The Stranglers to bring colour to Sheffield with Black and White show

For this years' tour, The Stranglers '“ usually known as '˜The Men in Black',  will be '˜The Men in Black and White', as they are performing their 1978 album  '˜Black And White' in it's entirety.
The Stranglers. (Photo: David Boni).The Stranglers. (Photo: David Boni).
The Stranglers. (Photo: David Boni).

March has now become the traditional month for the band’s annual UK tour and it started on March 3 in Perth, finishing on the 26th at the usual Manchester show.

Strangely enough, the album isn’t celebrating any particular anniversary, but founder-member and bassist JJ Burnel explains why they are performing this, their third, album.

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“It’s because it signified the departure from our earlier sound,” he says.

“The first two (‘Rattus Norvegicus’ and ‘No More Heroes’) were effectively recorded at the same sessions and were basically our live set. But on ‘Black and White’ was when we started exploring and fulfilling our potential.”

“It was our ‘post-punk’ album and we were developing as writers and performers. At the time, it was a commercial risk, but we were a lot younger and didn’t care.”

The risk paid off and the album got to number two in the charts.

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The album contains some of the all-time Stranglers’ classics like ‘Tank’, ‘Toiler on the Sea’ and ‘Nice n Sleazy’ as well as the bands’ excellent cover of Bacharach and David’s ‘Walk on By’, which was voted number three in BBC Music’s Top 50 Greatest Cover Version poll.

And with a surfeit of brilliance, JJ understandably finds it difficult to pick out and stand-out tracks.

“To be honest, I’m too involved with them, I think they’re all fantastic and I’ve fallen in love with them again.”

JJ, along with bandmates Dave Greenfield on keyboards, Baz Warne on guitars and Jim McCauley standing in for Jet Black on drums, has been rehearsing hard for the tour.

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“Yeah, we’ve broken the back of it now. For the first few weeks we were a bit frazzled.”

He explains. “In order to do the ‘Black and White’ album you have to get in the headspace of 35 years ago. It’s really edgy and we were thinking ‘what the f*** were we on to do that?’”

“Then there was the discovery of coming face to face with your younger self.”

As well as the album, The Stranglers will also be playing a selection of carefully selected tracks from their long and illustrious career.

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“It’ll be quite different,” says JJ, “and not what people expect.”

From their early days, when they were lumped in with the New Wave explosion (when in fact they had already been around a few years), the band has continued to court controversy whilst producing ground-breaking music and they are now receiving the respect they deserve.

The band has survived the loss of one of their frontmen and have never split – continuously touring and recording new material.

And they are already looking to the future, as JJ tells me.

“We may do ‘The Raven’ next year with some new material which we are working on. It’s an interesting album that one.”

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“But my big ambition is to do something based on the ‘Men in Black’ album. I’ve written the story and I’m looking for a choreographer.”

A choreographer?

“It’s going to be a ballet, ‘cos it’s a love story.”

In the shorter term, the band has plans for later in the year.

“Yes, we have some festivals in summer, after our tour of Australia and New Zealand. We enjoy doing them and we always try to do new things. Then there’s the new album; we’ve started work on it, but we’ve got a bit distracted by the touring – hopefully it’ll be out next year.”

The Stranglers will be bringing their ‘Black and White’ tour to the O2 Academy, Sheffield on Thursday 17th March.

Tickets are available from the Box Office and all the usual agencies.