... or the music business on 10 dollars a day. Adam Sweeting talks to two bands on the ropy ladder to the stars.

It's not often that I go to see a band three times in a week, but I did just that with Punishment of Luxury and they got better each time. The third one was at Kensington's Imperial College. There, the band's combination of musical muscle and sense of visual presentation produced an atmosphere almost tangible enough to put in bottles and take home. They can switch from fairground-like guitar figures to a menacing stomping beat in a snap of the fingers. Brian Bond, singer and frontman, dons a sleazy overcoat for a song called Poof and emerges as an embodiment of moronic malice. It's frightening.

Punishment of Luxury were formed about 18 months ago in Newcastle. The four members have varied backgrounds, though singer/performer Brian Bond and guitarist Nevilluxury (hereinafter referred to as Nev) had worked together before in a travelling musical theatre group called Mad Bongo. It was these two who provided the impetus behind the band's formation, and the line-up is completed by bassman Jimi Giro, on permanent loan from the DHSS, and drummer Micky Centaura. They're understandably loth to dwell on their past. 'I was in a three-piece fuckin' pop band — never again,' volunteered Jimi Giro. Micky's previous efforts included a jazz-rock ensemble, which may be where he developed his tight, precise beat.

The name of the band came from a postcard sent to Nev from a friend in Siberia. 'It had a name on, Punishment of Luxury. There was a picture of a woman suspended in a blue desert. I thought the picture was a load of shit but the name was really good. We thought it was a bit of a mouthful at first. Some things are a mouthful because they're irrelevant. That one seemed to have a good flow.' As Brian Bond points out, the band chose their name at a time when terse monosyllables like Clash were in vogue. Everybody told them to change it, they didn't, and now they've signed with UA. But that's an oversimplification. The band came south to London at the end of 1977 to look for a deal.

'We recorded three songs at our own expense at a studio in Newcastle,' Brian explains. 'They were Puppet Life, a song called Blood of Love, and Poof. For some crazy reason we chose the week just before Christmas to go to London when everybody was having office parties and everything was winding down. We rang up 40 different record companies, and only three of them would actually see us in those two or three days. They were DJM, Virgin and President.'

The band weren't impressed with the treatment they received from President: 'We went to President and the guy deigned to listen to the whole of Puppet Life. The other ones he switched off after two bars, he said, "No, you're trying to be like David Bowie, rubbish". He tried to put us down as much as possible.'

DJM and Virgin both showed some interest, but when the band went to Small Wonder they found an enthusiastic reception. 'They said yeah, we'd like to record you,' says Brian. 'Immediately,' adds Nev. So it was that Punishment released a one-off single, Puppet Life, on Small Wonder. This despite being offered what Brian calls 'a deal of sorts' from Virgin in early '78.

The arrangement with Small Wonder didn't last any longer than the single, since neither the band nor the company saw it as permanent. Punilux finally signed up with United Artists despite interest from Charisma and Radar because they showed most interest in the band, trekking around the country to see them play. The deal, says Brian, is much the same as offered by other companies. 'UA put forward the most straightforward deal, so we just went ahead and signed it,' adds Nev. Was it pretty much a standard deal which the company offered to all new bands? Micky: 'Yeah, and you just have to sort of argue on certain points in order to get the percentage they originally thought of.'

Punishment are now happy with both their record company and their management. Richard Hermitage of Asgard handles the management side, in contrast to an unhappy flirtation which Punishment went through with Quarry management.

The band felt that Quarry were too busy with other acts to give them the attention they deserved. Quarry's John Arnison was handling Punishment when he went to Europe with Rory Gallagher and Penetration, both from the Quarry repertoire. He told Punishment that if they had any problems in his absence, they could speak to his co-directors at Quarry about them. The band, though, wanted one specific manager, so they parted company with Quarry. 'There are no hard feelings or bad feelings at all,' said John Arnison.

Of all the band, Nev is the most wary of the dangers that new bands face as they scale the slippery slopes of the music business. Apparently Automatic Records were interested in signing Punishment around the time that UA actually did so. I say 'apparently' because the band aren't too sure what went on. 'We really didn't know what the fuck was going on, it was wheeling and dealing, you know,' says Nev. 'We don't even know if it was true that Automatic were interested, we were kept that much in the dark.'

John Arnison confirmed that Automatic did show interest, but added that their offer was so inferior to that of other labels that he didn't write it down. He did, he says, tell the band about it verbally. The offer from Automatic was only a singles deal, with no albums involved.

Nev regards it as a near-miracle that Punishment managed to avoid the treatment handed out to innumerable other bands.

'99% of the time it happens that bands get ripped off. We nearly got ripped off, but we escaped. I can't really mention any names, but there's some people we've dealt with and we've just blown them out because they were rubbish. It's like banging off the limpets, eliminating all the crap. We're getting the best we can. We're breaking even at the moment, but to break even we've got to do a hell of a lot of work.' Twenty gigs a month, according to Micky.

With their current deal, Punishment have to sell some unimaginable number of records before their advance is paid off. 'Then,' continues Nev, '9% of the profit after that becomes yours. It's very grim, but that's the system. But we won't put UA down for that because we know they're a very good loyal firm, and they're a good record company as well.'

Punishment of Luxury are particularly happy with their producer Mike Howlett. They'd just recorded four tracks with him when I spoke to the band in a leaking rented houseboat in Chelsea, and listening to the tape of the sessions I could see why they were pleased. Howlett had managed to capture most of the band's onstage drive despite the lack of visual accompaniment. 'You have to compensate a bit with effects,' Brian said, 'but then you can't have too many effects because you want to reproduce it live. So you have to keep a careful balance.' The band's first single for UA is Jellyfish, in a 7in version backed with Engine of Excess and a 12in version which additionally includes Excess Bleeding Heart.

Mike Howlett was chosen as producer after the record company had initially suggested New Wave wizard Martin Rushent. 'It's not that we don't think he's any good, we think he is good, it's just that we wanted to try someone else,' Nev comments. He thinks that a Punishment of Luxury single has a good chance of commercial success given the right promotion and airplay.

Brian's theatre experience gives Punishment's live act a strong visual appeal. He comes onstage like a puppet controlled by strings with a high voltage passing through them. Nev's longish hair is hidden inside a cap, and his make-up gives him a pale, agonised look. Jimi staggers about like his bass is trying to run away with him while Micky steams away relentlessly behind his kit. Unlike other bands who strive for a visual complement to their music, Punilux achieve a strong, simple identity. As Brian ran through his array of characters, a puppet, a blind man, the twisted narrator of Poof, I was reminded of the iconographic figures in Medieval mystery plays.

The band's material is written by all of them working together. The visual element, they hope, will arise naturally out of the music. Nev: 'It's a natural progression, it's all co-ordinated together, it's not contrived. We move when we do things, we just get ideas about moving. We don't think in every song there has to be a definitive movement, it's just that some songs have to have it. The idea is to have a focus of attention so you can see what's in it rather than just hearing the music, it gives it something sharper, to focus on.'

Punishment generally write their songs by starting with an initial theme and then jamming on it and developing it.

Poof was written after an incident Brian was involved in: 'People call you poof when they want you to be humiliated and insulted, they think that's the last possible thing you want to be called in the whole world and they think you'll melt to the ground if they call you that. It's the old idea of manhood really, if you think your manhood is threatened you're going to fall apart as a human being. People call you poof for the most ridiculous reasons. I've been called poof a million times. That's what the song was about, the guy was trying to start a fight. I just smiled and beamed at him.'

Poof is a good indication of how strongly the band feel about what they're doing. They have played some Rock Against Racism gigs, and while on that subject I quoted to the band some extracts from a Melody Maker interview (Feb 17 1979) with Siouxsie and the Banshees, who refuse to play any RAR concerts. Siouxsie complained that she didn't know where the money was going, while guitarist John McKay maintained that if he was black he'd be very insulted by RAR.

'Yeah, well that's his opinion,' Nev observed. 'I think it's a good idea to do gigs like RAR as long as there's something done from it. It's all very well for a band to play for free and put all their efforts into doing something, that's cool, but as long as something functional is done from it instead of just selling fucking loads of badges. It's a way of advertising fascism and racism as well, by having too many badges about it. I don't know where the money goes to. If the money went to something like organisations in some part of London where people are getting their teeth kicked in every day, or for proper housing, or for education... Educate the whites, I don't know. There's racism all over in this country, it's no better than Iran really, only they don't use guns here. Not at the moment.' Micky: 'Just glasses and bottles.'

Despite the ideals of Punishment of Luxury, and many others, there's no sign of any change in the basic attitudes of the music business as a whole. Punishment would like to start a label of their own, but that's obviously just a dream at this stage. Nev: 'Before we can start a label we've got to start making a profit on the things we do. That's the first thing. Then once you do that a few thousand times, you're in a position to start your own label. It would be a nice idea to start our own label — a bloody great idea! But it isn't feasible at the moment. We just want to get our music out and play to people — get our best music out.'

Nev reckons record companies are run just like Fords. 'It's like if Fords want to invest in some car, say they invest in a new design, OK, before you get your money back or break even you've got to produce 100 000 cars. It's the same with record companies. They want a commodity produced regularly, and they want it as cheaply as possible. Read any contract, take any solicitor and he'll come up with the same answer, what the percentages are and everything. I'm not bringing 'em down for it, that's just the way that society is. It's the only way we can channel our music successfully, so we just go into it and accept the situation. Obviously it's better to be independent.'

Punishment of Luxury have already achieved independence of a kind through the individuality of their music and presentation. And they're attracting attention; Magazine's Howard Devoto came down to see them at the Imperial College gig, for example. 'I think a song like Poof antagonises people, they're sort of coming out of their shells and shouting back. It makes them think,' said Nev. You can't ask any band to do more.

The Passengers

It's on the cards that you've never heard of the Passengers even if you're prone to haunt the lesser rock 'n' roll venues. Samuel Goodnight may ring a bell though, because that's the lead singer's name and it's what the Passengers used to call themselves up until a couple of months ago. The band started in its present incarnation at the beginning of 1978, rehearsing, in time-honoured fashion, in a squat in Forest Hill.

I talked to Samuel Goodnight and guitarist Graham Seviro after the band's third appearance at the Rock Garden in London's fashionable Covent Garden district. I'm not trying to make a case for the Passengers as the next Buzzcocks, Clash or Dire Straits because they've hardly had a chance to show what they can do. I like their music though, they play it like they feel it and they're good to watch. Their story so far is also quite a good indicator of what a new band trying to seek its fortune in the big city is likely to have to put up with.

Samuel himself used to front a noisy three-piece in York called the Blades, regaling the locals with 'a shot of the old R&B'. Graham Seviro similarly lived in York, until he and Sam found themselves working in the same record shop near Selfridges. The Samuel Goodnight lineup was initially completed by drummer NJL, another ex-Blade, and bassist Gary Finch. NJL has since quit, to be replaced by Andrew Burton.

To return to the squat in Forest Hill, where the band began rehearsing... Samuel takes up the thread. 'It's one of those enormous squats, it was really nice. A band called the Balloons used to live in the same house. Anyway, we rehearsed for a bit. Then via a bloke we know we got a gig at the Roxy. About five people turned up. The guy there was an asshole, he made your girlfriends pay to get in. We ended up playing there about four times, but only one of those was really any good. That was when Eater were supposed to be playing and there were about 70 people there.'

'We went down quite well.'

Other early experiences included a horrific night at a place called Saint Germain's in Forest Hill, a gig the band played 'basically just for friends'. The evening ended in mayhem when a gang of kids decided that they didn't like the band, although they'd been drinking and not listening to their music, and a member of Goodnight's support band nearly lost a thumb among the breaking glasses. The Chippenham in W9 was another haunt of the quartet.

'People like the Slits and the 101ers used to use the Chippenhamsays Samuel, 'and I think the Barracudas use it. There's a room upstairs that costs five quid to hire and the guy who runs the pub couldn't give a shit. You could have a kind of Weimar Republic debauch up there, and he wouldn't care as long as people bought drinks. We played there a few times. It's good if you've got an important gig, you can do a gig at the Chippenham just to loosen up a few days before. But as far as we were concerned it was just trying to get a gig anywhere, any possible place.'

Graham: 'It's not really worth doing, though, unless you've got a following and you know that you can get a good crowd.'

Samuel worked at Shell as a temporary clerk for a while, and while there took advantage of the company's generous free telephone scheme for its employees.

'The guy in the office didn't give a fuck, he wasn't there most of the time. That's when we got the most gigs I think, cos I could just sit on the phone, it was all free.' It was at this time that Goodnight played at the Swan in Hammersmith. Bookings for the pub used to be handled by a mysterious female called Shirley who has since become difficult to find. After she had phoned Samuel at 2pm one day to ask if the band could play that night, they struggled down there (not without difficulty since they had no transport of their own) to find themselves at the centre of a non-event.

'How many people were there? Just the locals sitting around the bar. It was a complete waste of time.'

Graham: 'She said agents and people were going to turn up. She said if you do this gig for us, we'll get you a gig at the Windsor Castle for sure.' So who was this mysterious lady called Shirley? Samuel has no idea. Apparently she claimed to represent Superfly Productions who handle gigs at the Windsor Castle. She's now disappeared, and seems destined to remain one of the great unsolved mysteries of rock 'n' roll.

You'll have gathered that life for the Passengers has been largely hand-to-mouth so far. Not an uncommon experience for a new band in London. Part of the trouble is that a band is not the most cost-effective way for a landlord to inveigle drinking personnel into the saloon-bar when compared with discos. The Passengers encountered this syndrome at the Chelsea Drug Store, a notorious heavy metal bastion peopled with Uriah Heep fans. Or at least it was.

'I think that's fallen through now,' says Sam, 'cos at the last gig they had a bit of a fight and they lost their music licence. It's that kind of situation where the manager doesn't really care what happens as long as the place is full. So he couldn't care less whether it's a disco or a band. As far as he's concerned, bands are usually more trouble than they're worth. The guy at the Drug Store was telling us that he's had bands play there and they kind of bring their mixer and 500 watts of PA and it takes them an hour to get it in and an hour to get it out again. He says it's ridiculous — I mean, it is, to use that amount of gear. He basically just wants a band to come in and out and bring in the punters who'll drink his beer. So he's not sympathetic at all. I don't suppose you can expect him to be, I dunno. It sometimes amazes me how bands who are at all kind of different or original manage to find gigs at all.'

Sam considers that the general attitude of pub-owners and managers is summed up by the relative popularity of bands like Straight Eight. 'They just want a band who will play good music but who don't challenge the audience.' The Members, for example, were banned from the Swan in Hammersmith after fans left graffiti in the toilets. But do the Passengers challenge their audiences? Graham doesn't think they do so enough at this stage, though Samuel adds that they 'can go pretty berserk sometimes'.

Samuel writes most of the band's material, with a couple of contributions from Graham. They also play the Buzzcock's ESP and the elderly Crossroads, the latter with an enhanced head-banging quotient. How do they describe their material? Sam: 'Hard pop. R&B with poignant lyrics.' (laughter)

The Passengers' best song is called Gangs, and Sam wrote it after a trip to Notting Hill. 'I wrote Gangs when I went to that... not last year's riot, the one before. I was really affected by it.' But he's defensive about the song: 'Does this thing still happen, can somebody be in an event and actually have felt something about it and write a song about it, and is that enough or is it not? It seems to me like some of the reviews in NME or whatever, sometimes, they give you the credit, but as often as not they're gonna say it's contrived. But the song is just how I felt. I went into a pub with a mate, we came out half an hour later and walked straight into a police charge. I was scared stiff. Then the guy I was with got mugged later on by some 10-year-old kids.'

Material is one thing the Passengers aren't short of. They play a one-hour set, and reckon they could do more. A better idea would be to make the set shorter and tighter, but that will probably come if and when they can put together a reasonable string of dates. Salvation of a kind has appeared, though, in the shape of Billy Russell's Blue Inc record label, which had a minor hit with Richard Ace's version of Stayin' Alive (yes, that one). Billy Russell has a lot of faith in the Passengers. 'There's tremendous loyalty on both sides,' he says, and he'd like to record an album with them. The band hope to record 12 or 14 songs at Luxembourg Studios and then pick a single from them. Production will be handled by Darts soundman Dave Freeman.

But the Passengers are still plagued with basic problems, like where's the next gig coming from. Less straightforward is the question of finding an image of some kind for the band.

'What did you think of the image?' Sam asked me after the Rock Garden gig. As I hesitated, he went on. 'We're having a bit of trouble with that. Recently we've been thinking it's a bit contrived. I don't know, it's pretty hard. People like the Gang of Four or the Pop Group have had their image made for them by the press. You read about them so much before you see them, the fact that they wear drab clothes which means blah blah blah. You go to see them, you look at their drab clothes and you think, that's blah blah blah, yeah, their image is pretty strong.'

Samuel's vaguely manic onstage demeanour is the focal point of the Passengers live act. He commands attention, though his habit of uttering rapid, inaudible asides is irritating. Is it sensible to work too consciously on an image, I wondered aloud?

Graham: 'Yeah, that's what we thought. Then again, people keep saying you must get an image. Then you sort of feel obliged to, you feel you must because you see all these bands who do have a really strong image.' One thing's for sure, it's a bad idea to keep changing the name of the band, something the Passengers have been guilty of. Musically, they manage to mix R&B, punk and some reggae (like Gangs) into a convincing blend, which should prove to be the most important factor in the long run. The Passengers seem to have found the right man in Billy Russell, who's prepared to take the trouble to get the band the sound they want.

Sam: 'The first time we cut some demo tapes we let Billy fiddle about with them and we went round to his place and he played them to us. We went Blecccch, especially Graham. And Billy was really sort of taken aback. So we set a precedent that we must agree that it suits both of us. They're not going to steamroller us into any kind of production or any particular kind of sound, which is good.'

Before they found Billy Russell, the band tried taking tapes round to various record companies. Again, this brought up the problem of having a concrete concept in mind for the band's development, aims, etc.

'It seems to me that most bands who are getting interviewed usually have some kind of off-pat thing about what they're doing and why they're doing it, which we don't have,' Sam observes. 'We feel we ought to have it in a way. It's like when we first went to see these record people I tried to impress them with a kind of "I really know what I'm doing, I'm a great performer" thing, which seemed to impress them to begin with. But then they started asking questions like, "What direction do you see yourself going in over the next two or three years"... 'You can see why they say it in a way, but music is something that's to do with feeling and intuition. I mean, I could be in a rhumba band in three years' time, how do I know?'

Despite all the frustrations, the Passengers are optimistic about their future: 'I guess the odd review in one of the main papers would help,' says Sam. 'If we get a single out it should help. We're just gradually building up momentum so when things kind of start up again next September our name should be around, we should be on the circuit.'

Odd hopeful signs include some interest from the Jam's Paul Weller, who bassman Gary Finch knows slightly. Weller saw the Passengers when they played a support at Dingwalls and was impressed. 'I think somebody from an agency, Gemini, came to see us at the Rock Garden,' adds Sam. A gig at the Marquee also seems to be a possibility. But until things start to take off, the Passengers have resigned themselves to the sort of petty humiliations that come thick and fast on the lower rungs of the music business ladder.

Sam: 'The time before last when we played at the Rock Garden we supported Zaine Griff. They turned up late so we had no time to do a soundcheck, and the drummer wouldn't move his drums back because his sound would be affected. We had about this much room to play,' he says, holding his hands a foot apart.

Graham: 'Zaine Griff were saying things to us like, "Oh, were you expecting to use the same dressing room, then?" They really looked down their noses.'

And, of course, the Passengers had to pay to use the headliners' PA. Another problem is the band's lack of transport. Sam reckons that it's more important to have a van than a PA, because it offers great flexibility.

'I went to see Roogalator once at the Pegasus. I turned up at about 8.30 and the gig had been cancelled. If we'd had a van I could've just said, "Look, we'll be down here in 10 minutes".'

If and when the Passengers become regulars on the gig circuit, what then? Sam: 'I'm sure most bands must die a death in the time from when they start rehearsing to when they actually get on the circuit. You know Sore Throat? I used to see them at the Stapleton and they were really good and fresh, but now they've been doing their songs for two or three years. They must begin to wear.'

'I'm pretty confident, though, that we're better than most of the bands going around at the moment. As interesting, and as good to watch.'