Guitarist Andy Gill was working on a 40th anniversary album when he died last year. Now famous fans – from the Chilis’ Flea to La Roux – have finished the job, and Damien Hirst has designed the sleeve. They talk about what the band meant to them
Damien Hirst is talking about the epiphany he had at the age of 14. It was 1979 and he’d been “a bit wayward” after his parents’ divorce two years earlier. “Then I got done for burglary,” he says. “I stole a record collection from someone’s house. Among the records was Entertainment! by Gang of Four. I loved it because it made me think. After that, I wrote ‘Gang Of Four’ on my school blazer and had their button badge. I used to copy their artwork on to my school books. I got into the art world because, through Gang of Four, I realised anything was possible. I thought, ‘I’m fucking doing what I want.’”
Michael Balzary – now better known as Flea, bass-player with the Red Hot Chili Peppers – was undergoing a similar experience 5,000 miles away, also triggered by the seminal leftish Leeds post-punk band. Balzary had grown up thinking rock music was for “stupid people”. He’d wanted to play jazz trumpet. He only joined a rock band because a mate was in it. “Then I heard Entertainment! and it opened my mind to everything,” he says. “I didn’t care about virtuosity any more. You could be a confused kid like me, not knowing how to play that good, and still make something incredibly fucking important, like Gang of Four.”
