Singer, actor and punk frontwoman, Clare Grogan’s greatest thrill comes from bringing her fans along for the ride. Forty-five years after her band’s first album release, she’s revving up to take the stage once more

By Cheryl Caira

Today, the interview gods have placed a joyful icebreaker in my lap. It’s Clare Grogan’s birthday, and she happens to have vocalised the perfectly poppy song that became the title track for the Scottish new wave band Altered Images’ debut album. The song was ‘Happy Birthday’ – a 1981 release that still resonates, regularly referenced in popular culture across TV and film.

Not that I need much of an icebreaker. Grogan has that glint of mischief, a warmness, and as I’d hoped, sings a little bit of ‘Happy Birthday’ melodically back at me. Based in north London, she’s meeting family and friends later on for dinner and drinks – in fact, at one of her own tapas restaurants. Grogan has three restaurants across London with her husband and former Altered Images bandmate, Stephen Lironi (Escocesa in Stoke Newington has the most Caledonian slant, a fusion of Scottish seafood and Spanish cuisine).

But back to the UK’s alternative birthday anthem. It’s an apt date of the year to be chatting to Grogan, as she’s doing a lot of mental preparation – and reflection – in the run-up to her 16-date UK tour with Altered Images in September. It’s an anniversary tour, marking 45 years since the Happy Birthday album was released. The song was their biggest hit, reaching number two in the UK charts, and the tour will see them perform the album top to bottom.

“The tour is genuinely quite a big deal to me,” says Grogan. “There’s so much emotion attached to the album. I’ve been listening to it a lot, and I like to create mood boards. I have a room in my house where it’s all images of Siouxsie and the Banshees, Debbie Harry, Adam Ant and films from that era as well – The Girl in the Picture… Gregory’s Girl, obviously.”

Altered Images were the band that got their start after sending a demo tape to Siouxsie and the Banshees’ fan club manager, Billy Chainsaw, after they’d heard the rock band were coming to Scotland. There was a note tucked into the letter, asking if Altered Images could support them. If you don’t ask, you don’t get, and the bold request came good in 1980 when they joined Siouxsie and the Banshees on their 1980 Kaleidoscope tour. The band’s bassist, Steven Severin, also ended up largely producing Happy Birthday (although the song was the work of Martin Rushent, at the time producing for The Human League). Their sound – a mix of bouncy tempos and synthpop sound with a punky edge – captured the zeitgeist of the time.

With quite a rush of gigs within the space of a month being full-on for bands no matter the age group, how does she fully get into touring mode? “Honestly, I have a crazy amount of adrenaline, and that’s really difficult to manage. This morning, when I was singing ‘Happy Birthday’ to myself non-stop, my daughter was going, ‘Mum, there really is something wrong with you.’ And I’m like, ‘Yeah, I know.’ I am quite a hyper person, and that has not changed. I do try to be as healthy and fit as I can possibly be. I’ll either go for a run every day – because where we live, we’re surrounded by some really beautiful, ancient woods – or I’ll go to a pilates class. I’ve exercised religiously for a very long time.

“There’s a big thought process that goes on, particularly when you have to think about being 18 again. The music always takes me back to the start of it all, and that can be really strange. When I first thought about doing the Happy Birthday tour, I really wasn’t sure. Then I listened back to the album, and it kind of blew my mind, because it’s very raw, young and naive. I feared I might not be able to convincingly recreate that, but then I thought: I’ll probably never get the chance to sing these songs again. A lot of them aren’t included in my usual set. They were very post-punk, and a homage to the people that I really liked at the time, like Debbie Harry, Poly Styrene and Siouxsie Sioux. I still want to honour those women on top of everything else – but it’s also totally f***ing terrifying.”

Read the full feature in our print edition or via our digital Flickread