Alan Vega

There cannot be many artists about whom it can be said that, after 37 years on the musical frontline, they are making their most vitally impassioned and fiercely radical music to date. Such is the case with Alan Vega and his new solo album, Station. Five years in the making, Vega's tenth solo release is a blistering statement of intent from a rock'n'roll shaman whose work has always stretched parameters, managing to defy expectations at every turn.

As Vega himself says, "Station represents a kind of culmination point for me. It gathers up many of the elements that have been in my previous work and takes them all the way. In many ways, it's my most truthful record in that I'm now at the age where it's easier for me to listen to my own heart-beat and act on it creatively."

"Station" marks the latest decisive stage in a musical journey that began for Alan Vega way back in 1970 in downtown New York. A visual artist and singer, Vega teamed up with the classically trained Martin Rev to form Suicide. Always ahead of their time, Vega and Rev were the first to use the word "punk" in a musical context when, in 1971, they organised an event called "A Punk Music Mass" at a Manhattan art gallery space.

Eschewing guitar and rhythm section for pulsing Farfisa organ and primitive drum-machine, Suicide fashioned an alarmingly unique sound that would prove to have profound and far-reaching influence on the music of the coming decades. Though, back in the early 1970s, the world was far from ready to embrace Suicide's revolutionary dynamic. For the next six years, they played to either total incomprehension or outright manic hostility. Suicide shows were fractious affairs, marked by bottles, knives and furniture flying towards the stage. Full-scale riots were the norm with Vega known to conclude performances by leaping into the audience brandishing a bicycle chain.

"One of the great myths about Suicide," says Vega, "is that we were all about nihilism and negativity. In choosing that name, we were referring to how the world itself seemed on the verge of suicide. But we were also about recognising how alive things were. When it came to our live shows, we didn't want to entertain people. We wanted to throw the meanness and nastiness of the street right back at the audience. If we sent them all running for the exits, that was considered a good show. Some nights we'd barricade the doors so they had no choice but to stay and listen. Every night was like fighting a revolution."

Come 1976 and, on the face of it, punk ought to have provided a ready-made context if not a natural home for Suicide. However, their genuine confrontational zeal and primitive use of electronics ensured that, being too punk even for punk, they would continue to be viewed with suspicion and loathing. When Vega and Rev toured Europe with The Clash in 1978, they were attacked by axes and monkey wrenches. "The violence was now part of the show," Vega recalls. "Every night we went out to play, I fully expected to die. Most other bands would have been discouraged and given up. To most people, it might have sounded like what we were doing was insane. But we loved it and had total belief in it."

By this time Suicide has released their eponymous debut album, a startling work of raw beauty and minimalistic menace with Vega's ghostly, renegade croon riding the edges of Rev's primal keyboard pulses. Including landmark tracks such as "Ghost Rider," "Cheree" and the darkly epic "Frankie Teardrop," Suicide was critically acclaimed upon its release and it is now routinely cited as one of the seminal works in the rock canon. A second album, entitled Alan Vega-Martin Rev and understatedly produced by The Cars' Ric Ocasek, followed in 1980. By which time both Vega and Rev were concentrating on solo pursuits.

Between 1980 and 1982, Vega released three highly compelling albums (Alan Vega, Collision Drive, Saturn Strip) of brutally stark, echo-laden, guitar-driven rockabilly that briefly threatened to turn him into a mainstream star. His face could now regularly be found on music paper covers with NME describing him as, "a true American hero." His single, "Jukebox Babe" became a hit in France where, overnight, he became an unlikely magazine pin-up. Then, in 1985, having signed to Elektra, he delivered Just A Million Dreams, an album compromised by record company interference that forced a major rethink on his part.

"That was a strange time for me," says Vega. "The whole big label/rock star thing was fun for a while. But, very quickly, I felt like I'd been put in this box marked 'mainstream artist' and that was never me. By the time of Just A Million Dreams, I was fighting the label about every little thing and, when the album finally came out, the label opted not to support it. A blessing in disguise in many ways. Because it made me realize that I'm an artist, not a rock star. That album was the end of another cycle for me. It was time to get back to my roots."

Between then and now, Vega solo albums arrived on a more sporadic basis. But that's not to say that Vega ever took his foot off the pedal. When not making music, he would immerse himself in the creation of his celebrated neon/light/junk sculptures.

"I used to joke that music was my day job," he says, "and that paid for me do my art. The truth is that I go through phases. I'm either visually oriented or musically oriented and I go with whatever the flow is."

For the past twenty years, his music has continued on its ever-innovative, fiercely uncompromising course. Twice, in 1988 and 2002, he has reunited with Martin Rev for Suicide tours to coincide with the release of albums (A Way Of Life and American Supreme) that found the duo at the full extent of their sonic potency.

At the height of punk, it was widely felt that Vega and Rev's music was too radical to ever be influential. Yet, in the past twenty or so years, acts as diverse as Sonic Youth, Spacemen 3,Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds, Ministry, Depeche Mode, New Order, The Jesus & Mary Chain, Primal Scream, Erasure and Nine Inch Nails are just a few that have acknowledged the seismic impact of Suicide and Vega's solo work on their music. Even Bruce Springsteen has paid homage, performing Suicide's "Dream Baby Dream" on his recent solo tour. Suicide's place in the culture has been further cemented by the co-opting of their songs for movies (The Crow) and television (The Sopranos).