The chances are you’ve heard of them. And no doubt you’ve heard their latest stunningly titled LP Rice Is Nice, or even seen them playing across the country supporting an array of acts. Getting their name from ‘Roath’s finest collection of bed and breakfasts’ and regulars on the elusive Cardiff scene, these boys are known for their infectious blend of punk and full-blown white knuckle noise. From this prestigious description you’d probably expect their influences to be the Pistols or The Damned and their like. Not so, as Andy Falkous, Mclusky’s singer, songwriter and lead guitarist explains: “God help me but it was Queen and then Appetite For Destruction when I was thirteen, particularly It’s So Easy and Welcome To The Jungle which cunningly married swearing with loud guitars – a combination I thought was wildly original at the time. I saw them with Soundgarden and Faith No More a couple of years after that, but by that stage they were more of a bizarre exercise video soundtracked by Elton John, and I could only manage four songs before my skin started falling off.”
From such humble beginnings, it’s hard to imagine that Mclusky came to be in the forefront of Welsh music. It’s even harder to imagine how they all ended up in Cardiff! “Jon is a Cardiff boy, Harding is from Llantrisant, me I’m English scum although not the full-cream variety,” describes Andy. “I was born in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne and came to Cardiff to study journalism, back when such things seemed important. We met in a way that nobody would possibly believe, so we invent the ridiculous and unconvincing stories which pose as a biography on our website, in order to throw the more investigative of you off our trail. It’s great,” he continues, “we’ve met bands we’ve liked and got on with, like Cubare and Mo-ho-bish-o-pi, but the most significant factor in our existence was that nobody paid us any attention at all for the first three years of our existence, so you get this Travis Bickle meets the Banana Splits cabin-fever mentality setting in. Although I don’t pay much attention to it, we leave the hobnobbing to the nobhobbers; the whole Cardiff scene seems a lot healthier and a damn sight more diverse than when we started out. But that’s probably only my vanity talking. We never really palled up with those cliquey punk scene motherfuckers so it was a case of supporting acid jazz or Britpop cast-offs in the beginning, trying to make an impression in what seemed to be a particularly unpleasant vacuum, but now there’s a huge range across the city from radio-friendly rubbish to wannabe left-field rubbish, so now everybody’s happy, or so it seems.”
And he’s certainly happy as an honorary Welshman in the heart of Wales. Well, he’s happy except for one thing: “I’d be quite happy to stay in Wales and Cardiff for the rest of my life if that tiny minority of xenophobic pricks would get off my fucking back for being English, which can get a bit tiring after a while, to be honest – I’m hardly Jeremy fucking Irons. Cardiff is my favourite city in the whole world, and I can’t see us moving unless necessity dictates. And we’ve met a lot of people – I hardly need to mention the Mo-ho’s, do I? Cubare are fucking skill and also my absolute favourite band that we’ve played with. Sammo Hung are coming, coming, coming on and good luck to ‘em all... as far as the shitrock goes it’s always been my policy not to give those ball-less knaves the oxygen of publicity. Fuck ‘em to hell and back, they know who they are.”
Needless to say the Mclusky boys don’t take kindly to insults. And neither do their fans who seem to have adapted some sort of cult mentality – check their website www.myspecialpain.com for details. Also shown by their infamous guest book is their way of polarising people: “As far as I can see it, the alternative is being in Shed Seven or the Foo Fighters, which I’m sure none of us need at this moment in time. We expected more resistance from the mainstream press than we got to be honest; it’s the holier-than-thou punk fascists with their trust funds and convenient ‘no sell-out’ principles that really boil our rabbits piss. If you give a shit what those morons think then you’re no better than some fucking scene band with the correct trainers.”
It’s a strange coincidence that he should mention the press. Wales is known for its underground fanzine culture and its mainstream music magazines. However the line between professional and personal becomes ever so slightly obscured, shown most proficiently by a well-documented spat between the band and a Cardiff based fanzine: “The Fracture toad claimed that we had stolen our pond from his fathers. He was wrong, of course. Most nights down the old hopping bastard the nights are clean and the visiting clergy be-smiled and hospitable, the occasional slop of barely-literate pond life doesn’t really spoil the party... that is, until one of the more arrogant toads flips over the parapet and enters a more personal realm of critique. We take considerable exception to that, and will continue to do so.”
Deprecating journalists aside, there are wider, worldlier issues to consider. The cost of being a band seems to be invariably high these days with PA and touring costs at an all time peak. Bands not getting paid seems to be a particular pet loath of Andy’s: “Whilst the venues roll around in fucking cash,” he says before launching into a list of things he finds generally distasteful. “Crypto-fascist American wannabes who have recently discovered the almighty power of the pen and want to share a thousand bands who sound like NOFX with us. Broken fucking snare drums. Um… Marzipan and London. Nationalism in any form whatsoever.” Any more you’d like to add? “Yeah, actually! Zola fucking Budd. Seriously Groovy Records, not so much a pet hate as a bloody ninja mission. Re-recording songs and any New Order album after Substance. Last but not least, Plymouth.”
So what happened in Plymouth then? “Our worst gig ever! We played with
Mo-ho-bish-o-pi in the university to about twenty people who all seemed to have been expecting Reef, which is a horror my parents never quite prepared me for. Aside from that there was an eye-gouging incident, two or three fights and the cuntiest fucking venue staff you could possibly imagine. On the way home we broke down on the border which led to another scrap with an AA man who was straight out of some Chris Morris sketch, followed by a chronic two-week viral infection and being sacked from work for not turning up at all. That’s pretty much in the bag, that one. But we’ve had a lot of really enjoyable shows in Clwb Ifor Bach in Cardiff and Le pub in Newport. We enjoy them all with the exception of the complete disasters.”
There’s never a definitive point when you’ve finally made it. For some bands a chart hit would suffice, for others a stadium gig or festival slot. But Mclusky have different ideas on success and making it: “I’d like to have a special magic prison in space,” he muses, “a bit like the one in Superman 2, though less see-through-bubble based. Once I have that prison, fully staffed with 7-8 inmates, then I’ll be able to walk down the street with my head held high, assuming that there’s any such thing as a “street” by that time. Our first album was called My Pain And Sadness Is More Sad And Painful Than Yours which I would think was something of an indicator… if success was all that concerned us we would have concentrated on sounding more like the Verve or by writing pop punk songs that address teenage ‘issues’ with the lyrical expertise of a bag of fucking beans. Commercial success will either come to us on our terms or not at all, it’s not worth worrying about.” He smiles. “In the end hopefully we can help to show people that you can write rock songs without descending into cliché, that you can inform sections of people without patronising, that you can fucking rock without having the mentality of a six year old retard on the way to ‘I’m different!’ camp and that you don’t have to be part of any specific scene to belong - either that or we’ll be an object lesson in how not to be a band, you decide.”
So the choice, as they say is yours. But in the face of adversity, bad press and general annoyances the band’s ‘closeness’ keeps them together. “We try to keep everything pure,” he adds. “We got together several years ago wearing our influences around our chins like wanky socks but now we’d like to think we have a dynamic that is special to us, although others obviously may not agree. If only we could give a fuck.”
That says it all really. Loud, raw and extremely unperturbed by anything life throws at them, Mclusky stand forth like leviathans over the Cardiff punk scene. Nice boys with a frightening amount to say for themselves. Just keep ‘em away from small children and animals. |
