| **Me:** | Introduce yourselves for those who don't know. |
| **Molly:** | I am Princess Molly, rapper and bad singer. |
| **Charlie:** | Charlie, rapper, bad singer, guitarist. |
| **Cha cha:** | Cha Cha Demore, Bez! The one who blagged her way in and has no talent with anything! |
| **Kinky:** | That's not true! |
| **Me:** | You don't have any maracas! |
| **Cha cha:** | Unfortunately not, but I do have pom poms! |
| **Kinky:** | I'm Kinky, shouter and bad dancer. |
| **Me:** | How did you meet? |
| **Charlie:** | We're all related. |
| (Raised eyebrow) |
| **Cha cha:** | You didn't know that did you?! |
| **Me:** | I find it hard to believe. |
| **Charlie:** | Get your id out Moll. (Molly and Charlie then proceed to show me proof that they have the same last name). |
| **Me:** | So if you're all related how come it's taken until now for you to form a band? |
| **Cha cha:** | That's a bit personal really isn't it. |
| **Charlie:** | No, no, I can tell you. I used to be in a band called Sey Coccurer, who were anglo Hungarian, and I speant most of my time out there blagging it doing Hungarian things. Molly was in The Beatmolls. What we didn't know was that we doing the same sort of music, although she was a bit more Sigue Sigue Sputnik. I fell out with the Hungarian singer and came back. We all used to see each other at weddings and funerals and that. |
| **Cha cha:** | I don't normally do family functions, i'm not normally out and about. |
| **Charlie:** | I blame auntie Ev actually. |
| **Cha cha:** | We're all a bit spread out, my family are the "West London" family who seperate themselves from the other family so I don't know them all. I'm not that much of a blood relation with Charlie though, I'd like to make that clear! |
| **Me:** | So why did you form? |
| **Charlie:** | Nothing better to do. |
| **Molly:** | Tunes going round and round our heads. |
| **Charlie:** | And what is the best way of getting into places for free? |
| **Kinky:** | Be in a band! |
| **Me:** | So what do you want to achieve? |
| **Charlie:** | Destroy ourselves! Destroy every venue in London - but we keep failing 'cos they keep asking us back. It's gotta stop! |
| **Cha cha:** | We've played in 2 gigs in Germany and lots in London. |
| **Charlie:** | We have a residency here and other places we've played are the Hope & Anchor, LA2, Dublin Castle, Crystal Palace Bowl, Camden Falcon... |
| **Cha cha:** | The Scala, the Monarch... |
| **Kinky:** | The Backyard Club... |
| **Molly:** | Ooh, and Stuart's party! With a tape deck in the kitchen! |
| **Cha cha:** | We're available all the time 'cos we hang out together. |
| **Me:** | With a self destructive streak in you why do you think a major label got interested? |
| **Charlie:** | The tunes, the tunes! |
| **Cha cha:** | They have a meeting and decide "ooh let's get a little new alternative band". |
| **Molly:** | The label just copies everyone else. They've got Westlife, which is their Boyzone, they've got Christina Aguilera, which is their Britney, and we're supposed to be their Prodigy. |
| **Charlie:** | Oh, I wanted to be their Slipknot! |
| **Me:** | Someone called you the mainstream version of Atari Teenage Riot... |
| **Charlie:** | Who said that! |
| **Kinky:** | It was you wasn't it! |
| **Charlie:** | (picks up the dictaphone and speels something Hungarian into it. I'm not even going to attempt to translate!) |
| **Cha cha:** | Like he's going to be able to translate that! |
| **Charlie:** | The mainstream Atari Teenage Riot is The Prodigy. Could you see "Come on you cunts" sweeping up the charts? |
| **Cha cha:** | It's not going to happen. The most mainstream we have, which is really quite mainstream, is "Love Somebody" but the rest of the songs we're just not willing to censor them. |
| **Kinky:** | We're going to get a Parental Guidance sticker on our cd. |
| **Cha cha:** | For me this is the aim of the whole band. I want one of those stickers! |
| **Me:** | You like to play live but a lot of your music is pre-recorded, so what do you think constitutes a live gig? |
| **Kinky:** | Us being there doing it and getting the experience. |
| **Charlie:** | It's all about the audience, it doesn't matter if you can play instruments or not. One of the best gigs i've seen had two saxophone players and a DAT. So who is to distinguish? It's about making a connection. |
| **Molly:** | You never know what's going to happen live. |
| **Cha cha:** | Have you ever seen us live to make a comment like that?! |
| **Charlie:** | There are instruments on stage and people miss that. Two guitars, two turntables and 4 microphones. People forget that we really are hip hop and for that you only need two turntables and a microphone. |
| **Cha cha:** | I think we do more than most people. Our gigs are such an event. |
| **Kinky:** | We get dressed up and have a good time. |
| **Cha cha:** | We make it a big deal. Every gig is a big deal. You put on a performance rather than stand around playing guitars. As long as we give people headaches it's okay! We're more live than any of the other shit you'll see at the Monarch. |
| **Me:** | What is this about a mysterious fifth member? |
| **Charlie:** | DJ Assassin hardly ever turns up because he lives in Cornwall, which is further than Brussels and harder to get to. He usually does the turntables and writes the songs with me and whoever. |
| **Me:** | So where do you get your samples from? |
| **Charlie:** | Out of my cd collection. You go shopping in Wallsy Market for second hand records that's where you'll find our samples. You get the other samples from bad fifties films... |
| **Cha cha:** | ...and Pinky and the Brain! |
| **Charlie:** | Yeah, and if you listen to the amount of manky hiphop and jungle we listen to you'll find the rest. |
| **Me:** | How does your label deal with it? |
| **Charlie:** | They shit themselves on a daily basis. They have a sampling office where they just clear samples. |
| **Molly:** | When we had a meeting with them Charlie said they'd be some problems but they said "they're not problems Charlie, they're just issues, they can be dealt with". Later they then came back with "ooh, there's a bit of a problem". |
| **Cha cha:** | How many months did it take to clear 'Love Somebody"? |
| **Charlie:** | Two months. |
| **Kinky:** | Seemed longer though 'cos we couldn't do anything whilst it was going on.
|
|
(A sound tech jumps in and tells us to hurry because they need to do a soundcheck. Charlie strikes him a deal to record their set in payment for two cans of beer. Cha Cha is mortified 'cos they only have three... We have one minute to close the
interview).
|
| **Me:** | Your website makes continued reference to being a gypsy band, why? |
| **Charlie:** | 'Cos we've all got gypsy blood. |
| **Me:** | What do you think of the way gypsies and travellers are treated in this country and is there a difference between the two? |
| **Charlie:** | No there's no difference. And try going to Slovakia if you think they have problems here. |
| **Me:** | Could the Fighting Cocks have formed anywhere other than London? |
| **Charlie:** | Yeah, sure. There are loads of bands out there doing what we do. |
| **Me:** | But has being in London meant you were the one to be picked up? |
| **Kinky:** | We're lucky to be in London. |
| **Cha cha:** | it could have happened elsewhere but it would probably have been a lot slower. |
| **Kinky:** | it would have happened wherever we were. |
| **Charlie:** | I know the way we got picked up, so no it doesn't matter where you're from. But it does matter what you do afterwards. It is easier to be in London, it's not hard to walk down your local to play a gig. |
| **Me:** | So what's next? |
| **Charlie:** | Single out in July/August with an album out after that but I have no idea when. |
| **Cha cha:** | TV series. No really! LWT have been following us and recorded gigs here and at the Red Eye. They're doing a fly on the wall documentary on us because....they're mad! |
And that was that as they ran off to sound check. Fighting Cocks can be
contacted by e-mail on matyi@hotmail.com
by
