FTV: Clem Burke

 

     R.I.P. Clem Burke (nee: Bozewski), the longtime drummer for the band Blondie.  Born in Bayonne, New Jersey on November 24, 1954, Burke succumbed to cancer on April 6, 2025.  Having read that he was finally getting around to finishing his biography (The Other SIde of the Dream – My Life In and Out of Blondie (Harper Collins Books, 2026), I had been on the lookout for it when word came of his passing.  The one comment he had made prior to publication was something along the lines of, “It has only taken me twenty years to get it all together,” but it was worth the wait.  Burke gets into the details of how he was able to make his dream of becoming a professional drummer come true without overexplaining any particular chapter in that journey.  He rubbed elbows with a lot of the big stars in the music world from Pete Townsend to Nancy Sinatra to Bob Dylan;  enough to write a long chapter of each encounter.  Instead, Burke provides enough details to tell interesting anecdotes without making it all about him.  Of course, it is his biography and it is all about him, but he is also a big music fan who lets his awe of these encounters shine through.

     Clem’s father played drums in local clubs and got Burke started early.  He was a well rounded percussion player who learned his chops both in school marching band and as a member of the St. Andrew’s Bridgement Drum and Bugle Corps in his home town.  He began drumming in his own local bands in the late 1960s.  Burke’s style was influenced by Ringo Starr and The Beatles, super session drummer Hal Blaine, and The Who’s drummer, Keith Moon.

     In the opening chapters, Burke paints a vivid picture of the New York City club scene that led to the formation of Blondie.  The trip to and from the city by train gives credence to his drive to become part of the music scene there:  “Our home was at the southernmost point before the land touched the water.  If I wanted to reach Lower Manhattan, I hiked across town from my house to Judson (now John F. Kennedy) Boulevard and caught a bus to Journal Square in Jersey City.  From there, I’d take the PATH (Port Authority Trans-Hudson) train into Lower Manhattan.  Trains ran through the night, but the service was patchy.  If I played a show at Max’s Kansas City or CBGB and got out of there at four in the morning, it was back on the train to Jersey City, where I’d face an hour’s wait in the darkness for a bus to take me home.  It seemed odd to be so close (to NYC) and for the journey to be so arduous, but that was the lay of the land.”

     Bayonne was a very blue-collar town and Burke grew up surrounded by a large extended family of aunts, uncles, and cousins from his father’s Polish American roots and his mother’s Italian clan.  When he saw ‘The Sopranos’, Clem said, “David Chase (the creator of ‘The Sopranos’ who has the same North Jersey background), I recognized all the references immediately.  The way people looked at things, the vernacular, the mindset – all of it reminded me of my upbringing in Bayonne.  When I see a film like Goodfellas, I always get reflective and nostalgic.  That was the way people were where I grew up.”

     Before The Beatles and the British Invasion hit this side of the Atlantic, Burke’s first love was Top 40 radio hits, particularly from those other Jersey Boys, Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons.  After the ten year old Clem saw The Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show, his musical world view began to shift.  He describes taking two buses to get to his after school music lessons in Jersey City and then rushing out to purchase his first 45 RPM record, I Want To Hold Your Hand.  He picked up a paper route so he could afford to buy all the new records and plaster his bedroom wall with posters and pictures of British bands.   His father’s Slingerland Radio King drum kit with a 26 inch bass drum and calfskin head was a good starting point but seemed a little ‘big band’ and ‘old fashioned’.  He finally laid his hands on a Rogers kit like Dave Clark played and made the life altering choice.  The Drum and Bugle Corp was out and forming a rock band with his friends was in.

     Burke was playing Top 40 music covering the hits of the day at the age of thirteen.  His folks were supportive (as parents who let a band rehearse in their living room would have to be) and Clem instinctively knew this was the parth he was destined to follow.  His story about having to change the ‘suggestive lyrics’ to The Zombies Time of the Season so they could play at a Catholic High School dance was interesting.  The band played it with the altered lyrics suggested to them by one of the Catholic brother’s to get the gig.  When they decided to play the original version at the dance, one can only imagine what followed.  The Zombies’ Rod Argent and Colin Blumstone heard Burke tell this story at the South by Southwest festival many years later and  enjoyed hearing how a bunch of high school kids made a stand against censorship.

     Lower Manhattan has a certain image about it as the birthplace of the Punk movement in the United States, but the transition wasn’t as glamorous as it is portrayed today.  When Burke and his gang of friends began hanging out there, the Bowery area was more ghetto than glam.  Being somewhat isolated from ‘the real world’ (which included Son of Sam, the anti-war movement, and politics), Burke’s posse felt more kinship with the drug addicts, gay club crowds, and the ‘Bowery Bums’ that inhabited the scene.  It didn’t take a lot of money to maintain their underground existence there.  The clubs were rarely dangerous but walking the streets required keeping one’s head on a swivel and knowing where one should not be after dark.  

     The eventual ground zero for Punk, the club known as CBGB was not a Punk venue at all.  It was rather grubby at the outset and owner Hilly Kristal envisioned it as an environment for all kinds of Americana music.  The initials came from ‘Country, Blue Grass, and Blues’.  The gradual change in tone came about because of Kristal’s willingness to let anyone perform.

In 1975, there were no CBGB tee shirts and none of the patrons were calling themselves ‘punks’.  Before the straight world discovered CBGB, Burke described the vibe:  “The place was set up like a folk club or cabaret, with candles flickering on little round tables and waitress service.  The audience was mostly made up of people from other bands, mostly rock and roll guys and very few women in attendance.  Certainly, there was no mania – it was all very laid back and cozy.  Right from the start, Hilly was catering for a broad spectrum of music fans.  I think that’s why he opened his doors to people like us.  So long as you weren’t playing covers, he didn’t care what you played.”

     The crowd vibe was more ‘beatnik’ than anything.  The dress code was leather jackets and sunglasses.  Burke and his band of buddies would congregate in his dad’s car and watch what he called ‘the ongoing street theater’ until it was showtime in the club.  As the music scene changed, Hilly finally put in a larger stage and better sound system with the help of guitarist Biran Eno.  It wasn’t long before the Ramones, Television, Blondie, Patti Smith, and the Talking Heads were transforming CBGB’s into the USA’s first ‘punk palace’.  When the Sex Pistols blew up overnight in England and spawned hundreds of copycat bands, the New York scene was different.  “None of the core NYC bands had  much in common, musically,” Burke remembered.  “It was more like a shared sensibility.  We were drawing from a diverse range of influences, trying to figure out what kind of bands we were going to become.”

     While kicking around the NYC music scene,  Clem kept his ear to the ground for any potential opportunities.  On March 10, 1975, he spotted an ad in the Village Voice that said, “Freak energy Musical Experienced drummer needed, female fronted estab. working NYC rock band.  Excel oppty. Money. Fun. Call NOW 925-0531.”  The voice that answered the phone told him the name of the band was Blondie and gave him the address of their rehearsal studio with instructions to be there the next day.  He recognized guitarist Chris Stein and singer Debbie Harry from the band The Stilettos.  He had seen them open for the New York Dolls some months earlier and also from seeing them at Club 82.  The first meeting turned out to be more of an informal interview where they talked about music and their mutual interest in various musicians like the Dolls, Velvet Underground, and The Stooges.  Having sized each other up, they concluded they would like to get together again and play some music.

     It took Burke a couple of days to haul his drum kit to the rehearsal space in piece meal fashion via bus and train.  The first jams were ‘unpolished’ but from the get go, Burke could see Debbie had all the right elements to be a star.  Fred Smith, their hold over bass player from their earlier band Angel and the Snake,  rounded out the line up.  They were already writing original songs and started up the long road they would travel to become Blondie.  The money and fame were not at the forefront – just the question:  “We have these songs, do we want to play music together?”  Chris and Debbie were self managing the band but neither were ‘business people’.  They did have connections around town and a couple of gigs lined up at CBGB.  Clem told them, “Okay, let’s go,” at which time he quit his current band (Sweet Revenge) and made a full time commitment to Blondie.

     Clem’s first gig with Blondie took place at CBGB on April 7, 1975, followed by Smith telling the band he was quitting to join the band Television.  The unexpected blow shook them a bit but Burke mentioned his friend Gary Lachman as a replacement.  He wasn’t a true bass player, but he was a good fit.  He changed his name to Gary Valentine and he and Debbie collaborated on what would be one of their first notable songs, X Offender.  X got them signed to a record deal and things began to gel.  Hilly let them play at CBGB anytime they wanted and they had enough low rent jobs to keep them in spending cash.  A piece in Rolling Stone magazine about the CBGB scene and their first headlining gig at Max’s Kansas City told Burke things were beginning to roll for them

     Andy Warhol’s influence on the NYC scene helped Blondie a lot by raising their profile and pushing the punk scene forward.  It was one of Andy’s friends who started the trend away from the colorful disco duds to the black leather jacket and sunglasses chic adopted by a lot of the city’s bands (see The Ramones, for example).  Some minor parts in theater productions put them in contact with more movers and shakers in the music biz and as Clem states it, “We were doing things our way and people were beginning to take notice.”

     Though Burke doesn’t remember actually getting paid for many of their early gigs, they had enough to live on and pay the rent at their headquarters.  The musical connections they made, however, were elements that were key to their future success.  Their acquaintance with a glam/punk band called The Fast brought in their new keyboard player, Jimmy Destri.  The head of the label they signed with had planned to record a live album featuring Blondie and the other  bands who regularly played at CBGB.  When that idea fell by the wayside, he decided to concentrate on Blondie and get their self-titled album recorded and pressed to vinyl.

     Their first two records, Blondie (1976) and Plastic Letters (1978), got a lot of attention in the United Kingdom and Australia.  Appearances in Top of the Pops in England pushed their songs up the chart and everyone on that side of the pond thought they were big stars in the states.  Truth be told, lack of radio airplay and zero television appearances made them an underground band whose popularity was confined to the east and west coast markets until the release of their third album, Parallel Lines (1978).  Even as the album shot to No. 1 in the UK, poor decisions on what singles to release by their US label (Chrysalis) held them back on their home turf. 

      Once Blondie began topping the charts, there was a two year period when they claimed the No. 1 spot on both sides of the Atlantic.  The No. 1s included Heart of Glass, One Way or Another, Dreaming, Call Me, The Tide is High, and Rapture.  A relentless touring schedule took them all over the world and put them in front of large audiences in the biggest halls available before stadium shows became vogue.  The constant pressure and Chris Stein’s battle with the autoimmune disease pemphigus saw them call it quits after a hectic five year run.  It would take fifteen years before Burke, Stein, and Harry would reform the band in 1997.  It did not take long for them to hit their pre-hiatus stride when their 1999 album No Exit put Maria on the top of the UK charts exactly 20 years after their first UK No. 1, Heart of Glass.

     Burke was never idle during Blondie’s fifteen year break.  He did a couple of short stints with The Ramones (as Elvis Ramone) and was a member of the Detroit band The Romantics (What I Like About You) from 1990 to 2004.  He added his drumming skills to albums by Eurythmics, Bob Dylan, and Iggy Pop, to name just a few of the numerous artists he worked with.  Clem was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with the other members of Blondie in 2006.

     In 2008, Burke told interviewers that he had taken part in an eight year study about the physical and psychological effects of drumming.  It takes a lot of stamina to play the drums at the professional level (and at the semi-pro and amateur levels as well) so Clem worked with both the University of Gloucestershire and the University of Chichester on the study.  Burke was awarded an Honorary doctorate from the U of Gloucestershire (2011) for his participation in their research.  He also founded the Clem Burke Drumming project (2008) to further study the physical and mental-health benefits of drumming.

     Outside his extensive work with Blondie, Burke performed with too many artists to list in this short space.  One of the oddest was a 2019 stint with a Blondie tribute act called Bootleg Blondie.  He also subbed for the Go-Gos drummer, Gina Schock, at a celebratory gig at the Whisky a Go Go after they were inducted into the RnR Hall of Fame in 2021.  Being part of The Eurythmics touring band when their star began to ascend reminded him a lot of Blondie’s journey in their early years.  He voices both his joys and regrets in a balanced way because he notes, it isn’t all ‘great’ nor is it all ‘bad’ – he truly ‘Looked at life from both sides now’. 

      The two biggest regrets he had revolved around his good friends from Blondie’s early days.  The first was not getting Debbie and Chris to let Frank Infante, Nigel Harrison, and Gary Valentine back on board for their 1995 reunion.  The second was the snubbing the same three endured when Harry and Stein refused to let the same three participate in Blondie’s induction to the Rock and Roll Hall of fame.  Burke felt powerless whenever he was at odds with Debbie and Chris so there was not much he could do.  The RnR Hall debacle he rates as the third worst day of his life after the death of his parents.  The fact that he kept playing during Blondie’s down time and the fifteen year hiatus (the ‘Other side of the dream’ in the title) meant he didn’t let the politics of the band get him down.  Clem Burke was happy to live the dream he chased for many years.

     When I learned about his death, my book finder wife was able to track it down.  It says a lot about Clem’s affinity for the U.K. as she had to order a copy from across the pond.  Burke was very private about his cancer battle before he passed away on April 6, 2025.  He picked up the pace so he could get the book finished before he passed.  Clem’s former girlfriend, Go-Go’s bassist Karen Valentine added a touching postscript before it was published in 2026.  Blondie’s original bass player, Fred Smith, followed Clem to the great gig in the sky in 2026, leaving Debbie Harry, Chris Stein, and Jimmy Destri as the only original band members still standing.  R.I.P. Clem Burke and Fred Smith.