Band From Ireland Is Still Going Strong, Still Unapologetically Angry

Stiff Little Fingers, an Irish band with two decades of history, will help to usher Emerald City in Santa Barbara into the past tense with a Saturday gig. The 8 p.m. show, which will also feature Boston punk legends Gang Green, is not quite the last show at the venue. Commencing appropriately at midnight, a Gothic soundtrack for all those little weirdos in black will be provided by Tess Records artists Lycia and Trance to the Sun. Gary Folgner, former boss at the Ventura Theatre, will take over the venue shortly thereafter.

Once as angry as a Molotov cocktail during happy hour, Stiff Little Fingers was fully as irate as the Clash, the Sex Pistols, the Damned and their other follically challenged punk rock contemporaries. Then again, coming from Belfast, SLF had more to be angry about than some others. “Alternative Ulster” and other anthem-like rockers, which were pushier and preachier than Uncle Ernie after a 12 pack, depicted in no uncertain terms the ongoing violence in Ireland.

Then as the band continued, something happened. The band was still getting into fistfights, but the music mellowed into an almost power-pop mode. With stops and starts and personnel changes, Stiff Little Fingers, named for a line in a Vibrators’ song, has managed to continue this long because of the perseverance of founding member singer/songwriter Jake Burns. The band has a new one, “Tinderbox.”

Burns discussed the latest during a recent phone conversation in the midst of the band’s most extensive American tour.

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So where are you guys at?

This is all very strange; I think this is the first interview I’ve ever done in a parking lot. Right now, we’re at a truck stop somewhere in Ohio, on the way to Cleveland. We’d forgotten just how big your damn country was.

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How’s “Tinderbox” doing, or do you know yet?

We’re not real sure how it’s doing yet. But at our shows, some people are asking for some of the songs, so someone must have it. I think, if anything, it’s a bit more grown up than our other records. In the past, we’ve been guilty of not directing our anger, and it came out more like a scatter gun. Now, we are able to pick our targets out more cleanly.

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So can you still be angry in 1997?

Oh, yes. We’ve been under Conservative rule for the last 18 years, which tended to instill a general greed ethic, and we have tended to lose compassion for our fellow human beings. Hopefully that will change, but I could go on about this for hours or until the phone credit card gives out.

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Is this current version the best version of the band?

I think so. The main thing is that everyone was picked not just because they were good musicians, but because we were actually friends. It’s like when you first start a band and play with a bunch of buddies from school. Everyone’s into it and and believes in what we’re trying to do.

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What was the punk rock scene like when you started?

It was as chaotic as it was anywhere else, and very exciting. I know a lot of people got labeled as punk rock that were not really punk rock bands--Stiff Little Fingers, too. They were even calling David Byrne a punk. I think punk was more of an attitude than anything else. It’s all about standing up to authority. You can fix it if you face up to it. Hopefully, it’s just as exciting today as it was then.

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What do you think the band sounds like?

Once I said we were like a train going down a mountain. There’s still the chaos thing, but we’re just guys that can really cut loose when we play live. It’s high energy, and all the notes are in the right place, which makes it easier to sing the words.

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Who goes to one of your shows?

It’s interesting because we still get people that were there the first time, but now we get their little brothers and sisters. Sometimes we see a little 10-year-old kid with his dad. Maybe we’re starting to get like the Grateful Dead.

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Where does Stiff Little Fingers fit in with the cosmology of Irish music?

We’re certainly not Van Morrison, but we were the first Irish band to have an independent album hit the charts, so we have that little bit of history. We wrote songs about the troubles people were involved in in Ireland without being maudlin.

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Can music change the world?

It can change an individual’s world vision. If you think you’re going to change the planet, you’re deluding yourself. I remember the first time I heard the Clash, and it changed my songwriting and what I wanted to do with my life. Music can make little individual explosions.

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So you don’t mind playing the old songs in concert?

I don’t view a concert as just some sort of an ad for the new album. When you see a band, you want to reflect upon their entire career. Some people ask me if I get tired of singing “Alternative Ulster,” but it’s nothing when you compare how many times Mick Jagger has sung “Satisfaction.”

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So is “Alternative Ulster” and the rest of the songs about Ireland still relevant 20 years later?

Those songs are still too relevant.

BE THERE

Stiff Little Fingers, Gang Green, The Undefeated at Emerald City, 110 Santa Barbara St., Santa Barbara. Saturday night 8 p.m. Cost: $15. Call: 965-2231.