemed a bit odd.
Wait—I saw at least one artifact relating to “The Laughing Gnome.”
But that’s not much—and there’s quite a lot of interesting things that he did in that period and before then. He was in a band called the Konrads, and another band called the Manish Boys, and I don’t recall that mentioned. But it’s a great show.
Just one Clash question: With a drummer as amazing as Topper Headon—the man who (Give ’Em Enough Rope producer) Sandy Pearlman called “the human drum machine”—what was it like from your perspective to round out that rhythm section?
It made my job easy. I could even stop playing if I’d wanted and the drums would just cover everything. At the end of the day—and it’s a good point that [Joe] Strummer always made—a band is only as good as its drummer. Topper was the glue, really.
But you two are right there in the back line doing—
Well, I didn’t really want that job—to be the bass player. My knowledge of bass players was that they always stood in the background and they didn’t move around—I’m thinking of Bill Wyman (of the Rolling Stones) or John Entwistle (of the Who), people like that. I didn’t want that job—I wanted Pete Townshend’s job! I wanted to be the one up front who jumps up and down and throws his arms around. But somebody once said that when they saw the Clash play, it was like watching three Eddie Cochrans onstage—so that’s always quite a nice thing to hear.
Let’s talk about prison. A few years ago you were doing some work—undercover, as I understand it—with Greenpeace and found yourself in the clink, yes?
Yeah, I did, yeah.
What happened?
Well, the thing is, it was quite interesting, because I’d just finished a Gorillaz tour with Damon, and that’s when we all had a nautical look—Damon and Jamie (Hewlett, the artist and cofounder of Gorillaz) asked me to come up with a concept for what we wear onstage, so I said, well, we’re going to be U-boat commanders. And then after that finished, I met with this friend who runs actions for Greenpeace, and I’d been pestering him for years about getting involved, and he said, “Well, there’s this thing coming up—we’re going up into the Atlantic to try to track down this oil rig called the Leiv Eriksson, and when we find it, we’re going to storm it and ask them where their paperwork is [detailing how] they’re going to deal with an oil leak—because this paperwork wasn’t filed in their main office.” And as it turned out, I had the stuff from the Gorillaz tour with the striped tops, so it seemed quite apt on the boat. [Laughs.] And then once we did storm the rig and ask for the response plan, they said, “Well, if you don’t get off, we’re going to tell the police and they’ll come and arrest you for piracy.” Anyway, they came, and we got arrested, and we got put in prison—and it’s funny because I still had the striped tops, and they worked quite well in prison, too, in a fashion sense. Interesting continuity there.
You’ve always had this uncanny sense of style. Where did that come from?
I think that has a lot to do with my background, because where I grew up there was quite a strong West Indian community. It’s always been important for me, because in Great Britain at that period growing up, what you wore—that’s what your colors were or what tribe you belonged to. And that could cause fractious situations if you ran into a team of people that had different types of clothes. Also, I guess I’ve always thought that if you, say, got hit by a bus, it’s quite important that you’re dressed well—and that you’ve got clean underpants on.