![]() ![]() They are being left behind in the peace process and the recent violence on the Shankill Road proves that this is a very dangerous thing. "There is still a lot I need to get off my chest, especially about the present alienation of Protestant working-class loyalists. So that's what we wrote about, even when it was unfashionable, even when others accused us in the music industry of being "Orange bastards" for instance. We grew up in the heart of the Troubles and saw with our own eyes what was going on. "Unlike others, we didn't write songs about girls and chocolates. Paul Burgess, the drummer and lyricist, claimed that Ruefrex were different than groups such as The Undertones. Although we all came from loyalist north Belfast, we played gigs in republican areas in the west like Turf Lodge and Twinbrook." We were also the only ones that broke out of the Harp Bar/Pound Punk ghetto in downtown Belfast. We were the only band from that era who played gigs to raise money for integrated education. Unlike other punk bands from the late 1970s that put across the same anti-sectarian message, Ruefrex put its money where its mouth was. "We don't apologise for what we are - working-class Belfast Prods - but our message has always been anti-sectarian. Sipping from a bottle of alcohol-free beer in the Duke of York pub close to the recording studio in central Belfast where the first version of The Undertones' Teenage Kicks was cut, lead singer Allan Clarke explained why Ruefrex have come out of retirement. To mark their comeback Ruefrex release a compilation album later this month entitled Capital Letters - The Best of Ruefrex on Cherry Red records. ![]() Ruefrex still have something relevant to say." When I watched that I said to myself: "That's not what we are about. "When I saw Sham 69 on Newsnight on the same day as Blair's speech, it was toe-curling, it was truly awful. "We are not a nostalgia band doing this for old time's sake," insisted bass player Tom Coulter. ![]() Ruefrex, four life-long friends from the Shankill Road, are repelled by the use of punk to sell every conceivable product, including Blairism. Even Tony Blair and New Labour have tried to exploit the yearning for the punk era, with the Prime Minister entering the conference centre at Brighton last Tuesday to the sounds of Sham 69's If the Kids Are United. ![]()
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