ZANG TUMMM TUMB ARTICLES “the first draft of history”

You must feel respectable now.

Not respectable. I don’t think we command respect from anyone, I couldn’t give a fuck for respect anyway.

Well, acceptable at least — Two Tribes was welcomed calmly enough.

Yeah, but there’s no controversy about Two Tribes, it’s just a very human song. Everybody wants to live.

Have you relaxed (I apologise)?

I know, that word’s a pain in the arse now.

Are you weakening then, already?

Perhaps. I mean, it’s bound to happen. With age Frankie will be less of a threat, the fight disappears.

Did Frankie always have to be the bandits?

Oh yeah, it’d be so boring, being in a pop band without treading on some toes.

Does the inevitability of success, for Two Tribes at least, sap some of the challenge, the excitement?

Not the challenge but some of the excitement, there’s not so much risk any longer.

Can you retrieve it?

It’s sad but I don’t think we can unless we touch on a really touchy subject…

He smiles that sly smile as if he knows exactly what that subject might be.

All the fuss about Frankie — the ¼ million sales, a hit in France, Italy, Greece, Germany, Sweden, Belgium, you know all the rest — and for what? Two spunky, explosive singles, restless, busy, almost ruthless little records. They have their rare spirit of speed and sauce, a decent degree of viciousness but things really are too conveniently, tidily smothered in Trevor Horn’s smashes and screams, splashes and echoed tremors and then dressed up prettily in Morley’s slogans and playful ploys. It all serves to resemble menace. True, Frankie make happy, sprightly noises, positive actions but, to be truthful rather than faithful, the only startling thing about Two Tribes and Relax is the attention they’ve captured. Frankie are simply providing a quietly disruptive, merry disturbance of the Blancmange’s, the OMD’s and Ultravox’s.

The Sex Pistols would be ashamed to be so presentable.

What’s the difference between you and the other nonsense?

Well, we’re really five quite hard people, rough round the edges. We’re honest, we’re not teddy bears. It is the rougher side of life but it’s also very ordinary, just what you see on the street. Kids know that. They weren’t shocked at all. They know it all these days. We’re easier to relate to ‘cos we’re not polished.

What have you got to say?

We’ve never shoved our ideas about. All we wanted to say was ‘Relax about sex, it’s no big deal’ and ‘We don’t want to die in a war’.

Not much.

But something.

Did you feel better once Relax gained the status of being labelled dangerous? It had nothing dangerous of its own, it was a bit lacklustre without it?

I think the record was very special but it did need something, we were just happy that we had a bloody record out. It satisfied me that we were closer to the Sex Pistols than Duran Duran. None of us are teddy bears.

Have you compromised? There seemed to be a divergence between you and Holly.

(Long pause. Begins to wonder) I don’t know really. For a short while we did but then we were backpedalling a bit. We got scared when it was Number 1. Holly didn’t mean to say we’d tone things down, not consciously, he was softening the blow. We panicked a bit.

The second Relax video was a massive cop-out.

We didn’t want to do that! We had to! They (Island) could spend as much fucking money as they liked. It wasn’t a cop out, it was just a day out doing a video. We still looked good. We had the video we wanted.

It looked like the industry was taming you, pushing you about. You lost a round.

Well you have to do those things. Continue »

For the moment, Frankie aren’t making any great claims, deep down they feel quite embarrassed. A single, a video, a mime P.A. tour. ‘It’s a fucking joke, that’s how we all treat it’. Ask them if they care about making history, about the size of their victory, the scale of the Joke, Frankie admit it’s fun, a laugh. Cheek’s on their side and that’s enough for now. They’re still not certain what they’ve done. They suspect it’s not much. I suspect they’re right.

Will Frankie hurt anyone?

No. The people up there, the bastions of power, are exactly the same. Reagan or Thatcher haven’t even heard of Frankie.

Was it subversion?

It was subversive, yeah, definitely, but probably more for the way it was presented than anything. We were just being ourselves, putting our madness into things. It made us see we weren’t like a lot of people (laughs). Things we thought were cool freaked people out.

But it was mere outrage, a shallow scandal.

The outrage was shallow, yeah, we never cared about shocking anyone.

Is Frankie, then, just entertainment?

Well, we’re not being pushy, though Paul might be! But it definitely did release something in people. Then again, a lot of people just see it as Pop Music, which is fine by me.

Did you leave any lessons, make any impact?

See, it’s far easier to change things by walking the thin line between nice and not so nice. Madness never were cuddly but they’ve said a lot more than Killing Joke. I mean, Killing Joke may be very radical but my Dad’s never heard of them! They don’t matter one bit. The Pistols did it in the only way — saturating the media.

Did you matter for a minute?

For a few minutes, yeah.

Does it anger you that nothing really happened?

Not really. We just want to try everything and have a laugh. All that matters is that we fucking sold a million. Whether it was a fucking big marketing ploy or what, we sold a million, beyond that I couldn’t give a shit.

Frankie have been thrown a bit but they don’t really care less and that’s good enough. Ask them if they resent the way all the sounds and bumps they make are put down to Horn, and all the phrases and philosophies down to Morley and they’ll say, liberally, ‘They can say what they like — it’s one of the few things they can do’.

Why let Morley play out his dull, daft schemes?

We don’t give a fuck what he does, we let him get on with it.

Do you have any doubts, about Frankie’s strength under all the gadgetry and the Morleypulation?

No, I’ve always known we can knock spots off anyone else. There’s no-one as exciting as us. The shows will prove that. When Frankie play I don’t want anyone to go to the toilet. AT ALL!

Are you proud?

(Big pause) Well I am, dead proud. Frankie’s going to be remembered. Fish out of Marillion thought we were puppets, didn’t even believe we were all from Liverpool. He said to us, ‘In 10 years you’ll be forgotten’, stupid fucking bastard I could’ve killed him. I said, ‘Everyone forgot your Garden Party single bloody weeks ago you stupid fucking idiot’. Frankie’s gonna be remembered, no danger.

Are you tiring?

A bit, we’re doing less work now. We got tired of people getting so worked and heavy about us, going, ‘Well, you’ve got this really heavy leather image so you must be this and you must be that’. It got to us going, ‘OH FUCK OFF. Can’t you have a bit of bleeding fun any longer?!!

Are you serious?

Why?! Why bother?!

Frankie never were as fussy as we might, once people whispered things in our ears, have imagined. Continue »