What’s your last memory of Joe, maybe the last time you saw him or talked to him?
Um, fortunately, the last night we were in Rockfield Studios, December—fuck, getting on a year ago now—and we’d spent two weeks in there, working on the album, finishing things off. And it’s a residential studio, so we spent the two weeks all of us together doing our thing. So the very last night everyone hit the sack about 1 a.m., but me and Joe sat up until dawn, just talking about stuff. I don’t really want to go into what we were talking about ... [Catch in his voice] But like I said, the four or five years I spent with him I was trying to get close to him. And that night, I felt really close to him. And so that’s a great kind of memory for me. I also had a brief chat with him on the phone a couple of days before he passed away. Talking about the album, talking quite generally – just a little phone call from a mate, you know? And that was what was so great about being in the band. Nobody was like, “Oh, it’s Joe Strummer!” So I think we could get that close to him. So I can genuinely say we were mates, as well as being in a band together. I actually feel good. We did some good things together.

When I asked Joe to give me a brief description of each of the Mescaleros, instead of mentioning the specific musical talents, he jokingly ticked off some trait, such as one of you being the band’s resident burglar or something – very affectionate, funny tone in his voice.
Yeah, definitely. We were always there for him. Everyone did their own little things in the gaps, but whenever it was call-up time, everyone was there. And everyone really loved it. Obviously there were arguments and disagreements and this and that, but there was a great fighting sense together—“tribal” is a thing he would have said. Joe was very much into the idea of “the tribe.” Various people working together and trying to achieve something. And he felt responsible for us as well. There’s a part in Dick Rude’s film (forthcoming Strummer/Mescaleros documentary) where he’s worrying about us thinking the record’s going to sell hundreds of thousands of copies and him knowing it was only going to sell a few—and him not wanting us to be disappointed or stuff. [Laughs] Really, one of those sweet things that you wouldn’t expect.

Sounds downright paternal.
Yeah, he really felt that. And the guy bore a lot. He took a lot on his shoulders: his band, his family, hundreds of thousands of people who he felt musically responsible to. He had a lot on his plate, and he dealt with it amazingly. He was one of the most naturally spiritual men I’ve ever met.

Spiritual in what manner?
Just, I dunno. You read books about Daoism and stuff like that, the way that it talks about going with your life—don’t fight what’s happening, move with the world. And obviously he fought it lyrically, but he was always cool, whatever went down. When I was in Black Grape we went to Tijuana, the first date of the American tour. It was crazy. Joe drove down in this Cadillac. By the end of the show, Shawn had booted the drum riser over, thrown the microphone at Jed, fighting backstage and all that. And I was saying to Joe, “What the fucking hell, you know! This is the end! God!” And Joe was like, “Ahr, it’ll be okay tomorrow. I’ve seen it all before.” And he was totally right. I say he was “naturally spiritual”: that’s something he never talked about, but he moved and he talked with that humble authority, if that makes any sense.

I think it does. You know, when I got the news about Joe, I immediately went to the Web, thinking it was a cruel joke. Obviously, it wasn’t a hoax. Then I started reading all the testimonials that started pouring out. Were you surprised when you read some of that? The eulogies, the memories ...
I didn’t read them at first. The feeling I got was a real kind of overwhelming one, that I didn’t really feel when I was working with him. How well respected this guy was around the world. Obviously we’d see some of it when people would come up to him. We were on his back door step. We were close. And when it all kind of came out in the New Year and that’s all anyone was talking about, it was, “Fucking hell. Whoa.” Everyone from the man on the street right up to Bono dishing out respect, and buckets of the stuff. It’s incredible. The whole thing is just incredible. I still can’t really—well, apart from not seeing him, doing the recording and touring, and just how he was with my family. It’s just, you know, shitloads of stuff that it’s going to take me the rest of my life to get through, I would imagine.

It’s almost a cliché to say things like “someone’s spirit being present,” but when you were finishing up Streetcore, were there ever feelings along those lines—or, perhaps, “Joe would like this, Joe would approve”—that kind of stuff?
Yeah, me and Scott went through that a lot. We would even fight with Joe a lot about what would work and what wouldn’t. So we almost even went through that process as well. [Laughs] We ran ourselves out, really, finishing up the album. Emotionally, it was pretty draining. We did go through a lot of that and obviously there was a lot of Joe talking on bits of takes here and there, so it wasn’t like, ‘Wow, I feel the presence of Joe, blah blah blah.” But it was a kind of, ah, I can’t really put it into words, to be honest. And I don’t want to just say, “Yeah, I really felt his presence.” You know, we just carried on our work the same way as if Joe was there, you know what I mean? Talking through it in the same way we would do if he was there.

Maintaining that chaos, as he might have liked it?
Yeah. As good a job as we could do, under the circumstances.

I’ll tell you this one thing. Oddly, a really fond memory. When I talked to him in New York City, he had a bad throat and was drinking black tea, sucking on throat lozenges, and at one point I was in the middle of asking him the dreaded “role model/generation spokesperson” question. He had stood up and walked over to the waste can and hocked up a big wad of black goo. Then he cleared his throat, fixed me with a look and said something to the effect of, “Bollocks! They can fuck off. I’m not a role model for anyone!” Was that an example of the humility you were talking about earlier? Surely he was aware of his stature and how people looked at him.
Yeah, but I don’t think he wanted that responsibility. I think maybe what he was trying to say was, “You don’t know me, no one knows me.” He’s also into the individual: You’ve gotta do what’s right for you. Which is another kind of Daoist principle. You’ve gotta follow what’s in your heart and not what’s in someone else’s heart. Tuning into your own spirit and whatever. That’s what people should take from Joe. The fact that he came from what he did—at one point he was digging graves and another he was playing at Shea Stadium. That’s the spirit of an individual, and that’s what people need to carry with them, you know? I feel that very strongly. Again, in reference to the spiritual thing, that’s very much what that whole ethos is about. Finding—I don’t want to use the word “God” but I can’t think of another—the self within, the God within, and not someone else to rely on. And he did that, you know? It was incredible. That incredible energy that you get from that.

Do you think you’ll keep playing together in any context?
Ah, everyone wants to do their own thing at the moment, but it’s just weird. The Mescaleros, as a band, isn’t a band without Joe. But we all worked together before, and I’m sure we’ll work together again. I have absolutely no doubt about that. I had a jam with Luke on Sunday night. Luke lives above me, and Scott lives around the corner, so I still see all the guys. It’s just different. And we had a moment. Now everyone’s got to get on with their own thing. Find their own path and all that business.