As Basil Fawlty would say:
The arrival of After The Fire's 'One Rule For You' in the Top Thirty is one of those satisfying tales of perseverance that shines out like the archetypal good deed in a naughty rock and roll world. Their record company, CBS, can reap the rewards of perseverance. The single originally came out in March and made a brief showing around the 150 mark (you didn't think the singles chart went down to 150 did you; well it does) and then dived.
The normal practice in such circumstances is to see if you can do better with the next effort but the feeling lingered on at CBS that 'One Rule For You' could and should have done better. Accordingly the company put their shoulders to the wheel once more and the result is the first hit for a British-signed CBS act since The Clash.
To After The Fire goes the satisfaction. The song is one that means a lot to them. Written after a snide press review which attacked their Christian beliefs rather than their music, it highlights the hypocrisy of so-called permissive people to alternative views.
"A lot of people can't tolerate us for being Christians,"
says keyboard player Peter Banks.
"They put blinkers on us."
"There's a quote somewhere that the only thing not permitted in a permissive society is Christianity; I like that,"
adds singer and bassist Andy Piercy who co-wrote the song with Peter.
We'd better clear the decks straight away and explain that After The Fire are not a Christian band, in the accepted sense. They are a group of four individuals who happen to be Christians. The difference may seem a semantic one but it's actually more important than that. After The Fire don't play gigs for Christian organisations because they don't want to be known as a Christian band.
"We don't want anybody thinking we're the Joystrings Mark Two,"
says Andy.
Musically what's interesting about After The Fire is that they are a pre-new wave band who've altered their style as a result of what happened around them, and they're not afraid to admit it.
Peter and Andy are the founder members of the band from way back in the early Seventies. They built themselves a reputation around the club circuit in the south-east with a style that somebody told me was 'old wave pomp' (not having seen them at that time I've taken his word for it), going through several line-up changes and enlisting their present drummer, the country gentleman-looking Ivor Twidell, shortly before recording their first album, called prophetically 'Signs Of Change'.
Not having got themselves a record contract they decided to do it all themselves - common these days but a pioneering step back in 1977. And it was almost immediately after they'd released the album that they decided to switch their style . . radically. Andy:
"We were getting dry before the new wave; there's no doubt about that. The album we did contained our history as a band up to that time. But once we'd done it we seemed to be released from our old material. I was affected by the new wave for its total energy rather than its musical standards. We also got excited by the idea of shorter songs. So we started writing and thinking differently. And when we came to go back on the road after the album we'd written so much new stuff that we decided to change the set completely."
But they still couldn't settle on a permanent lineup. At that time Andy was playing guitar but when the next bassist left Andy switched. They continued that way as a trio for a while before John Russell joined them a year ago. The band don't object to being labeled new wave although they don't have the necessary qualifications.
"I'd call it new wave pop,"
says Andy. And they're one of the few bands who've achieved a degree of new wave credibility with a keyboard player in their ranks. Peter explains:
"In most bands the keyboards are either an accompaniment instrument or else they're a solo instrument. Keyboard players tend to play those fast jazzy riffs but I don't because I can't. I used to play a Hammond and there's no way you can get away from that Hammond sound. But the two keyboards I use now are synthesizers and they're touch responsive. I'm a synthesizer player rather than a keyboard player."
Andy also has another reason for the band's distinctive sound which sounds a bit like highly energized pomp rock:
"Our sound stems from the fact that there's something slightly out of the ordinary in each of our styles I like a lot of the new wave but I also like a lot of the old Tamla Motown stuff. I don't know exactly what the others are into but we're fairly individual in our tastes. But we don't play heavy music."
In fact, 'One Rule For You' is not strictly representative of their style being slower than most of their material but they're not unduly worried.
"It's a problem in one sense but it's obviously useful in terms of having a hit. The next single will be 'Laser Love' which everyone at CBS likes a lot so that's encouraging."
Despite having recorded and distributed their own album, After The Fire are happy about putting themselves into CBS's hands now as far as promotion go. They're content to take their advice for the time being rather than continually pushing to get their own way. They've also stayed on the road since signing, unlike so many Lands who take the advance and run into the nearest studio for months on end. They've been recording demos with various producers between stints of gigs and have finally settled on Muff Winwood for their first album.
When we start talking about bands of mutual interest at the end of the formal chat the one surprising name that crops up is ... Doll By Doll. At first glance the two would seem to have nothing in common until you consider that they both have a 'cause' that lurks beneath their rock and roll exterior. But on slightly different planes.