Ian had his band, Kilburn And The High Roads, and they often used to have gigs with Dr Feelgood. “I knew Ian from when we were playing the pubs. I think a lot of the stage performance of Dr Feelgood stems from those days of just trying to stir people up, really.” “We started finding that we got more reaction from people if we put action into it ourselves. The people came there for music, so that was our first experience of playing to an audience that actually wanted to listen to us. “I think a little while after that we got another residency at a disco on Canvey Island, which was our hometown, and that of course was more suitable. It was a very grotty pub and they used to keep coming up and telling us to turn it down! The people were just in there drinking, you know, they weren’t really interested in music. Or, ‘This one sounds very profound and philosophical’, and write something very profound and philosophical. “You might think, ‘This song sounds rather amusing… Better write something amusing’. You get a guitar riff going and you kind of start thinking, ‘What’s this riff saying here?’ and ‘What kind of mood is this?’ And then you build up some lyrics in keeping with it. “I wrote it more or less like every song I’ve ever written since then: it starts with a guitar riff. The first song I ever wrote was called 'She Does It Right', and I still play it live to this very day. “I didn't start writing songs until Dr Feelgood were well under way and we were taking things a bit seriously. Wilko’s first song – Dr Feelgood, ‘She Does It Right’ Then it developed into a band which developed and developed and I ended up joining it and calling it Dr Feelgood.” “Lee started his own jug band after that. Even then he made a strong impression on me and my brother. “Now that's a big age gap, if you're 18 and they’re 14, but Lee Brilleaux who was one of these boys, his personality even then was just so… What would you say about it? He was a very… dynamic person. I was about 18 at the time and these boys were about 14, and they were very interested in what we were doing. It was like a skiffle group – we used to play on the seafront at Canvey Island, busking. I used to do this thing with my brother, what we called a jug band.
“I first met Lee Brilleaux when I was about 18. Wilko meets Dr Feelgood frontman Lee Brilleaux I told Van Morrison this little story once: ‘Yes Van, you were encouraging me to get my first date with Irene.’” I'd been walking along singing ‘Here Comes The Night’. I went and asked her out, and it was ages later that somebody pointed out that her name was, in fact, Irene Knight.
To keep up my courage I was singing ‘Here Comes The Night’, which was a hit song for Van Morrison and Them at the time. I was going round her house to ask her to come out with me. “The first time I wanted to ask Irene out, I was walking down the road on Canvey Island. Wilko’s first date – Them, ‘Here Comes The Night’ It’s brass and keyboards, but all sorts of things influence me.” And there’s not even a guitar audible on that record. It was a bit later on I started getting to grips with playing myself. “The actual music going on in that song was obviously way above my head. So if you wanted to hear it with any power you had to kind of lay on the floor and stick your ear next to it. You had to put one record on at a time and it probably had a sort of two-inch square speaker somewhere in the side. “Our record player at home was a very primitive affair. A wise investment actually, because it's a great record. I heard it one Saturday morning on the radio and immediately rushed out and spent my pocket money on it. “The first record I ever bought was ‘Hit The Road Jack’ by Ray Charles. Wilko’s first record – Ray Charles, ‘Hit The Road Jack’ So Clash goes with it and, instead of focusing on the end, we take it back to the early days, delving into a few of Wilko’s firsts. Talking to Wilko, it’s hard to evade his matter-of-fact optimism he’s genuinely inspiring. “We’re just going to carry on until we can’t.” “I didn’t feel very good about being retired, even though I’d only got a short retirement to look forward to,” he tells Clash.
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