Paul Simonon

Actor Pete Morrow portrays Simonon in the 2016 film London Town. The film was met with mixed reviews.

In 2011, Simonon spent time aboard the Greenpeace vessel Esperanza incognito under the guise of "Paul the assistant cook" in response to Arctic oil drilling in Greenland by Cairn Oil. He joined other Greenpeace activists in illegally boarding one of Cairn's oil rigs; an action which earned him two weeks in a Greenland jail. His identity was revealed to other crew members after the voyage, and he joined Damon Albarn and the other members of the Good, the Bad & the Queen for a performance in London celebrating Greenpeace's 40th anniversary.

After the Clash dissolved in 1986, Simonon started a band called Havana 3am. They recorded one album in Japan before breaking up. He also participated in a Bob Dylan session along with the Sex Pistols' Steve Jones that became part of the Dylan album Down in the Groove. Also, Simonon works as an artist – his first passion before joining the Clash. He has had several gallery shows, and designed the cover for Big Audio Dynamite's album, Tighten Up, Vol. 88, as well as the cover for "Herculean" from the album The Good, the Bad & the Queen, a project with Damon Albarn on which Simonon plays bass. Paul reunited with Damon Albarn and Mick Jones on the Gorillaz album Plastic Beach, and was also the bassist of the Gorillaz live band supporting Plastic Beach, along with Mick Jones on guitar. The band headlined the 2010 Coachella Festival, and took up residence at the Camden roundhouse for two nights in late April 2010.

He met Mick Jones in 1976, and six months later the Clash was formed when Joe Strummer joined, with Jones on lead guitar. Simonon learned his bass parts by rote from Jones in the early days of The Clash and still did not know how to play the bass when the group first recorded. He is credited with coming up with the name of the band and was mainly responsible for the visual aspects such as clothing and stage backdrops. Simonon was shown on the front cover of the band's double album London Calling: Pennie Smith's image of him smashing his Fender Precision Bass guitar during a 1979 concert in New York City; the image has become one of the iconic pictures of the punk era.

Paul Gustave Simonon (/ˈ s ɪ m ə n ə n / ; born 15 December 1955) is an English musician and artist best known as the bassist for The Clash. More recent work includes his involvement in the supergroup The Good, the Bad & the Queen and playing on the Gorillaz album, Plastic Beach in 2010, which saw Simonon reunite with The Clash guitarist Mick Jones and The Good, the Bad & the Queen frontman Damon Albarn – and which also led to Simonon becoming the live band's touring bassist for Gorillaz's Escape to Plastic Beach Tour.