“Rock’n’roll is like Italian operetta. Everybody dies and loses.” Kirk Brandon looks back on Theatre Of Hate, Spear Of Destiny, heart attacks and his unlikely influences

Kirk Brandon in 1980, posing in a garden wearing a camo jacket.

“I'm actually dead,” says Kirk Brandon. “I’m speaking to you from inside my coffin.”

In May 2023, Brandon was in Nottingham fronting one of his two ground-breaking bands – in this case, Spear Of Destiny, not Theatre Of Hate – when, he says, “I just had a little heart attack.”