ENTER THE ZODY

DANTE BONUTTO venetures into the infested leather jacket and Castrol hairspray world of ZODIAC MlNDWARP - a place where soap is a dirty word. Prepare to discover a hitherto unkown side of the 'Tattooed Beat Messiah' and find out why the man stacks his 'Tennage Ninja Turtles' comix into neat piles!

Interview taken from Kerrang October 1987

"WELL, TRASH would be a Rhino, Cobalt would be a'fox cos he's a sly bastard, Flash would be a parrot, Smithy would be a gorilla cos he looks like one, Gimpo, he would be a monkey, and Slam would be something graceful and elegant... some sort of bird, I think."
Trash, Cobalt, Flash, Smithy, Gimpo, Slam... we ain't talkin' kabinet ministers here! The above collection of alter egos represents the Love Reaction (plus a couple of roadies), a motley crew in the correct spelling of the term usually to be found modelling last week's dirty laundry and throwing all manner of erratic shapes behind Prime Mover and King Ligger that was, Zodiac "and I'd be an ape, I think, a chimp"
Mindwarp.
So what sort of (ape)man is this? Well, he's appeared on the cover of Kerrang! (issue 124) and The Face, who liked the cut "of his trousers, apparently; he speaks rather like punk poet John Cooper Clarke, and if it's not too early in the evening can be just as funny; he likes Def Leppard and Marillion, in particular the former's production and the latter's lyrics; he also likes Kung Fu movies and comics (well documented), isn't averse to a drink (but a little more adverse than Lemmy who, he recalls, reduced the Reaction's four-bottle Jack Daniel's stash by exactly a quarter while the band were onstage at Reading this year) and has a high regard for all things Disney, liking the way the animals they create are given human characteristics.
During his days at art college he dabbled with the comic strip format selling work to both Record Mirror and Flexi-Pop, one of which, remarkably, managed to survive and is still in business. He had a character called Zap Dog, he had a psychopathic teddy bear and he had a corpulent pig in black Y-Fronts who describes as a "cute sadist". Ask him and he'll tell you, and I can think of one or two characters not a million miles from the Kerrang! masthead who could have provided inspiration here!
There was a time when he got bored with Metal (gasp!), opting for an existence on the spikey-haired side of the tracks, but a good blast of AC/DC's 'Highway To Hell' album soon had him back on the right path, even though you couldn't really describe the Love Reaction as a Heavy Metal outfit in the full, well, Heavy Metal sense of the term...
"No, we don't sing about devils an' things, it's true," owns up Zody, failed bus conductor and husband, a man who's been inside a leather jacket since the age of 15. "We're more T Rex-y Metal. It's all down to the fact that I write the riffs and I'm not a great guitarist so they come out... weird The band on their own would never come up with riffs like that, they'd go for the traditional, real flash, showing off ones. I mean, I'd play them too if I could, but I can't..."

JUST AS WELL. Were Zody able to pronounce Yngwie J. Malmsteen, let alone play like him, we might never have had the pleasure of such outright anthems as 'Prime Mover' and follow-up/current single 'Back Seat Education'; two tracks also set to surface on 'Tattooed Beat Messiah', the debut Mindwarp album which should be with us in early '88. 'Prime Mover', I'm told, will appear in re-mixed form, the final mix on the LP being handled by Nigel Green who did such a pat-on-the-back-worthy job on new Leppard release, 'Hysteria', receiving a well deserved 45mm of special thanks on the inner sleeve!
Mention that record and Zody will tell you in tones of reverence and awe that it "redefines the whole thing" (heavy rock, I think), but would he want to take up to take up residence in the studio for months on end, having food 'n' drink slipped under the door on a tray and visiting hours cut down to the bone? Answer me that one, eh?
Eh??
"Nah, not at all. I got bored s**tless in six months with our album, I was going up the wall. I just left it, I haven't heard it in two months now. There comes a point when you just loose all perspective...
Production credits on said album will be fought over by manager, Dave Balfe and Bill Drummond, but they weren't the first people to prod their fingers into Zody pie (if you'll pardon the expression).
Peter Collins (Rush, Gary Moore, etc) had a bash and so did former Cult producer Steve Brown - and yes I know the Steve Brown-Trousers scam was subjected to full Dickinson scrutiny back in issue 145, but it's such an interesting story I feel moved to probe a little further still, right round the bend you might say.
A couple of weeks at The Manor studio and that was that; 20 grand and bugger all to show...
"But it wasn't really his fault," sez Zody, "it was us, we were too young. I had no idea what a producer does; we went in there and Steve was doing all attacking the controls, accusing him of putting synthesisers in. I made him play each individual track because I was convinced there was a little poofy synthesiser in there somewhere. He just couldn't-take it after a while...
"When you start out you feel as though you've got something special, something precious, and I just couldn't let that slip into someone else's hands. I couldn't handle the fact that he was changing chords and things - it just wasn't my song anymore. It's a shame that it didn't work out with Pete Collins either, but I just had one of my famous freakouts!
"I didn't like people altering things saying we should play a certain song in 'C' because then you're supposed to sing at the top of your range. I couldn't really see that but I gave it a shot and, to be honest, it sounded like a load of banjos! I was singing like this (puts on a strangled-weasel voice); I guess he was trying to get me to sing in the classic Metal style, but it just wasn't working. In the end, I blew up, I exploded!"
Zody's come on a bit since then - "matured musically" as he puts it in a phoney American accent. There was a time when he did everything, when he was both teaboy and chairman of Zodiac Incorporated, designing the sleeves, designing the ads, the works. But now he's beginning to realise the value of delegation, of letting other people get on with the job - under strict granny glass supervision, of course. A band this may be with a band identity, but it's clearly Zody's baby - all the way down to the sharp pointy tail and the cute little horns on its head!

TODAY, HE could probably calm his urges and work alongside Brown or Collins without doing either of them lasting damage, but as for singing in high C', the 'classic Metal style'... well, let's just say that Zody has more in common with Alice Cooper than Dickinson or Dio, more of a growler than a howler; and there's no shame in that. Just ask Lemmy - but don't mention the missing bottle of Jack... Instead let's talk about lyrics, because (like ol' Dr. Rock, MD & Cold Stethoscope) Zodiac that is and Mark Manning that was is responsible for some of the wittiest ones currently to be heard. His double entendres would do Frankie Howard proud; Benny Hill even, and when he refers to himself as 'a genius of love, I've got an honours degree' ('Back Seat Education') or, on a more delinquent level, 'King Kong with a hard-on' ('Wild Child'), you just know he's got his tongue pushed so far into his cheek that it's in serious danger of coming out his ear! 'I love TV and I love T Rex/I can see through your dress, I've got X-Ray spex' ('Prime Mover')... it may sound like it comes off the top of his head (unlike Ian Gillan, whd admits to doing his best work on the toilet), but in fact quite a lot of refining and chiselling takes place before Zody is ready to submit His statement to the slings and arrows of prosperity. Sure he's been accused of spoutin' sexism and had most of the other 'isms' thrown at him too, but "I don't want to pander to those people, I just do what I think's good", which sounds fair enough to me.
But back to Steve brown - Trousers at The Manor ('Colditz' in Zody-speak)...
"They reckoned that the only way to get anything done was to lock me out of the studio, do the music, then turn me loose on the vocals. They'd be in there for around four days or so, leaving me outside looking through the door, then when I walked in they'd just stop! I started getting really paranoid and eventually I just wobbed out completely, erasing tracks and throwing guitars around.
"The whole thing was so bizarre, and to make matters worse (and more bizarre), Steve really got sick at one point, his guts ere churning. He was up in his room, sat on the toilet, producing by telephone, with the door of the studio and his window open. This went on for an entire day and then he had the bright idea of running a microphone up to his room. And I was looking at this guy thinking: he's sat on the toilet so it's gonna be s**t, it's an omen...
"It did have a certain vibe, I suppose - this thundering behemoth of a track blasting along - only I got taken to the hospital because me lungs packed up from screaming so loud..."
Ah yes, vocal time. The Cult (previous occupants of The Manor) had been very much into setting up a vibe, lighting candles, lowering the lights, that sort of thing, and Zody was persuaded to give it a try too...
"But I just felt a complete dickhead. In the end, I knocked over all the candles and nearly started a fire!"
And mixing? How was that?
"Well, I was a bit suspicious, cos Steve was sitting there mixing and it was louder than Motorhead! My teeth were shaking and my guts were turning to water. I thought, this can't be right, although of course it might have been a ploy to get me out of the studio!
"Thinking back, Steve had lots of weird techniques; like he'd stand there listening to the bass with his belly, but I thought, well, he's got a Land-rover, he must know about these things. Obviously, you produce on the toilet surrounded by candles and you listen to the bass with your belly... that's how you make records!"

IN ORDER to restore a bit of balance, I think this might be the right time to point out that Steve Brown was the man behind The Cult's excellent 'Love' album, and that if you want to check out his side of the story (View From The Loo?) you need look no further than Volume 2 of the Kerrang! Year book, due out shortly (it says here).
From Zody's point of view however, the time, money (and toilet paper - sorry, Steve!) wasted chez Colditz must have fuelled the fiery breath of those who felt that the man and his band were little more than this week's hype. True, they'd had a constant stream of press, with Kerrang! (naturally) leading the way, and true the image of the band was pretty strong, all wispy beards and whiffy jackets, more gang than group; but surrounding the set-up was a persistent smell of novelty, of gimmick, of style over substance that even a major deal with Phonogram - the climax of a bidding war - couldn't entirely wash away.
Zody got a big advance alright, no-one's disputing that, but would he make a record to justify all those noughts on the cheque? More to the point, would he make a record at all?
At first there seemed a good deal of doubt, the man treating the advance money as if it were a pools win or an unexpected inheritance from ol' grandma Mindwarp, frittering it away on comics and booze, on video cameras and chickens (presents for the band's A&R man, an animal lover it seems!), and friend's he hadn't heard from in a long, long time who suddenly felt moved to get in touch.
"It was a big haze where all the money went, "he reflects," a haze of getting into clubs for free and getting free drinks. I just went and pigged out completely, then all of a sudden I realised that I had to make a record..."
A Record. Indeed. And he couldn't just go and buy one in the shops, he actually had to make it himself, A Zodiac Mindwarp And The Love Reaction Record, all official like.
But that's being flippant and really I shouldn't be, because contrary to what some may believe, Zody has always taken the music side of things very seriously indeed. He isn't a joke figure, he isn't a one-man sputnik programmed to destruct, he's... well, I was almost going to say a sensitive and misunderstood artist but luckily I caught myself in time.
He's,... he's... oh, I don't know, but whatever he is predictable ain't it, and prior to the recording of 'Prime Mover' there were those (the band amongst them) who where worred "I Was gonna blow it completely!" The pressure was well an turly on, but as it turned out the story was to have a happy ending and we all luv those, don't we? Oh yes we DO...

PRIME MOVER', with its 'Living After Midnight' riff and Ade Edmondson - directed video, ripped into the guts of the Top 20, causing many dismissive of the music to reel in their preconceptions and take a fresh look at this long-lost tribe with their Castrol hairspray and (hugely) distressed leathers. My interest was piqued certainly, but let's face it, one hit single does not a career make, and it wasn't really until Sunday afternoon at the Reading Festival that the scales fell from my eyes, the chip dropped off my shoulder and the penny (nice girl) finally dropped.
More open-mouthed than Putterford in a beer-storm, I stood and watched as five shadowy figures (Bash, Krash, Dash, Rash, etc) put on one of the best displays I've ever seen at a festival, hitting a totally irresistible groove with frontman Zody threatening to drink all the beer on the stage.
In the interests of public and safety, I can only hope that none of the bottles of piss flying towards the front had been surreptitiously spiked with Watneys Red Barrel…
Either way, Kerrang! got it right and gave the band the praise they deserved (issue 155), but elsewhere, and I'm talkin' music press here, more attention was focussed on the red, white and black flag draped behind the drum-kit than on the sheer (surprising?) quality of the material and the execution thereof. Zody a Nazi? Er, no, I don't think so. In fact, the man doesn't really get involved with politics fun-stop, dismissing the ranks of Politicians (Clint Eastwood excepted) as "a bunch of tossers" and having nothing to do with any right or left wing that didn't start life attached to a chicken.
"It's all just boys' comic stuff," he explains when I mention the 'offending' banner. "I use things that I like and I don't really care what people think. If anyone doesn't like it they can…"
Yeah, yeah, yeah we get the picture, but luckily most of the people who heard 'Prime Mover' thought it was good; why some even went out and bought the blessed thing, and greater love hath no man than that! And then? Well, the usual thing is to slip out another single pretty sharpish, the only trouble being that when Zody & Co handed over said artefact to the powers-that-be at Phonogram, the powers-that-be exercised those, uh, powers and handed it straight back again, with predictable results…
"Oh, I went completely insane, I wanted to kill everyone, but in time I realised that they were right, that the recording of the song ('Tattooed Beat Messiah') wasn't as good as it could have been, so it turned out for the best…"

WHEN ZODY reflects on 'freakouts' past, it's almost as if he's talking about another person, a younger, wilder brother, p'raps,~ mischief on his mind and booze on his breath. In truth, he hasn't changed that much; he still likes a drink, "only now I get drunk where there's no photographers - I find secret little holes"; and he still likes to have a good time - it's just that these days he understands the need to work a bit as well.
"I used to get pissed in the studio, but I stopped doing that when I fell over and destroyed a mix!"
It was probably the shock of being sacked by his own band that brought him (literally) to his senses, but again this has been written about in the past so I'll keep details as short an' sordid as I can. Lemme see. Former bassist Haggis (or Haggy Haggis, or Kid Chaos, now banging his head with The Cult) was making a play for the leadership of the band, rallying support for anti-Zody coup, the upshot being that the singer was shown the door and invited to use it, with predictable results…
"I sat down, I ranted and raved, attacked a few people then offered them all more money!"
Which clearly did the trick. No two ways about it, Zody and his band deserve, sorry, are made for each other, even if one or two of members (no names as yet!) did need a little encouragement to remove the word s**p from their vocabulary and whole heartedly embrace the soup kitchen/sleazebag look based it seems on a Motorhead audience.
Reveals Zody:
"I remember going to one of their concerts and seeing all these stinking urchins everywhere; I thought they looked dead good so I kinda ripped them off with their badges and their studs. Instead of the fans taking ideas from the band, I thought this is one group that's gonna steal from the audience!
"I guess the other guys were a bit suspicious at first, especially Flash (Bastard, guitarist) who comes from a traditional metal music background, while baseball boots an' all that. He was horrified when I gave him this infested, stinking jacket, and" says Zody, leaning forward conspiratorially, "he used to do his hair with a hair-drier! But we just took the piss out of him so much that eventually he threw it away, we mercilessly broke him - you WILL stop bathing on tour, all that…
For Mr Z this dressing down deal came a lot more naturally, definitely from the heart; a bit of dead fox on the shoulder et voila! Instant rock star! These days, mind you, a knowledge of martial arts could come in pretty handy too, the Zody camp having been engulfed by a define Eastern influence, The Way Of The Dragon (and The Rhino and The Fox, etc) with all manner of strange looking implements accompanying the band on their travels; even to a Phonogram conference in downtown Torquay where a squad of bodyguards, highly trained and briefed, did their damndest to keep the five in reasonable check (fat chance).
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAA-AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!! Ninja Warriors will have their way, as Zody can tell you, the man being the Kung Fu movie, any Kung Fu movie, the worse dubbed the better…
"Kung-Fu movies have a certain charm about them," he says, adopting best Barry Norman pose, "and I just love the mythical hero angle. I remember seeing one and the bad guy was just amazing, completely bald, about 20 stone, with a big handlebar moustache and a massive great sword. He came in and the first thing he did was punch out a bull!"
What? You mean he didn't leap 30 feet into the air and turn a backwards somersault?! Oh well, maybe that comes a later on.
As it happens, Zody's interest in Kung Fu (or Fu - What A Scorcher!, if you happen to read The Sun) blends in nicely with his love of comic, hi fave character at the moment - alongside the perennial Wolverine - being a Samurai rabbit called Yusagi Yojimbo, who, well… goes around beating up people, according to Zody, though always under extreme and despicable provocation…
"Oh, Yusagi would never pick a fight," he assures, "but thug rhinos start on 'im and things, cos all the characters are animals. And then there's Teenage Ninja Turtles, that's good too."
Zody enjoys his comics. He doesn't keep them sealed in their bags and he doesn't lock them away in the family vaults; he unwraps them and reads them, gets his money's worth, though he admits rather sheepishly that: "I do stack them neatly".
Which just goes to show that even the hardest, most macho, most hairy-chested, most don't even come home for tea is only human at the end of the day…

WITH ADE EDMONDSON / Vim Fuego heavily immersed in the Bad News project at the moment (we hear the band have been in rehearsals at Nomis Studios in London, but don't let Den Dennis know - the other three told him they were going down the shops!), he won't be directing the 'Back Seat..' video. However, rest assured that the finished product promises to be splendidly gratuitous with Zody Lee and his hand-picked Ninja warriors throwing some serious Kung Fu shapes - well, that's the plan, anyway.
But what about 'proper' acting? A remake of 'The Seven Samurai (Rabbits)' perhaps? Would The Zode be interested in that?
"Well, I was approached to do a film actually, and it sounded great, really crap! It was called something like 'Prime Cut' and it wasn't a very glamorous part; after the first ten minutes I'd pissed in me pants and had me head stuck in a microwave oven. Then I turn into this zombie murderer who roams around New York slaughtering people… it quite appealed to me.
"I'm definitely up for all that, I'm not waiting for the right part!"
Personally, I think that is the right part.
But fear not, Zody, all things will come in time, you will get to play a marauding zombie hit-man and the likes of Nicholson, Newman and De Niro will be quaking in their hand-made shoes come Oscar time, just you wait and see. For the moment, however, it's music we have to look forward to; a strong single shot in 'Back Seat Education' with an album chaser to follow and a good album too according to Zody, quick to sing the praises of mix-man, Nigel Green…
"We sound like a real group now; I'm quite surprised that we had it in us…"
'Let's Break The Law' is his personal Pick of the tracks on offer, but as that's far too rude even to surface as a single let's turn our attention to 'Back Seat Education', a typically swaggering slice of Mindwarp mayhem set to hit the shops in a number of different guises: a straightforward seven inch (you remember them), a 12" 'Reggae Metal' re-mix courtesy of Lee 'Scratch' Perry, and an extra special 12" in a rubber bag for those whose tastes happen to lie in that direction. And the B-side?
Well, now we're onto the serious stuff, stuff that won't be making the album: 'Whore Of Babylon', 'Lager Woman From Hell', described to me as "quite offensive, a real roadies' favourite!", and something called 'Messin' With My Best Friend's Girl' that I'll leave you to find out about for yourself (largely because I haven't heard it yet).
With those very nice Smallwood / Taylor people now representing Zody & The Boyzz in the US, where they're very much an unknown quantity, all would seem to be running smoothly - except, I'm afraid, for the album sleeve.
Phonogram have found it hard to sort out a photo of Mr. Mindwarp that makes him look handsome enough, and believe me they've tried! The thing is, when you're as big a hit with the ladies as he is, (honest), when you have a reputation to sustain, you can't just rush into these things, you have to get it absolutely right whatever the cost (so far about four grand).
"Maybe I'm just getting uglier, "sighs the 'genius of love' with all the sincerity of a quiz show host. I await the results with interest, but I won't hold my breath for any UK (shows as those who know about such things advise me that they'll be no dates here until after Xmas, but if I want to hold my breath anyway they promise not to try and stop me. Nice people.
No, instead I'll take a leaf from Zodiac's book, matching up acquaintances and the like with their animal equivalent. The Kerrang! staff? Well, let me see… Dave Dickson would be a vole, 'Krusher' would be a woolly mammoth - preferably a woolly mammoth owned by Stevie Ray Vaughan - and Steffan Chirazi would be a gazelle…
Easy, innit?

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Author: Jules