A music journalist since 1979 and a Radio Rai host, Federico Guglielmi has written an enormous number of articles for Italy's leading specialist magazines. He currently heads the music pages of "Mucchio Selvaggio" and edits the in-depth quarterly "Mucchio Extra". As is well known, the Rome-based journalist is also one of the most authoritative voices on punk, a genre he has followed with great commitment and passion almost since its origins. Fresh off the publication of his book devoted specifically to '77 punk, Guglielmi has kindly agreed to talk about the band that, starting out from punk, rediscovered the foundations of rock. If it's true that the Clash sometimes wrong-footed and divided critics, this interview too will hold a few surprises, coming as it does from someone who experienced the band's live shows and the pace of their historic releases firsthand. There is, however, one thing that leaves no room for doubt, today as much as yesterday: "The Clash were a mighty, exceptional rock'n'roll machine".

1. "Punk died the day the Clash signed to CBS": that was Mark Perry's famous statement in 1977. How much truth was there in it, in your view? Could a band like the Clash have taken an alternative path and still written such great pages in the history of rock?

I have to be honest: back then, looking at things from my perspective as an eighteen-year-old Italian thirty years ago, I thought Perry was exaggerating and that punk still had a long, bright future ahead of it. With hindsight, I have to say the editor of "Sniffin' Glue" wasn't entirely wrong: the spontaneous, naive spirit of original punk was already starting to fade at the start of '77, smothered by its having become a "fashion" and by the business growing up around it. As for the rest, the Clash were a band in constant evolution, as shown by their discography and the incredible number of songs they wrote and released in a very short span of time. Their punk period was, all things considered, extremely brief, and I think their path was entirely natural: their roots lay in rock'n'roll and R&B, and after the punk binge they returned to those roots in some way, albeit in a non-canonical fashion and through various contaminations. I couldn't say what else the Clash might have done stylistically, but I can't imagine how they could have been any different.

2. A band often mentioned in connection with the Clash are the Who: a group that was, in certain respects, punk ante-litteram, and later also the creators of complex musical works. Unlike Led Zeppelin, who inherited something from the more mature Who, a few years later the Clash looked back to the early Who... How decisive was their influence on the Clash's music?

At the start of their career, when they burst onto the scene with "My Generation", the Who were unquestionably punk ante litteram... not just for the rawness of the music, but also for some of the lyrics: a line like "I hope I die before I get old" is, in that sense, unequivocal. A couple of Clash riffs are modeled on Who songs, and it was the Who themselves - as if to close the circle - whom the band supported on their 1982 US tour. In any case, for the entire punk generation, as well as for the Clash and for Joe Strummer in particular, Pete Townshend and co. were a kind of ideal model, one of the few Sixties bands not written off as "old farts".

3. I'd like to ask you a few questions about the band's less-discussed work, starting with their second album, "Give 'Em Enough Rope": thirty years on, it strikes me as a great record, with driving tracks like "Safe European Home", "Tommy Gun" and "Cheapskates", the beautiful "Stay Free", and the closing "All The Young Punks", in which the Clash even managed to capture a snapshot of the very moment they were living through. Musically, it seems to me a powerful album, one that embodies what "rock" should be without further qualification. Perhaps, though, one of its possible flaws is exactly that: being too "hard and pure" for a band whose strength lay in blending different musical influences. The other possible flaw is being too tied to the historical moment in which it came out (as "All The Young Punks" attests). What do you think are the reasons it has always suffered by comparison with "The Clash" and "London Calling"?

Well, I'd say simply coming out between a dazzling debut and an album that history has enshrined among the greatest rock records of all time is enough to "disqualify" it, don't you think? At the time, anyway, it was criticized for no longer being particularly punk, partly because of Sandy Pearlman's pro-American production... for trading its rawness for a more calculated formula. I too think that, overall, the record is better than it's usually made out to be - there's another outstanding track you didn't mention, "English Civil War" - and that without that change of course we probably wouldn't have had "London Calling"... but it remains, nonetheless, a clay pot between two of iron.

4. The "The Cost Of Living" EP marked, even before "London Calling", the shift from the '77 sound towards more refined textures. Where do the Clash draw from in ballads like "Gates Of The West" or "Groovy Times"? I'll confess the first is my all-time favorite Clash song: don't you think it's a track worth rediscovering?

It's a fine track, one that looks squarely to the Sixties and draws its inspiration from there, while still boasting a drive and a rawness that are clearly punk in spirit. In those days the Clash were also racing through their release schedule, so it's only natural that some tracks didn't get much attention: the EP also included the cover of "I Fought The Law" and "Capital Radio", more striking pieces, and in the United States both "Groovy Times" and "Gates Of The West" only saw the light of day on a 45 bundled with the US edition of "The Clash"... which, however, wasn't released until the summer of 1979, just a few months before the "London Calling" whirlwind.

5. "Sandinista!": a monumental album, an ambitious project, a fascinating interweaving of musical cultures and subcultures. At times, though, it has faced accusations of inconsistency, of being scattershot, even unfinished. I'd like you to tell me a bit about this album, what your judgment of it is...

It's the Clash's definitive take on black music, though of course without forgetting rock'n'roll. The accusations of poor coherence don't hold much water: it was an album born of a specific "urgency", so much so that it came out barely a year after "London Calling"; given the sheer number of songs on it, demanding extreme cohesion as well would have been asking too much. Sure, trimming the tracklist by a dozen songs might have made it sound more compact and balanced, but it was, after all, a triple LP sold at the price of a double: the songs were there and could be released, so why not do it? The Clash were riding on adrenaline and didn't care what their contemporaries thought... let alone worrying about what rock historians would say decades later.

6. "Cut The Crap": do you consider it a Clash album? Is it worth rediscovering or best forgotten?

Basically it's a Joe Strummer and Paul Simonon album, but one carrying a heavy burden on its shoulders. Twenty-two years ago it didn't bother me, and I still think at least three tracks aren't bad at all. Even though it remains the worst record ever released under that name, it does have a few good arrows in its quiver... certainly more than "Carbon/Silicon", Mick Jones's latest effort, which some have somehow managed to speak well of.

7. How much of a role did the Clash's greater "technical" grounding, compared to other punk bands, play in their music? Could it be seen as the element that allowed the Clash to survive past '77?

At the start, I don't think it counted for anything: their winning weapons were attitude, the explosive force of the songs, and a stage presence that was nothing short of formidable. Later on, what made the difference was the quality of the songwriting and, above all, their open-mindedness. Back then nobody cared about technique, and in any case the Clash's repertoire wasn't exactly ideal for showing it off.

8. Listening to their live recordings, I often get the impression that the Clash were a different band in the studio and on stage: very precise in the studio, very forceful and spectacular (but often imprecise) live. On this point, what impression did you get, having seen them live more than once in the very years their records were coming out?

I actually went to three of their shows: 1980, 1981 and 1984. But I don't remember all that much, apart from the excitement and the enthusiasm... in other words, I wasn't "dissecting" the event, it was enough for me just to live it. Still, I clearly remember the electricity in the air and the band's dynamism, which together – I'm talking about the Bologna and Florence dates, Jones was already gone by the time of the Rome show – made for a powerful, exceptional rock'n'roll machine. Weren't they precise? Believe me, that's the last thing you'd think of, with those four on stage. And honestly, I don't think their records are exactly masterpieces of polished form either: they're rough, pretty dirty, full of energy...

9. You were among the lucky few to witness the Clash's historic first concert in Italy, in Bologna in 1980. On that occasion, it seems Joe Strummer was talked out of wearing the Red Brigades t-shirt, the one we can see in the film "Rude Boy"... how exactly did that go? In your view, in 1980, was that kind of extremist symbolism just a "punk"-style provocation (a bit like the Sex Pistols' swastika), or did it risk being taken more seriously, especially here in Italy?

There was absolutely a risk it would be taken seriously... nowadays certain issues have been consigned to history and so are perceived differently, but in those years, still deep in the "Years of Lead", it was no laughing matter. Not that the swastikas worn by Siouxsie and Sid Vicious didn't evoke horrors that were in some ways even worse, but while the Second World War had ended thirty-five years earlier, in 1980 the Red Brigades were still a burning, dramatically current issue. I don't know exactly how it went, I wasn't an eyewitness to anything, but if someone really did convince Joe Strummer to change t-shirts, they did the right thing: he certainly had no idea what kind of mess it would have caused, and for a simple provocation – because that's what it was: one thing is having left-wing views, quite another is backing armed struggle – it just wasn't worth it.

10. I'd like to close with a question that concerns your personal experience with their music more than the band itself. What have the Clash represented for you? How have they accompanied your career and your life over these three decades?

For my career, they've been something of a curse: in 1979 I didn't immediately grasp the greatness of "London Calling" and I wrote as much, in 1985 I gave a positive review to "Cut The Crap", and in 1988 – somehow, I don't know how – an absurd chronological error crept into a retrospective piece for "Rockerilla". A nightmare. I met them in Florence, but we only exchanged a few words, nothing official... and I have to say I didn't even come away with a positive impression: they seemed a bit full of themselves, though maybe that was just a side effect of the crowd that night. My relationship with their music, on the other hand, has been much smoother, even if – aside from being at the concerts mentioned earlier – there's nothing personal tying me to the band: as a listener and fan, in those years, the Ramones, Devo, the Germs and the Dead Kennedys actually mattered more to me. Still, I listen to their records very often, especially "The Clash" – along with the singles that came out around it – and "London Calling", plus their other reggae-leaning tracks. Then in 1982 I found myself with a conflicted relationship to "Combat Rock", the record that finally elevated them to full-blown stardom: I thought it was a bit "calculated", and deep down I'm still not entirely sure I've changed my mind, even though it remains an extraordinary album.

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09/07/2025