At 17 I still loved soul music, speed and Wigan Casino. Liking soul music put you outside the mainstream; it was an open secret that only other soul enthusiasts could understand. And it was a way to meet older, good looking lads. Punk rock had the same sort of 'outsiders grouping together for a purpose' allure, but it also had the added advantage of pissing my dad off more. I started going to punk rock gigs... Dan, Boff and Lou were already there.

I can't say that we struck up an instant friendship. I thought they were too clever by half and they thought I was a thug - which wasn't helped by me having a feet and fists punch-up with an ex boyfriend in the middle of a Fall gig at Turf Moor Social Club. I sort of admired Dan and Boff because they were in a band (Chimp Eats Banana) and always seemed to be pulling off complicated jokes. I thought Lou was good looking but I came from a place where the only thing you were supposed to have in common with other women was suspicion. We all shared a mutual friend, Tomi - whom I'd met at work - who was also in Chimp Eats Banana. There was no over-whelming empathy between us; we were just in the same place at the same time.

I can't remember how Lou and I ended up being friends. I think we started to spend more time together about '80 or '81. We were really different characters: she was together, trustworthy and drank like a fish. I was all over the place, untrustworthy and pretended to drink like a fish. As I got to know her I just really liked her. We hitched to paris together in '81, and then went off to Devon to a Crass gig with Dan and Boff - who'd just got back from a busking tour of europe.

The band they'd been travelling round Europe with, The Mirror Boys, were all ex art school types who'd lived together in a rented house in Leeds. When The Mirror Boys set off for Europe they'd left a mate, Jasper, looking their house for them. Unfortunately, Jasper wasn't too stable. Within weeks of them leaving he'd decided to become a fruitarian, declaring that he wouldn't eat anything that hadn't fallen off a tree (nobody challenged him by coming up with a dead bird). Then he bailed out of concrete and went to live in a wreck of a car that had been dumped in the garden. Things like house sitting and locking doors were low on Jasper's agenda. He was going through a stage of seeing mystic significance in everything; while he babbled on about the Godhead a succession of thieves broke into the house and robbed everything that wasn't screwed down - and most things that were like bannisters, fireplaces, doors, floorboards and gas pipes. The electricity board came and cut the power off, within the space of a summer the house became derelict.

Dan, Boff, Dunst and a bloke named Midge squatted the house. Lou and I visited at weekends. The first visits were pretty grim. There was no electric and we took it in turns to cook on the fire in the kitchen. We were all inspired by what we thought was peace punk/anarchism and the asthetics of it. That meant we painted the whole house black and only wore black clothing - we were like scruffy undertakers. At the time we justified the way we looked as a political statement against technicolour consumerism - the real truth was that black looked cool.

I can't remember what led to mine and Lou's decision to move in. It was gradual and joining the band went the same way. Dan, Boff, Dunst and Midge had already formed Chumbawamba. They had brilliant ideas and not being able to play fitted perfectly with the notion of being the antithesis of easy listening. We were all living a DIY lifestyle (communal money/baking our own bloody bread) and all listening to DIY punk, the whole ethos was anti spectatorship. It would have been more odd not to join a band.

Lou's first gig with Chumbawamba was in Colne in early '82. Out of nervousness she got absolutely pissed before playing. I remember it because I was in the band supporting Chumbawamba. I did a screamed thing about rape. Because it was the 'political bit', the guitarist from the band I was in tried to make it lighter by standing on a chair behind me and pulling faces. It was a bit like pissing on the grave at a funeral. Spinal Tap, I left before I strangled him.

I've got vague memories of Boff encouraging me and Lou to do things with Chumbawamba; he's a great encourager, it's part of his nature. With Lou it was obvious where she fitted in because she could sing; I was harder to place. I used to think that anybody who'd been around at that time could have ended up in Chumbawamba but I don't think that's true. Over the years we've worked with loads of people but it only really gells if they see themselves as a component. Anybody who thinks they're the main attraction wouldn't last long.

For a couple of years we all swapped instruments to get rid of the idea that you had to be a 'specialist'. That had some hilarious consequences: when I'm nervous I lose all co-ordination, not a good thing when you're supposed to be playing guitar chords. I'd unintentionally invent chords mid song. It was probably the shiteness of my playing that banished the idea that anybody could learn any instrument.

Harry joined around '83. When we met people we liked and who fitted in they just got sort of added on. I can't remember any discussions about it. Lucky for us that Harry was such a good musician. Sometimes people would try and elbow their way into Chumbawamba; we've had people turning up with songs they've written. Other's got guitars out in our living room and sang to us; we were embarrassed. Being pushy never got very far.

I don't think I was particularly happy during my first few years with Chumbawamba. It was rewarding but fucking difficult to live and work with people. It's hard when all your mistakes are public and there isn't the space to have face saving secrets. I've felt more comfortable and less insecure as we've gone along. We've developed together. I look at other bands who started when we did and realise that the main reason we're still together is that we're all capable of changing. Politically, we had to evolve from peace punk... it introduced people to anarchism but it was a naive elitist movement. Musically, well we had to change... we had good ideas but peace punk didn't exactly push back the frontiers of pop. Personally... you can't have 15 year friendships without influencing each other.

And this next story was written by a good friend: (Mark Swatek)

right. i first came across the "c"-word on somebody else's school bag. it happened to be a cool looking girl (we were all younger then), but what also helped was that it was (and still is) a bloody stupid name. so i was curious. when i would go shopping for records in those days, it usually meant to get on the train to the next big city and then hang around record shops for hours, counting my money, counting the records i thought i needed and wondering if that stuff i was holding in my hands was any good. of course i could have tried to listen to it, but it was part of the adventure not to know before you got home, reading the records sleeves on the way back. i came across the first two chumbawamba lps then and they were so cheap, i figured i could afford them both, even though i had no idea what they sounded like. the covers didn't really tell me anything about the music, even though they sure made an interesting read on the train. i thought then (and still do now) that slagging of live aid was going for an easy target, but at least some interesting points were made...
anyway, i got home that day and put on the first records (i think it was "pictures of starving children...") and was impressed. i can't say it blew me away, but it was cool. it was all fairly simple, yet changing all the time. i liked it instantly (and anyway, it was a nice change from my jesus and mary chain records) and the second album (never mind the ballots) was ... basically just more of the same and good because of that. so i was hooked. but... alas, then came a lot of nothing. they were supposed to play at a pub in the next town, cos apparently some anarchist from there knew them, but the gig was cancelled due to (that's what i heard anyway) an unscheduled pregnancy. the "english rebel songs" EP appeared out of nowhere and these days boff says some of the singing is off-key. never mind, i liked it. i prefer real hymns when it comes to traditional marching songs (think brecht/eisler), but it was good enough. and then, when i had started reading the relevant magazines, "slap!" appeared. a total change, a surprise. one german music critic thought it (more or less) the best thing since sliced bread, but i was just wondering whether maybe i had missed something. it wasn't that i didn't like the new direction, not at all. baggy madchester (and that's where i saw "slap" heading towards) had excited us all, we were trying to have our own raves, we got into dance music, that kind of stuff... but "slap" ? (the painting on its cover, BTW, can be seen in mike leigh's new movie, "secrets and lies", hanging in cynthia's room) the trumpets sounded off-key, the songs were too long and the beats not dynamic enough. kinda like, nice try, people, but thank you. still, interesting enough to drive almost 200km on the autobahn to see them perform. a nice enough venue it was, full of punks and other people who vaguely looked like we were trying to look. dog-faced hermans supported and even though they didn't play "bella ciao" were quite wonderful. then the chumbas came on and what can i say ? a brilliant gig. they were doing maybe even more role-playing/dressing up/cabaret style-revue then, or maybe it was just the novelty of it all, but it all fitted perfectly. the audience looked as if they'd only accept hardcore, but they loved it. lou was still playing guitar then (for some songs anyway), marion (from dog-faced hermans) filled in on trumpet while mave was playing bass and using "the highest male voice in pop history". the whole place was moving and "the day the nazi died" send shivers down my spine. we all loved it. but then - again - nothing. it seemed to take ages before anything was heard of chumbawamba again in my part of the world. they were to play at a festival near aachen the year after that first gig i saw. of course, we'd go and it was only 8.- dm.