Chris Bostock’s career is a blend of musical innovation, collaborative spirit, and sheer determination. Known as the bassist for JoBoxers, Chris played a key role in their sound which saw chart success with tracks including ‘Boxerbeat’ and ‘Just Got Lucky.’ Beyond JoBoxers, Chris has contributed his talents to a range of projects, from playing with The Style Council to forming The Spiritual Cowboys with Dave Stewart. With the release of The Complete Works 1983-1986, a 3-CD box set featuring JoBoxers’ hits, rare tracks, and live performances, Chris reflects on their highs, challenges, and legacy.
Your early groups, The Stingrays and The X-Certs, were integral to the Bristol music scene of the late 1970s. How did these experiences shape your musical style and what are your key memories from that period?
In 1976, Bristol became very vibrant with punk – new bands, labels, fanzines, and more gigs than ever before. It was all about creating a new scene and being different, and constantly moving music ahead. With clothes, it was more anti-fashion than fashion. The scene was ‘anything goes’ with a D.I.Y. ethic. Along with the new wave that followed, it encompassed an idealist view of the world that showed in the lyrics.
Most of the big acts in punk/new wave played the Bristol Locarno and I was there practically every week, either watching them or sometimes opening for them in my early group ‘The Stingrays’.
The second band I was in; ‘The X-Certs’ fused punk with reggae, which is great for learning to play sparsely, to leave space in a track, where what you ‘don’t play’ is as important as what you do play, plus alternating sequences rather than repeating them. We introduced broader influences such as Toots & the Maytals and lover’s rock. In punk, you can see a tendency to hide behind a wall of distortion. We were now starting to do the complete opposite.
As The X-Certs, we opened for The Clash in Cardiff Sophia Gardens, which enabled us to meet them and see them in action up close. That was an eye-opener – getting to meet the big name group we admired most of all. We were determined to be successful but had soon played all the local venues many times over and had ventured up to London to play a couple of early shows, so knew we had to move to London in order to move forward.
What led to your transition from The X-Certs to joining Vic Godard & The Subway Sect, and how did this move influence your career trajectory?
A well known face in Bristol was Johnny Britton, a talented guitarist/singer who was signed by Bernard Rhodes, the Clash’s former manager, who had also helped launch the careers of The Specials and Dexys Midnight Runners. Bernard told Johnny to assemble a backing group, so me, plus a few Bristol musicians, auditioned for this at Bernard’s ‘Rehearsal Rehearsals’ creative hub in Camden. Bernard hand-picked me on bass, Rob Marche on guitar, Sean McLusky on drums and Dave (DC) Collard on keyboards, and all our respective groups back in Bristol then folded.
We set out recording tracks with Johnny Britton, one of which was ‘No Style’, a jazzy swing number with me emulating a double bass, drums played with brushes, jazz piano, 60s clean guitar through a tremelo pedal and written by Vic Godard. Bernard also managed Vic and they decided that we were perfect to develop Vic’s new neo swing project, where he had started writing songs influenced by Gershwin and Cole Porter, so we suddenly found ourselves as the second incarnation of Subway Sect, playing on bills at the Lyceum Ballroom opening for Pere Ubu, Spizz and The Pretenders, followed by UK tours with The Bureau and the Birthday Party and being signed to a record deal with London Records, recording the album Songs For Sale.
The move to London transformed our lives. We slept on the floor of Rehearsal Rehearsals as the Specials and Dexys had done before us. It was a large three-storey Victorian corner building within a former Victorian industrial gin warehouse complex now known as ‘Stables Yard’, of warehouses, railway arches, ramps and a maze-like network of horse tunnels and catacombes, that we explored with torches for entertainment if we got a break. In addition to touring, we ran our weekly ‘Club Left’ at the Whisky-A-Go-Go on Wardour Street, (the same building as Georgie Fame’s old ‘60s haunt, The Flamingo Club), in association with Bernard, where we were the house band to four regular singers in addition to Vic, and Bananarama sang with us on their first ever gig. Johnny Britton was the house DJ and set the club’s ‘Cool Bop & Swing’ scene with his exensive record collection; a mix of old and new.
Club culture was a big thing. Having our own club was essential to breaking our own style and brand. Some described the club as ‘a bit beatnik’. Clubbers would be given paper and charcoal to draw with. It was very popular, often the queue went all the way down towards Leicester Square and many of the big names in music checked it out at some point over the year or so it ran for. Both Georgie Fame and Slim Gaillard came and played sets there with their own combos. Johnny Britton, who had a clear view of everyone from his elevated DJ booth, swears that both Prince and Madonna visited the club before they were famous. We took the whole club on a UK tour plus Paris and were the fourth act to play the newly-opened Hacienda in Manchester. We then moved the Club to Ronnie Scotts and took a regular Thursday night slot. Later, the Whisky-A-Go-Go was taken over and became abbreviated to the WAG.
So, it was non-stop work juggling touring, running our club and working out new songs, carving out our own sound while getting more and more proficient as players, writers, arrangers and backing vocalists. All that completely changed our musical careers.
How did Bernie Rhodes’ involvement influence JoBoxers’ formation?
Bernard has a way of turning normality on its head by disregarding accepted values, which creates a fertile environment for new ideas. This always involves going against the grain, pushing boundaries and rejecting anything mainstream. It gave us vision and determination.
When Vic discovered his wife to be, and left the band by abandoning us before our Manchester Apollo show, we discussed, with Bernard, finding a new singer, which resulted in Dig Wayne coming over from New York. We had spotted Dig at Dingwalls heading up Buzz and the Flyers and were blown away by his performance.
The group brought together influences like swing, northern soul, and punk. How did those diverse styles come together to create the JoBoxers’ sound?
When Dig stepped in, we were then able to write and perform songs that incorporated all the styles we loved collectively, so we wrote a new set together that incorporate funk, Northern Soul, New York disco, rhythm & blues, bluebeat and bebop within the songs. Dig’s versatility and virtuosity brought out the best of the band. At the time, we had moved Club Left to Thursday nights at Ronnie Scotts, and it was here RCA saw us and offered a recording deal that Bernard agreed on our behalf. However, it wasn’t long afterward that he was asked back to manage The Clash and disappeared to the US.
Could you share the story behind the creation of ‘Boxerbeat,’ especially the decision to use stomping boards for the rhythm?
Rob, our guitarist, came up with a really neat soul guitar riff that spurred on the creation of that song. He played it a few times and it was a case of: “that sounds really cool, you’ve got to do something with that”. So Rob, DC, and Dig worked it into a song.
We added the boxing crowd noise at the beginning of the track plus the boxing bell.
Dig recalls: “When we recorded ‘Boxerbeat’, I remember producer Alan Shacklock saying “”we really need to beef up the beat””. There was a building site across the street from the recording studio. He said “”Why don’t we go over there and get some boards?”” We went over and got some boards from the builders. We brought them back and we put them in the hallway right outside the recording studio. We set them up in such a way that all five of us could stand on these boards. The boards had a give to them somehow and they mic’d it. We all jumped on these boards and they recorded these stomping sounds and that’s why you hear that pounding beat”.
‘Just Got Lucky’ became a quintessential JoBoxers track. What was the songwriting process like for this song, and how did it reflect the band’s identity?
I would knock-out song ideas on my old Spanish guitar and then tape them on a ghetto blaster. Everyone had a ghetto blaster back then. One of the song ideas I came up with early on was what would become ‘Just Got Lucky’. I got the initial idea recorded with me singing nonsense lyrics on top of the guitar playing chords and picking out a bassline. Then I added piano by playing along and recording on a second ghetto blaster, a quick and crude way to add sound on sound, and at that point it was starting to come together with verse, bridge and chorus. I gave the tape to Dig and he took it away for an hour or so and returned with the amazing lyrics and vocal performance you hear today. The next day we played it to the band in the rehearsal studio, working it up with drums, bass, keyboards, guitar, lead vocals and backing vocals and we knew then it was likely to be a single. It just fell together and worked. Later that day, our A&R person, Jack Steven, dropped by and loved it. He actually suggested there and then that the first three singles should be ‘Boxerbeat’, ‘Just Got Lucky’ and ‘Johnny Friendly’. We added sparse saxophone to this and other tracks in the recording studio.
The other method of song writing is where each band member comes up with a part and we assemble them in the rehearsal studio. So, one person has a verse, another a chorus, another a bridge or middle 8, another a melody and if it grooves and grabs Dig, he records it and writes his part. One example is ‘A Thorn in My Side’ which was written by all band members and features on the new Complete Works box set.
What was it like to open for Madness on their Rise and Fall tour, and how did that experience shape JoBoxers as a live act?
Madness are a great bunch of people. We travelled on their tour bus with them. Apart from being a seven piece act, they also had a horn section with Dick Cuthell on cornet. The tour was all very professionally organised. I think JoBoxers and Madness made a good pairing, going by the numerous comments online from people that were there. Both groups are good team players. It was a good experience and we enjoyed performing on the bigger stages where you learn to use the space effectively.
The first album, Like Gangbusters, captured the energy of your live performances. How did you translate that raw energy into the studio recordings?
Like Gangbusters is essentially the first set we wrote and played live. Producer Alan Shacklock is an accomplished musician, songwriter, and former successful band leader himself. Alan is inspirational to work with and I later worked with him on a Spear of Destiny album. Alan focused on the tracks during pre-production, often suggesting improvements to tempos, keys and phrasing. The actual recording sessions took around two weeks at the Powerplant Studios in Willesden.
JoBoxers’ toured extensively, including opening for the B-52’s in New York. What were some standout memories from those shows?
We played New York a number of times. Once opening for the B52s at the Ritz. It was a great show and Andy Warhol was in the crowd watching. We had seen The Specials there the night before. We also toured nearly every US state over six weeks in a Greyhound tour bus that formerly belonged to the Harlem Globetrotters, driving through the Arizona Desert, past the Grand Canyon and stopping to view the Niagara Falls. The destination board on the front of the bus appropriately said ‘JoBOXERS’.
When we played Sydney, Australia, the large venue was by the sea practically on the beach. I was jet-lagged, had a bad fever and high temperature and wondered whether I would survive the show. When we went on the stage, the lights were close and so hot that sweat was pouring off me so I was drenched and looked like I had just got out of the sea. Oddly enough, as we got through the set, I felt better again as if the heat had burnt the fever away and I was just fine by the end of the show.
In New Zealand, we played the two Sweetwaters festivals on the bill with Talking heads, The Eurythmics and The Pretenders. Rob reminds me that we were booked to replace U2 who had pulled out. Talking Heads were promoting Stop Making Sense with David Byrne in his enomous suit. There were helicopters ferrying people around the site so we got a ride on one. I heard that it crashed the next day. We played Los Angeles at the Beverley Hills Theatre and it was full of young screaming fans. We were also on a TV show with Sparks so I got to meet an old hero Ron Mael.
Your second album, Skin & Bone, was shelved by the label, and much of its material remained unreleased for years. What was your reaction at the time, and how did that setback impact JoBoxers?
The first setback occurred when our Head of A&R at RCA, Jack Steven, who had championed us for the past year, left and went to CBS, leaving no one at the label behind us. Then our management of the time caused a rift with the label, which took a very long time to resolve. All this time we should have been performing on TV shows – instead of turning them down – and playing live shows to remain in the public eye.
We recorded the Skin and Bone album at Hansa Studios in Berlin, produced by Chris Kimsey who was the Rolling Stones’ engineer at the time. The single ‘Is This Really The first Time’ was released and a promo video was shot by the eminent photographer Terence Donovan, plus another by BBC London Plus. Everything was ready for the big push of the album – the press was set up, there was a release date and we had already started incorporating the tracks into our live set. Then, at the last minute, the whole album was pulled by the label without warning. Suddenly, the album we had spent over a year of our lives living and breathing, was gone. It also denied us the chance to recoup the vast advance spent on making that album. That was a huge blow – like a year of your life taken from you like it never happened.
We still had the fire in us though, as we proceeded with new manager Charles Negus Fancy, who managed Sandie Shaw, and we wrote and recorded an album’s worth of new songs funded partly by our guitarist Rob Marche, recorded at CBS studios and Wave studios in Hoxton and produced by Hein Hoven. Charles shopped the tapes around and found us a deal with Magnet Records, but almost unbelievably, two of the band didn’t want to take the deal and left. Double whammy! Dig and Dave announced that they had decided to persue a solo career for Dig.
How did you process the end of JoBoxers, and what lessons did you take into your later projects?
The sense of loss was palpable. The ship had sunk. For some, the vision was lost. There was a part of me that understood how taking so many setbacks for so long might make someone want to just walk away and try something new. It had, after all, been five busy years of Subway Sect into JoBoxers. Of course, what we now know is that acts can take breaks and come back from time to time when they feel inspired again – Madness being a good example. One lesson to learn is that getting the right chemistry of the band is essential. When you have a group that fires on all cylinders, hang onto it. A singer/songwriter with a pick up band – as so many are – is not the same thing as a real band.
‘Just Got Lucky’ gained renewed attention in films like The 40-Year-Old Virgin. How did that resurgence affect the group’s legacy and your perspective on those songs?
‘Just Got Lucky’ is also the opening track in the movie Just My Luck with Lindsay Lohan appearing at the same time as it was used in The 40-Year-Old Virgin and this revitalised the group’s profile. The visitor numbers to our website started going through the roof and there was a buzz as people were asking about us again while other groups and performers were noticably playing their own versions of ‘Just Got Lucky’ on YouTube. We then had requests to play festivals. I asked Dig how he felt about trying to get all the lost tracks released and he was as keen as I was, but no one in the band knew what had happened to the master tapes.
What led to the decision to reform JoBoxers for the 2022 tour, and how did it feel to reconnect with fans after so many years?
Having been approached to play the festivals, I set about trying to convince the band to get together to rehearse and put a show together. The band took years of convincing before it actually happened. Sean, Rob and I had played ‘Club Left 2014’ and ‘Club Left 2016’ with Vic to full houses, plus Sean and I were playing as Subway Sect again in 2018 – 2021 with Vic, touring the UK and recording our ‘Moments Like These’ album produced by Mick Jones of The Clash/Big Audio Dynamite. Dave Collard happened to be in the UK and came down to the studio to add some keyboards, so that brought three of us together again. In the meantime, Dig and Rob started warming to the idea.
Eventually, we started video conferencing together, and after a fair bit of persuading and negotiating, we all agreed to do the tour and, with Sean, I set about organising. Due to Dig and Dave living in the US and Rob in Bristol, it was a big logistical project to get the dates booked and to fit as many festivals and shows as possible into a short timescale. I had to do nearly everything myself, with help from Sean, as we had no agent at that point, and it was a lot to take on. It was a breathtaking feeling to have such a good turnout with so much support after the long absense of 39 years! The festivals were all amazing to play as were the sold-out club dates, particularly, The 100 Club.
You’ve been described as the keeper of the JoBoxers’ legacy. Can you tell us about the process of rediscovering and restoring the lost masters for this compilation?
Well, I built joboxers.net, the official website, way back in 2003, initially as a way of letting people see all our videos. This was before YouTube appeared. Back in the day, each promo cost £20k to make; that’s £60k at today’s prices and there are six promos. Today you could make a reasonable promo on an iPhone for next to nothing. You just need organisation, co-operation and imagination!
We didn’t know where the lost albums’ master tapes were, or even if they still existed. We thought that some might be in Sony’s vaults, but not all. I initially gathered all the listening copies from my loft and worked with audio restoration and mastering genius, Mike Coe (aka ‘Doctor of Music’) to restore the existing audio to the best possible quality, while searching online for any that might have ended up there. Then our old friend Stuart Mathewman from Sade’s band, came forward with a multi-track reel of three lost masters he had been looking after for us. This was a major breakthrough.
Then my good friend, engineer Steve Hume, mixed them and, having agreed in principle with the band on a release of some of the unreleased tracks, we agreed a running order. It was all very democratic and the proposed album with front cover was placed on a private streaming platform and offered to Cherry Red Records, who agreed to incorporate it into a box set, once we had located the original masters. The target was to find 1st generation reels to all tracks. Replacing the listening copies with first generation masters became like a game of bingo until we eventually had a full house.
Cherry Red were brilliant and showed such faith in the project from the outset that, with Cherry Red and Sony’s catalogue team, we were able to search Sony’s vaults and digitise many of the reels to check what was on them, and in doing so, recovered the master recordings to some more of the unreleased tracks. However, the original first generation masters to the Skin and Bone album were still missing, so I tracked back to Hansa Studios in Berlin, where we recorded the album, and deep in their vaults were the remaining missing tracks. It was like a dream come true after 18 years on the burner. It’s magic to hear this lost world again in high fidelity. Also discovered in the vaults and making up the third CD of the set is ‘Live at the Phoenix Theatre’ recorded on the Rolling Stones’ mobile studio, which has now been mixed to its full glory. JoBoxers are the only band known to have played the 1200 capacity Phoenix Theatre.
Now, at last, after 39 years, The Complete Works of JoBoxers 1983-1986 is to be released on Cherry Red Records on 21st February 2025 and can be ordered now.
Paul Weller invited you to play on The Style Council’s debut album. Can you share insights into the recording process and your contributions to Café Bleu?
Paul Weller really liked our single ‘Just Got Lucky’ and invited me to his Solid Bond studio in Marble Arch to contribute to his new concept album that would become Café Bleu. He was noticably experimenting with new ideas having escaped the straitjacket of The Jam and was clearly enjoying his new environment. I initially played a walking northern soul part to ‘Here’s One That Got Away’ in the vein of Spiral Staircase’s ‘More Today than Yesterday’ and The Four Tops ‘I Can’t Help Myself’ and Paul then invited me to play Double Bass on the sultry Tracey Thorn version of ‘The Paris Match’. I’m really pleased with how that session went, particularly as so many people have told me they love those tracks without realising I played on them!
As admirers of Sandie Shaw, you, along with JoBoxers bandmates Rob Marche and Sean McLusky, performed as her backing band on her UK tour, including TV and recording sessions. What was it like working with her, and how did this collaboration come about?
When Dig and Dave left, it was now 1986, and Rob, Sean and I started looking for new lead singers and then, through our management, started working with Sandie Shaw on new material and touring. Rob and I wrote ‘Go Johnny Go’ that became the B side to her single ‘Frederick’. Mark Nevin was added on 2nd guitar plus Steve Nieve on keyboards for the TV shows e.g. Whistle Test, Wogan etc. We then did a couple of UK tours. The great thing I remember about Sandie is that she was enjoying her latest musical journey and was eager to collaborate with us. There were some excellent songs she had forgotten about that we promptly revived. Some of the orchestral counter-melodies are very neat and we made sure of replicating these on guitar and keyboards in our arrangements.
Thereafter, I found myself being asked to play sessions, although I never actively went out looking for session work, but continued writing and recording songs.
In 1989, you played in The Flame with Roxy Music’s Paul Thompson and Supertramp’s Dave Winthrop. Can you discuss the formation of The Flame and your experiences recording and touring with the group?
The Flame were signed to Anxious Records, Dave Stewart’s label, and headed up by singer/songwriter Jonathan Perkins. My friend, Volker Janssen, was on keyboards and that’s how I got connected. I loved the musicianship in that combo. We opened for the Beach Boys and the Eurythmics at Wembley Arena and the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham. Playing with Paul Thompson is a pleasure. His drumming is so steady, constantly solid as a rock, and propels the group like a ship’s engine. There’s nothing quite like it!
After The Eurythmics, Dave Stewart invited you to form The Spiritual Cowboys. What was the creative process like within this supergroup, and how did it differ from your previous projects?
Dave asked me to form a new band as soon as the Eurythmics were put on ice, so I was involved right from the outset. The group began as me, Jonathan Perkins on keyboards and Olle Romo on drums and programming, and we were based at Dave’s Studio ‘The Chapel’ at his home in Los Angeles. Dave had a growing number of songs that he expertly and rapidly crafted, and was eager to experiment with different approaches. We started working them into a set and it all started to come together, with singer guitarist Nan Vernon then joining the group. Dave is a musical magnet for some of the biggest names in music that he collaborates with, and many of these dropped by to visit at this time. A big moment for me was when my favourite Beatle George Harrison visited and we jammed happily into the night with George actively throwing song ideas together. While he was there, George played us a tape of Eastern music, the rhythms of which we played around with and incorporated into a song.
Martin Chambers from The Pretenders, who we all got on really well with, was then added to the lineup making an unusual band with two drummers. While in L.A., the song ‘Party Town’ was used in the movie Flatliners with Keifer Sutherland and we were filmed performing it for its trailer. We also played it live at the 1990 2nd International Rock awards in New York. We recorded the first album with Chris Thomas producing, and it was captivating to see his production techniques. We used a lot of multiple harmony backing vocals which made the tracks rich and luxuriant. We completed the album at Dave’s London studio ‘The Church’ adding Johnny Turnbull from ‘The Blockheads’ and embarked on two years of touring european festivals and TV shows whilst making a second album Honest. Both albums went Gold in France.
Looking back, what do you think made JoBoxers stand out among their contemporaries like Dexys Midnight Runners and The Style Council?
I think the strength in JoBoxers is that it’s a real band of musicians that all contribute to songwriting and performing. Someone recently pointed out that Dexys Midnight Runners, with its “with its revolving door of co-conspirators, are more a brand than a band”. Although these acts are undisputedly highly talented, there’s something special about a real band, there’s a synergy, where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. It’s often disappointing to see the older acts at festivals based around a single surviving member.
With the release of this compilation, are there any plans for new music or further performances from JoBoxers?
Now that all our tracks are finally being released and all three albums can finally be heard, it gives us a far richer profile. Some of our favourite tracks are the unreleased ones and these made up half of our set on the 2022 UK tour. I’m hoping that people will enjoy these tracks as much as we do as this will revitalise JoBoxers for a bigger and wider range of listeners. I think we’re just waiting now to see how the box set does and the response to our unreleased albums. A big London show is certainly something I would like to be part of.
Further information
JoBoxers: Just Got Lucky – The Complete Works 1983-1986, 3CD
