Strummer praises The Pogues’ originality and spirit, admires Shane MacGowan’s songwriting, and namechecks every key band member for their unique musicianship.

References Straight to Hell and Alex Cox and how he got toegther with The Pogues, replacing Phil Cevron and tours of America and Canada.

Some of the interview segments below are extracted from the the Pogues official release, "Live at the Town & Country Club" DVD. More details here.

Joe Strummer: To me, they're one of the few groups saying anything or doing anything in this dreadful time, the drivel in the charts, you know. For them to have got up there with Fairytale is just such good news. It's almost worth forming another group.

[Straight to Hell snippet]

Joe Strummer: And of course, the ninth Pogue, there must be a conglomeration of Kirsty MacColl, myself, Mary Coughlin, and whoever, Steve Earle, you know, whoever comes up with them. There's always a room for a ninth Pogue. And I'm glad to be a fraction of that ninth.

A Pogue: I was called John of Sid and Nancy, and then we first met you like.

Joe Strummer: Sid and Nancy, yeah.

A Pogue: Yeah, it was around then. Then we all worked together on Straight to Hell with Alex Cox.

Joe Strummer: The greatest film ever made.

A Pogue: Yeah. Go and see it while it's still on.

[Straight to Hell snippet]

JA Pogue: When we went to America on the last tour, Philip Chevron was ill. So Joe already gallantly stood in for us, or stood in for Philip. And he still comes and plays with us now. He keeps his hand in.

[Plays clip of laughter from Straight to Hell]

[Plays London Calling clip]

Joe Strummer: In fact, it's a long time since I've played on stage, and I don't think I could have got on one without a band like The Pogues kind of egging me on with them. They're inspiring, that's what I'm trying to say. Completely inspiring. And there's not a lot out there that is.

Joe Strummer: You know, I've been really driven back away from rock and roll because of all the idiots that have taken over.

-----

Joe Strummer: I went to a cafe and I took out a bit of paper and I divided it into eight squares here. And I ... Because I spent a lot of time on the side of the stage this week watching the boys, you know? Although The Pogues supported The Clash in 1984 in the Brixton Academy, I didn't really know them so well. And I've only really got to know them musically since Darryl has taken over the bass from Cot. And, like, to me, you know, Darryl... Darryl is there with Jim Finer, like, anchoring the whole thing down. Like, nothing panics Darryl.

I started to look at Jim Finer, you know? And I thought, like, Jim... He'll kick me for saying this, but he's the Bill Wyman of this group. Without him, they're all going to float away into the air. When I get a group together, I'm definitely going to cover If I Should Fall From Grace With God, because playing that number in America... I just have to restrain myself from rushing on stage. It's not the playing of it I want to join in on, it's the singing of it, you know.

Strummer praises The Pogues’ originality and spirit, admires Shane MacGowan’s songwriting, and namechecks every key band member for their unique musicianship.

[Plays clip of laughter If I Should Fall From Grace With God]

Joe Strummer: Spider, he'll never be short of a word. I've heard he used to be a used car salesman and I fully believe it. And I heard that he never managed to even sell one car. I can fully believe that as well. But Spider here has a great wit, which is really the personality of the band. That brings me on to the visionary, the poet of the band, Shane MacGowan, who I think is one of the finest writers of the century. And for so long, people thought they were drunken rival. They just got no idea how great he is.

And then I was thinking about, you know, who's doing the work? Because in every group, I always think back to my own group, The Clash, you know. To me, like, the rhythm was bashed out by me and Topper. And, like, I was looking at the Pogues, and I was thinking, you know... It's um, James Fearnley, you know, now he's the one such energy, what a showman, you know. He's like the showman of the accordion. You never see someone using that accordion like, you know, Flaco Jimenez could see that, he'd just die, because like, I've never seen anyone jumping and throwing that accordion around, you know. And James always comes off soaked in sweat.

And also Andrew Rankin, what they call the clobberer. And I think that's a bad name for him, because he's not clobbering anymore. You know, he's got great feel.

[Shane McGowan on stage, clip, "This one's called ......"]

Joe Strummer: I mean, I'm a rhythm guitar player, and there are few rhythm guitar players in this world anymore, because a lot of them are lead guitars, you know. But rhythm guitar player, Chevron is like really the tops, because I had to go to America and Canada and try and cover his parts, you know. And I just couldn't get that double time, you know, it goes into like Irish triple time beats, you know, like at the end of Turkish Song of the Damned.

[Plays 1 sec clip]

Joe Strummer: That brings me on to Mr. T. Woods, who I see as, he's like the master musician of the band. I don't know what groups he's been in and out of, but he's run the whole gamut of rock and roll. I like the story he tells me when he used to go, "one of those days, you know, I had a white horse's head on my head when I go on stage", and that makes me think like, wow, we've all been through a few trips, you know, in rock and roll. And like, if T. Woods can hang in all the way from going home with a white horse's head on his head till now, you know, then the rest of us are just babies.