Jah Wobble

John Joseph Wardle (known by the stage name Jah Wobble; born 11 August 1958) is an English bass guitarist and singer. He was the original bass player in Public Image Ltd (PiL) in the late 1970s and early 1980s; he left the band after two albums.

Following his departure from PiL, he developed a solo career. In 2012, he reunited with fellow PiL guitarist Keith Levene for Metal Box in Dub and the album Yin & Yang. Since 2013, he has been one of the featured pundits on Sunday morning's The Virtual Jukebox segment of BBC Radio 5 Live's Up All Night with Dotun Adebayo. His autobiography, Memoirs of a Geezer, was published in 2009.

Early life

Wardle was born on 11 August 1958 in Stepney, East London. His father, Harry Eugene Wardle, worked as a postman, while his mother, Kathleen Bridget (née Fitzgibbon), was a school and County Hall secretary. Wobble grew up with his family in Whitechapel's Clichy Estate in London's East End. He is a long-time friend of John Lydon (Johnny Rotten), whom he had met in the 1970s at London's Kingsway College. The two formed half of the group of friends known as "The Four Johns", along with John Gray and John Simon Ritchie (Sid Vicious). Jah Wobble adopted his stage name after a drunken Sid Vicious mumbled Wardle's name, which he kept, noting that "people would never forget it."

Musical career

In his early life and career, by his own admission, Wardle was given to occasional bouts of aggression, exacerbated by heavy drinking and drug use. As a result, he ended up living in a squat with John Gray in West London, while Lydon formed The Sex Pistols. With admittedly large "builder's hands", he had experimented with the guitar, but found playing bass a more connected and whole body experience, influenced in part by admiring Bob Marley's and The Wailers bassist Aston "Family Man" Barrett on stage in 1975. Wardle was as critical of his friend Vicious's bass playing as John Lydon, and had hence played in experimentation sessions with Lydon. After he burned the furniture of his squat-mates in order to stay warm, they left him alone there with a mattress, a headboard and his Music Man-copy bass.

Public Image Ltd (PiL)

Following the Sex Pistols' break-up, Lydon approached Wobble about forming a band. Both had similarly broad musical tastes, and were avid fans of reggae and world music. The band began rehearsing together in May 1978; in July Lydon named the band Public Image (PiL) (the "Ltd" was added several months later), after the Muriel Spark novel The Public Image. Wobble's bass playing drew heavily on dub, which has remained an important feature of his music. Prior to the break up of the Sex Pistols, Wobble and Lydon had experimented musically during which time he wrote a simple repetitive bassline which Lydon used to write the song "Public Image". In October 1978 "Public Image" was released as PiL's first single and reached number 9 on the UK charts and making an impact internationally. Wobble has stated that the first PiL album was recorded so quickly due in part to the bassist's altercations with a sound engineer and men at a nearby pub. He has dismissed claims accusing him of extreme malice, such as setting fire to the former drummer for The Fall, Karl Burns, while Burns was session drumming for PiL.

Wobble co-wrote and contributed bass and drums to PiL's second album Metal Box, which was released in 1979. He grew increasingly frustrated by the lacklustre creative atmosphere in the band, which he felt stifled his artistic ambitions and PiL's creative potential. Besides differences in artistic vision, further conflicts were brought on in part by heavy drug and alcohol abuse in the band. Wobble then recorded his debut album The Legend Lives On... Jah Wobble in "Betrayal", making unauthorised use of material from Metal Box for which he was fired from PiL in late 1980.

Early post-PiL years

Soon after leaving PiL, Wobble formed The Human Condition with guitarist Dave "Animal" Maltby and PiL's original drummer, Jim Walker. The Human Condition toured the UK, Europe, and US in 1981, and made two cassette-only releases of their live shows (Live at the Collegiate Theatre and Live in Europe). The post-PiL years saw Wobble also collaborating with Can members Holger Czukay and Jaki Liebezeit on Czukay's solo projects (notably On the Way to the Peak of Normal and Rome Remains Rome) and Full Circle (released in 1984).

In 1983, Wardle appeared on the LP Snake Charmer billed as a co-leader alongside guitarist The Edge of U2, Czukay, Liebezeit, and producer François Kevorkian.

Jah Wobble's Invaders of the Heart was formed in 1982. The original line-up was Ollie Marland (who went on to become Tina Turner's musical director) on keys, Annie Whitehead on trombone, Neville Murray on percussion and a musician named only as Cliff, on drums. By 1983 Lee Partis was the drummer. Trumpeter Harry Beckett and pedal steel player B. J. Cole regularly performed with the group.