4.52am Issue: 016 - 8th January 2017

The band couldn’t believe their luck and
working with Jones was an eye-opener,
for Stammers,
“The whole Westworld session was an
education. We did the backing tracks at
Redan Recorders in Westbourne Grove
then the overdubs and mixing at
Wessex. It was all done at night. Mick
flew in from the States and had to return
after to do Clash stuff, so he wanted to
stay on American time to avoid getting
too messed up. I just thought he didn’t
want to get up too early! We’d been
playing these songs for a year and knew
them back to front, they went down
really easy.”
John-Boy Lennard agrees,
“Everything was experimental. At 3am
one morning Mick brought in a clarinet.
I told him I had never played one before.
At 6am I was playing my first clarinet
solo. I created other sounds – not
playing the sax but recording just the
sound of the key pads. It was great
being so experimental with an energy
that Mick brought to the table.”
Kirk joins in,
“My voice was basically one-take stuff.
The Clash had recorded an album at
Wessex not that long before, and Jerry
Green said ‘Right, we’ll set you up like
we did Joe (Strummer.)’ So he set me up
in front of the glass of the control room.
He used a Neumann and you get a
reflection straight off the glass going
back to the microphone, so that’s how we
did it.”
The result of which was this other worldly
vocal that defines Brandon’s sound even
today.
Stammer expands,
“Mick had ideas that no-one else was
doing and his chemistry with the band
and understanding of what we were
trying to do was the key to its success.”
Brandon had to work hard to get Jones to
add some of his guitar playing to the
record,
“Mick didn’t want to play on the album,
saying ‘It’s your record, it’s not for me to
play on’, then I persuaded him – ‘Mick
bring in a Les Paul and just do
something.’ The following day he brought
in one of his Les Paul Customs and he
doubled up what I played on ‘Do You
Believe In The Westworld.’ Mick played it
so much better than I do. It was brilliant,
absolutely brilliant.”
The magic didn’t end there though, as
Brandon clarifies,
“When we came to mix it, Mick had all the
delays and reverbs set up and obviously
in those days it was just tape going into
the desk. Mick would jump on it, be
playing it and banging things on and off.
Jeremy Green was the engineer; he was
there with Chris Thomas and Bill Price
doing Never Mind The Bollocks, he’d
worked on Clash albums. To be there was
thrilling. We were making this up as we
went along.”