Biography

Introduction

The Ruts were a reggae-influenced British punk rock band, notable for the 1979 Top 10 hit "Babylon's Burning", and an earlier single "In a Rut", which was not a hit but was much played and highly regarded by the UK BBC Radio 1 disc jockey, John Peel.

Career

Formed on 18 August 1977, this punk band consisted of Malcolm Owen (vocals), Paul "Foxy" Fox (guitar), John "Segs" (sometimes "Seggs") Jennings (bass) and Dave Ruffy (drums). As part of Misty in Roots People Unite collective based in Southall in West London the band were active in anti-racist causes and played a number of benefits for Rock Against Racism.

Schoolboy friends Fox and Owen shared a mutual interest in music. In the early 1970s they lived together in a commune on the Isle of Anglesey in Wales, where they performed their own musical compositions with Paul Mattocks, who played flute, guitar and keyboards. Mattocks later became The Ruts' first drummer.

Post Office telephone engineer Jennings met record shop manager Ruffy in 1976 and became interested in punk after discussing the latter's Ramones t-shirt. Meanwhile, Owen's interest in punk was piqued when he saw theSex Pistols playing live. At the time, Fox was playing with Ruffy in a funk band, Hit and Run, which included sixteen year-old sax-player Gary Barnacle (who later played on Ruts songs). Hit & Run were a covers band who released one single, a version of Sam the Sham and the Pharoahs 1965 hit Wooly Bully. The Ruts initial history is cited in an audio interview conducted by Alan Parker with Jennings that appears on the CD "Bustin' Out".

On 16 September 1977, The Ruts made their live debut, playing three songs in a break during a set by Mr Softy (another Paul Fox band) at The Target in Hayes, Middlesex.

Early Ruts songs recorded at Free Range Studio Sessions - also in Hayes - on 1 October 1977 were "Stepping Bondage" (formerly ""Go Go Go"), "Rich Bitch", "Out of Order", "I Ain't Sofisticated" and "Lobotomy" and were Oi! in style. The group began to evolve and become more musically adventurous, incorporating reggae and dub elements into their repertoire. Dave Ruffy returned to the drums, and a new bassist, 'Segs' Jennings was recruited. The new Ruts line-up debuted supporting Wayne (later Jayne County) & The Electric Chairs at High Wycombe Town Hall on 25 January 1978.

The Ruts first single, "In a Rut" was finally released on People Unite in January 1979, having been recorded back on 24 April 1978 at the aforementioned Free Range 8-track Studios. It was backed up with anti-heroin tirade "H-Eyes" on the B-side ("You're so young, you take smack for fun/It's gonna screw your head, you're gonna wind up dead"). DJ John Peel expressed his admiration for the group on air (as can be heard on a retrospective 1978 radio show clip on the "In a Rut" album) and a session for the BBC swiftly followed the same month. DJ David Jensen also showcased the band in a further session recorded for the BBC soon after in February. A second Peel session was not long after, in May 1979.

In 1979, after a chance meeting with The Damned drummer Rat Scabies, the band toured the UK in supporting the band at venues such as Manchester's The Factory at the Russell Club. A bootleg of their 3 November slot at Strathclyde University includes a rendition of The Damned's Love Song as well as a cover of rock 'n' roll standard Blue Suede Shoes. The Damned also played live covers of "In a Rut" during this period as evidenced on the Noise: The Best Of The Damned Live CD.

In June, their debut single for Richard Branson's Virgin Records, "Babylon's Burning" became a UK top ten hit, reaching number 7 in the official chart and prompting an appearance on BBC's Top of the Pops. Second Virgin Records single "Something That I Said" followed in August 1979 and garnered a second Top of the Pops spot. The B-side was a reggae track "Give Youth a Chance" (also known as "Blackman's Pinch") originally recorded for the band's John Peel session in May.

Debut album The Crack was produced by Mick Glossop and released in September 1979, reaching number 16 in the U.K. album chart. Singles "Babylon's Burning" and "Something That I Said" were re-recorded for the album.

Taken from The Crack album, the band's third single for Virgin at the end of October 1979 was dub reggae song "Jah War", about the Metropolitan Police's Special Patrol Group's supposedly violent actions in Southall disturbances in April 1979, in which Socialist activist Blair Peach was apparently beaten to death and Clarence Baker was severely injured.^{[citation needed]}.

On 11 February 1980, the band returned to a BBC studio for their third John Peel session, two tracks of which - "Demolition Dancing" and "Secret Soldiers" - later appeared on Virgin's posthumous Grin & Bear It album.

On 27 March 1980, The Ruts released their fifth single, "Staring at the Rude Boys", a comment on the rapidly rising Two Tone scene. It was backed by another reggae song "Love In Vain". The single reached the #22 spot on the UK singles chart. "Staring At The Rude Boys" was covered by U.S. hardcore band Dag Nasty in 1987 and by English hardcore punk back Gallows in 2007.

The Ruts backed Laurel Aitken who was then signed to the Secret Affair record label, I-Spy Records on a John Peel session for BBC Radio 1, in April/May 1980, and also backed Aitken on his support tour to Secret Affair. The line-up was Aitken, Fox, Jennings, Ruffy, Owen and Barnacle. The band also played for Aitken on his single "Rudi Got Married".

With their latest British tour sold out in advance and an American tour lined up, the band were beginning work on their second album in early 1980. Having been forced to cancel a number of UK tour dates the other three band members fired their frontman over his drug addiction, shortly after completing work on their next single, "West One (Shine on Me)". After negotiations, Owen briefly rejoined the band.

Malcolm Owen was found dead in the bathroom of his parents' house in Hayes, in Middlesex from a heroin overdose on 14 July 1980 at the age of 26. Prophetically, the b-side "H-eyes" of "In a Rut" was a song against heroin use, and two other songs, "Dope for Guns" from the album The Crack, plus reggae lament "Love in Vain" ("don't want you in my arms no more") were also anti-drug songs. A year later, The Damned wrote a song, "The Limit Club", about their deceased friend which mentions the "velvet claws" that Paul Fox talked about with reference to Malcolm Owen's heroin addiction.

On 22 August 1980, the band's sixth and final single was released, "West One (Shine On Me)". Co-produced by the band themselves as they were "starting to get pissed off with the music business" (according to Jennings in an audio interview on "Bustin' Out"), the song featured brass and segued into a dub remix. The B-side was "The Crack" a lighthearted mini-pastiche of their debut album, recorded in a number of musical styles. It reached the #43 spot on the U.K. singles chart.

Virgin issued a second album later in 1980, a compilation of singles, demos and live tracks entitled Grin & Bear It. The three live tracks - "S.U.S.", "Babylon's Burning" and "Society" had been recorded for Chorus, a French TV show, in January of that year. When this was later reissued on CD, early tracks "Stepping Bondage", "Lobotomy" and "Rich Bitch" were added.

1980 also saw the collaboration of the remaining band members with Kevin Coyne on one half of his double album [[Sanity Stomp].

The band continued as Ruts D.C. (D.C. standing for the Latin term Da Capo, meaning 'back to the beginning') in a different musical vein. They released two albums, Animal Now (May 1981 on Virgin) and Rhythm Collision (July 1982 on Bohemian Records. Ruts D.C. split in 1983.

In 1987, BBC label Strange Fruit collected together the group's three Radio One sessions for The Peel Session Album: The Ruts. Live albums soon followed, including BBC Radio One in Concert (Windsong) recorded at London's Paris Theatre on 7 July 1979, The Ruts Live (Dojo) and Live and Loud! (Link).

Virgin released The Ruts vs. The Skids E.P, in 1992 to promote their Three Minute Heroes compilation album. "In a Rut" and "Babylon's Burning" were lined up against The Skids' "Into The Valley" and "Working For The Yankee Dollar".

Demolition Dancing (1994) was an album of live tracks recorded in 1979, two of which - "Shakin' All Over" and "In A Rut" - feature members of The Damned. Also in 1994, German record label Vince Lombardy Highschool Records released "Rules" which features sixteen tracks by The Ruts and Ruts D.C. including "Last Exit" a previously unreleased song.

1995 brought Something That I Said - The Best of The Ruts album (re-released in March 2003 and on EMI Gold in 2005).

Ruts: In a Can (2000) was an album of demos from three sessions in the period before they signed to Virgin, released in a metal tin. Fox, Jennings and Ruffy compiled and remastered this release and also supplied liner notes. The sessions date from 25 April 1978 (8-track Fairdeal Sessions), 20 February 1979 (Underhill Studio) and Mystery Studio Sessions (early 1979.)

In 2001, Virgin Records released Bustin' Out - The Essential Ruts Collection on CD. It includes "Denial", a previously unreleased saxophone-laden dub reggae instrumental track. "Bustin' Out" was rounded out with a twenty minute interview with bassist John "Seggs") Jennings. The same year, the 2-disc CD Criminal Minds appeared on Snapper in the U.K. The second disc was a reissue of Live and Loud! from 1987.

Anagram Records came up with a collection of unreleased tracks and alternate versions for their sixteen track CD In a Rut in 2002 (reissued 2008). The compilation includes a snippet of Radio One DJ John Peel praising "In a Rut" and offering to help listeners obtain a copy if it is not available in their local record shop.

Babylon's Burning Reconstructed (2005) was an album long tribute to the band's most famous song, remixed sixteen different times by the likes of Die Toten Hosen, Don Letts, Dreadzone and Groove Corporation. The wide range of remixes includes beatbox, drum and bass and ambient reworkings.

Paul Fox came out of semi-retirement to play Ruts songs as Foxy's Ruts with his son Lawrence on drums. Foxy's Ruts supported ska veterans Bad Manners on their Christmas tour of the UK in December 2006.

Two retrospective live albums appeared in 2006; Get Out of It!! features eighteen songs including a sexually-themed early number by the band, "Gotta Little Number" (also titled "Stepping Bondage") from a London Marquee show on 19 July 1979 (these recordings have also surfaced as "Marquee 1979" and "Ruts 1979 - Marquee Club"). Live at Deeply Vale, features thirteen songs from a July 1978 performance recorded at the free Deeply Vale festival that was held annually near Bury, Greater Manchester.

On 16 July 2007 the band reformed for the first time in 27 years and played a special one off benefit gig for Paul Fox, following his diagnosis with lung cancer. Henry Rollins (of Black Flag), stood in for Owen. They were supported by Tom Robinson, The Damned, Misty in Roots, U.K. Subs, Splodge (Splodgenessabounds), John Otway; and the Peafish House Band which featured Lee Harris, (The Blockheads), Tony Barber (Buzzcocks) and Rowland Rivron, plus Edward Tudor-Pole and T. V. Smith.^{[citation needed]}

Fox died on 21 October of the same year at the age of 56.

On 25 January 2008, Henry Rollins presented "The Gig" a short film about the 2007 Paul Fox benefit gig at London's Shepherd's Bush Empire. The event, in support of MacMillan Cancer Support, was accompanied by live performances from Alabama 3, T.V. Smith, members of The Members, The Damned's Captain Sensible, and Beki Bondage.

In June 2008, yet another CD compilation, Original Punks, was released by Music Club Deluxe in the U.K. The two disc set includes demos, alternate versions and live tracks plus songs recorded by Ruts D.C.

Discography

Albums

The Crack (September 1979: Virgin, V 2132) # 16 UK Albums Chart
Grin & Bear It (part-compilation) (October 1980: Virgin, V 2188) # 28 UK
Animal Now (as Ruts D.C.) (May 1981: Virgin)
Rhythm Collision (as Ruts D.C.) (July 1982: Bohemian)
BBC Radio 1 Live In Concert (Windsong International) split with Penetration

Selective compilation albums and E.P.s

The Peel Sessions (December 1986: Strange Fruit)
Peel Sessions – Complete Sessions 1979-1981 (May 1990: Strange Fruit)
Demolition Dancing (1994: Receiver) - mostly live material, and including two tracks with The Damned: "Shakin' All Over" and "In a Rut"
Something That I Said: The Best of the Ruts (March 1995: Virgin)
Bustin’ Out: The Essential Ruts Collection (June 2001: EMI)

Singles

"In a Rut" / "H-Eyes" (May 1978: Record label:People Unite, SJP 795 & RUT 1)
"Babylon's Burning" / "Society" (June 1979: Virgin, VS 271) Also released as a 12 inch single # 7 UK Singles Chart
"Something That I Said" / "Give Youth a Chance" (August 1979: Virgin, VS 285) # 29 UK
"Jah Wars" / "I Ain't Sofisticated" (November 1979: Virgin, VS 298)
"Staring At The Rude Boys" / "Love in Vain" (April 1980: Virgin, VS 327) # 22 UK
"West One (Shine On Me)" / "The Crack" (August 1980: Virgin, VS 370) # 43 UK
"Different View" / "Formula Eyes" (as Ruts D.C.) (February 1981: Virgin, VS 396)
"Whatever We Do" / "Push Yourself – Make It Work" (as Ruts D.C.) (July 1982: Bohemian, B 02)
"Weak Heart" / "Militant" / "Accusation" (as Ruts D.C.) (March 1983: Bohemian, B 03)
"Stepping Bondage" / "Lobotomy" / "Rich Bitch" (as Ruts) (May 1983: Bohemian, B 04)