R13 caught up with Cez from the Martini Henry Rifles before their gig at Manchester's Night & Day Cafe.

R13:So for people who've never heard of you give us a bit of background
Cez: Well we've been going three years & we're from Cardiff, we released our debut LP called 'Superbastard' in November. We've also released three singles on various labels.

R13:Who's in the band?
Cez: I play guitar & sing, Chris does the same, Fudge plays bass & Robot plays the drums.
R13:Robot?
Cez: Yeah we have a drum machine at the moment, the last drummer emigrated after his wife played away, so now we have a robot!

R13:So is this your first headlining tour & how's it been going?
Cez: Yeah it is, we've done support tours before now with bands like Suicide, Girls Against Boys, Turbo Negro & the Liars. It's been going well, on the whole we've only had positive press. Only Kerrang gave us a bad review, I think we were a bit too punk & not enough metal for them. NME loved us though!

R13:How would you describe your music?
Cez: Noisy scum rock!

R13: Ha ha, nice. Have you ventured beyond these shores yet?
Cez: Yeah we've played dates in Paris, Berlin & NYC which were really good.

R13:How did you go down in America?
Cez: The NYC crowd were great, there seem to be a lot of real music fans over there; they're not too interested in image, it's more just about the music. After this tour we're off to Texas for a music seminar which should be good.

R13:Have there been any tour antics?
Cez: Not really, because of the sound people expect us to be rock & roll offstage but we'd rather sit around drinking cups of tea to be honest!

R13:No groupie action then?
Cez: Nooo, we're all too scared of our girlfriends leaving us whilst we're away on tour.

R13:Made any money yet?
Cez: No, the record company supplied a lot of gear so we're paying that back & not seeing any money ourselves. I think it will be a while before that happens, we have got an old prison van though, which we tour around in!

R13:Do you have a follow up album planned?
Cez: Well we've started writing for a second album but it's really hard to find the time as we're promoting 'Superbastard' so much. The next album is going to be a lot more fucked up though. The production on 'Superbastard' was a bit too clean, we want the next album to be a lot dirtier & noisy.

R13:So where did 'Superbastard' come from as an album title?
Cez: It's actually named after these massive monster generators that a lot of Welsh farmers have, they wire their electric fences up to them because they can't be bothered to do it properly; so if you come across one when you're stumbling back from the pub you know about it! That's what the picture on the front of the album is.

R13:Is there any agenda behind the band? Are the lyrics political for instance?
Cez: No, the lyrics aren't political, they don't really make sense to anyone except us although people read things into them which is cool. They can be about whatever you want really.

R13:OK, well thanks a lot & good luck with the rest of the tour
Cez: No problem, cheers.