Special Guest Blogger: Clem Burke

It all started, as many good stories do, with a simple desire to make a lot of noise. And let me tell you, I excelled at that from an early age. My poor parents. Bless 'em. They probably thought it was a loud phase but the call of the rhythm was too strong. It was elemental. Like a caveman discovering he could make a pleasing thud by hitting a hollow log, only my log was usually a pillow and my cave was the family living room.
Then came Blondie. Oh, Blondie. A glorious, chaotic, beautiful mess of ambition, talent, and questionable fashion choices. We were all a bit rough around the edges, held together by sheer willpower and an unwavering belief that we were making something special. And guess who was holding the whole thing together, literally and metaphorically? Your humble servant, at the back keeping time.
People always focus on Debbie, naturally. She's the face, the voice, the icon. And rightly so. She's phenomenal. Chris was the wizard behind the curtain, the musical architect. Jimmy and Frank, the rhythm section's other half, laying down the grooves. And then there's me. The engine room. The bloke who ensures everyone stays in the same postcode, tempo-wise. It’s like being the designated driver for a bus full of wildly talented, perpetually distracted artistic geniuses.
The early days were a blur of sweaty clubs, dodgy sound systems, and the constant fear that my kick drum pedal would spontaneously combust mid-song. We were young, hungry, and probably a little bit insane. We’d play a gig in some grimy dive bar, then pile into a van that smelled like stale beer and drive halfway across the country and there were moments of utter boredom, long stretches of highway, and plenty of questionable catering. But then there were the moments when it all clicked.
Take Heart of Glass, for example with its disco beat and then there was "Rapture." Suddenly, we're doing hip-hop. Did I know much about hip-hop drumming? Not a sausage. But you adapt. You listen. You experiment. and that was the beauty of Blondie, really. We never stayed in one lane. We were constantly swerving, often without indicating, into different musical territories. And every time, I had to figure out how to make my drumming fit, how to be the bedrock for whatever wild musical adventure Chris and Debbie had concocted. From punk snarls to disco struts to reggae riddims to hip-hop beats, it was a constant masterclass in musical versatility. My hair might have been all over the place, but my beat had to be tight.
During the 1980s and 1990s when Blondie was on hiatus, I played drums for the Romantics, Pete Townshend, Bob Dylan, Eurythmics, Dramarama, the Fleshtones, Iggy Pop, Joan Jett and The Stranglers amongst others and stood in for the Ramones a few times under the name Elvis Ramone.
So i  hit things hard and mostly in time"? Hopefully, with a bit more flourish whether in a packed stadium or a tiny club where the stage was so small my cymbal stand was practically in the bass player's armpit but  I was just this tiny cog in a massive, beautiful machine.