Shelley had been studying philosophy at college when he met art student Howard Devoto; famously, the Buzzcocks would coalesce when Shelley and Devoto met fellow Mancunian Steve Diggle at a Sex Pistols gig in Manchester in 1976. “In some ways [punk] was a way of grabbing creative control back from society. I would say it was about being an active participant in culture, rather than being a passive consumer. The whole idea of doing it yourself – whether or not you were any good at it. The very act of doing it would change the world – which it did.”
A short time before that fateful Sex Pistols gig, Shelley had responded to an advertisement posted by Devoto looking for musicians to do a version of Sister Ray by the Velvet Underground. “As I was one of the few people there who knew Sister Ray, I phoned him up. That’s how we started working together,” Shelley says. Increasingly frustrated with what he saw as the limiting aspects of punk, Devoto left the Buzzcocks in 1977 to form Magazine; under the stewardship of Shelley and Diggle, the Buzzcocks would go onto become one of the staples of the English punk movement, with classic punk-pop tracks like Ever Fallen In Love and Orgasm Addict.
While London was the notional epicentre of the English punk scene – courtesy of Malcolm McLaren’s public image-conscious construction of the punk ethos – Manchester, in England’s working-class north had its own brooding scene.
“The scene that existed in London, because that was where the industry was, people were trying to jostle and position for who was the best punk band,” Shelley says. “But up in Manchester punk was so few and far between, it was like huddling together for warmth.”
When the Sex Pistols – who, by 1977, were struggling to find even a medium-sized venue that would allow them to play – ventured north, the Buzzcocks were only happy to help them out. “One of the things we did was bridge the gap, because we brought the Sex Pistols to Manchester, the second of which was when the Buzzcocks debuted,” Shelley says. “It was reciprocal, so whenever there was anything happening in London we’d get a phone call from Malcolm asking us to play. That was just to make up the numbers, really – to make it look like there was were of people involved in the scene. There was really only a handful of bands and some stragglers and hangers on, when then started their own bands. But in the early days we’d be called in to make up the numbers, so they could have three bands on the bill.”
And the Buzzcocks were also only too happy to help out when fellow Mancunians expressed an interest in starting their own band. “When bands wanted to get started in Manchester they’d come to us for advice on the practicalities of how you’d start a band, because it was about sharing information because you’d found out how to do it,” Shelley says. “So that was how we got involved with Joy Division – we’d go around and help them choose a drum kit.”
While the Buzzcocks’ contemporaries in the English punk scene adopted a more confrontational – and, in the case of bands like The Clash, an overtly ideological stance – the Buzzcocks waved its political flag in more subtle ways, including via Shelley’s frank exploration of his own bisexuality.
“I always used to hate it when you’d hear someone sing a song on TV, but they’d sing it to a different gender than what the original singer was – they’d have to change the lyrics to take account of the change in gender in the song,” Shelley says. “I thought at least half your audience you’re cutting out, if you’re changing the lyrics. And also because the objects of my affection were of either gender, so it was natural for me to do that. And also because we weren’t expecting anyone to pay the blindest bit of attention to us, so it made it quite easy to do it – it wasn’t a heroic stand. It was just ‘this works best for me, so that’s the way I’m doing it’ – and this was all in the spirit of punk.”
Having taken an indefinite hiatus in the early ‘80s,the Buzzcocks reformed for a few one-off shows in the United States in 1989. In 2006, the Buzzcocks released the Flatpack Philosophy album, on which Shelley and Diggle took aim at the contemporary sociological culture, including rampant consumerism. “I’ll still shout at the TV,” Shelley laughs. “It’s just the crass stupidity of anyone who’s supposed to do anything properly. I may still be an angry young man, or maybe I’m an angry old man.”
Shelley says a new album – tentatively titled Joy Of Life – is still on the back burner, though given the Buzzcocks’ extensive back catalogue, the band has no shortage of material to explore. Almost four decades after punk became a household word, and Shelley continues to embrace the punk ethos.
“It’s about enjoying what you do, and doing something you want to do, rather than trying to be a pop idol or appearing on a talent show,” Shelley says. “Those things are irrelevant, even six months after they’ve won. It’s really good when people do things because they’ve got a passion. Steve always says the reason we keep going on is so we can show everyone how it should be done.”
BY PATRICK EMERY
