The Clash eventually were commercially successful, critically acclaimed and the so-called "Only Band That Matters," but former singer-guitarist Mick Jones says it was the fact that they started from such humble beginnings that gave their hard-earned success more meaning than it was meant to have.

"It’s the life basically, and the life you choose and it's the best life you know because you’re going out with your mates and you’re going all over the world," Jones tells the Sabotage Times. "All we wanted originally was to play a few numbers and have a good time playing the music we liked -- it wasn’t contrived -- but people look at it in retrospect and they put extra analysis on it, you know what I mean? So we go, 'OK,' and go along with it because it sounds a better story, but a lot of it wasn’t there originally.”

“We always got criticism in the Clash but we always thought, ‘you should be happy,'"  he continues. "We’ve gone a long way and it represents what you can do, you know what I mean? We took it all the way to Broadway" -- a reference to the band's legendary 17-concert run at New York's Bond's International Casino in May and June 1981 -- "and that meant something. When we got the flack we thought, 'we don’t care,' because we represent something that will go a long way, because it’s righteous and tonight here at this gig was righteous in every way."

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