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Artist
Dirty Strangers
12+ albums
Supergrouppub rock
about
Who was it that said, you are what you eat? Some tribe of cannibals, probably. But for the Dirty Strangers, you are where you live. They are Shepherds Bush – cosmopolitan, a bit rough around the edges and beating with a heart of gold. The West London suburb, postcode West 12, begins where the M40 haunches and flies into the capital on an elevated stretch called the Westway. From there it spreads south and east to its snootier neighbours in Chiswick and Notting Hill. The borough is home to the BBC, HMP Wormwood Scrubs, Queens Park Rangers FC and the greatest little rock’n’roll band in the world. The Dirty Strangers were born in 1986-ish when Clayton – riding on the coat-tails of punk while mixing the rootsy rock’n’roll of Eddie Cochran, Gene Vincent and Chuck Berry with a little bit of Otis Redding soul – honed a five-piece line-up including sometime Chuck Berry sideman ‘Scotty’ Mulvey and former Ruts guitarist Paul Fox. Clayton, the band’s prime motivator and chief songwriter remained a man prone to ducking and diving – a loft extension here, a bit of security work there – and in the latter capacity met Big Joe Seabrook, a man who did the same for Keith Richards. Recognising a pair of soul brothers this man introduced Clayton to Richards and within minutes – in full Shepherds Bush market nothing-ventured nothing-gained bravado – the Dirties frontman was asking Keef, ‘Wanna hear our album? Wanna play on it?’ It just so happened that with the Stones on downtime and Mick m
