INTERVIEW: The Screaming Blue Messiahs (September 2016)

Though today best-remembered for their lost hit I Wanna Be a Flintstone, The Screaming Blue Messiahs - bassist Chris Thompson, drummer Kenny Harris and combustible, cueball-headed frontman Bill Carter - cut quite a swathe through the hideous yuppie largesse of 1980s pop.

The furious rockabilly riffs and Clash swagger of 1984’s Good and Gone EP announced their arrival with shrieking ferocity. Though 1986’s Gun-Shy saw their visceral live sound somewhat diluted by major-label production, it nevertheless carved a neat path between the band’s manic performances and later more stylised recordings - best evidenced in re-worked version of early standouts Let’s Go Down To The Woods and Someone To Talk To. 1987’s Bikini Red found the band pursuing a slicker, more studio-driven approach and, in a more just decade, I Can Speak American would have joined I Wanna Be a Flintstone in the charts. By 1989’s Totally Religious, they were trading in clanging, alien soundscapes incorporating post-punk elements - in turn pre-empting the mechanical grind of bands like Fugazi.

With such a distinctive 1950s US pop-culture aesthetic - atom bombs, Cadillacs and images of youthful rebellion loom large throughout their catalogue - the Messiahs found themselves somewhat adrift in an age of yacht-rock and Reaganomics. Though the trio were granted a fleeting taste of mainstream recognition when they were personally invited to support David Bowie at two stadium concerts, mounting tensions caused them to disband soon after the release of Totally Religious - an LP which sounds like music run through an industrial mangler.

With members of DC lynchpins Jawbox and Fugazi paying tribute in the liner notes of collated for posterity in a new retrospective box-set, Vision in Blues, it’s clear that the band’s influence still persists. However, the scuppered possibilities of its futuristic soundscapes are clearly still a sore point for Bill Carter. The following interview - conducted with each band-member separately, via email - makes for a fascinating case-study in how old resentments die hard.

In many respects, the band’s sound acted as a sort of distillation of every major phase of rock‘n’roll up to that point: rockabilly, blues, mod, garage, punk, New Wave... Did you see yourselves as a continuation of that lineage, or were you trying to forge something new (especially with the second album)? If so, looking back, how successful do you think were?

KENNY: I don’t think that any band thinks too deeply about continuing a lineage of any kind. All the musical genres you mention were certainly in the mix but we were just trying to make the best racket we could. In terms of how successful we were, some people got it but lots more didn’t.

CHRIS: Of course we were influenced by previous genres, especially British R&B and for my part American Blues which I had been playing for years before I started playing electric music. Also we wanted to forge something new which is usually the reason for starting a new band! 

BILL: All bands are a product of history. Some of our material was too retro and limited rhythm-wise in concept. I think in our case the musicians involved combined with stripped-down format (bass, drums and guitar) also had its limitations.

In the early recordings I argued with Vic Maile a lot about some things sounding too traditional rhythmically and structure wise. His argument was that I was trying to be too obscure and that I should do what everyone else does and copy good songs you like. To some extent he was probably right. Kenny did end up having to stand on a stool with a skipping rope whirling it around trying to record whirling dervish sounds. However, the more cyclic Twin Cadillacs, Destroyer and Sweet Water Pools do work better for me - especially live, particularly because of the connection and audience involvement [which was] a bit like dance music at the time. Chris and Kenny did not write any songs so they got sent to the pub after we finally got the drums done… resentment was starting to build…

Working with Howard Gray (who later became a member of Apollo 440) on Twin Cadillacs, he used to talk about the Messiahs’ repetitive, hypnotic-type songs and how they were not that far away from trance-type stuff that was happening at the time and the way it worked on the people who came to see us. By the end of the set people were starting to get sort of mezzed.

We had a lot of problems with the record company as far as what tracks they liked. They wanted a traditional rock band for the USA and were not keen on the more linear cyclic songs that we did with Howard Gray.

With such a strong 1950s US pop-culture aesthetic, you seemed like a band somewhat adrift in the 1980s - particularly in Britain. Did that make things more difficult at the time (particularly in a commercial sense), or were you quite happy to be off on your own musical trip?

CHRIS: I grew up in 50s pop culture in North America. We were a niche band and although we were not mainstream in the UK we seemed to be very popular in the rest of the world.  

KENNY: We were more than happy to plough our own furrow. We were never part of a scene and never wanted to be.

BILL: The Screaming Blue Messiahs were a self-fulfilling prophecy. We were never going to be a commercial success.

Following on from that, what are your memories of supporting David Bowie in stadiums? Did these constitute a career high, or did they serve to juxtapose that scale of success against the plight of smaller bands on the independent circuit?

KENNY:  I can only answer for myself here, Bill and Chris may give totally different answers. While it was an experience never to be forgotten, scary while exhilarating at the same time, I don’t think we should have done them. We were playing songs off the newly recorded but not yet released Bikini Red, using gadgets that we so far had only used in the studio, live for the first time. I don’t think we were ready for gigs that size but that’s just my opinion.

CHRIS: We were in the middle of recording when we were approached and were very involved in the studio so playing with Bowie was a welcome distraction. I had no conception of our success or failure at that moment. I thought we were doing well and it was great to play with David Bowie.

BILL: A great opportunity given to us by David Bowie who was very supportive, cheerful and upbeat. I knew we were on the wrong stage when I heard Harvey Goldsmith condescendingly introducing the band like a karaoke compère at a Butlins holiday camp.

What’s your favourite period of the band showcased here - is there a specific album that you’re particularly proud of, or which you think shows the band at its best?

BILL: It’s difficult to say because the whole thing was so flawed and contentious at the time. The live album sounds better than I thought it would.

CHRIS: My favorite period of time was when we were making Good and Gone. I felt I was part of something great and I was very happy with the album. We were all working well together at that time both on stage and in the studio.

KENNY: My favourite album is Bikini Red. We went into the studio after months of touring and so were as match fit as it was possible to be. The songs were great and we were back in with Vic Maile producing. Good times.

You were known for your splenetic live shows, and it’s been widely acknowledged (even by yourselves, from what I gather!) that the studio albums never quite captured the essence of the band in that respect - do you feel that the live album included in this box-set goes some way to redressing that balance?

KENNY:  I do think there’s some good stuff on Zurich and it’s the only live recording I’ve heard that has got tracks from Totally Religious on it.

BILL: The re-mastered  Zurich live recording sounds better than it used to. Twin Cadillacs sounds good, and Accident Prone… a lot of noise for a 3 piece.

CHRIS: The live shows and the albums are two different things. Personally I like both and the recorded material sounds even better as time goes on.

With the box-set providing a chance to look back at your career in its entirety, what do you think your legacy is? Do you hear yourselves in any modern-day acts, or have you since been cited as an influence in the intervening years?

CHRIS: I am sure that we influenced people as others in turn influenced us, but it does not define me. I was playing for years before the Messiahs and I still am.

BILL: I think the music speaks for itself.

KENNY:  I am not the type of person vain enough to sit down and think about our ‘legacy’. I think that if one starts to think along lines like that, one is in danger of turning into Bongo from the U2s.

What have you all been up to since? What happens when the musical dream splutters to a halt - and did you remain friends?

CHRIS: As I said, I am still playing. Nothing has spluttered to a halt as far as I am concerned. I am still friends with Kenny Harris and we play together regularly.

KENNY: Chris and I carried on playing for a while and we were hired as a rhythm section for an American Cajun fiddle player called Pierre Le Rue. I also did stints with bands like The Inmates and The Men They Couldn’t Hang. More recently Chris and I started playing together again although this time he’s playing guitar. So Chris and I are still in touch.

BILL: It was not a musical dream, it was a reality… and it did not splutter to a halt, it was a combination of well-thought-through decisions.

In my opinion, Totally Religious could have been an all time classic album. Chris Thompson and Kenny Harris did not want to record in the USA and were totally creatively uncooperative and more or less on strike, leading to serious problems recording the album.  Kenny got sent home and I wanted them both sacked.

I decided then that it would be the last time I recorded or toured with them. Subsequently Elektra dropped the band. Some bands might have carried on but the dynamics had not changed in the band. So creatively it was a dead end for me. The band split up in 1989.

I spent some time in Baltimore. I now live in London. More recently if it had not been for my good friend Howard Thompson who signed the band to Elektra Records, I would have had no knowledge of this box-set release because nobody contacted me about it . I am currently considering taking legal action against Chris Thompson and Kenny Harris to among other things stop passing themselves off as The Messiahs.

In the meantime I am enjoying life. I am working on paintings and videos at the moment… and some musical ideas...

Finally - taken as a whole, how do you feel revisiting the material on this box-set? Does it feel like something of a distant trip down memory lane, or is it still as vital or relevant to you?

BILL: Ambivalent. But it is great news that Warners have finally licensed The Screaming Blue Messiah’s excellent re-mastered 27-year-old box set which is released on Easy Action as a body of work... flawed as some of it is.

CHRIS: Partly it is a distant memory, but I am flattered and pleased that Easy Action Records have put it out. 

KENNY: I think most of the stuff still stands up pretty well, although I couldn’t sit down and listen to it for very long. Not that there’s anything wrong with it, but there’s only so many times you can listen to stuff you’ve played a million times without getting a wee bit sick of it. In some respects it can’t help but be a trip down memory lane, but it doesn’t feel as distant as you would expect.

Vision in Blues is available now via Easy Action.