‘Bowie compared us to a T Rex. I couldn’t have been better’: Mr Mekoni on how he made Where Were You? | | Music

Tom Greenhalgh, guitar

Many of the founders of the Mekons and the Gang of Four were on the same art course at Leeds University. In December 1976 we went to see the Anarchy tour at a local polytechnic. I liked the Sex Pistols but the Clash, in their painted clothes, sounded better. It was the first time I saw a band and thought: “That could be me up there.”

Soon, Jon King and Andy Gill started the Band of Four, rehearsing for the university’s film club, and whenever they took a break, we would start messing with their equipment. At our first gig – well, half a gig actually – we didn’t have a music section so Andy played drums. Then after one and a half gigs Bob Last from Fast Product label said they want to do something with us. We told him, “You have to draw the Group of Four, not us” – which he would later do. But he insisted: “You are exactly what I have been looking for.”

We recorded our first single, Never Been in a Riot, on a two-track recorder in a living room, but the Where Were You? Bob set us up at Spaceward in Cambridge, a proper studio with a reputation for recording unconventional material. Where were you? met very quickly in practice. Kevin Lycett played two songs, I played a rhythm track and Jon came on drums. Mark White wrote the lyrics, Andy Corrigan sang them, and it really happened.

John Peel played it extensively and it sold over 27,000 copies instantly. It was a lot for the independents, but we didn’t think we were at the forefront of postpunk DIY culture, or that we’d still be singing this song nearly 50 years later. It became a classic after David Bowie played it on a Radio 1 show called Star Special and compared us to a young Marc Bolan. Bowie comparing us to T Rex? You couldn’t be better anywhere, really.

Jon Langford, drums

I missed the first gig because I went home to Wales for the weekend, but legend has it that they had a sofa with a ship painted on it and it was called Dan Dare and the Mekons. When Tony Parsons in NME said the name was bad, we became the Mekons. They wanted me in the band because I had drums. Where were you? it was probably written in the first three days of the group’s existence. We thought we had funky, crazy and over-the-top songs, so it was going to be a B-side, but when we narrowed it down it had a kick and a real click.

The Spaceward studio had very old amplifiers, so Kevin spent a lot of time getting the first amp to sound like death. In order for the drum to sound, the musician had to stand next to me to slow me down, so we played it over and over until I couldn’t keep up. It’s a very good job from us, considering, and a very good cut. It bounces from the speakers.

Mark’s vocals were heavily influenced by Pete Shelley’s love songs for the Buzzcocks. Where were you? it’s about loneliness, really. “I bought you a drink, where have you been?” Then he goes back to his house and starts crying. We’ve always had women in the Mekons – Mary Jenner, a highly trained violinist, played bass on Where Have You Been? – and femininity was important to us. Where were you? It was a stark contrast to the “Friday night, let’s smash it” aggressive attitude that was prevalent in most rock music at the time.

On hand, I cut out Gary Glitter’s old year: the gold discs on the cover are Glitter’s, not ours, but cleverly enough Tipp-Exed his name. The gold discs were supposed to be amazing – we weren’t enjoying our million dollar sales! But after it became a week one in all the music charts and became our best-selling record, the joke was on us.