Rock and Roll Contenders # 14: Nick Lowe (Rockpile) and "Born Fighter"
Lowe figures the lyrics don’t matter, that what really counts is how the music makes you feel—the beat and that sex thing, as he calls it.
The 1979 documentary on Rockpile is called Born Fighters, and the hour long film is a quote-fest with Nick Lowe grabbing most of the attention. Lowe is occasionally corrected by his musical partner Dave Edmunds—for example, on how Phil Spector got his wall of sound—but without help from Edmunds or anyone else, Nick Lowe understands (and lives) the spirit of rock and roll. How else could he have imagined and produced all those early Elvis Costello records?
As Rockpile begins work on an Edmunds track called “Sweet Little Lisa,” Lowe figures the lyrics don’t matter, that what really counts is how the music makes you feel—the beat and that sex thing, as he calls it. “It’s the hardest thing in the world to write a three-chord simple rock and roll song,” says Lowe. The best ones, he says, sound like anyone could have written them.
Rockpile recorded something like five albums as a unit—Lowe, Edmunds, Billy Bremner, and Terry Williams—but there is just one official Rockpile release called Seconds of Pleasure from 1980. The rest of the records stand as solo works by Lowe and Edmunds. None of these gents would end up as huge stars, but even with some subpar songs and questionable mixes, there’s undeniable love and energy in each piece of work that tells you Rockpile is the real thing and a force to be reckoned with.
Perhaps they were the force in the late 1970s. Live performances by the band—easy enough to find on YouTube and streaming services—are revelatory for their boundless energy.
It might not be a stretch to say that the gentlemen in Rockpile understood and loved the foundations of the genre they’d chosen to work in better than most. Their real accomplishment is that they didn’t try to alter the formula, not even by a degree or two—if it’s loud and fast, and if there’s a hint of sex, it’s rock and roll. No frills required. Drums and guitars and a passable singer who’s down with Lowe’s suggestion that the words don’t really matter at all. The thing that’s captured in a great rock and roll record is a feeling. It has nothing to do with art or perfection and everything to do with life injected into a performance.
Lowe’s “Born Fighter” has all the Rockpile ingredients: Mr. Lowe’s witty lyrics (“Girls like that bring a lump to my pockets”), stellar drumming from Terry Williams, an inventive rhythm guitar track from Billy Bremner with the guitar in open tuning and played with a capo. The icing on the cake comes in the form of two solos—a surprise harmonica bit from Huey Lewis (several years before he got famous as a bandleader), and a B-bender solo from Edmunds that is madcap and incredibly musical all at once. Edmunds isn’t too many steps behind his guitar hero Albert Lee.
For good measure, Edmunds once called Keith Richards a cunt when Richards wouldn’t leave the stage at a Rockpile performance in New York. Who else could get away with that and live to tell the tale? But it’s only because Rockpile knew a thing or two about rock and roll. Lowe is cocky and forthright, too, near the beginning of the Born Fighters documentary when he rambles on about how to create rock and roll in a studio with all the modern equipment that might hamper the process.
It’s a challenge to rock and roll with all those bells and whistles, but Lowe is confident because he understands the intangible ingredients—the parts of a recording that don’t happen as a result of gear. Making records is mysterious, sure, but the mystery can be lassoed under the correct human conditions. Lowe grins and says to Edmunds, “We know how to do that, don’t we, man.” And there’s plenty of sonic evidence to show that Nick Lowe wasn’t wrong.
Rockpile were the greatest. The "Born Fighters" docu is sort of their "Let It Be" in that it shows the rifts beginning to show between Edmunds & Lowe (too much drinking) but also the genius of their creative process. They broke up about 2 years after this was filmed.
The section where Albert Lee is overdubbing solos & Nick says, ". . . You've obviously read my pamphlet . . : - priceless! What a character.
During the stretch of time (1977-1979) where Nick & Dave were recording their own 'solo' albums with Rockpile as the band they were unbeatable: "Get It", Tracks on Wax", "Repeat When Necessary" (Edmunds) and "Pure Pop For Now People" and "Labour Of Lust" (Lowe) are all perfect rock 'n' roll records, with Rockpile on every track excepting parts of "Pure Pop".
Greatest band ever, if you ask me on the right day.
Absolutely agree. I saw Rockpile in 1979 at Leeds Uni. Around the same time we also saw The Clash, The Ramones, The Stiffs Tour, Ian Dury and The Gang of Four amongst others. Rockpile blew them all away
‘We’re Rockpile, let’s do it!’ 😀😀😀