FINGER-LICKIN' NIPS!

Source: ZigZag
Date: Issue #99, March 1980
Author: Alan Anger
Copywrite: © ZigZag 1980
Photos: by Andrea Marcou.


"RECORDS by the fucking Police and Tourists don't mean anything to what's happening in the world today. Music should reflect the mood of the times, but now it's just fucking escapism. It's got absolutely nothing to do with how anyone feels any more. Bands like The Sex Pistols and Moby Grape both summed up the mood of the times. The Pistols were always anti-love songs, but only Public Image or The Pop Group really sum up today."

Yes folks, Shane Macgowan, everybody's favourite punk (anti) star is back in Zigzag. The last time I spoke to the vocal piece of the ever changing combo known affectionately as The Nips he was informing me of his love for R&B and his hatred of weird new music. Times change. Shane changes even quicker than most in his ideas and tastes. The only part of this man's character that is always evident is his attitude. He has big ears, mis-shapen teeth and resembles Plug out of the Beano. He is the true anti-star and The Nips are the true garage band in the UK today!

Shane on stage is near revelation at times, whereas on other occasions he can look pretty damned stupid. He rips off his heroes quicker than Needsy can down a pint and the fact that he has discovered bands like Pil and The Pop Group a little bit late (a fact he admits to) should mean absolutely nothing unless you're one of these characters who thinks the only hip people are those who are only there at the beginning of any fad or fashion.

The Nips' music has gone through just about every phase except the classics and this shows on their first three recorded attempts on seven-inch vinyl. First there was the rockabilly influenced "King of the bop" followed by "All the time in the world" and the latest smash hit (sic), "Gabrielle". "Gabrielle" is a good record, but it almost follows the Jags and Co. with its very good pop production and this is a fact that Shane agrees with and is totally against now.

"It's a good tune, but Chiswick fucked it up and I am fucking ashamed to have been associated with a silly pop record. All these new bands nowadays, especially the so-called mods, are making 'good' pop records and I fucking hate 'good' pop songs. It just doesn't mean anything in 1980 or it shouldn't, anyway!"

It was at this point that the lovely female bassist once known as Shanne, but now known as Dragonella due to the similarity in names with the vocalist, came into the conversation. (Incidentally, the interview took place in Dragonnella's North London squat and also included guitarist Fritz, who spent most of the time vegatating in the corner. His silence is so loud that it hurts!) The other member of the band is Mark Harrison, the drummer, who previously played with The Bernie Torme Band and helped out The Nips on a couple of occasions before becoming a permanent member.

Dragonella: "I really think we ought to do 'Gabrielle' again because we play it so much more aggressive onstage and that single just isn't representative of us at all."

Shane: "Yeah, like I said before, it's a great tune, but I hate the lyrics now. I was at a most cynical stage in my writing and I thought, 'Oh what's the use of trying to be different', so I wrote a fucking love song. I feel disgusted now whenever I sing those lyrics on stage."

Why don't you drop the song from the set if you feel so strongly about it?

"I'd really like to, but this fucking lot (pointing to his band associates) still like doing it. I just go through the motions on stage. There's no real emotion in me when I sing that song."

Emotion is a key word when mentioning The Nips. Shane is forever getting up to his Iggy Pop impersonations and it is not unusual to see him crawling across the stage or amongst the audience. He "feels" the all important side of being a performer whether he'll admit it or not. His latest idea is to cut his body up on stage. Okay, it's nothing new, but then Shane doesn't want to do it purely for effect. It's just another idea in his confused mind. John Lennon once said that there was a very thin line between madness and genius and I personally don't think Shane is mad.

Shane: "I just want to try different things on stage. I want to disturb people. I'm really sick of people telling me what a nice fun-loving band we are. There'll be no more of all that R&B shit once we work out some new numbers. We've got one new song called 'Can't say no' which is really like a US garage band number. Someone like the Electric Prunes or the Seeds could have written it. You see, I've been pissing about for too long now searching for a direction and now I know what I want to do. In the future I want to play disturbing dance music - really strange stuff, but not fucking arty, Public Image ain't arty!"

Dragonella: "The trouble with that kind of stuff is that it doesn't work well on stage unless you've got a good light show and lots of drugs. I'm into Arabic music and would like to do some of that in the future as well. We really want to play a lot of different styles. When Shane went through his rockabilly phase we were called 'Punkabilly' cos we couldn't play very well, but now we've got Mark on drums and he's very inventive and I'm sure we can work things out a lot better."

Mark: "Yeah, you see, it's a very difficult time to interview The Nips because I've only just joined recently and we're all during a state of change in the band. We're talking about changing so many things, but we're still playing a lot of oldies in the set which are R&B based, which may seem hypocritical, but wait until a few months from now and you'll see a change in The Nips' sound."

Shane: "Yeah, we don't want to just copy Public Image or anything like that. I just want our music to be a lot more physical. Cunts like Ian Page say 'Let's all wear suits and everything will be alright' and that really is a load of old bollocks. It won't be alright! 1980 is basically a frightened, fucked up hell hole where everyone is sitting around waiting for the bomb to drop. I'm sick of basic rock ideas and I reckon we ought to play a 'Rock against rock' gig. We had a go at playing a bit of R&B but we weren't good enough to play it and it's all bollocks, anyway!"

Dragonella: "I've always thought R&B and bands like The Inmates were boring, but Shane used to disagree with me. He changes his mind every six months!"

Shane: "'Trash' is what we're really all about. I've always lived around the Soho part of London. The side that's full of pimps, whores and junkies and New York must be the same, but every fucking record you hear on the radio is the sound of California. There are no records that really capture the trashiness of London or New York that you'd ever hear on the radio. Take Capital Radio (Please do. - A.A.). That station plays nothing but adult-orientated middle class love songs for nice people with nice jobs who live in nice homes. It's the 'Sound of Hampstead' and I fucking hate it."

You said earlier that you go through the motions in "Gabrielle", but don't you feel that it's a bit theatrical to act out a song on stage with no emotion?

Shane: "No, I don't think we're particularly theatrical on stage. I do a lot of the same things in certain songs, but that's the way I feel at the time. It's not planned before I go onstage like, say, Bowie would do. Take Iggy Pop. I never classed him as being theatrical at all. He was just fucked up and went completely mad on stage. He was great, but you can't compare him with someone like Bowie. Bowie IS theatrics! Iggy was real, but Bowie was the fake!"

Dragonella: "Bowie performed well, though but in the end, theatrics is about a complete lack of emotion. Some bands are great on record but boring on stage."

Now that Mark has joined you, do you want to say what went wrong with the last drummer? (The last drummer being Roger who joined with Fritz after the departure of Grinny (disappeared) and Larry Hinrichs (quit the business).

"He couldn't fucking play. He was useless and he cried when we kicked him out."

Howard (The Nips' manager) enters the conversation: "He was about as good for The Nips as slimming pills in Cambodia!"

Howard (for a long time a true Damned fan and a man the Captain described to me as one of the best slobs in the business) has only just taken on the role of managing The Nips. He has made a pretty successful start, getting the band more gigs than their usual quota before. They've recently supported Dexys Midnight Runners, Dolly Mixtures, The Jam, Damned and others and are due to support The Purple Hearts later this year.

Dragonella: "When we supported The Purple Hearts before, we were slagged off by the mods. That's why we're supporting them again. We'll support anyone."

When The Nips recently played at the Music Machine, Fritz the guitarist failed to arrive for the gig due to his being caught bunking the fare on the train. Former Nip Larry Hinrichs stood in on the night and they performed a set full of oldies. Before Fritz arrived for the interview, I asked the others what they thought of him as a guitarist.

Shane: "He can be good, but he doesn't freak out enough yet. There's only so much you can do in a rock frame-work and Fritz is really more of an R&B guitarist, cos that's what we wanted at the time."

Dragonella: "Sometimes I wish he wasn't so much of a robot. We just wind him up and put him onstage."

Shane and Dragonella are the only two original Nips in a band which has had about ten members in it's short (so far) career. Both these two are strong characters and constantly disagree with each other, but it's the energy and creativity that they have that makes The Nips so exciting. Originally taught by Captain Sensible, the bass of Dragonella has improved so much since the band began that she has become very much a key figure in the line-up. In the past Shane was forever feeding his ego and writing all the material, but now he wants everyone to participate in Nips' music and Fritz has already written one number called "Ghost Town". Another new number is "Hit Parade" which puts down the punk bands that have changed their ideals since playing on TV and reaching the charts. The "Nuggets" flavoured "Can't say no" is more of a group effort and Dragonella says she hopes Shane means what he says because she's fed up of his ego-tism.

The band are due to work on a few demos with Paul Weller (always a champion of The Nips' cause) and Paul seems more excited than The Nips themselves at the prospect of working together. "I've always loved The Nips," he said only recently. "Shane's a true punk. He deserves to be a star."

Although Paul Weller is producing some demos, Shane believes that The Nips could and should produce their own records in the future. He sees most producers as being worthless if the band know what sound they want. Dragonella agrees, but states Phil Spector as being "alright for a laugh". Dragonella isn't that keen on recording a new single just yet, anyway, as the band are still going through their latest metamorphosis.

Dragonella: "When we made our first single we all thought, 'Great, we've made a record', but as for what's on it, well . . . I just don't like it at all. I don't care too much about records now, anyway. I prefer playing live."

Shane: "When we recorded 'King of the bop' we were all drunk and on drugs and Dragonella was in a coma."

Droganella: "I wasn't on drugs. I was just drunk (in case my mum's reading)."

For a final question, I asked the band what they thought about Chiswick's distribution of their last single. The answers were very negative and it was obvious that they never wanted to mention it too much.

Dragonella: "Ted Carrol is fat and has a beard and I don't like fat people with beards. That's all I've got to say."

Shane: "If we ever make it, it'll be all down to luck cos we've been dropped by everyone who's ever dealt with us. I dunno, I suppose we're just cunts, really!"

They may or may not be just cunts, but for me they're the only true, honest, naive and ever changing garage band around and I love seeing them. I'll leave the last words to Shane Macgowan:

"I want to be the face of 1980, not fucking '76. The face of '79 belonged to Chaotic Bass (who designed the 'Destroy' t-shirts) and he's long forgotten now."

Alan Anger