Illegal Frequencies: How Pirate Radio Gave Voice to the Underground and Changed Music Forever

For this week’s Throwback Thursday, we’re tuning into a frequency that shaped underground music culture in ways few institutions ever could. Pirate radio wasn’t just about broadcasting without a licence or dodging raids from the DTI. It was about communities creating their own platforms when the mainstream wouldn’t give them airtime, about exposing music that would never see the light of day on legal stations, and about a generation of young people who were willing to risk everything just to share the sounds they loved.

The story begins offshore, quite literally. Radio Caroline fired up on Easter Sunday 1964, broadcasting from a ship off the coast of Essex, playing The Rolling Stones’ “Not Fade Away” as its first track. By 1967, there were ten pirate stations operating from ships and disused sea forts, reaching a combined audience of 15 million listeners who were desperate for something beyond the sunshine pop and easy listening that dominated the BBC’s limited output. In an era when the BBC played just two hours of rock and roll per week, these pirate stations broadcast 24 hours a day to over 25 million people, more than half the British population.

The romance and rebellion of this era was captured in Richard Curtis’ 2009 film “The Boat That Rocked” (known as “Pirate Radio” in North America), which told the fictionalised story of Radio Rock, a pirate station broadcasting from the North Sea in 1966. Despite being historical fiction rather than documentary, the film, starring Philip Seymour Hoffman, Bill Nighy and Kenneth Branagh, captured something essential about the battle between youth culture and establishment power. In the movie, government minister Sir Alistair Dormandy seeks to shut down the pirates on grounds of commercialism and immorality, eventually using a fishing boat’s blocked distress call as justification for the Marine Broadcasting Offences Act.

This mirrored reality, the government’s response was swift and decisive. The Marine Offences Act of 1967 made it illegal for UK citizens to operate these stations. The BBC launched Radio 1 in September that same year, attempting to fill the void, but they still wouldn’t touch heavier rock or soul music by black artists. The pirates had made their point though, forcing the establishment to acknowledge that there was an appetite for music beyond what the gatekeepers deemed acceptable.

The real revolution came when these operations moved onshore. Throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, stations like Radio Invicta pioneered soul music broadcasting from Tony Johns’ bedroom before relocating to tower blocks where they could reach wider audiences. This was grassroots broadcasting at its purest, DJs lugging equipment up stairwells, hiding transmitters in biscuit boxes, and playing everything from sixties R&B to disco to funk. Invicta’s impact was profound, with leading Soul Mafia DJs like Steve Walsh, Chris Hill and Jeff Young clamouring to get on air. By 1982, the Dread Broadcasting Corporation became London’s first black-owned pirate station, broadcasting reggae, rock, African music, soul and funk to a listenership of 60,000. This wasn’t just about music, it was about representation, about communities seeing themselves reflected in the culture when commercial radio was ignoring them completely.

The technology was getting cheaper, the FM band was filling up with stations broadcasting for a few hours each week from council estates, and the sound was evolving rapidly. Stations like JFM and Horizon Radio competed for listeners whilst DJs started incorporating mixing techniques that were crossing over from New York. The early 1980s saw electro dominate, despite resistance from conservative soul DJs who refused to play anything without real instruments. By 1984, the government had had enough. The Telecommunications Act allowed authorities to raid pirate stations and confiscate equipment without a court order, hitting stations with fines of £1,300. Some shut down, but others adapted. The loophole closures meant nothing when there was music to share and audiences hungry for it.

October 1985 saw the birth of something special. Gordon McNamee, known as Gordon Mac, recruited Greek Radio founder George Power, Tosca Jackson, Jonathan More, Matt Black, Norman Jay and Jay Strongman to establish Kiss FM. Three days after their first 24-hour broadcast, they had their first raid. They kept going. Kiss threw parties at Wag Club, uniting radio listeners with London’s ever-growing club scene. Colin Faver, with his deep knowledge of the underground, was one of the first to discover and DJ acid house music, and Kiss became the conduit for this new sound. By the decade’s end, they had over 500,000 listeners, despite constant raids, equipment theft and the DTI spreading false rumours to discredit them.

By 1989, the UK was in the grip of something unprecedented. Acid house had exploded, warehouse parties were drawing thousands, and pirate radio was the soundtrack. There were over 60 pirate stations operating in London alone, with more appearing across the country. Sunrise FM, Centreforce, Fantasy FM, the FM dial was packed. Then came the moment that changed everything. In May 1992, somewhere between 30,000 to 40,000 people descended on Castlemorton Common in Worcestershire for a week-long free party. Sound systems like Spiral Tribe, DiY, Bedlam and Circus Warp provided the soundtrack. The media went into overdrive, Parliament erupted, and despite all 13 arrested Spiral Tribe members being found innocent in one of the UK’s most expensive trials, the government had its ammunition.

The Criminal Justice and Public Order Act of 1994 was draconian legislation dressed up as environmental noise control. Section 63 gave police powers to remove anyone from gatherings of 100 or more people where music “wholly or predominantly characterised by the emission of a succession of repetitive beats” was being played. Yes, they actually legislated against repetitive beats. The absurdity wasn’t lost on artists. Orbital released a mix that consisted of four minutes of silence titled “Criminal Justice Bill?”. The Prodigy’s “Music for the Jilted Generation” featured the quote “How can the government stop young people having a good time? Fight this bollocks” alongside artwork depicting a rebel protecting a rave from riot police. Autechre went further, programming their “Anti EP” so that no bars contained identical beats, advising DJs to have a lawyer and musicologist present to confirm the non-repetitive nature of the music.

Despite three major protests in London in 1994, Labour’s then Shadow Home Secretary and future Prime Minister, Tony Blair chose not to oppose the bill at its final reading, and the Act became law in November. The accepted narrative suggests this killed illegal raves, pushing the scene into licensed venues where profits could be taxed and activities controlled. Reality was more nuanced. Free parties continued, just with added paranoia. The movement adapted, as it always had.

Pirate radio became even more crucial during this period. With outdoor raves under threat, the stations provided continuity, broadcasting live from whatever parties managed to happen, sharing information about venues through coded messages, keeping communities connected. By 1991, Kool FM had established itself as London’s premier jungle station, broadcasting from Hackney tower blocks. Founded by DJs Eastman and Smurff, they went live from Banister House on 28 November 1991, playing hardcore before the genre we now know as jungle had even crystallised. The Ragga Twins, Flinty Badman and Deman Rocker, became integral to the station, their Caribbean-influenced MCing helping spawn ragga-jungle as a distinct subgenre.

Kool’s birthday parties became legendary. Their first anniversary drew capacity crowds. By their third birthday at the Astoria, they had 3,000 inside and an estimated 4,000 to 5,000 outside, shutting down Tottenham Court Road. This was pirate radio’s power made manifest, a station that started in someone’s bedroom commanding audiences that rivalled major venues. The station championed tracks that are now considered jungle classics: UK Apache’s “Original Nuttah”, “The Helicopter Tune” by Deep Blue, Shy FX and Gunsmoke’s “Gangsta”. Before the internet, fans would drive hours to get within the station’s catchment area, recording hours of shows on tape, then distributing them across the country. Kool’s tape packs became currency in the underground, distributed through Birmingham and beyond.

The mid-1990s were jungle’s golden age. M-Beat and General Levy’s “Incredible”, tracks that defined a generation of ravers, all breaking through pirate radio first. The BBC eventually took notice, launching “Radio 1 in the Jungle”, the first time mainstream radio touched the music, but by then pirates had already established jungle as a nationwide phenomenon. As jungle evolved into drum and bass, pirates remained the vanguard. When UK garage emerged, stations like Rinse FM, founded by Slimzee and Geeneus in 1994, provided the platform. Starting from humble beginnings with an aerial on a broom handle, Rinse would become crucial to another seismic shift in UK music.

Grime emerged because the older garage generation had locked out younger MCs. When Creed would be flowing smoothly and Wiley would burst in at a hundred miles an hour talking about violence, it created tension. But Rinse understood because they came from the same postcodes. They gave space to 16-year-old Dizzee Rascal when no one else would. Skepta, JME, Flowdan, Wiley, all cut their teeth on pirates, citing stations like Kool FM as inspiration. The media painted pirate radio as part of an underground drug operation, with wild claims about coded messages and drug dealing on air. It was nonsense, moral panic dressed as journalism, but the damage to public perception was real.

Throughout this period, pirates provided something legal radio never could: immediacy, community connection, and risk. There was an edge to tuning in, knowing the station could go off air at any moment, knowing the DJs were up on roofs in force ten gales adjusting aerials whilst someone on the phone shouted “left a bit, right a bit”. It was the first real social media platform, as Chef from Kool FM describes it. Information flowed through these stations in ways that presaged Twitter and Instagram by decades. They were fresh, rooted in local communities, with their fingers on the pulse in ways that corporate broadcasters could never match.

The 2000s brought transformation. Kool FM launched online in early 2000, rebranding as Kool London (now on Rinse FM) whilst maintaining their pirate frequency on 94.6 FM. The internet opened up audiences they’d never imagined, DJs from Toronto, New York and Australia doing regular sets, the station going from a Hackney thing to a worldwide phenomenon. This was the beginning of the end for traditional pirate radio, though few realised it at the time. The government floated plans to kill the FM frequency entirely, with the shift to digital radio making traditional receivers obsolete. Getting a digital licence cost £3,500 a month, pricing out most pirates. Without ethical brand sponsorship, the economics simply didn’t work.

The democratisation of broadcasting through the internet created a paradox. Suddenly there were thousands of online radio stations, Soundcloud pages, Spotify playlists. Pirates broadcasting illegally had to compete with legal online stations that could offer similar programming without the risk. Stations like NTS, Radar Radio, Reprezent and Balamii captured pirate energy legally, providing platforms for emerging talent whilst building recognisable brands that opened doors to festival appearances and commercial partnerships. Rinse FM made the jump to legal status, securing a community radio licence. They could professionalise whilst maintaining credibility, though some argued the edge was lost in the process.

Yet pirates never disappeared, they just became harder to find. Google searches yield nothing, you need word of mouth or a radio scan. They’re still there, still broadcasting on FM, still taking risks. As one anonymous DJ puts it, pirate radio is cyclical. Push people hard enough and they’ll find a mode of expression. The internet has been useful but it’s not the be-all-and-end-all. There’s something about the illicit nature, the covert operations, hiding your bag of records, that online broadcasting can’t replicate. The thrill of broadcasting without permission, the cat and mouse game with authorities, the rough-and-ready DIY aesthetic, these things matter to a certain breed of broadcaster. They don’t want to become the next Rinse, they want to stay pirate.

The shift to social media fundamentally changed how music spreads. Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, these platforms do what pirates once did: exposing new sounds, creating communities, bypassing traditional gatekeepers. Artists can build audiences without radio play, without record label support, without any of the infrastructure that once seemed essential. Yet something was lost in this transition. Pirate radio was communal in ways that scrolling through feeds never quite replicates. It required tuning in at specific times, sharing tape packs, being part of something that existed in real time with real stakes. The parasocial relationships of social media are a poor substitute for the genuine community that formed around stations where everyone knew the risks involved.

What remains is the legacy. Grime’s global success traces directly back to pirates giving space to young MCs that legal radio wouldn’t touch. Dubstep, UK funky, bassline, footwork, drill, every underground genre that emerged in the UK since the 1990s owes a debt to pirate radio. These stations were more than just broadcasters, they were curators, tastemakers, and most importantly, they were communities. They proved that young people from council estates could create cultural institutions that rivalled anything the establishment produced. They demonstrated that the best music often comes from the margins, from people willing to take risks for art.

The pirates who lugged equipment up tower blocks, who dodged DTI raids, who broadcast through the night whilst police helicopters circled overhead, they built something that transcended the medium. They created a template for grassroots broadcasting that influenced how we think about media, community and culture. When you see artists building careers through self-released music and social media, when you see communities organising around shared passions outside traditional structures, you’re seeing the pirate radio ethos made manifest in digital form.

The frequencies may be quieter now, the FM dial less crowded, but pirate radio’s spirit endures. It lives in every online station broadcasting without corporate backing, in every community finding ways to share music outside traditional channels, in every young person who looks at the establishment and thinks “I can do this better myself”. That’s the real legacy of pirate radio, not the broadcasts themselves, but the proof that you don’t need permission to create culture. You just need passion, community and the courage to hit transmit.