Goldie Lookin' Chain interview

There was a spell a few years back when it seemed that the Goldie Lookin' Chain were omnipresent on the music scene but not so much in recent years. That looks set to change as the Welsh wizards of hip-hop bound back with a new tour, a new lp, ‘Asbo4life’ but the same old attitude and outlook on life. Roomthirteen caught up with Eggsy to talk about life, Chico and eleven year olds but as with any massive collective, the rest of the band was never too far away. Mystikal managed to pitch in with a few comments but a good few other rappers from the Newport posse managed to make their presence known as well.

R13:We should probably start with the obvious question, why the long gap since your last record?
E:We have been doing all sorts really. There has been a spin-off called Digital Sex, which is a German techno duo and that can be checked out online via our myspace and you can buy the tunes online too. Adam has been doing a thing called The Tenants Supermen with Graham which led them to do some touring with the Super Furry Animals which was good. Do you have Xfm in Scotland?
R13:We used to, its recently shut down.
E:Yeah, we had it in South Wales and we were doing a drive time show on there but because of all this recession they’ve all been bought out and went under. So we’ve been doing stuff but to tell the truth, it’s been nice to not be as full on because a few years ago, it was bit intense. It was really good and the gigs were great but when you went home, you tried to chill out and people would be “woooahhh”. So it’s been nice to sit down and record stuff. We’ve got this album and then another load of stuff ready to go as soon as we can after this one and just touring again. I’ll sit here hating it, saying cunts and bastards almost non-stop but the gig is the reason why we’re here.

R13:Of course its not all moaning and gigging on tour, there was some story last night about the possibility of there being shit on the couch on the tour bus?
E:It wasn’t technically shit but it looked like it. Maggot had been sitting on a Malteser and when he got up to walk out of here at four o’clock in the morning, it was melted into the seat. So at the time, we’re all a bit fucked and I’m going, its shit and laughing away and this went on for about twenty minutes. But that’s life on tour; you have a laugh, have a smoke and then go to bed.

R13:I can imagine a lot of stories in the GLC end like that, almost like a Hunter S Thompson novel.
E:My dad looks like Hunter S Thompson, we should bring him on tour. That would be great, of course, Hunter S Thompson is dead and my dad is alive.
R13:Well, that’s good.
E:Yes, that’s very good.
R13:Well, not that Hunter's dead?
E:No. He killed himself in the end didn’t he? He had made the preparations for it and he spent his whole life getting plastered and I don’t think you’d want to get old after that.
R13:He had a broken leg at the time and ironically was probably whacked off his head on morphine but if its not your drug of choice, well, you know what its like?
E:Yeah, he was a crazy man.

R13:Do you feel the musical landscape has changed in the past few years and do you feel as though you still fit in?
E:When we got signed, the record labels were just starting to fall apart. We were lucky to get like three quarters of a million behind us, get the publicity and then the second album out of it. We had a five album deal but we got dropped and it was fair enough. A lot of bands got six months tops and if they didn’t sell, you never heard of them again. We’ve definitely got a fan base and we haven’t toured for two years but so far all the gigs have been sold out and anyone can do it nowadays. You can put your music out there for free and if people like it, they’ll come to the gigs. It’s done us a favour in some ways.

R13:New lp, 'Asbo4life', tell us about it?
E:Its been a few years. Hold on, here comes Billy, look at that moustache, that’s real and he just grew it today.
R13:(The sight of a rather impressive moustache halts the interview as Billy Webb pops in to borrow Eggsy’s camera.)
E:It’s a good party album, people don’t have any money at the moment to do anything so its time for albums to come back. People have been coming to gigs and enjoying the new songs so that’s working but the idea is that you can sit at home, get some mates round and put this album on. We haven’t sampled anything, we have original music in it and we tried to get a whole range of different musical styles in there. There’s some stuff that sounds a bit like Beck, there’s something that sounds like a French paedophile…
R13:Arsene Wenger?
E:Yeah, haha, yeah, okay and there’s stuff that sounds like dirty electro and has big fat chunky beats. I’m really proud of it but I’m really looking forward to the next album as we’ve taken that up a notch in the filth stakes.

R13:In the good sense of filth?
E:Oh yeah, this album is a 6th former who has just got pubes and a bit of responsibility as he has a Saturday job, the next album is where he has discovered weed and he’s fucked it all off. So this album, it likes a laugh but it has a certain responsibility and our responsibility on this record is to get people up and have this record on their stereo whilst they have a good time.

R13:Was that the main driving influence in making this album?
E:There's not many albums these days that are full albums anymore. You get the singles and then the band just chuck out any old shit to fill the tracks and people don’t listen to albums that much anymore. We’ve tried to make a full album and make it all as appealing as you can. And that’s not happening as much nowadays and people don’t need to buy full albums, you can get a song here and a song there. If you’re about 11, you probably don’t own any full albums. Oh wait, that’s a generalisation I suppose…
R13:That’s what we like though, you could say that eleven year olds are stupid.
E:Yeah, I’d like to punch one out.
R13:There’s plenty in Glasgow, we can take a walk outside if you want?
E:Yeah, wicked. We still think its worth listening to a full album if a band has put the time and effort into it and make it and I think we’ve done that.

R13:Which celebrity would you like to slap an Asbo on?
E:Not so much celebrities but just popular culture, any show that involves dancing, ice or celebrities doing things (the laughter from Mystikal starts to build) oh fuck off! You know what I mean?

R13:Was there disappointment that no one from the band was a steward on ITV2’s CelebAir, you could have had the chance to serve a meal with Chico?
E:We got on there as guests, this is the brilliant thing. Maggot gets a phone call and we ended up going to Alicante, a proper British holiday abroad. The phone call comes in two months in advance and Maggot says he is going to Antigua, all expenses paid, put up in a hotel and I get up in a reality TV show. So, that was great for him and then a week later he asked me did I want to go too and I was going too right, yes! And then three days before we go, he tells me, its not Antigua, its Alicante and its for ITV2’s Who Wants To Be An Airline Stewardess or whatever? And we were like, fuck it, lets go anyway and we went and we got to meet the likes of Chico.
R13:Was he a cunt?
E:Oh yeah, he is, he dresses like a 16 year old. Phil Cornwell was on there too and I always wanted to meet him, I think he’s genius.
R13:His Michael Caine on Stella Street was immense.
E:Exactly, we spent the afternoon with him making him do the Michael Caine and we went and got pissed. However, to return to the question to actually go on those shows, it’s a weird one. I’d do one of those shows if it was a lesser known channel and they were paying me but if it’s a high profile channel, everyone feels like they know you and start saying “alright mate?” and I find that a bit weird and I don’t want people to know me like that.
R13:Would you say that’s the down side of being in a band?
E:Being in a band, people will get to know who you are and I’m delighted we play gigs and people come but when its some women with no teeth coming up to you and saying “I know you, lets have sex”, it’s all a bit much.
R13:So you’ve been around Scotland then?
E:Haha, yeah, that’s it, nah, I’ve been to Newport plenty of times, that’s all I need to see. There’s a lot of similarities between Scotland and Wales. People getting battered on the streets and a lot of concrete and rain. We both have beautiful parts but some of the cities are grim.

R13:What is the thing that members of the public most commonly say to you in the street?
E:I like it when they stop you and go “Alright mate, its Dirty Sanchez isn’t it?” and I just say yeah “I’m Dainton from Dirty Sanchez and I’m about to cut my willie off”. The other one is when they get your name wrong, and there are eight of us so I don’t expect people to get all the names right but they go on and on. “Alright Adam” or “alright Maggot, you look a lot smaller in real life!” That’s always good, if someone is a proper fan, they tend to just say hi and then move on but if it’s someone who has saw you on TV but doesn’t know who you are, they are the weirdest ones. They’ll come up to you and say “ohh, you’re off the telly” and that’s just strange. People are cool generally but blokes between the age of 16 and 40 can be the weirdest.
M: They try to lick your face.
E:That’s fucking awful, face licking. I was a few streets down from my house and two blokes came up to me going “Eggsy Eggsy give us a photo.” They had a bag of cans and stank of booze, it was 3 o’clock in the afternoon and these guys were trying to rub me and one of them said “Your music really helped me when I was in prison” and when you get that, you think about life and need to get out of there.

R13:Again though, and it comes back to your views on the volume of reality shows and fame in general, there’s so much more interaction now.
E:It’s a funny one being in a band. We noticed the other day, you do a gig and we stay here on the bus until we leave. Everyone who is at the gig has left but you always get those people who hang around. Not necessarily because the band is here but because they are pissed and they’re slumped in doorways. So you’re getting ready to move off at three in the morning and someone is throwing up and saying “I was in a spaceship last night” and that’s just so weird.

R13:How is the balance between old and new songs for the live shows?
E:I’m really enjoying this tour because a lot of stuff we did in the past, I had to do a lot of rap songs, Adam's done a chunk of new material this time so most of it is now split between us. So I like it as my throat isn’t getting ripped up after every three days and I also like it because it chops and changes it a bit. We’ve mixed in a few classics that people know, we plays ‘Guns’ and ‘Soapbar’, a few bits have been remixed for the live shows and a fair bit of new material. People have been enjoying it. I’ve been watching the show from our point of view and they’re going off on the songs they know but they’re really getting into the songs they don’t know. As a band that’s great because you worry about will they like the new stuff but we still haven’t see any tits.
M:We have seen tits.
E:No, that’s with the Sport, we did a photo shoot at the Sport and that’s out on Saturday and they were tit models taking their tits out.
R13:Well, if you never saw any tits from them you’d be gutted, that’s pretty much their job.
E:Exactly but during a gig, no ones been flashing them yet so maybe on the rest of the tour?

R13:You are back and the Super Furry Animals are back, will there be any collaboration this summer, possibly at festivals?
E:Well, Tenants Supermen did the thing with Cian from the band and toured with them, there was a tune on the Super Furries Myspace and its definitely on the Tenants Supermen myspace at the moment. Its called ‘Blaze On A La Maison’ and we’ve been doing bits here and there as they have a label. As for the Super Furries as a whole, they’ve got the new album out and there’s a tune called ‘Cardiff In The Sun’ and I read a review in this weeks NME and it sounds fucking brilliant. They’re never gonna end up being on Top of The Pops or Radio 1 which is a shame as Radio 1 is a bit like that, unless your six months old or fourteen who cares anymore but the Furries will always consistently make good music. We did a tune with them years ago called ‘Motherfokker’. At time I was working in the passport office and it was surreal to smoke a reefer with the Super Furries, record a song with them and then go back to the Passport Office, in a shitty little room and think what the fuck is going on?

R13: That must have messed with your head? The Furries are easily one of the best bands from the past two decades.
E:I don’t like going to gigs much, at times I can't be fucked with it but for the Super Furry Animals, I will go out of my way to see them and they’re the nicest people in the world. You can get stoned with them and that’s what it is all about, fucking marvellous! I would finger them all if they were all women.
R13:You know by the time we run the interview we are going to drop the bit that goes “if they were all women”?
E:Hahaha, oh well…yeah!

R13:How surreal is it doing karaoke in a football stadium before a match?
E:Proper fucking weird but at the same time, amazing because who else gets to do it?
R13:I’ve sadly seen Blazing Squad and amazingly Los Ketchup before football matches!
E:Yeah? That’s brilliant, what a laugh, honestly, it was great, great stuff.

R13:Does it worry you that you may not get the musical respect that you probably deserve?
E:It’s a funny one. You get purists, people who are into hip-hop and think we’re shit and wasting people’s time. However, we do a gig that sells out and people have a good time so I’m not too bothered. There’s room for anyone to do anything and if you get off your arse and do something, then there’s an element of fair play to you. Even if its Coldplay or something shit but if you’ve got off your arse to do something, then at least you’ve gave it a go. It’s so much better to try something and at last give it a go. If something is crap then go and do something else ya bellend. There is nothing worse than a moaning cunt but if that moaning cunt has at least had a go at it themselves then fair enough.

R13:What does the future hold for the GLC?
E:No washing, sitting on a bus for a couple of weeks, finishing the tour and then hopefully summer festivals and another record and a bit more of this. Keeping the vibe alive.

And with an imminent sound check to take care of, the band had to up and leave after a hugely entertaining half an hour. There is no doubt that the GLC are a good time band who uses comedy but those who write them off as jokers and fools are massively mistaken. Yes, the interview was peppered with tits, weed and violence remarks but there was also a greater measure of the music industry and the human psyche thrown in for free. Far be it from R13 to second guess the true meaning behind someone being “safe as fuck” but if there's a better summation for these Welsh lads, we haven’t heard it yet.