1977–1991, 1999–Green GartsideVocals, guitar1977-
Nial JinksBass1977-1982
Tom MorleyDrums1977-1982
Simon EmmersonGuitar1977-1978
David GamsonKeyboards, bass1983-1988
Fred MaherDrums1983-1988
Rhodri MarsdenKeyboards, bass2006-
Dicky MooreGuitar2006-
Rob SmoughtonDrums2007-
Scritti Politti are a shape-shifting British art-pop outfit built almost entirely around the restless intellect of Welsh singer and songwriter Green Gartside. He steered the band from scrappy Marxist post-punk agitprop to gleaming, philosophy-laced synth-pop, and eventually to a hip-hop-inflected studio project. Never a conventional band, Scritti Politti became Gartside's vehicle for smuggling continental philosophy, deconstructionist wordplay, and deeply personal soul-searching into some of the smoothest pop music of the 1980s.
The band's name is a deliberate misspelling. Gartside took it from Scritti Politici (Italian for "political writings"), the title of an essay collection by Italian Marxist theorist Antonio Gramsci. He tweaked the spelling to "Scritti Politti" because he thought it sounded punchier and more rock 'n' roll, closer to Little Richard's "
Tutti Frutti" than to a philosophy seminar.
Green Gartside was born Paul Julian Strohmeyer in Cardiff, Wales. He adopted "Green" as a teenager after listening to a Captain Beefheart album where every musician used an oddball stage name like Zoot Horn Rollo. "The 'Green' bit came about because I didn't like the fact there were two other Pauls in my class and I wanted something different,"
he told Wales OnLine. "So I just chose something random after listening to a Captain Beefheart album where all the musicians were named odd things like Zoot Horn Rollo. I thought having a made-up name was well cool."
He later took the surname Gartside from his stepfather, Gordon Gartside, after his widowed mother remarried.
The band formed in 1977 while Gartside was studying fine art in Leeds. After relocating to a squat in Camden, London, they recorded their DIY debut single, "
Skank Bloc Bologna," and self-released it on their own St. Pancras label.
"We were squatting in a small, terraced house in Camden on a street of squats,"
he recalled to Stereogum. "It was a very impoverished time, and it was an incredibly exciting time. It was very violent in London at the time... I carried a knife at all times. It was rough, it was violent, it was incredibly vibrant."
Gartside's career nearly ended before it properly started. In early 1980, he suffered a severe panic attack onstage while touring with Gang of Four and collapsed after a gig in Brighton. What was initially reported as a heart attack turned out to be an anxiety attack brought on by chronic stage fright and an unhealthy lifestyle, forcing him to retreat to rural Wales for a nine-month recovery.
That breakdown left Gartside with such severe stage fright that he didn't perform live again for roughly 20 years. In 2006, Rough Trade founder Geoff Travis finally persuaded him to try a low-key comeback gig under the pseudonym "Double G and the Traitorous Three" at the Windmill pub in Brixton. His backing band consisted of friends from his local pub in Dalston, including a barmaid who had never played bass before. "I found that playing live, the pleasure of it did outweigh the terror," Gartside told Stereogum. "And so I've been able to play live more since, which is actually, you know, a great, profound pleasure."
Jazz legend Miles Davis was a genuine Scritti Politti fan. Davis recorded
an instrumental cover of "
Perfect Way" for his 1986 album
Tutu, which was at one time going to be titled
Perfect Way after the cover.
Davis and Gartside later worked together directly, with Davis playing trumpet on the 1988 Scritti Politti single "
Oh Patti (Don't Feel Sorry For Loverboy)."
Gartside recalled being baffled by the connection: "I was generally like, 'What was that again?' It was extraordinary. All I was thinking was like, 'Well, how the hell did Miles hear this?'"
Scritti Politti's sound changed dramatically once Gartside relocated to New York in the early 1980s and teamed up with American musicians David Gamson and Fred Maher, trading the band's early lo-fi funk and reggae for the polished, sequencer-driven pop of Cupid & Psyche 85.
Gartside admitted the ambition terrified him. "I spent much of that time making that album with a stomach-churning sense of inadequacy and unbelievable anxiety and a lack of confidence, but it was the record that I really wanted to make," he said.
After the exhausting promotion cycle for Cupid & Psyche 85, which included a nerve-wracking appearance on American Bandstand with Dick Clark in December 1985, Gartside's mental health worsened during the making of 1988's Provision.
Gartside eventually walked away from the music industry for nearly a decade, retreating to a cottage in rural Wales. He cut ties with his management, label, and partner, largely avoiding contact with anyone outside of a couple of old school friends. "I didn't want to see anyone, and I didn't see anyone," he told Stereogum. "I would occasionally jump on the train for a solitary trip to London or Bristol to buy vinyl. I loved DJ Premier so much."
After nearly a decade in self-imposed exile, Gartside returned in 1999 with Anomie & Bonhomie. The album features underground rapper Mos Def years before his mainstream breakthrough, alongside bassist Meshell Ndegeocello and Wendy Melvoin of Wendy & Lisa.
Scritti Politti's 2006 album White Bread Black Beer was largely a home recording made by Gartside alone after Geoff Travis had a studio built in his house. Gartside described it modestly as "an album of me playing around in the back room... just me alone at home." The record earned a nomination for the Mercury Prize, narrowly losing out to Arctic Monkeys' debut.
Despite being categorized as an '80s synth-pop act, Scritti Politti's catalog has aged into a touchstone for artists exploring the crossover between soul, hip-hop, and meticulously produced pop. Gartside has been publicly praised by Elton John and Paul McCartney and cited as an influence by acts ranging from Kylie Minogue and Matty Healy of The 1975 to Carly Rae Jepsen, Dirty Projectors, and Haim.
