80s Matchbox B-Line Disaster spoke to NME about the upcoming 20th anniversary reissue of the classic ‘Hörse Of The Dög’ album, a record they say put the “danger” back in music and once put into the orbit of David Walliams.
The seminal garage punk band of the 2000s, who broke up in 2011 after 11 years together, recently announced plans to release an expanded edition of their debut, including a full album of bonus material and the director’s notes from Shaun Of The Dead and Baby Driver, Edgar. Wright.
Featuring classic tracks like ‘Celebrate Your Mother’ and ‘Psychosis Safari’, the visceral 25-minute blast of psychobilly, speed punk and gothic sludge rock helped set the pace for much of the alternative rock scene. of the 2000s.
The reissue marks the band’s first release since their third album “Blood And Fire” in 2010 and their first activity since a brief reunion in 2012.
NME caught up with lead singer Guy McKnight, now frontman of Liverpool band The DSM IV, to discuss the record’s impact and legacy, the traumas behind it and why David Walliams is a ‘fake’.
Hi guy. How did you feel when you saw the album again?
GuysMcKnight: “Thrilled, proud. Grateful to have done it. Definitely charged with frenetic energy, madness and life force. The world has changed and as a result the musical landscape has changed so much that I don’t know who, other than Fat White Family, bands like ours rarely exist or are unsigned.”
Is Fat White Family his spiritual descendants?
“Definitely brothers of sorts. I saw them for the first time in November and it was absolutely brilliant. Lias [Saoudi, líder] He was a fascinating, charming and formidable leader.”
Did ‘Hörse Of The Dög’ sound like a bold record at the time?
“It was the turn of the millennium. In the UK we had Britpop; some of my favorite bands are still Britpop, like Pulp, [pero] it was a reaction born out of much of that pop, which was rebellious in itself, but which had become the norm. There didn’t seem to be much danger in the music. We listened to a lot of different things. To Andy [Huxley, guitarra] he was very fond of Captain Beefheart, but not to be cool. Sym [Gharial, bajo] brought The Clash and those animal men and Mark [Norris, guitarra] and I came across The Stooges. To M [Diamantopaulo, batería] and I listened to a lot of things from the 90s that influenced us a lot: Pixies, Nirvana and also The Doors and Love. The sound was an accident. We were probably trying to sound like The Doors or something.”
How did they find this sound?
“Andy was the only one who really knew how to play and it ended up being edgy and raw and visceral all at once. Something more like Monks’ debut album. I don’t know if it had anything to do with the drugs that we were doing at the time – since then yeah – but Tom and Andy and I started practicing Buddhism so it was that kind of push and pull of our lives, both internal and external, strong positivity , strong negativity, lots of young teenage egos, craziness and all, it all kind of boiled down to that delicious toxic soup that is “Hörse Of The Dög”.
In his performances, he often climbed over bars and sound equipment and seemed to have seizures. Did you have an accident?
“I’ve passed out on stage before and I think I smudged myself too. But it was all done with love.”
With Libertines’ “Up The Bracket”, do you think “Hörse Of The Dög” set the tone for the decade?
“I’d like to think we contributed to that, yeah. I respected those guys a lot, and I still respect him. I felt there was an unspoken affinity. We played together at least twice in 2001 or 2002, before either of Us got together. It was groundbreaking. It’s funny to meet other kindred spirits at that age and then see the band take off from each other. The Libertines became the biggest band of our generation, or one of them. And we seem to have developed a rabid following, some would say cult following. It was an amazing time.
What was it like working with Edgar Wright on the “Psychosis Safari” video?
“It was great. When I moved in with my dad, when I was 16 or 17, he was leading a very unorthodox lifestyle. He was interesting, irritable, still very affectionate, but probably also very dysfunctional. We ended up by doing a lot of drugs together, him and me, but we’ve both been clean and sober for over 10 years, so it’s a huge win to be able to share it with him. It was like a cross between Steptoe & Son, Only Fools And Horses, Withnail And I and other crazy stuff.
“When someone said to me, ‘He’s a fan of your band,’ I thought, ‘Really? He did the Psychosis Safari video and he’s awesome. He’s a good guy. [el pub de Brighton] Heart & Hand after making this video with him. He was with David Williams and he despised me, David Walliams. I’ll never forget. I think this guy is a total fraud. But Edgar is a legend. We were on Shaun Of The Dead as zombies, I think they deleted us, but he used one of our singles “Mister Mental”. It’s a real compliment.”
“Celebrate your mother” was quite controversial… [Línea clave: “¡Quiero follarme a tu madre!”].
“It was very well received, all things considered. Maybe I don’t know if people listened to his release enough to really know what he was talking about: incest and drug use.”
Does “Psychosis Safari” suggest that you were struggling with mental health issues at the time?
“I think everyone in the band, but me in particular. I had a lot of problems in my family, abuse, alcoholism and addiction. There was so much going on behind the scenes that at the same time you’re doing your first UK tour and the halls are packed, all these people your age are singing the lyrics you and your friends wrote in your rooms.
“Having that kind of experience, that emotion, and then trying to process years of dysfunction and trauma and being famous at the same time, was tough ground to deal with. But it was a great record. It put on some great shows It was all real, basically all the fits were real nervous energy. We had our hearts in our chests.”
For you, what are the key additional themes of the reissue?
“Those B-sides could have been our second album. And maybe they were in a parallel universe. I think it would have made sense to him because of his tone, his rhythm. It was a natural evolution .Turkish Delights Of The Devil”; they were great songs and very fun to play live. They were kind of wasted as B-sides, so to have them back now, where people can have them all together in one place, is great.”
There’s a beautiful line in ‘Turkish Delights Of The Devil’ that says: “All my friends think I’m evil”…
“There was a stage where we were all partying a lot and doing drugs, we were getting high. Andy quit pretty early on but some of us Sym and I definitely didn’t quit and there had real carnage. I think I had my first blackout when I was 18 or 19. So looking back, I can look back and pick up the jewelry from that time, but actually, going through it certainly felt like life or death I remember at one point Mark telling me that for a while he had been waiting to get a call one night to tell him I was dead Addiction is a strange thing. Fortunately, I lived to tell about it.”
Is there an anniversary concert in sight?
“We talked about it, but I think the songs speak for themselves and have something timeless about them. The energy is still there. Things came together in the right place at the right time, and we were able to focus enough to write and record these songs. But the mentality, for me, was definitely one of a time and a place. So right now, I’m not interested in playing gigs. For me, that would be – exaggerated to be clear – like David Bowie was 40 years old and dressed as Ziggy”.
The expanded 20th anniversary reissue of “Hörse Of The Dög” will be released on March 10.