Captain Sensible

An eccentric character, Raymond Burns aka Captain Sensible (born in London in 1954) won his first stripes with The Damned, a punk precursor band of which he was bassist, before going solo. He first took part in Johnny Moped's cult single "Jet Boy, Jet Girl" (1978), before completely emancipating himself with Women And Captain First (1982), which brought him his two biggest hits: "Wot", ranked No. 3 in the U.K. and acclaimed in France thanks to its offbeat video, and a cover of the standard "Happy Talk", No. 1 on the U.K. charts. As well as taking part in successive reformations of The Damned, the singer with the eternal beret screwed on his occiput pursues an individual career in which his anti-war and pro-vegetarian commitments are combined with a ferocious sense of humor. After the electro-retro interlude of The Power Of Love (1983), he turned to the most virulent rock on Revolution Now (1989), The Universe of Geoffrey Brown (1993) and the devastating live recording in Amsterdam, Live At The Milky Way (1994), in which he attacked David Sylvian and Elton John. Meathead followed in 1995, and Mad Cows & Englishmen in 1996. That same year, he rejoined his original band, with whom he recorded the albums Grave Disorder (2001) and So, Who's Paranoid? (2008).