Chumbawamba look back on their “divisive” feud with John Prescott
Chumbawamba have opened up about their “divisive” feud with former deputy Prime Minister John Prescott.
In a new interview with NME, frontman Dunstan Bruce was asked to reminisce on Chumbawamba’s controversial dispute with Prescott. At the 1998 BRIT Awards, Chumbawamba member Danbert Nobacon doused the MP with an ice bucket in solidarity with striking dockers in Liverpool.
Bruce told NME that the stunt was considered “divisive” at the time. “A lot of people on the left were still celebrating that there was a Labour government and happy the Tories weren’t in,” he said. “We were happy the Tories weren’t in, but we weren’t necessarily fans of Tony Blair – he began that demise of Labour being a traditionally working-class organisation. We felt he was starting to destroy that and turn it into some middle-class apologist movement.”
He went on to say that figures such as Billy Bragg and Jarvis Cocker criticised Chumbawamba: “[Cocker] said if we didn’t like being in the music industry, we should go and do something else instead.”
“The reason we’d taken the dockers to give a speech if we won British Single of the Year and threw the water over John Prescott was because he could have resolved that dispute and he refused to even though it was a union that he used to be a part of,” Bruce continued. “It was that hypocrisy of people on the left once they get into positions of power and they immediately turn their back on the people who got them there.”
When asked whether current chart acts could take similar direct action against politicians, Bruce responded: “I can’t imagine anybody attacking Keir Starmer with an ice bucket.
“In the late ‘90s, we thought there was the possibility of an alternative way of doing things. You got a brief glimpse of that when Jeremy Corbyn became leader of the Labour party, and seemed to mobilise a lot of young people. Plus, we were drunk and we weren’t careerists, so we didn’t give a shit when the BRITs backlash happened.”
Bruce also praised the “brilliant” Greta Thunberg: “Getting arrested here, there and everywhere – she reminds me of us,” he said.
Last year, Chumbawamba turned down £30,000 for their music to be used in a new Jeremy Clarkson show. Guitarist Boff Whalley revealed the news on X/Twitter: “I can’t tell you how much satisfaction that gave us,” he wrote.
In other news, Yard Act covered Chumbawamba’s hit ‘Tubthumping’ at their five night residency in Leeds last year in May. They were joined by comedians Nish Kumar and Phil Jupitus, as well as Irish singer-songwriter CMAT.
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Alex Rigotti
NME
