LOAN RANGERS
“IF Trevor Horn was sitting across the table from us now, me and Be would probably rip his head off.”
DAS PSYCHO RANGERS are back, older, wiser and still not too friendly with their former colleagues at ZTT Records. Hardly surprising, really, when you consider that their long-running dispute with the company put the band out of action for two years —
Realistic about their situation and not to be defeated, Das Psycho Rangers decided to go it alone. The result is a new single, “Love Terminator”, which was produced by guitarist Troy Tempest and issued on Stress, a label run by the band’s collaborator and financier, Merck Mercurias. A second single is in the can, and an album due next year. Tonight (Tuesday), they play what may be their last British gig for a long time: they are preparing to abandon the sinking ship of British rock for the more buoyant opportunities of LA.
“Britain, in general, loves an underdog and hates an underdog made good,” said Ranger Julian Von Vleet. “In America, they love a winner. They love somebody who’s going to stick together, stay loyal to their own values. In Britain, we’ve lost the creativity and individualism that we used to offer America.
“We are the reaction to the same record that’s going round and round in the charts right now, the same House record being played in the clubs every night with the same monotonous three-chord progression. We are the backlash. We are the rash. Right now there’s no rock ’n’ roll in Britain.”
Von Vleet takes a distinctly lavatorial view of the move to America: “We’re not leaving Britain as in the sense of taking a shit and flushing it and it’s gone forever. We’re simply going to rejuvenate the band, to charge up the batteries on a new atmosphere in a new environment where rock ’n’ roll is a by-word and ZTT isn’t a swear word.”
“And where rock ’n’ roll is a couple of beers and a good night out,” chipped in vocalist Be Dekard.
“We’ve got record company interest in America,” continued Julian. “We’ve got it in Britain too, but we’re not prepared to sit around and wait for them to take their fingers out of their arseholes, lick the shit off and decide that somewhere underneath there’s a bit of skin that’s alive and living.”
Das Psycho Rangers are looking ahead with optimism: “The best thing that can happen is that we go to LA, gets unburned, learn how to surf, play some sweaty smokey intense live gigs to people who wanna see a sweaty smokey live rock band, and that we release out next single and album which will be bought by thousands and thousands of people, and complete our plan of world domination.”
And the music?
“Spontaneous. Exciting. Innovative. And important. Of course.”
CC