Interview: UK filmmaker & DJ Don Letts on the intersection of punk and reggae, and the search for this generation’s Bob Marley and Joe Strummer

It’s easy to get hyperbolic when talking about Don Letts. Born in London with roots in Jamaica, the DJ & filmmaker first came to prominence in the 70’s, during the first wave of UK punk and reggae. Letts ran Acme Attractions, a highly influential clothing shop that provided a meeting place for the nascent punk and reggae scenes, and eventually began DJing at the London nightclub The Roxy, where he was responsible for turning punk rockers onto reggae (there were no local punk rock records out to spin at the time).

Letts is also an acclaimed filmmaker, responsible for the documentaries Punk Attitude and The Clash: Westway to the World, along with directing over 300 music videos, including for his friend Bob Marley, The Clash, Musical Youth, Ratt (!), and many more.

Letts was also a founding member of Big Audio Dynamite, and is still a highly sought-after DJ, continuing to tour worldwide while maintaining his weekly BBC radio show for over a decade now.

We caught up with Letts from his home in the UK to discuss his thoughts on how our relationship to music has changed over the years, where this generation’s Bob Marley and Joe Strummer are, and much more.

Letts has a number of events to coincide with his appearance at the ’77 Montreal festival this week, including a DJ night, a film screening, and a screening / Q&A at the festival itself on Friday, July 27th. Full info for his appearances this week is below.

Bad Feeling Mag: When you were running Acme, how important was fashion in establishing punk? 

Don Letts: Well, I grew up in a time when there wasn’t lots of different ways to express how you felt or find like-minded people or identify with your tribe. I mean back in my day, and we’re talking about the 70’s here, 60’s, 70’s, the only two things we had were style and music. So they were tremendously important. And also, through music we could get alternative information and inspiration, and through the kind of clothes we wore you could compete in a society that’s very class-driven. So the only two tools that were at the disposal of working-class people were music and clothes.

When you were putting together your early DJ nights, when did you realize there was this synergy between punk and reggae? Was that apparent right away?

No, the whole thing happened by accident, to be quite honest. I mean, I by chance got the job to DJ at the very first UK punk rock club / live venue [The Roxy Club], and this is so early in the day that there weren’t any UK punk records to play. So, I played something that I liked, and that happened to be dub reggae. Fortunately, white kids kind of dug it too. I think that we were like-minded rebels. Musically, it was poles apart, but the punks started to pick up on certain things like the bass line, like the anti-establishment vibe, like the musical reportage quality of the lyrics. And then that would manifest itself with bands like The Clash or The Slits, or later on, with John Lydon’s Public Image. So it was kind of empowering for me to see the impact of my culture on my white mates. It gave me some kind of cultural equity man.

Part of what made those nights work was that lack of resources, you were mentioning how there weren’t even local punk records yet —  how do you feel today with the way music is distributed and consumed, is that kind of cross-pollination still happening in the same way?

It’s interesting, I think you hit the nail on the head when you used the word “consumed.” Back in my day, I can’t imagine us ever talking about music in that way. I mean for some people now it’s a hobby, for some it’s a job, but back in the day it was our lives man. Music made me all I am today. I grew up listening to the kind of music that helped you to be all you could be, it wasn’t just about selling you stuff, you know? Today, man listen — all these things that made me who I am happened in somewhat more innocent times. I mean, why else would this little island throw off all these weird subcultures in the last half of the 20th century?

Now, the 21st century, we’ve got the digital age, we’ve got the internet, and it’s one step forward, two steps back. Because it seems to me that the internet has killed a bit of the mystery of the planet, and also removed, I guess, a bit of the pain and struggle and the passion that informed these things that happened before, and that pain and that struggle were very much part of the creative process. Listen, don’t get me wrong, I’ve got internet, I use digital stuff, it just seems that we’ve been overwhelmed by it at the moment. It’s all about technology, when it never was really, it’s all about the idea.

A computer facilitates ideas, it doesn’t have them. And you know what the worst thing is about your computer? It won’t tell you when an idea is shit. You need people for that.

It’ll work itself out, I don’t want to be a doom monger here, but it seems that we’re in this weird period where the technology is kind of smarter than we are.

Is it harder for people to narrow down and dig deep these days? You can be a slight expert on any type of music now, but is it harder to dig deeper when you can listen to anything in recorded history?

You know what, it’s hard to make those generalizations. What I’ve come to realize, is the problem isn’t the technology, the problem is people.

Technology is great, people are shit.

So if you’ve got the intelligence and the brain and the know-how, it’s there to kind of take you further, get you to wherever you want to get to. But I do despair. Social media man, damn! It comes to something when your personality is judged by how many likes you’ve got, that’s what quantifies a personality now.

You know what’s really great is turning the shit off. I keep telling people, “It’s really empowering, turn the shit off for 6 hours a day.” Who’s running who here? The whole thing about [George Orwell’s] 1984, with people freaking out about Big Brother watching you, but what does everybody want now? They want to be watched. It’s so ironic, I guess that’s one of the things that comes with age, you get to see these ridiculous things come around again and again. Like Brexit!

In the age of Trump and Brexit, are there new performers now like Bob Marley and The Clash who you worked with back then, who are taking the same kind of stances? 

Now, there’s a damn good question! Because they obviously are out there somewhere, but they’re not the ones that the TV companies and the radio stations and everyone that’s partying are going to let through the door. They’re basically not on the guest list, if you dig what I’m saying. That’s too real.

But for the most part, a lot of people seem to want what we rejected back in the day.

It’s all about aspirations, you know what I’m saying? If you want what the man is offering, if you want to be on the red carpet and do all that celeb thing, it’s very hard to be radical or rebellious. If you can ditch all that stuff, then things get interesting. And the thing is with the technology, the means are out there now, that if you’re inclined, you can do that. Or you can put up a picture of what you ate yesterday. It’s down to the individual.

Do you ever wonder what it would have been like to have these platforms in the 60’s and 70’s? Can you imagine Joe Strummer tweeting?

I’ve thought about that. I often give people the example of if Apple Macs had been around, Lennon might not have met McCartney, Jagger might not have met Richards, Jones might not have met Strummer, because they would have been on their own on their laptops thinking everything they did was great. Because what the digital age has done is taken out that kind of human chemistry, that’s integral, that you can’t get by sending a text, you have to look somebody in the eyes. When you’re in a room and guys are jamming together, they can just tell from the vibe if it’s happening or not.

I am an optimist, believe it or not! Like I say, the world’s a big place, if you want interesting ideas look for the amateur and the naive, man. Everyone else is kind of reading the same book.

What makes you feel optimistic these days?

My radio show, every week. I’ve been doing it for 10 years. As a broadcaster, I think you’re kind of duty-bound to kind of try to move things along, so you can’t rely on the tried and tested. So a quarter of my show is brand new music, and that still gets me out of bed. It’s very much a part of my life and who I am today.

You were shooting these incredible early music videos way before they became this omnipresent force for music — what were you trying to capture in those early videos? Do any of them stand out to you today? 

Oh, man, lots of ’em. Come on! “Pass the Dutchie,” my Clash videos, “London Calling,” “Rock the Casbah,” come on. Sorry, I’m reminiscing. I tell you which one that I did that people don’t know a lot about, is one I did for Ratt, called “Round and Round,” which is way out of my thing.

What was I trying to do? I guess I was trying to learn my craft, have a good time, and see exotic places. And that’s the serious answer. But literally, I was learning my craft as a filmmaker, ’cause The Punk Rock Movie is very much reportage, I hope you saw a decent quality copy of it. Making the music videos was me working towards becoming a filmmaker, I’m still working towards that. It’s a work in progress, that’s cool. I’ve made over 300 music videos in my time.

And it was good when I was doing it, because you didn’t have a million people telling you what to do, I just had to please the band, and possibly the manager. Now you’ve got the A+R man, the promo people, the choreographer, the stylist, the this, the that.

What is a camel? A camel is a horse designed by committee. And there was lots of camels back then, it got kind of stupid, so I had to get out of there. And also, in my videos, I did try to sneak subliminal messages in there. “Pass the Dutchie,” it’s a bunch of little black kids playing this reggae tune, but what I did was place them in front of the Houses of Parliament, and they’re playing with red, gold and green speakers. In a very simplistic way, that was my postcard shot of the new face of what London is about. It was down to the intent of the filmmaker whether you could use songs to say something man. I mean they weren’t profound statements. “Rock The Casbah” was a Jew and an Arab actually getting along, while still kind of sticking it to each other on their journey.

But then, I was working with bands that had the same intent lyrically as well. We were talking the same language, and kind of valued the music as a tool for social change.

I keep telling people, “You can’t spend your life on the dance floor man, eventually the music stops and you’ve got to face reality.”

And guess what, there’s some great tunes for that too.

How did the Two Sevens Clash film that you’re going to be screening here for ’77 Montreal come about?

A couple of years back it was the 40th anniversary of the 1977 incarnation of punk rock, and it got me looking in my archives, and I realized that I, by mistake, had kind of got the story of this thing called the Punky Reggae Party, which kind of rolls off the tongue now, but no one actually says, “Well, what was it?” And I realized that the very first footage that I shot, inspired by the punk, DIY ethic, was basically covering two subjects, the two things that captured my imagination at that time — it was punk, and reggae. So I decided to put it together and tell this story, looking at the myth and the reality of something that’s certainly important in my life anyway.

Is there anything that you think people get wrong about that mixing between punk and reggae, or that era in general? 

Yeah, absolutely. Well, first off, it wasn’t particularly about those two genres, as opposed to a more open-minded outlook on the creative process. It wasn’t just about punk, it wasn’t just about reggae. It was just about being open-minded to the world and it all has to offer. The other big misconception about punk rock is that it began and ended in the late 70’s. People have to understand it’s not a dead thing.

It’s not a mohawk, it’s not a goddamn safety pin, it’s not even just music, it’s the spirit and attitude that can inform whatever you do.

And it ain’t something to look back on. If you’re brave, if you’ve got a good idea, it’s something to look forward to. 

Don Letts will spin at Le Belmont (4483 St. Laurent Blvd.) on Wednesday, July 25th alongside Sud West DJ’s (Poirier & Ghostbeard) and Kell Bell Flo. 9:00 pm. Tickets are $16 in advance, available here. 

Letts will also be a guest on Damian Abraham’s Turned Out a Punk podcast taping at Le Ministere (4521 St. Laurent Blvd.) on Thursday, July 26th at 8:00 pm. Tickets are $17 in advance, available here. Following the podcast taping, there will be a free screening of Lett’s Two Sevens Clash film. 

Finally, Letts will be present at ’77 Montreal itself, for a screening of his Punk Attitude film, followed by a Q+A. 1:00 pm. For tickets and the complete ’77 Montreal schedule visit the festival’s official site.