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Interview with Shaun "Cess" Stiles from Violators.
The first time I heard Violators must have been around 1993. The song was Summer of 81 and swept me away: great vocals by a girl that was singing about riots and a cooper getting kicked to death. The song also had great drums and riffs. The band`s career was quite short and so was their discography. But finally after have spent a smaller fortune I almost have their full discography (still missing the 12" Die with dignity) This interview came about after I contacted leadsinger Shaun "Cess" Stiles after I recieved a promo from Captain Oi: Violators re-released album No future years. So, this means a lot to me and I have never been prouder in the history of Mitt val, mitt liv than now that I introduce to you...An interview with Cess.
First of all, thank you for letting me do this interview. The first question is:What do you know about Sweden? Know of any good Swedish bands?
Im not really familiar with Sweden itself other than it`s the home of the invention of the cook coo clock, according to Harry Lime, anyway! Neither am I familiar with your punk scene, but Im hoping that your website will introduce me to it. I suppose I`ve got a lot of homework to do? I merely hope the scene is diverse & the bands are trying to be unconventional, cos that`s what punk`s about, isnt it? I`ve always thought that punk`s central maxim, be yourself, that is most important, & we tried to reflect that in the Violators.
Could you give us the bandhistory of Violators, when you formed the band, did you play in any other band before that, when and why did you split and so on.
Yeah, Matchi (the bassist, John Marchington) & I (the vocalist, Cess or Shaun Stiles) formed the band in Chapel-en-le-Frith, a rural town in the High Peak District of Derbyshire that lies 24 miles south of Manchester, in early 1979. This was following the demise of our former band, The Dismal Sports, whose line up included Paul Hines later of The Test Department. I suppose being in a band was our way of alleviating the boredom, & after some initial line up changes the Violators also comprised of Helen Hill on vocals, Anthony Hall (Ajax) on drums & Mark Coley on guitar. We only rehearsed as a band for a short period of time & had a few gigs under our belt before we signed to No Future Records where we released a number of singles.
The band split as we were beginning to understand ourselves & each other as musicians & as our popularity was growing.
Violators discography is quite short, 3 singles and one 12" (if you dont count the comps)
Yeah, we werent very prolific, were we? I suppose I regret that we didnt manage to get all of our set material on vinyl before we split. Yet that`s the way it goes sometimes. It was out of our control cos the split happened so quickly.
Can you give a short comment on each release:
Summer of 81/Live fast die young:
It was on this single that we began to understand each other as musicians.And it shows cos both are great punk tracks: fast, aggressive & powerful.With hindsight, I wish we had the time to release them as separate entities cos both deserved to be a-sides, & its a pity we didnt get more time to explore our creativity further, cos the irony is that Helen & Coley decided to leave at this point & form Taboo. Gotta laugh, havent you? I think, with hindsight, the Violators would have become an influential band. We really hadnt flexed our creative muscle at that point & we had a lot of ambitious project set ahead. Where as now, we are now seen as something of an enigma; the band that came out of nowhere & in a short period of time created some great punk classics & then disappeared up their own arses. Yeah, you just gotta laugh!
Gangland/The Fugetive:Gangland was inspired by Walter Hills film, The Warriors. If you havent seen it, make it a priority cos its still a great movie! Anyway, it movedme to write a track that is perhaps a little over ambitious, but which still seems to be popular with contemporary ears. Although its about six minutes long its power, attitude & its diversity holds the listeners attention from beginning to the anti-heroes chant in the out-tro.
The Fugitive:Was the b-side of Gangland. Its a great track & Helens voice really suited the hardcore stuff. She sings with bollocks & doesnt sound like the Banshee wanna be which many viewed her at the time.
Life on the redline/Crossings of Sangsara:We fell out with No Future boss Chris Berry over this release. Unbeknown to us, the little tinker went & remixed & edited our original recording & released his version. Obviously we thought he had stabbed us in the back, & in our world that was a crime. On the re-released Violators discography The No Future Years you get both tracks. The different mix version is the unreleasedoriginal. I think, its a far better version than the single release, even though Im not too keen on my vocals on either. But, fuck it, we all have bad days. Im not gonna loose any sleep over it!
The track Crossings of Sangsara features the vocals of Lou & Andy Hill on guitar, who replaced Helen & Coley. For me, its quite a prophetic track, cos it predates yet sounds similar to early indie. It certainly has that early Manchester feel & to a large degree the Violators were influenced by the so called post punk bands, such as The Fall, Joy Division, Magazine, Public Image Limited, the Banshees, the Psychedelic Furs & The Cure. At the time, we saw them as experimental punk bands who were not gonna let themselves be boxed in by being stereotyped by the music press.
Die with dignity:
Is perhaps the Violators at our most musical. The guitar riff, base line, drum pattern & vocals blend together perfectly, & we didnt compromise ourselves when producing it. I think, it still stands today as one of the best punk/pop songs of that period. In fact, comments on a post card please if you know of a better one!
Have you got them all?
Why did Helen and Mark Coley leave the band?
I can only speculate cos we have never really spoke about it at great depth.Perhaps we just lost sight of each other as individuals, who knows? Dont think I`ll even bother speculating about it. I cant be arsed. They just left. End of story!
Helen and Mark as Taboo, if anyone got some singles with em for sale-let me know.
Gangland is, according to me-one of the best punktracks from round that time.It really captures what the movie The Warriors is about...But when you released it, did people react cause of the fact that it`s almost 6 minutes long?
We had no hesitation in releasing Gangland at that length. Yet I remember that the tracks length did course heads to turn in disbelief at No Future.There was some talk that the length of it would diminish the quality of the recording when transferred to vinyl. But we thought who gives a fuck! For us, punk was about being unconventional, & still is! We wanted to use Gangland to convey the message that we were about being ourselves. We didnt want to merely imitate our heroes like many other bands seemed happy enough to do during that period. I suppose it was a cry for diversity within the movement, &fortunately it was well received by critics & audience alike.