Goldie Lookin' Chain!

by Richie McCormack
Conducted in The Village 31/08/04

"Ask a stupid question……." As the saying goes, and never has been a truer word been spoken, well on this occasion at least, when I met with sundry members of the Goldie Lookin' Chain collective in the front bar of The Village ahead of their second gig on Irish soil and fresh from going straight into the British Top 3 with their second single Guns Don't Kill People. I started by asking them how 'celebrity life' was treating them, "We sweat a lot, get crammed into small spaces and poked with sticks a lot", came the reply from the most respectable looking of the bunch, 2 Hats, a man who, quel surprise, has two hats adorn his head. So they're hardly up there with the Kash Money Millionaires or Master P and his posse but they've been doing O.K. for themselves ever since getting a deal with East West and signing it outside the Houses of Parliament whilst drinking Cherryade and eating dodgy sausage rolls.

Their first single, "Half Man, Half Machine" reached number 32 upon it's release back in April, so I asked them how it felt to go number three this time around, "It's a bit of a let down to be honest", comes the reply from Adam Hussein in a slightly hushed tone that suggests the remnants of a good night last night are still clouding his brain, "coz we got to number one last time but then they told us we didn't get to number one so I found it a bit confusing. If you go to the Olympics you wanna get a gold medal dontcha- you don't wanna get a silver or bronze do ya? That's shit". Obviously a bunch of lads inspired by Paula Radcliffe's recent performances in Athens.

Not much is known about the genesis of GLC, I decided to find out how they came together, Mystikal- a barrel of a man and fellow GLC member tells me, "its been a long, drawn out process whereby two weeks ago we were all convened together and told we had to be pop stars" "By Terry Elliott aka Terry Ballskin" Adam interjects, "band choreographer extraordinaire & brilliant lyricist. He does the choreography and the writin' and we get up on stage and get it right.". Their very own Simon Cowell if you will. Though according to Mystikal, Adam had been taught all his dance moves by Michael Flatley and also how to dip his head in a vat of water, post show, Adam: "that's what the pro's do son, I've been in this game for months!" Something tells me I'm having my leg pulled.

The scene from which they emerged in Newport, south Wales is hardly a bustling one, Adam tells me it's just concrete, Mike Balls offers "lots of hills" and 2Hats "curly white dog shit" on which subject Adam tells me "you don't see it anymore coz dog food used to be filled with chalk", and there's me thinking it was just petrified, well at this point, I was, fearing the interview was going to spiral into childhood reminiscences and admiration of passers-by leisure wear. So the conversation moves on to talk of influences and such, to which all reply "Drugs!", "Hardcore drugs and dancing", says Mike Balls.

Mystikal maintains "a band called Starship (of 'We Built This City' fame) and the Beastie Boys" and Adam reveals his influences and reasons for getting into rap were a desire to do a duet with David Essex, a man he reveals to have "lovely hair and is the oldest man to have an earring", whilst also citing Emerson Lake & Palmer, Kid Creole and The Coconuts and John Barnes, calling him a lyrical master for rhyming "Barnes" with "Bananas" on the 'Anfield Rap'. It's genuinely hard to judge whether he's being serious or not, which, I suppose, is part of the reason behind their recent success, no-one really knows if it's a wind-up of if they're genuinely aspiring for rap credibility. They've a cross over appeal most would die for. An appeal that took them to Ibiza earlier in the summer, I asked them how this experience was:

Mystikal: "a combination of sleep deprivation and an experiment in terror."
Adam: "…and leather!"
2Hats: "…and naked women, lots of naked women."
Mystikal: "it was very burlesque, imagine a modern day tour of duty, Ibiza is like Vietnam, we've seen men's heads exploding on stage, a great deal of people off their tits at 6a.m."
2Hats: "When we arrived, we saw a man and a woman getting jiggy on a beach, he's getting stuck in, givin it a go, and behind a dog came up had a little sniff - unfortunately we didn't have the camera for that."

Yes, these are the men about to bring you a song called "Your Mother's got a Penis", juvenile- perhaps, funny- definitely. The lads then lead on to tell me about their ideas for new products in the 'marital aid' business, most of this is obviously unprintable, suffice it to say they involved interactive DVD players and interesting uses for sports socks. As Adam said they're "trying to increase the level of sexual awareness and sexual stimulation in the crowd, to create a sexual hotpot and get people all hot and bothered." Which, by their own admission is a slight problem at the moment as they're getting "far too many lads in the crowd" a problem 2Hats thinks can be rectified by "doing more love tunes". Well, it worked for Nelly. It's not likely you'll see this happen any time soon though as a track on their debut Greatest Hits LP contains disses of Ja Rule, P.Diddy, J-Lo and Alicia Keys.

They're folk I can't imagine having their festival highlight of the year "seeing the Dirty Sanchez boys eat a piece of shit on stage" as is Adam Hussein's. Mike Balls' is seeing fellow GLC member Billy Webb aka Tim Wescountry "forget his raps when we were on with the Super Furries and rap into a can of Strongbow". The band have been joining the SFA lads a lot on tour recently either as support or dueting on the Furries "Mother Fokker". According to the chattiest of the bunch, Adam, "they wrote it a couple of years ago, did the music but didn't know what to say apart from mother fokker, so we wrote somethin' bout an alien invasion and, like ye know bellends & foreskins and hammers & probes, coz that's what would happen if there was an alien invasion so we just thought we'd tell people- it's all about awareness."

The two bands first met at GLC's first gig which Guto and Cian from SFA attended, and when GLC later played Newport "the whole band cam down along with Howard Marks and we had a right knees up". GLC have also recently supported the likes of The Darkness, Snow Patrol and The Streets, reactions to the Welsh 8 piece obviously vary, 2Hats interjects, "It's when they exchange drinks with us I find a bit alarming, when they're passing their drinks up to the stage, they throw 'em to you but they get a bit over vigorous- they're throwing drinks at you but it's spilt before it's got to you and I'm like, no, I wanna drink it!"

Luckily there was no such reaction when they played Oxegen in July. It's a gig they don't recall too much about, they smoke a lot of "draw" wouldn't you know, they simply remember the crowd being "wicked" and according to Mike Balls "officially wakin' up about 3 songs in coz that was a midday gig but the crowd were up for it" to which Adam offers, "if the crowd's up for it then we can all have a f**kin' belter." Everyone in The Village this night seemed to be up for it. GLC have gained many new 'Clarts'(a word which, according to GLC's very own dictionary and reference guide is a noun which means "someone who knows about the GLC".) Clarts who will doubtlessly lap up their Greatest Hits album.

Well with songs like 'Roller Disco' which they describe as "a nostalgic trip back to the eighties, Grange Hill, roller skating on ramps, Kola Kubes and Panini stickers", then there's 'Soap Bar' a song which is self explanatory to "anyone who smokes weed", and lest we forget 'You're Mother's Got A Penis' which as 2Hats puts it "is about awareness again, coz some mothers do have penises". Can I just say my suggestion they see the D'unbelievables video D'Mother is lapped up at this point so if messrs. Kenny or Shortt are reading this, some royalties are surely in order…. No?

Who would've thought eight mates from Newport who look like lads who should be out drinking White Lightening and partaking in the borrowing and enjoyment of strangers cars on a Friday night would be preparing to unleash possibly the most popular British hip-hop album of all time. A band who offer their interviewers "sexy DVDs" with names like "Hot Dogs" (I politely declined- honestly mam!) & who plan to adopt a monkey in Bristol Zoo and call it Jolene - but sure isn't the world a better place for them. As they said themselves, "Keep it real, smoke the draw, don't be a d**khead, don't smoke in bed and don't do drugs in a bungalow". Words to live by I'm sure.

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