Paul Rambali, 1978
Cult Figure Cuts Clash To Suit American Dream Machine
Paul Rambali, NME, 25 February 1978

SANDY PEARLMAN IS A BRISK and lively talker. He can probably offer an animated dissertation of any number of irregular topics, ranging from advancements in the field of archeological exploration to the state of play with those past masters of base metal transmutation the Blue Oyster Cult, for whom he is co-producer, lyricist and creative consultant.

But right now he's talking about The Clash. Because, in a development that's bound to add further armour to the Clash sell-out partisans, Sandy Pearlman is producing the second Clash album.

Pearlman's credentials, to those familiar with the rarefied strata of cerebral hard rock in which he works, are above doubt. He excels at combining guitar maelstroms with sublime wide-screen atmospherics, most readily found on the nearest BOC album, but available in more experimental permutations with The Dictators and Pavlov's Dog – the latter taking a deliberately extreme, lushly romantic avenue, and the former being the first professional garage record ever made, as Pearlman puts it.

Objectively, though, Sandy Pearlman's reputation is that of an accomplished (record company speak for someone who has made records that get in the charts) American hard rock producer. His involvement with The Clash raises some interesting questions.

Like, for starters, who's so bored with the USA now?

And to follow: with The Sex Pistols defunct, has it escaped CBS' notice there is probably a large American market, fostered by the media barrage for punk in the past year, that is ready and waiting for the first bona-fide ambassadors to come up wit a readily palatable sound?

Pearlman can't answer those questions, of course. But, to put it bluntly, does he think he was asked to do it in order to bring The Clash sound more in line with what's acceptable to American ears?

"Yes. That' exactly why I was asked to do it," he declares with admirable honesty. "What The Clash are going to have is a record that sounds better than they've ever sounded live.

"When I see them play here and do so well they're being accepted on the basis of stage presence, their material, and their performance, but not on the basis of what they sound like. Their sound, not the way they play or execute their material, but just their sound-the-consequence of what they're playing out of is not good enough to succeed in the States."

Surely that thick, gruff, and to some impenetrable Clash sound is essential to the make-up of the band? If you can't relate to it, then you were never meant to relate it.

"The first time I heard The Clash album I couldn't hear anything." he admits. "By the third time I'd gotten past my high technology prejudice and realised the sound was just right for what they're doing. In fact it's almost faultless, it's the best punk record ever made – and I've made two of them with The Dictators.

"But in America there are a lot of people who will not listen to lyrics at all. I know this will disappoint Joe, but al they listen to is patterns; rhythm patterns and so on. Unfortunately, you can sing about any sort of moronic thing and it will not be noticed.

"Giving them a chance to sound good, though, doesn't mean they're going to compromise. This record will not sound like The Bee Gees...

"I don't think The Clash is a particular thing," he adds enigmatically. "I wouldn't care if they made two million dollars a year – which they won't – because that would have nothing to do with the fact that at this moment there is a real revolutionary, anti-authoritarian, subversive consciousness in those songs.

"All I care about is the effect – that you generate an effect and an impression to the audience. I don't care how that's done. So...I think The Clash will be able to make their point.

To set the record straight, the connection came about through CBS A&R man Dan Loggins sending a short-list of their recent signings to see if Pearlman would be interested in producing any of them. His interest kindled by the album, he opted straightaway for a crack at The Clash.

Pearlman reassures us that The Clash album won't sound like the sine qua non of high technology production, unlike the two recent Blue Oyster Cult albums. Which brings us round to the subject of Cult operations.

He says that the reason for his reduced contribution to the Cult song pool on Agents Of Fortune and Spectres was merely a matter of him being too busy with other projects and not, as was rumoured, Eric Bloom's refusal to sing Pearlman lyrics because of their near total lack of standard rhyme and meter construction.

Talk of Cult disenchantment with the Pearlman/Krugman tag team production style is also unfounded. The venture into areas of aural foreplay on the above albums was, like all Cult matters, a case of communal decision.

"With Spectres" he admits, "there was a deliberate attempt to make an album that would sell three million units, and beat Fleetwood Mac. I can honestly say I would like to sell three million units. I'm not sure I'd like the psychic burden of being Fleetwood Mac though."

Pearlman's involvement with BOC runs deep; right back to their inception at Stonybrook University. It was he who suggested the original name, Soft White Underbelly, and through his acquaintance with through his acquaintance with Elektra's Jac Holzman – Pearlman was then a part-time writer for Crawdaddy and was once asked to produce The Stooges' first album – got them their first record contract with Elektra.

He is also partly responsible for the hard-core mutant symbolism that pervaded and eventually plagued the Cult.

"In 1970 everyone in this band was walking around in leather and black boots. Whether they looked like axe murderers or not, that was the way they dressed.

"But, yes, I probably had most of the ideas of the presentation of the band to the public."

These ideas, and also his fascinating lyric conjuring, sprang largely from what he calls the enormous stock of outré knowledge that he carries about with him.

"I've always been interest in things like technology, science fiction, horror literature, obscure wars; junk information, romantic information."

As will be obvious to anyone who has deciphered his lyrics, he is also keen on arcane history.

"My single favourite year is 1905, because it was a watershed year. The first Russian urban revolution, the defeat of Russia in the Russo-Japanese war – which was the first time a European power had been defeated from outside – the radical spread of industrialisation all over the world... Einstein formulated the theory of relativity in 1905, and I could go on.

"I'm interested in change: how tow ears come upon each other, the old and the new, and there is then either a dynamic or a conflict generated. Or else defective interfaces, where they'd never mesh, and one culture or both cultures, or one tendency or both tendencies, are subsumed in conflict."

Like The Clash coming up against the established American rock order. Interface or defective interface?

© Paul Rambali, 1978