The Clash’s Combat Rock: How a Punk Landmark Foreshadowed the Band’s Collapse

Take a quick glance at the Clash’s 1982 album Combat Rock and you’ll see Pennie Smith’s stark cover image: four men standing together just off the rails on a railway track in Bangkok. It’s an arresting photograph. But it’s also symbolic. Because by the time the picture was taken, the Clash were standing just off the rails figuratively too, caught between global superstardom and total implosion.

From Sandinista! to the studio

In 1980, the Clash released Sandinista!, a sprawling triple-LP that blended punk with reggae, dub, hip hop, calypso, and political commentary. Though critics praised its ambition, it even topped some year-end lists, many listeners in the UK felt it was a chaotic overreach. Across the Atlantic, however, the record performed better than London Calling, cementing the band as more than just British punks. They had cracked America.

The band spent much of 1981 touring and recuperating before heading back to the studio. Sessions began in London and later moved to New York’s Electric Lady Studios, the same space where Sandinista! had been recorded. By January 1982, the Clash had 18 tracks laid down. The material would eventually be whittled down to Combat Rock, but not before tempers flared and friendships cracked.

The Far East tour: tension on the road

Fresh out of the studio, the Clash embarked on a six-week Far East tour across Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, and Thailand. But the strains inside the band were reaching breaking point. Joe Strummer felt the group was creatively adrift, clashing regularly with Mick Jones over the album’s direction.

David Fricke summed it up bluntly in Rolling Stone: “Combat Rock is an album of fight songs.”

Influenced heavily by Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now (1979) and the lingering shadow of the Vietnam War, songs like “Straight to Hell” and “Know Your Rights” captured the darker edges of American politics and culture. As Pat Gilbert wrote in his book Passion Is the Fashion: The Real Story of the Clash:

“The Clash, it seemed, had acquired the knack of writing ugly truths about America with a directness white American songwriters didn’t then dare, and wouldn’t manage to do as boldly until [Bruce] Springsteen’s Born in the U.S.A. two years later.”

But for all its global concerns, Combat Rock was also deeply personal. Mick Jones’ “Should I Stay or Should I Go” sounded like a breakup anthem, but it was arguably a cry about the internal fractures in the band itself.

Bangkok: illness, addiction, and chaos

After playing a controversial gig at Thammasat University in Bangkok, where, just six years earlier, more than 100 students had been massacred by the military, the band decided to take some time off in Thailand. What was meant to be a short pause turned into two weeks of indulgence and breakdowns.

Drummer Topper Headon’s heroin addiction spiralled out of control, bassist Paul Simonon fell seriously ill with a tropical disease that landed him in hospital, and Joe Strummer spent long nights drinking in Bangkok’s go-go bars. Mick Jones, meanwhile, vanished for days at a time.

It was during this messy interlude that Pennie Smith took the Combat Rock cover photo on a railway line along Petchaburi Road. The session itself was chaotic. Jones later remembered:

“In Thailand we only did one gig, but ended up staying for two weeks after Paul got ill. It was on the photo shoot for the Combat Rock cover, and Paul jumped in what he thought was a puddle but was actually some kind of black mud with loads of flies in it.”

Soon after, Headon was fired from the band. He would later look back with surprising clarity:

“Joe wouldn’t have sacked me if I hadn’t been a raving heroin addict, trashing hotel rooms, throwing up, late for rehearsals. He had no choice… I was in a state. We were kids … It was the best thing that could have happened. We made all that fantastic music and then imploded at the top.”

His departure marked the start of the end.

Rat Patrol From Fort Bragg: the album that never was

When the band returned from the Far East, they were left with the unenviable task of shaping their 18 tracks into a record. Mick Jones pushed for a double-LP with longer, funkier, dance-driven mixes. He even created a version of the album under the working title Rat Patrol From Fort Bragg.

But Strummer, Simonon, and manager Bernie Rhodes disagreed. They wanted a tighter, more radio-friendly single LP. Rhodes brought in veteran producer Glyn Johns — famed for his work with the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, and the Who — to rein in the chaos. Johns cut Jones’ sprawling 77-minute double album into a sharp, 46-minute record with 12 tracks.

The decision divided the band. Fans, however, have never stopped debating it. Rat Patrol From Fort Bragg has circulated in bootleg form ever since, and many still consider it one of the greatest “lost albums” in rock history.

Strummer himself admitted the strain of working with Jones at the time:

“Mick was intolerable to work with by this time. He wouldn’t show up. When he did show up, it was like Elizabeth Taylor in a filthy mood.”

Jones, in hindsight, regretted his behaviour:

“I was just carried away really, I wish I had a bit more control. You know, you wish you knew what you know now.”

Success and collapse

Despite all the chaos, Combat Rock delivered two of the Clash’s most enduring hits: “Should I Stay or Should I Go” and “Rock the Casbah.” Both singles climbed charts worldwide and became staples of rock radio. Yet commercial success couldn’t mask the fractures.

By 1983, Strummer and Simonon had had enough. They fired Jones, who went on to form Big Audio Dynamite. The Clash recruited guitarists Vince White and Nick Sheppard, but the chemistry was gone. Their next record, Cut the Crap (1985), was widely panned and later disowned by the surviving members. By 1986, the Clash were finished.

Legacy: from implosion to immortality

In 2002, it was announced that the Clash would be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Plans for a reunion show were quietly floated — Strummer, Jones, and Headon were willing, though Simonon bowed out. Tragically, it never came to pass. Strummer died suddenly in December that year from an undiagnosed congenital heart condition.

What remains is the music. Combat Rock is often remembered less for its flawless execution than for what it represents: a band at its peak, yet fracturing under the weight of its own ambitions. The album is messy, bold, and contradictory — just like the Clash themselves.

As Headon put it best: “We made all that fantastic music and then imploded at the top.” And perhaps that’s why Combat Rock still resonates. It’s not just the sound of a band recording songs. It’s the sound of a band falling apart.

---

Sources

• Gilbert, Pat. Passion Is the Fashion: The Real Story of the Clash. Aurum Press, 2005.

• Fricke, David. Rolling Stone review of Combat Rock, 1982.

• Documentary: Westway to the World (2000).

• Bombed Out! “The Clash in Thailand” (archival commentary).