The most recent ‘Book of the Month’ on TVV was To Hell With Poverty, the memoir of Jon King, singer and main songwriter with the Gang of Four. I mentioned that the paperback edition of the book is to be published by Constable on 16 April 2026, and with the date fast approaching, it seems to be the perfect time to share the chat over a Zoom call that I had with Jon a few weeks back, one which focussed on the book but made sure to touch on the music.
I began by asking Jon what drove him to write the book in the first place.
“I hadn’t really thought about doing it at all, and it came about through a chance meeting with Steve Diggle of the Buzzcocks.
“We happened both to be at Abbey Road Studios in London, being filmed for a documentary being put together for a Canadian production company, and I hadn’t seen him for about 40 years. It was great to catch up with him, especially given that Buzzcocks were our great friends and sponsors in the early days. I asked him what he was getting up to when he wasn’t being a Buzzcock, and he replied that he was writing his memoir.
“I said ‘Really?’ as I had never thought of Steve being a pen-man. He told me he was having it ghost-written and finding the whole experience very rewarding, and then caught me a bit by surprise by adding ‘Why don’t you have a go?’ I said that nobody would be interested, to which he said ‘no no no’ and he gave me the name and contact details of his literary agent, Kevin Pocklington.
“I met Kevin who was really encouraging. It involved, to start with, 10,000 words, as sample chapters which would be used to try and obtain a publishing deal. It was quite an effort as I wanted to do it all myself – I wasn’t going to have anyone else writing with me and I don’t use and thoroughly disapprove of people using AI to write things. So I did, and Kevin got me a deal with Little Brown in the English-speaking world outside the US and then a deal with Akashic Books for the United States.”
Jon then told me that he was very pleased and pleasantly surprised at the overwhelmingly positive reaction to the book, especially as the process over the weeks and months had proven to be a bit of a challenge.
“I’m of the gloomy school of rock and roll – I never expect anyone to turn up to our concerts, and I wasn’t sure that anyone would be interested in my story. It was very difficult at the beginning not being an experienced author, and although I was an old-hand at writing lyrics, there was an initial struggle to find my right tone of voice and the best way of writing.
“I didn’t want to churn out long and meandering chapters. I also took time to read, as research, a few memoirs, some ghost-written, others not and quickly came to the conclusion that stories about drugs and drink are boring, and once you’ve read Motley Crue’s story, well you can’t out-Motley Crue, Motley Crue!
“I was able to work out in my head that the book would work best if I wrote about how I was at particular points in time, and to also to reflect on what influenced and inspired me throughout my life. I also had really liked the way Viv Albertine had written her memoirs – quite sort of gossipy and chatty – and that was uppermost in my thoughts as I went about the task.”
As I mentioned in my own review of the book, it doesn’t go straight into the Gang of Four, with the first half looking back at Jon’s upbringing, family life, school, university and his ambition of being a visual artist.
“I did come from what is best described as an economically-disadvantaged background. Growing up, I was never aware of being poor as that was my surroundings living in a boring commuter village made up mostly of council house stock and low-income families. I ended up being very lucky to get a free place at one of England’s most elite public schools (Sevenoaks) where I very quickly encountered privilege, and realised that those who have everything get everything give to them.
“It’s something that has stayed with me my entire life, and as an old person I feel even more furious about the inequalities in this country.
“I’ve always had a modest ambition of just wanting to change the world! I remember being inspired at the age of 11 by hearing Highway 61 Revisited and how Bob Dylan was really able to excite people in a progressive way, and I wanted to try and do the same.
“But it turned out that I had a talent for drawing, which led me to study Fine Art at Leeds University. I continued to do well and achieve some success by winning a few prizes, which led to one of my paintings being displayed in the Mappin Gallery in Sheffield. That particular painting was political but I felt that the people looking at it during the exhibition and passing comment and judgement seemed to be well-heeled and well-off and I wasn’t comfortable. I don’t think my father in his entire life ever set foot in an art gallery, and so I thought to myself that what I really wanted to do was something creative that had the power to start a conversation, and I began to increasingly concentrate on music.”
mp3: Gang Of Four – Damaged Goods (EP version)
Gang of Four first entered a recording studio in 1978 and the second half of the memoir covers the period through to 1984 during which time the band were signed to a major label and recorded four albums as well as undertaking a punishing schedule of live tours in the UK, Europe and increasingly the USA. I asked Jon why the book had stopped at that point, and whether, given its success, he was going to deliver a second volume.
“When I wrote the book two years ago, I wanted to have a natural arc of rags to riches and back to rags again. It felt like a natural place to stop. Things were changing for me as a musician, with Andy and I having a lot of difficulties because of his alcoholism. Things became a lot more complicated, and if the period covered by the book had extended, a lot of it would have been about the disintegration of our relationship. But I didn’t want to write bad things about Andy. We loved each other until a point. I’m never quite sure when it all went south, 82 or 83 maybe, and I really wish we hadn’t made that fourth album. I should have put my foot down and just stopped it.
“The paperback edition does include a coda just to bring a few things up to date. Over the past year, we did a huge farewell tour, including selling out a coast-to-coast tour of America. It was a remarkable experience, and I was astounded by it, both from the way the audience reacted and the fact that around one-third of them were under the age of 30. For whatever reason the Gen Z’s have adopted or seem very keen on what we do, while in the hip-hop community, Run The Jewels and Frank Ocean have sampled songs, and I’m name-dropping like mad now, but even Pharrell was saying that the inspiration for the album he made two years ago was Entertainment! You can’t help but be flattered by it.
“The immediate future is a short promotional tour around the paperback, and then in June we are heading back to the States for a handful of shows, with the band being myself, Hugo, Ted Leo and Gail Greenwood. We’ve been in the studio with the great producer Nick Launey, and we recorded for the first time a song we played all the time called Elevator which never made it onto Entertainment! because Andy and I thought it was too much like pop music, but it’s actually a really catchy punk rock song, and we are going to put that out once Nick has mixed it.
“We’ve also re-recorded one of our mid-90s songs, I Parade Myself, along with four entirely new songs. It’s really exciting as I never thought I’d ever record any new stuff. They will all come out at least on all the digital platforms in the fullness of time. And who knows, maybe I’ll win a Grammy for best new act!”
I ended our chat by asking Jon for his thoughts on the current music scene and whether he could readily identify a 21st Century Gang of Four.
“There is a need – there’s always a need – to agitate through contemporary music. Even back in the 60s, Elvis Presley made a song like In The Ghetto and the Supremes made Love Child about being a single-parent mother while Kenny Rogers wrote a song about a disabled Vietnam War veteran who couldn’t get it up. A song like that would never be made now.
“I don’t think there’s an identifiable Gang of Four these days. I am a bit puzzled by this given how dark and complicated things are at the moment.
“The problem is so much of music has been distorted and destroyed by the vampire digital platforms who just steal creative peoples’ money.
“Things are becoming even worse with AI coming along allowing people to copy and clone music without paying anybody. And of course in pop music, you’ve got that overwhelming dominance of say Max Martin who is now the most successful songwriter of all time after Lennon and McCartney, and so the similarity of big-selling pop music, with the exception of wonderful people like Beyonce, means you don’t have any pop band as distinctive as Abba or a new guitar band as distinctive as Nirvana or indeed anyone similar to Gang of Four.
“There are a lot of great bands and great music out there, but whether there’s anything like us, I don’t think so.”
We spoke about a few other things during a call lasting over 30 minutes, but I’ve edited things down to ensure this piece isn’t too long. My big takeaway from the chat is that Jon King is incredibly creative across all the arts. He has a quiet personality that is very unassuming and down to earth while still having that fire in his belly and a desire to change the world. Above all else, he is someone well worth listening to, and who will undoubtedly be great value at the upcoming events in support of the launch of the paperback edition of To Hell With Poverty.
Thursday 16 April : The Red Lion, 640 High Road, Leytonstone, London : In conversation with Miki Berenyi : Tickets here
Thursday 23 April : 1 in 100, Old Castle Road, Glasgow : In conversation with Douglas MacIntyre : SOLD OUT
Friday 24 April : The Voodoo Rooms, 19a West Register Street, Edinburgh : In conversation with Phill Jupitus : Tickets here.
The book can be pre-ordered from here.
Oh, and one of the new Gang of Four songs has just been given a digital release. Click here
A special thanks to Kevin Pocklington for arranging the Zoom call.
THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN 