Interview with. . .
  
"Sick!Kinky!Child molesting"-THE SUN
 
Interview by Milan. 
 
 
 
 
Q:When and how did the Gin Goblins get together, and what is the meaning of your name? 
 A:We got together in 1992,though with different drummer and one less guitarist... we knew each other anyway, and Gargleblud [Mikie & Coco's previous band] had recently split, so it seemed the right thing to do! The name of the band actually comes from one of the Quatermass... it's a good name!  
Q:You've had problems with distributors who didn't want to distribute your stuff because off "offensive" covers, how do you feel about that? How did you manage to get that stuff around to people?  
  A: Yet again it seems to be the case of people getting all upset over something that really doesn't make any difference to the world in general...I mean the picture on our covers isn't responsible for starvation, genocide or any of the stuff that I find offensive. But people like to shout about the silly little unimportant things while somehow ignoring the really big things. They wouldn't be hypocritical ignorant wankers if they didn't do that... and where would the world be without masses of them?! Let's face it though, the cover was meant to offend people... it's funny annoying these idiots, and of course we get free publicity of them too, so it's even better! Being offensive just for the sake of it can get bit boring/pointless of course, but it's fun too!! I mean, the average "I Believe Every Word Of The Bible" type person will never listen to reason anyway...and as I blame a lot of these people for the fucking mess the world is in, I just think bollocks, let's just really piss them off. The main release that caused the problem was "Holy Fuck"...but it never actually got to the stage where we had all copies pressed up, so we didn't end up with stacks of records taking up space .All the reaction we got was from the promo's...god knows what reaction we'd have had if thousands of bleedin' things made it out into the world! As it turned out, we decided to re-do that album, as Big John had only recently joined, and the songs had kinda changed since that recording.  
Q:You run the Damned fan club [The Phantom Zone], Mikie's favorite piece of music is Damned's "Neat Neat Neat", you've played a bunch of shows with them ... it isn't hard to figure out that they must've had a lot of influence on you right?
  A: Yeah, I'd say the Damned have had an influence ,though not so much musically as just they were as a band. The Damned always did whatever the fuck they wanted...it was four individual characters that when put together made all this great music. Live they were loud and obnoxious, having as good a time as the fans, and yet in the studio they could produce some works of musical genius. I always liked the way they did that... and of course they were dogged by bad luck, which as a band the Gin Goblins can relate to! I hope we don't turn into what the Damned have though.  
Q:Where do you get all the necessary equipment for your horror shows? How does the fake blood come off the guitars and other equipment?  
 A: Well we don't have that much stuff...it's more for Halloween that all the props come out... most of them having been "acquired" over the years. Mikie's girlfriend Jess works in the costume department of theater...which helps! Most of it is just cheap rubbish that we can afford to leave behind at various in drunken haze, or happily let members of the audience steal off us. The blood tends to slowly come off the guitars over a period of years! Everytime I pick up my guitar I get mysterious red marks on my hands...I'm thinking it could be stigmata. PA companies absolutely hate us for the mess we make of their gear... but as most of these people bore us to death with tales of being roadies for Tygers Of Pang Tang (or something equally bad) then that's what they deserve! We have been banned from using the blood on many occasions... usually when the venue knows what they're gonna get.  
Q:According to the magazine you sent, the Gin Goblins are labeled as "sick punk rockers". Who's the sickest of all of you? How did you come up with idea to use all that fake blood at your shows & to give away real human bones to the audience as souvenirs? How did people react to that?
 A:Well,it all depends on what you consider to be "sick" . To be called sick by right-wing tabloid newspapers is compliment! These are the people who call us sick because we were gonna play in mental hospital, yet will call scum as Margaret Thatcher a great person. Anyone with half a brain can see the hypocrisy of it all, but unfortunately that rules out most of the population! I'm sure we can all be equally "sick" when it suits us, but Coco has been sick in more places, so he wins! All the fake blood was really more for our own entertainment than any great plan. It started off at one of the Halloween gigs...but it was such a good laugh sending crowds home covered in blood that we started doing more often. After a while the novelty wore off though... sitting freezing in van covered in all this shit after night just got too much. As for giving away human bones ...we never did... simple as that! Some papers said we did, but really we just kept them to feed the Beast From Hell each of us keeps his cellar. Audience reaction to the Gin Goblins ranges from shock, horror and disgust to er... shock, horror and disgust! Nah ,love or hate ...very rarely anything in between...but that's a good thing ...the world doesn't need anymore mediocrity. 
Q: What was the gig in the mental hospital all about?
  A: That really was genuine gig! No-one believes us, but it's true! We even gave up one night of the Damned tour to do that gig...only for those bastards at the Sun to ruin it. Y'know , not all people at mental hospitals are extreme psychopaths or whatever...there's people that think I could use a bit of loud in-your-face punk rock cheer them up...I think the people in the hospital probably would've had a greater understanding of how to take a band like us than the general public. I'm sure they would've loved us, and we were well up for doing it. We weren't using them for publicity, or taking the piss , we really wanted to do it... though I was hoping for something along the lines of that Cramps show at the mental hospital... lots of people getting on stage, having fun and if you'll excuse the bad pun, going fucking mental!!! Thanks to the Sun stepping in though, they probably got a Status Quo tribute band or something...how the fuck is that gonna help them??! That's the sort of thing that puts people in mental hospitals to begin with...  
Q: For the end, tell us your favourite proverb.  
 A: Oh god, I don't know! I know Mikie's is "don't do a scoosher or you'll get a nippy farter". Mine probably involves a load of chefs, bushes, and watching kettles. Maybe "to punch the smart-ass proverb cracker squarely on the gob can never be said to be without reason".  
Q: Tell us about your latest plans of shocking the public?  
 A: Oh that's all classified of course! We're not up to much at the moment... things got out of hand at Halloween, so we're all taking a break. My main concern is getting rid of every single copy of Season Of The Dead, so all your readers can help me out with that one! The thing is, a lot of stuff isn't planned, it's just natural to us. It isn't some image that's been carefully though out...there's no image...it's all real. Of course, what the tabloid newspapers say isn't necessarily real, but we are . I used to buy loads of fake blood when I was a kid, and I'm glad to say I've never grown out of it. Same with explosions. This is what we do anyway...the band just allows us to inflict it on more people!  
Q: Name your favourite book, movie, comic and cartoon.  
 A: Argh, I can never name just one. Books... all the Irvine Welsh stuff (surprise surprise ),most James Herbert, Stephen King, the Necroscope series, some radical political stuff...and on and on... Movies... Dawn Of The Dead and Return Of The Living Dead have long been faves, the Wicker Man , Bullet In The Head... lots of stuff really, from horror, comedy, true-fucking-story, and of course the masterpiece Enema Bandit. Fave comic is easier... The Preacher has to go top of the list. There's not enough of them though. Cartoons... you've got me there... I don't rally watch them. Fuck it, I'll go for Mr.Magoo!!  
Q: What do you guys do besides making noise in the Gin Goblins?  
  A: Oh the usual stuff... church every Sunday, flower-arranging, I do stuff for the Damned and run massive video distro amongst other things. Mikie and Coco have the Grisly Ghosts of Guy to keep them busy... sort of garage-punk monster band. Big John gets tattooed all day long, and Chris amazes us with his cycling skills. Of course, if the Sun is reading this, we dig up corpses, crucify young children, drink the blood of politicians and skulk about down dark alleyways.  
Q: How many releases do you have so far? How is your music accepted outside the UK?  
  A: Up to now we have the "Up To Good" 3-track EP, un-named 6-track EP... dunno what happened to the name for that and the mini-album "Season of the Dead" that's just come out. All stuff apart from the latest one is gone ... no copies left anywhere as far as I can tell.  
Q: You played some gigs with some more known bands such as Dickies, 999, The Damned, Foo Fighters,...How were you accepted by their audiences?  
 A: Really well...the Foo Fighters was probably best, as they had the biggest crowd, and had more younger people into them who weren't afraid to go mental to a band they hadn't seen before. Their fans weren't at that jaded, cynical "if I've not heard for them before, they can't be any good" sorta stage. Saying that though, the gigs with those other bands were great too...I truly love the Dickies, so getting to play with them was great. The Damned too... what a combination ... Gin Goblins and the Damned... I know I would've loved to see that if I wasn't a Gin Goblin! The only problem is when people only want to hear one type of music, and won't give anything else a chance... like thay want generic 1982 punk with mohicans, and hate everything else. Still, we would annoy the people that didn't like us! And blow them up with pyros.  
Q: How popular are the Gin Goblins in the UK?  
 A: Hmm, I don't know! The more popular something is, the crapper it is usually find (just look al Lady Die!). We built up pretty good following with our endless gigging, and the recordings always sell well, but it's all relative really. I suppose the obvious answer is "not as popular as we should be"! All ex-Exploited and ex-Nirvana stuff got more people interested, but not for the right reasons...still, out of the Nirvana fans there's always gonna be some who genuinely love such manic punk rock as the Goblins. Basically though, this country is too controlled by the music press...they pretty much decide what music people will like, as they ram it down your throat so much. The music press have consistently hated my favourite bands, so they're only really much use for finding out the least record company hype to avoid this week. Fuck the NME!
 
 
Contact Gin Goblins by e-mail gingoblin@easynet.co.uk and visit their site at: http://easyweb.easynet.co.uk/~gingoblin