Originally published by L.S. Media. January 12th 2011.

Baz Warne is one of those musicians you have to just meet once to know that they will give you an interview worth keeping and you will have the memory of meeting one of the nicest people in rock. He is Erudite, forthright and a lot of fun to spend in the company of. As a quarter of the rock/punk band The Stranglers his input into the British Music Industry is much talked about by fans and peers alike and the fact he will talk to anyone about the Stranglers and his life is testament to the man’s outlook on living not just for the music he has been connected with but also the laughter he generates when talking to him.

I managed to catch up with Baz before he and The Stranglers embark on their next tour, encompassing 17 dates and taking in a new favourite venue on the way.

How are you today?

I’m fine, I’ve just recovered from one of those snotty colds that a few people have had, I had a good kip for 12 hours with all my clothes on to sweat it all out, I’m in the pink actually.

(laughter) Please don’t say that, I don’t like to hear of anyone being ill.

(laughs) No I’m fine actually.

I must ask you first off if you’re looking forward to touring again?

Well it’s what we do! It’s another side of the huge multi faceted coin, it’s the Stranglers, it’s what we do, it’s very enjoyable, when you come out on stage and see everybody smiling, a lot of old familiar faces mixed in with an awful lot of new faces coming as well, kids coming in with their parents, there’s an awful lot of teenagers coming as well, who have discovered the band for the first time via the internet or friends and the crowds are going up and up. It’s just a pleasure to step out on the stage and play these timeless songs to a big appreciative audience. Its knocks us off of our socks really, we look forward to it so roll on March!

It should be good, this is what, the third time in as many years that you’ve come to Liverpool, do you still get the thrill of coming here?

I absolutely love Liverpool, I just been talking to another guy from there, it’s a very working class city as is where I come from in Sunderland, it’s the ties with the sea, the ports, dockers, it’s all been part of my life as it is with any true scouser and its true of all those very big working class places in the U.K. like Newcastle, Sheffield, Birmingham… all these places have been fantastic to us for many years. Liverpool is somewhere that we didn’t start touring in my tenure until three or four years ago and we’ve gone there three or four times in the last few years and it’s always been fab, the Academy is a great little venue, I always look forward to playing there.

It’s manic in there isn’t it? The crowds, they are so bouncy! As you know I’ve followed you for a long time and seen you in a lot of different venues but I’ve never seen a crowd like the ones that see you at the Liverpool Academy.

Yes, well the first time we played there we had a very healthy crowd, the second time we played there, I think there was almost double the amount of people and the atmosphere was electric and people just really seem to have taken both to myself, which is great, and to the band. The crowds are coming out again and it’s buzzing so looking forward to it very much.

You say taken too, I don’t think you truly went away because as a band you are one of the main stays of the last thirty plus years aren’t you?

Yes, well I mean there’s obviously different chapters of the band, everybody remembers the most famous one, Mark One which split in 1990, but then the 90’s were peculiar time for the Stranglers, they were still a good live draw, commercially and creatively probably not the best and anybody in the camp would tell you that. And then you know the dawn of 2000 came and again a new beginning with myself, we wrote and released one of the most critically acclaimed albums that the Stranglers had released for years in Norfolk Coast, we were getting albums of the month in the Evening Standard and rave reviews in the glossies, that seemed to restart an emergence, a commercial emergence.

As I speak to you, J.J (J.J Burnel) and I are down in the West Country in a house in Bath for two months and we are writing the next one, which is what were in the process of doing right now. So yeah it never went away in terms of gigging but I think once we had achieved the volumes of music and stopped, you know when a band stops and falls off the commercial radar, the media, the radio, the T.V etc tend to think you’ve gone away and died.

I’m glad there’s a new studio album in the offering as the last two, Suite XVI and Norfolk Coast have been played a lot in my house recently and I found myself thinking the other day that these albums are as good as for example La Folie and The Raven.

Well that’s very kind of you too say, one of the reasons I was asked to join the band was because I have always been a song writer and the very first song I presented them with, who had been expecting me to write a punk kicker type, what I wrote was Dutch Moon, which is a ballad. Since then J.J and myself with our differing styles we’ve hit a really good patch, Norfolk Coast was probably more of a five piece effort, it was a new band with me in it, a new label and whole new era and so we thrashed around for a few months till we found a direction for Norfolk Coast, once it came the songs just flowed. Suite XVI was more of the same, J.J.and I sat in a house in Cornwall for three months and wrote it together. The new album’s coming along very well, we’ve some nice pieces and the process starts to get going and then we give it to the rest of the boys in the band and the management.

Are you thinking of presenting any of these new songs during the tour?

(laughs) without giving too much away, we do have it in our minds that we will try to play 2 or 3 new songs. Anymore than that I can’t say. It might be 2, it might be three, it might be six, it might be one or none, but in our minds at least 2 new pieces might be unveiled. There are a couple already that are suggesting themselves in a live medium and we are excited by them.

Going away from the touring and the new album for a moment, you’ve been in the band quite a few years now, do you ever still think “wow, I’m in the Stranglers”?

Hmm every once in a while, something will bite me on the arse and ill think…, actually its funny you should mention that as I did have one of those flashback moments as I was reading a magazine from a few years ago and I think the subtext of what the journalist was saying really summed up what an institution the Stranglers are and I was part of this, that smacked me on the side of the head for about five minutes, I sat there and did think bloody hell I’m in the Stranglers, to be perfectly fair those feelings were gone four or five months after I joined the band. I was always made to feel welcome and a partner and have an equal say right from day one and that’s never changed, even though now we’re four again and not five and that’s even more crystallized. The band have been fabulous with me right from day one and its well documented now, they were very keen to get a new guitarist, some new blood and input and I’m a lot younger than they are (laughs) and I’m also from an entirely different end of the country, it all seems to have worked very well. I think it’s the best it’s been since the eighties; a lot of people have said that as well. It’s not something I dwell on too much now as things like that can be a bit scary and if you do go round thinking that in a gig in London or somewhere and then thinking you can’t get through the job or I’m not worth being in the Stranglers then it can all fall down. So no, I’ve been in the band a long time so I think I’ve got the right to be called a strangler now.

Long may that be the case to be honest!

Thank you

The last couple of times you have come to Liverpool, I’ve been sat down there in the crowd and I have been watching you and the spark that’s there between you and J.J, especially on the last tour you did the solo on Golden Brown and he picked up a set of numbers off the side and showed you a six and he seemed happy to be able to play along with the joke.

I think it sums up the relationship he and I have, we are very close. He was here with me till about half hour ago and he’s gone back to the house to cook us some dinner, were the odd couple really. That all started with people holding up score cards for the solo. I’m the only guitarist that the Stranglers have ever had that can actually play it like it is on the record, even the guy who recorded it doesn’t play it properly. Basically members of the audience started putting up score cards and somebody just handed a couple to him one day and it went from there. Yeah we have a good crack, a bit of camaraderie on stage. You know I saw the Stranglers a few times and they all seemed to be a bunch of miserable bastards, there’s a time and a place to be miserable and I don’t think being on stage is it, not in front of the public.

Well we have discussed this before haven’t we?, I know it’s a million miles away from what you are doing now from the days of the Toy Dolls.

The whole ethos of that band was too make very tight three piece songs, so tight you couldn’t get a fag paper between them. Be as unique and original as possible and that’s what that band was. We just had a great laugh, I’m given to being a quite a jolly chap really.

With that cheery thoughtin the ether, Baz has to go for his next interview. The band that has been a part of the fabric of Britain for the best part of four decades looks and sounds if they are going to keep going and keep thrilling audiences up and down the country for many years to come.