The last time Justin Sullivan sat down and listened to Vengeance, the debut album from his band New Model Army, he was surprised to realise “I sound like I’m about fifteen years old”. The guitarist, singer/songwriter is now sixty-seven, but while his voice would inevitably mature, the searing resonance of Vengeance has diminished little. In those days, Sullivan operated under the handle of Slade The Leveller to protect his unemployment benefits.
“In the punk scene back then, many musicians used other names, but you’re right, the last thing we wanted was for the dole office to see our names in the local paper,” he explains. “‘You appear to have done a gig, Mr Sullivan’. None of us wanted that so we used pseudonyms. I didn’t get caught, but I signed off in 1984.”
