THIS IS THE STORY OF ONE OF THE MOST MISUNDERSTOOD BANDS, SIGUE SIGUE SPUTNIK, ITS METEORIC RISE TO FAME, SPECTACULAR EXPLOSION AND THE GROUNDBREAKING VISIONS THEY BROUGHT TO MODERN POP-CULTURE. BASED ON THE MEMORIES OF TONY JAMES AND NEAL X
THE BEGINNING
The beginning of the colorful Sigue Sigue Sputnik story starts in 1981 when the band, Generation X, (in which Tony James once played) finally disintegrated due to the fact that Tony could no longer agree with Billy Idol (the singer), on the merits of dangerous drugs as a passport to credibility. As Tony James now recalls, he had seen the destructive effects of heroin too many times, from ruining work opportunities to friendships to lives. In this case, it left him and Billy on two different planets… and then, almost from one day to the next, it was all over. Billy Idol left the band to write his solo album in New York without even taking the time to say goodbye, and Tony was faced with a feeling of emptiness, an awful feeling of loss that he had never felt before in his life, like losing a first love and your family all at the same time.
Generation X disintegrated in 1981
After a year of absence, Billy Idol appeared in London and brought Tony a promo copy of the song “White Wedding” which was planned to be on his forthcoming album. Tony felt so thrown after listening to the song and at the same time so impressed by Billy’s new sound that he felt that he had to do something as good as his ex-band member to keep up with him.
He started to play with ideas about the future band and slowly but surely the vision of it started to take shape. First of all, Tony realized that he did not want to create just another punk band. He wanted to do something completely different. As he says:” I didn’t just not want to go back to the old scene, I wanted to form a whole new scene”.
One of the central influences in creating Sigue Sigue Sputnik was the sound of the band, Suicide, which made Tony James think about another way of creating rock-n-roll using electronic beats. Also, at that time, he was reading a lot of books by the English futurologist and sci-fi writer, Colin Wilson, who was standing for the idea that an individual can influence and create the future they want if they want it that much.
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