What happened was me and Charlie used to play in a band in Brighton, just for a laugh really ... Phil the manager was staying on my floor; Charlie and me left that other band; I decided to give up playing and was in this pub called the Eagle in Brighton, pissed out me head, and I met Mark when I trying to sell him my guitar. Mark knew John the violin player and we all just bumped into Simon on the road. We have another mandolin player before that called Alan but he's formed his own band now. . . (Alan) couldn't stand the pressure of touring - it was too much. He just decided he didn't want to be touring all the time.
Towards the end of last year, the Lev's released the twelve inch of dance remix of One Way. Which everyone unanimously agreed was crap...
Yeah, that was a bit of a mistake really. What happened with that one is that we really wanted to do a remix cos the single we'd had out before that we'd done a remix of Three Friends on it and we were all quite pleased with that becouse we all quite like dance music. We wanted to make some sort of crossover really, and we thought `Oh well, One Ways's like a really perfect song for that', but when we gave it to the remixer, and what we'd wanted him to do was something like what Jane's Addiction did with Been Caught Stealin (that's what we thought was gonna happen), and it came back originally as a version totally different to the one that's on the single...it was even worse than that. I'd just woken up in the morning and someone was going `What do you think of this remix?.' I thought he was taking the piss. I was straight on the phone to the record company going `You're not fucking releasing this . . . No way!' They said they needed a dance track within 12 hours so we gave that to someone to mix and that's what happened in 12 hours and it was out. It didn't really work and we probably won't do it again . . . Nothin really works unless we do it ourselves. `
With that same single `Our Price' labelled `One Way' as an `anthem for the people', Is that how the band see it? Is their music people music?
Yeah, if there wasn't such a horrible way of saying it. Anthem for the people though is a bit grim isn't it? I wouldn't be nearly so grand about it. I don't want to be held up in that kind of light, that kind of esteem.
We asked Jeremy about their new found fame, charting high, touring well etc.
Well it's wierd, I mean I still live in a squat in Brighton. None of us have changed at all like, for us it's been quite a natural thing, we haven't suddenly gone from playing the half-moon in North London to playing the Town and Country sort of thing. We did sell out the T & C three weeks in advance and apparently that's pretty good going, but to us that didn't really mean anything . . . We went `Ah well, it's another gig' - you know?
Does it feel good to have gotten this far without any real help from the general music press who are only now licking your arses to get interviews etc?
After we did the Astoria we had every major company in the country coming after us . . . that made me smile. The NME we terminated contact with, we don't send them anything anymore because they've just wound us up too much. Melody Maker are alright, we'll happily talk to them.
The so called Popular press meanwhile try to stick the Levellers into one of their neat little boxes and as such there have been frequent comparisons to the Waterboys, Wonderstuff and The Men they Couldn't Hang. We asked how they felt about this.
They used to bother me, but they don't really now. before we had our own identity it used to piss me off quite a lot because I thought people are reading this and judging us on it . . but I think now that our identity is sufficiently strong enough. It doesn't really bother me that much now.
What is the most popular misconception about the band?
That we're a bunch of change grabbing people who hang around outside tube stations. That's the way the press like to portray us, it doesn't really bother me that much cos it keeps them distant from what we're really like . . . it's good to keep people at a distance. I live with loads of beggers as well, and they've got more money than I have. Bristol City council put an injunction on us playing there - I was quite flattered that they'd heard of us.
Recently in `On the Fiddle' the Levellers own fanzine, it was hinted that the band were not very keen on the certain elements of their fan following i.e specifically those who stand in circles, take their tops off, and beat the crap out of anyone that dares bang into them during the course of the gig. So were the band quoted correctly on this issue?
No, this is another thing that when we bring out our next magazine we've got to put in perspective. When we were talking we weren't being careful enough with our words - basically no, anyone is welcome at one of our gigs, the only people that are not welcome are people that hit other people and basically cause trouble, Anyone that comes to one of our gigs and wants to cause trouble is just not welcome because they obviously didn't understand a word we said.
Are their any plans for a live album?
There will be a live album at some point, there's talk about doing it as the next one, but I'd rather get another studio album out really so we'll have three. It's basically us being fucking slack because we haven't had a chance to write any songs because we've been on the road all this time. . . you never know when it's gonna get together with us lot and then suddenly you just get four or five new songs that just happen - totally chaotic!
Be encouraged all ye friends of freedom and writers in its defence, the times are auspicious, your labours have not been in vain, tremble all ye oppressors of the world, take warning all yet supporters of slavish hierarchies, restore mankind to their rights and consent to the correction of abusers before they and you are destroyed together.
Richard Price, 1789
This is the transcript of the backtracking at the start of Three Friends, just in case any of you are remotely interested, and it leads nicely into the next question about anarchism.
Do you still believe in anarchy as a political form?
As a non-political form, yes, People say to us `Are you a political band', I say `No', we're an A-Political band.
In `One Way' you said that punk is dead, do you really think that?
That song is basically about growing up when I was living in Crawley and all the lads that I knew that were punks are all working in banks now, that is the only thing that it was based on. I do think that a lot of old punk is dead now . .
And on that note, we left.
The editor of this magazine would like to point out that this article was doctered very slightly from Keiths orignal, ok, so I fucked about with it severely, not that it needed it, but I had a bit of a chip on my shoulder. I would just like to make sure that it is clear that we do in fact like the Levs, and the design of this page was inspired by Smash Hits and was not intended to make them look silly, but hey what can you do when you only have one photo of a band?. Hope you got the joke.