Jah Wobble: Post-punk pioneer talks PiL, and his roots in West Cork
Jah Wobble plays four dates in Ireland from Februrary 8. (Photo by Kevin Cummins/Getty Images)
It's a chilly but bright January day in West London where Jah Wobble has arranged for us to meet at Chelsea Arts Club in advance of his Irish tour. The former Public Image Ltd bassist signs me in as it's private members only but the atmosphere inside is relaxed. Phones are prohibited which allows a different energy.
Sitting in the corner of the club's restaurant under a black flat cap, Wobble, a passionate Spurs fan, is discussing current gaffer and ex-Celtic boss Ange Postecoglou. "He's got that Aussie can-do attitude, I'm just glad we didn't get our arses tanned as we usually do," he says in reference to a recent 2-2 draw with Manchester United.
The forthcoming tour will begin in Wobble's ancestral home county of Cork. Born in 1958, John Wardle was renamed Jah Wobble by Sid Vicious after he struggled to pronounce his name. An early version of reggae (bluebeat) and ska would have a potent influence on his style and identity.
"The Jah part was perfect of course because I was such a big reggae aficionado," says Wobble.
Irish music was very much at his "core" and led him to experiment with a range of styles. A shortwave radio also provided key cultural introductions. "It's deep in the core of my being, in that way I'm a Celt; the drones, the keening, the airs it's proper deep stuff for me. In Africa the bass is like a low bodhrán, that's essentially Irish if you like. With the best music, there's a universal connection, I remember listening to Egyptian musician Umm Kulthum on shortwave radio and feeling an emotional and spiritual connection."
He describes the strong London-Irish community in which he was raised as "like another world now".
"The family began to come over on the steam packet during the Famine and there was another wave in the early 20th century. My mother's side was from Durrus and my father's from Schull, both in West Cork. I think both sides had quite republican leanings, the men would sing rebel songs and the women would tell them to keep the noise down.”
The family were part of a long-established parish at St Mary's and Michael's Church in Stepney, in the East End of London. “At Easter there would be a procession with a pipe band, the men would carry big statues of Our Lady and the girls would all be wearing sashes,” recalls Wobble.
His father’s family were from Limehouse in Tower Hamlets. “His brother Terry was a Catholic priest, and my grandad was a Thames lighterman," says Wobble of the profession who worked the boats moving goods around the Thames.
On his four Irish dates, Wobble will perform PiL's Metal Box (Rebuilt In Dub) with his band, the Invaders of The Heart. PiL were formed in the wake of Lydon's departure from the Sex Pistols. “With John [Lydon] the Pistols had come and gone, I dabbled on bass and he invited me to join," recalls Wobble. "He brought in [guitarist] Keith Levene who was the best musician on that scene, a real proper player. We spent a lot of time in a squat just plugging away. I hit the ground running and made the most of the opportunity. I kept it simple, I wanted to make patterns and was already thinking conceptually about sound, textures and shapes."
Wobble helped set the tone for the band by presenting his first bass line to Lydon and Levene. It would soon take form as debut single ‘Public Image’, providing the group with a hit record in the UK and Ireland in the summer of 1978, and helping to ensure their album, First Issue, set a marker for the development of popular music in the aftermath of the punk explosion.
PiL took another step to the left with Metal Box, released at the end of 1979. "John's lyrics were spontaneous, in many ways more prose like Samuel Beckett. T his is not a criticism but I don't think he's done anything like it since," says Wobble of the acclaimed album.
When PiL reformed in 2009, talks between Wobble and Lydon fell through, but he would unite with Levene (who died in 2022) in 2012. For a long time, Wobble had stayed away from Metal Box, but while playing in America he picked up a Fender Precision bass similar to the one he played with Public Image.
“I began to muck about playing all the old lines. It was like a first love where I thought, ‘Why did I ever leave you?’ I began to do a more far-reaching show with some of the Public Image stuff and then the offer came in asking me to consider restructuring and re-envisioning Metal Box for an album. I'd already been thinking about string arrangements and dub effects, then we began to do it live."
Wobble's 2009 memoir Confessions Of A Geezer is about to be republished in a new expanded edition. A gifted raconteur, the book offers his first-hand account of the punk and post-punk scene in London. He writes entertainingly about his early friendship with John Lydon who is described as "an older brother type" who took him under his wing.
Along with Sid Vicious (real name Simon John Ritchie) and John Grey, they were part of a much-mythologised group known as the Four Johns. "John [Lydon] is a huge figure in my life, he really helped me get going with music. I went to Kingsway College to get some O-levels after being expelled. When I met John he had been ill with meningitis and was making up for some lost schooling. Like me he was a John Joseph, there was Sid another John and John Grey who was also a John Joseph. The four of us would make a point of drinking in The Three Johns pub."
The 65-year-old stopped drinking in 1985 describing it as the "best thing I ever did" and had a stint away from the industry working for the London Underground. However, it wasn't long before his musical vocation called him back for a particularly prolific period. In 1992, the Rising Above Bedlam album was shortlisted for the first Mercury Music Prize and Wobble would play on that year's winner, Screamadelica by Primal Scream.
Wobble also met his second wife, the Chinese harpist Zi Lan Lio during the early 1990s. They would go on to work together at various points including 2009's lauded Chinese Dub album. He also performs in a group named Tian Qiyi, alongside his two sons Charlie and John.
Before walking in the direction of the River Thames we speak of the many Irish luminaries that he's worked with who are no longer with us. A particular standout album is The Celtic Poets with Ronnie Drew from The Dubliners.
"Ronnie and I decided early doors that we wanted to include a Protestant voice on it so we got a couple of Louis MacNeice poems on there. My mum was a big fan of Ronnie, he was a very cultured man and knew all the history of the Irish in East London."
The talents of Wobble, Drew and Shane MacGowan would combine for an arresting version of ‘The Dunes’ which opened the album. MacGowan's poem was based around him visiting a friend in Mayo when he was 14, and hearing how the inhabitants of that rocky landscape had to bury the Famine dead in the sand.
"I knew Shane from back in the day,” says Wobble, “a great Irish writer, more than just a lyricist as The Dunes so clearly indicates. He wrote this poem for Ronnie, it has a real Celtic power; it's fucking heavy, these are internal truths."
- Jah Wobble's Metal Box Rebuilt In Dub tour begins in Cork on Thursday, February 8 at St Luke's. He also plays Feb 9 at Whelans, Dublin; Sat 10, An Tain Arts Centre, Dundalk; and Sun 11, at Bangor Court House, Belfast
- Dark Luminosity: Memoirs of a Geezer, The Expanded Edition is out on March 7
“He was a Cork lad so there was an immediacy and friendliness there. We got on well, he loved my book, we had been on the same kind of journey.” [Also featuring Irish singer-songwriter Mike Smalle, the song was part of a music and history project called ‘Bring Your Own Hammer’. Wobble also remixed one of the late Coughlan’s final tunes, ‘Falun Gong Dancer’, by Telefís]
“While learning to ski she had gone downhill at 70 miles per hour and hit a tree. I had to go and meet her in the hospital for a chat. It was really good but she had her leg in a sling and up in traction. On the track Delores was fantastic and so down to earth with no airs, she just really enjoyed it.”
“She didn't want any money for that, she had that typical Irish generosity. I didn't feel right about it so I gave some publishing to John Reynolds [producer and O'Connor's first husband).”
“I got on really well with him, he came down to the studio in a bobble hat. I was having a row with the producer when he arrived at the studio, I turned to him and said 'I'm not being rude, I'll be with you in a minute', then I turned back to the producer and said: 'Now you, you stupid c**t'.”
