Teenage Kicks and John Peel: The Iconic 70s punk band The Undertones bring their colossal UK tour to The Leadmill, Sheffield, this month

After having to reschedule their shows due to the pandemic the iconic band are eager to get going again, something the Northern Irish-bassist Michael "Mickey" Bradley is eager to get on with. But the first question is… are you ok Mickey?

“I’m very good, I think I’m very good. You know sometimes, you just think… Am I happy or am I just deluding myself?” Thankfully, he wasn’t having an existential crisis but was merely feeling the biting effects of the February cold in Derry.

Without wasting too much time on formalities, note there were none, we got straight into a really relaxed conversation. First call of order was the iconic song, or should that be sound, of the 70s… Teenage Kicks. A debut single that was so well received by the legendary DJ John Peel that he played it twice.

“We were kind of lucky that someone like that liked us so much, in fact, we were kind of lucky that he was a great radio broadcaster like that who had great taste in music.

One of the things that is immediately apparent about Mickey is his convivial personality, and conversation flows easily. Often far off topic, we should really rein ourselves in, but why? It shouldn’t be this easy but it is… it doesn’t feel like a job.

“I’m a fan of a day job. I was very lucky and got myself a job at the BBC in Derry. So I was there as a producer for 32-years and for a couple of years before that I was on a contract. I’m still there though. I quickly wanted something steady”, he adds.

The Undertones originally emerged 46-years ago in the midst of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, an ethno-nationalist conflict, which although popularised in culture just so happened to be the setting for the birth of the band and not something that defined their musical output.

“We started the Troubles”, Mickey laughs, “but seriously, we started around 74 that’s whenever I first started hanging around with John O’Neill, Billy Doherty and Vincent O’Neill - who was John’s brother - Vinny was in the very early days of the band but was told to leave by his mother. He had his O’ Levels coming up, so we got the younger brother instead.”

“As for the Troubles, it was the 70s and you know it’s funny because you’re asked this question so much and you start thinking about ‘what was it like?’ and you go, ‘well, we knew it was happening.’ But did it affect the way we wrote songs? No.”

“It was there in the background and the foreground and you knew it was happening, it affected people but we didn’t get involved. And ‘involved’ is a Derry term for ‘we joined the IRA’. You kind of go along (with it all) and you still listen to records, read the NME and newspapers, you see things as you walk down the street.”

“Because of the nature of punk-rock, we knew that outsiders would think that it would be a cool place to come from. It wasn't a thing for us though. I’ve said before, The Clash would have killed to come from Derry. They were writing about sten guns in Knightsbridge, and the White Riot and all that.”

“Whereas over here, we were like, ‘Yeah, we have all that. What more have you got?’. But of course we were more interested in songs that sounded like The Ramones or The Shirelles. We wrote about teenage angst and those sorts of feelings.”

That’s the thing about creatives, who often write about things that often take them away from where they are. They’re always looking to break the borders of things that confine them.

“We were lucky with the timing as well, in 1976 the first Ramones LP came out. No one, I mean obviously the NME did, but back in those days nobody really paid attention to music. Like proper newspapers or even local newspapers or any of that. None of them sort of reviewed punk rock records, which was great for us, you kind of have your own collection of stuff that you liked.”

“It also meant that no one really went to see you. We had about 30 people in the pub that we normally played at, which was great because there were no journalists, no coverage, so you were left to develop and to learn how to be in a band without people looking for great things in you.”

Whereas now, people are thrust into the spotlight while still finding their feet?

“Exactly, a piece will go, ‘Look at this great new band’, who’ve only played three or four shows and they’ve a lot to learn, you know?”

Time has certainly been kind to The Undertones who continue to playing with gusto to this day. 2018 marked the 40th Anniversary of the release of their most influential and famous song, ’Teenage Kicks’.

Unfortunately, Covid put paid to a 45th Anniversary tour and even though they’re not necessarily making up for lost time… they’re looking forward to returning to a city they admire fondly.

All in all, it was such a lovely conversation, I wish that I could have done this over twice. Just for the (Teenage) kicks.

The Undertones with support from Hugh Cornwell and Neville Staple will be performing at The Leadmill, Sheffield, on 10 March, 2022. You can get tickets here.