Buzzcocks came roaring out of the UK punk scene of the late 1970s. But the influential Manchester group launched in 1976 stood apart from contemporaries like Sex Pistols and The Clash. Guitarists Pete Shelley and Steve Diggle combined the hard-charging aesthetic of punk with an inerrant pop sensibility and an experimental bent.
The band’s provocatively named 1977 debut single, “Orgasm Addict,” was predictably banned by the BBC, but charted nonetheless. 1978’s “What Do I Get” distilled youthful angst into a tidy under-three-minute package, and earned Buzzcocks their first UK Top 40.
The band’s prowess as a singles act was underscored by the 1979 compilation Singles Going Steady. As the group developed, Buzzcocks’ music became even more boundary-pushing.
Combining mayhem and melody, the landmark A Different Kind of Tension even cracked the U.S. market’s Billboard 200. Standout tracks “Ever Fallen In Love (With Someone You Shouldn’t’ve)” and “You Say You Don’t Love Me” combined petulance and love-song sentiments. A critics’ favorite, Buzzcocks exemplified the nexus in which punk and pop met.
Burning brightly, by 1981, the band broke up, with members going on to other musical pursuits. But by 1989 Shelley and Diggle re-formed Buzzcocks with a new rhythm section. Bass and drum roles would be filled by a succession of musicians, but between 1991 and 2014, the group released six more well-regarded albums.
Long after the punk era wound down, the band continued to champion—and maintain the freshness of—its hybrid style. Shelley died in 2018, and today Steve Diggle leads a three-piece Buzzcocks.
Never ones to trade in nostalgia, Buzzcocks released Sonics in the Soul in 2022. Featuring 11 new songs written and sung by Diggle, the album once again found the band having it both ways: the record remained true to the musical values that earned Buzzcocks’ sterling stature in punk and post-punk, yet never coasting on past glories. While Shelley’s distinctive vocals are no longer part of the mix, Diggle ably carries the Buzzcocks banner into present day.
Diggle explains that the influence of ’60s artists—in a single breath he mentions The Who, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan and The Kinks—loomed large over Buzzcocks, even at the iconoclastic height of punk. He says that when Buzzcocks started, “people thought that punk was all the same thing, because it was mainly an attitude.” But he and Pete Shelley believed there was room for experimentation within the punk format. “We mixed a bit of discordant, avant-garde stuff in with the pop tunes,” he says, noting that krautrock from what was then West Germany inspired his own songwriting.
Diggle recalls listening to music by Köln-based experimental band Can. “I thought, ‘That’s kind of weird: a German trying to sing English.’” Intrigued and inspired, he decided, “I’ll be an English guy trying to be a German singing English!” The result was “Autonomy,” a track on the band’s brilliant debut LP, 1978’s Another Music in a Different Kitchen. It’s a krautrock-flavored tune with razor-sharp guitar runs, a motorik beat that recalls Neu!, and a snarling melody that presages Public Image Limited.
The band’s approach of combining eclecticism and consistency has served it well. Days ahead of a North American run in support of Sonics in the Soul, Diggle was busy in a London recording studio, putting the finishing touches on Attitude Adjustment, Buzzcocks’ upcoming 11th album. “We span the generations,” Diggle says, noting that audiences at Buzzcocks shows range from teenagers to people the band members’ age (he’s 69).
Buzzcocks have long since become part of the UK’s cultural fabric. To wit: a popular and long-running British TV quiz show is called Never Mind the Buzzcocks. The band helped mainstream punk music and attitude, doing so without losing credibility. “The music has transcended the years,” Diggle says. “The songs have a timeless quality to them.”
Part of the enduring quality of Buzzcocks’ music is its relentless energy. But as propulsive as the band’s best-known songs are, the group is about more than being loud and fast. As long ago as 1978, the band’s Love Bites featured a Diggle-penned acoustic-based number, “Love is Lies.” And Diggle promises that Attitude Adjustment will continue to showcase Buzzcocks’ winning, varied approach. “There’s some grooves, a heavy bit in the middle, and even ‘Jesus at the Wheel,’ a song about religion,” he says. “But it’ll still all sound like Buzzcocks.”
Though he’s very much focused on the current tour and the upcoming album, Steve Diggle doesn’t mind taking a moment to reflect—and marvel—at what’s come before. “When we were making those early records, we didn’t think about how long they were going to last, or what would happen. It was for the moment, wasn’t it?” Pausing a beat, he adds, “But it’s a great thing that the Buzzcocks body of work has carried on through the test of time.”
Buzzcocks, with Strawberry Fuzz, play at 8pm May 14 at the Catalyst, 1101 Pacific Ave., Santa Cruz. Tickets: $43.95. 831-713-5492.
