Clem Burke on Iggy Pop and new Blondie album

Clem Burke opens up about the alluring pull of Iggy Pop’s material and 2024 Lust For Life tour. With a new Blondie album on the horizon, Clem Burke is more passionate than ever about creating unforgettable shows and never missing a beat. This is an extract from Clem’s Strange Brew Podcast with Jason Barnard.

You’ve got so many connections with Iggy including playing on his album, Zombie Birdhouse. But around the Lust For Life era, you and Blondie toured with Iggy, didn’t you?

Right, well, the first national tour in the United States that we did with Blondie was in support of Iggy Pop when they were promoting, touring The Idiot album. He was doing a selection of songs from Lust For Life, but that album had not been released as of yet. Of course, famously on that tour, David Bowie was the keyboard player. So that’s really what our relationship with David and Iggy began back then. And with Blondie, we played at the club, Max’s Kansas City on the weekend. Two sold out shows, and after the second show about four o ‘clock in the morning, we got into a caravan. And I always say the same thing, I have no idea who was driving. There was one bed that we basically all kind of crashed out in or slept on the floor in this caravan.

We travelled to Montreal for the first gig. We arrived at the venue early and we just went into the dressing room where we were all hagged out from driving all night and then the door opened and David and Iggy walked in and introduced themselves. That was the beginning of the tour. It really showed them as gentlemen and they were very gracious to us on the tour and very helpful. I remember David would watch our soundchecks quite a bit and of course I would watch their sound checks and it was amazing. They were always, especially with David, always rearranging or sticking in new bits or background vocals on the songs. So the songs, the arrangements were growing as the tour was going on and that’s when I first met Tony and Hunt Sales.

Then I had a band with Tony right at the end after Blondie stopped, it was called Chequered Past. We did one record on EMI America. The band included Steve Jones from the Pistols as well.

So there’s a lot of connections between all the people involved in the whole. Of course Kevin Armstrong was Bowie’s MD at Live Aid and also played guitar on the Blah Blah Blah, Iggy album. Glen wrote some songs with Iggy and played on the Soldier album and also toured with Iggy quite a bit.

And it was you and Chris Stein who worked with Iggy for his Zombie Birdhouse album.

Right. Chris produced it. Prior to the recording of that album, I had been on tour with Iggy. Unfortunately, I was hoping that the touring band would have made that album, Zombie Birdhouse. But because of, I think, budgetary things, Jimmy – Iggy Pop was a little bit down on his luck at that time. He wanted to make a very minimal record and use the advance, I think, for living expenses and stuff. I toured with Iggy with Carlos Alamor on guitar from David Bowie’s band and a guy called Rob DuPrey, who I knew from the New York scene, he was in a band called The Mumps. And Gary Valentine, who was my high school mate who began Blondie with me. We had three guitarists and a guy called Mike Page, who played with Sylvain Sylvain from the New York Dolls on bass.

We did a six week tour ostensibly continuing the promotion of the Party album, the Rock And Roll Party album Iggy had made. We opened for the Rolling Stones for two nights in a giant, massive Pontiac Silverdome with no sound check. It was Iggy, Santana and the Rolling Stones, 70,000 people indoors. So that was a pretty interesting experience to say the least. But yeah, there’s always been a connection with Iggy. And of course, I bought those Stooges records when I was a kid. I think famously the Ramones always would say that for each of them, they only knew three other people they knew that liked the Stooges. That wound up being the rest of the Ramones.

I had that same kind of little rat pack of friends who were into Bowie and T-Rex and the Stooges. When most people, especially in the States, were into the Grateful Dead and things like that, more like, hard rock and all that. I was always into the more artistic, experimental type of rock and roll, like what Bowie was doing and people like that. I’m also very influenced by the whole British music scene in general. It all began with the so-called British invasion of the mid-60s, when the Beatles were on Ed Sullivan etc., etc. Everyone, my generation, cites that as being the turning point of wanting to be in a band, to start a group.

Then with The Rolling Stones coming along, it broadened the spectrum of how you can be in a group. So then it just kind of carried on through, The Yardbirds, The Who, The Small Faces, all those bands were very influential. So that continued into my interest in people like Bowie and T-Rex and Slade, bands like that as well. Cockney Rebel was a big favourite of mine. I famously saw them play at the Bottom Line in New York, a very small club. It was a really, really great show.

One final link with this tour is the rhythm section that you’ve got with Glen Matlock. You’re playing now with Glen in Blondie and the recent footage of Glastonbury where you’re playing all the great Blondie hits like Atomic, it feels like you’re all locked in and the band is as vital as ever.

Yeah, it’s Blondie, it’s almost like a super Blondie. We’ve had some changes. Christ Stein is very active on the latest album that we’ve done that’s yet to be released. Our longtime bass player Leigh Foxx, had some issues where he wasn’t really able to travel. We were just about to do an arena tour last March 2022 in the UK. So literally about a week before I rang up Glen and asked him if he was available to do it, which he was. He’s continued to work with us since and he has a song on the new Blondie album that’s yet to be released as I mentioned.

So you’ve got the Lust For Life Tour next year, late February, early March. You’ve got so many projects on the go. What’s exciting you over the next six months to a year?

Well, I’ve written a rock opera with two of my friends, Andy and Debbie Harris, who have a band called Bootleg Blondie. They are a tremendously talented couple. And the reason they had Bootleg Blondie was because they were trying to do their original music for some time and not really making much headway with that. Then they formed a pub rock band doing covers. Whenever they would do a Blondie song, they’d get a great reaction. So they decided to have this Blondie tribute band, which I actually toured with. While I was touring with them before the pandemic, I suggested that maybe we start writing some original material together. I suggested that we perhaps use London as our muse. So we’ve written a rock opera called The Big Smoke.

We’re getting ready to put a single out digitally on the Blow Up label. So we’re going to put out a little teaser, an excerpt from the rock opera, The Big Smoke. That’s going to be coming out soon. Also, I’ve been working on my memoir. It’s almost a cliche. Everybody’s got a book, right? But I actually have a legitimate book deal. So the memoir hopefully will be out next Christmas. I’ve just been meeting with UK publishers because we secured the deal in the US first surprisingly enough. I was always thinking that, if anyone would be interested, it would be the British public. So that’s happening. And several other things. I’m actually playing at the 100 Club in October with a side project I have called The Split Squad. We’ve played the 100 Club several times. We’re there, October 28th. Then I did a record during lockdown with a band called The Tearaways. That’s on the Dirty Water Records. And we’re going to be playing at the 100 Club on 25 November. So I’m going to be back in the UK in October and November.

We’ve been doing US festivals with Blondie and are looking forward to the release of the Blondie album next year. But The Big Smoke, the rock opera, that’s coming. We’ve recorded 28 songs so far. Pat Collier who used to be in The Vibrators, has a great studio in Lewisham. So we’ve been working there. So there’s a lot going on for next year. I’ve got to complete the memoir. It’s mostly completed, but I’m really excited about that. There’ll be some stories to be told, some real insight into the whole Blondie experience. And of course, with all the other people I’ve worked with over the years. So now that the deal’s in place, it was kind of my muse during lockdown to keep myself occupied. Then I kind of put it aside. But then there seemed to be real interest in it, so now I’m really very excited about completing it and having it released. So there’s quite a few things.