Can Zodiac Mindwarp and the Love Reaction save the world?
Or can they save themselves even? The intergalactic space pirates go to war - Zodiac versus the Love Reaction! Is Zodiac the biggest plonker of them all? Can the group survive without him? And just who has got their treasure chest? The battle of words starts here...
By Jane Simon, photos Peter Anderson
Interview taken from SOUNDS January 3rd 1987
THIS IS a true story. Only the facts have been changed to make it more
interesting.
This is a story of madness, money and mutiny - otherwise known as Zodiac Mindwarp And The Love
Reaction, intergalactic space pirates coming to save the world from The Housemartins.
In our last gripping instalment, Zodiac found himself out in the cold - cast out by the young warriors he had chosen to stand beside him.
A tearful reunion followed, but then in a cruel twist of fate, Zodiac was blinded in a
bizarre contact lens cockup, forcing his men to blow out their one chance of getting to see Alice Cooper 12 times.
This week we travel to the groovy, zany Monkees pad shared by the three other band members. Cobalt Stargazer is off on a weekend mission, ramrodding his way across the universe, as is his wont. Under the new regime, Zodiac is no longer the sole spokesperson, and brattish bass player Kid Chaos, and the strangely silent Slam Thunderhide, have agreed to give us their
side of the story.
Now read on...
TELL ME, Kid Chaos, why have none of the band been
interviewed before?
Because Zodiac won't let us talk to the press, because we'll tell them what a bastard he is.
Is it true he had become a total dictator?
Well, they don't call him Mussolini Mindwarp for nothing, He goes through phases from Mussolini to Churchill and back again, stubbing out cigars on people's heads as he goes. What sort of things would he do?
He hit Cobalt on stage a few times because of mistakes he made himself. He gets so out of it, he doesn't remember the songs and he turns around and hits Cobalt instead and shouts at him. But then he's an artiste, with an 'e' on the end. And artistes are temperamental. The rest of us are just horrible bastards. What's the worst thing he's done to you personally?
He stole my leather jacket when we were on tour and didn't tell me. About a month later he said, Oh, was that your leather jacket! I'II buy you a new one. And I went, Great, thanks; and then I found out the band paid for it anyway. The worst thing was, the jacket he nicked he
decorated with this art treasure and then when he'd had it done, he decided it was too poofy and it was a girl's jacket and he never wore it anyway. Why do you suppose he acts this way?
Who can fathom out what Zodiac's on about! His own band can't. His mother can't. Granny Mindwarp is probably the only person in the world who knows what he's talking about.
He's just the most awkward bastard you ever met in your life and he changes his mind every day. He'll tell you he's going to give you 800 quid, and the next day he'll say you owe him 800 quid. You can't say he's mad; he's just got different chips. His happy chip, his sad chip, his bad mood chip and his I'm-going-to-give-everybody-grief chip, and he swaps them around all the time.
Slam: I think he's finding it hard to live with both of his characters at the same time. I don't think he can control Zodiac that much anymore. I think Zodiac is there most of the time now.
Kid: I think he just got into his telephone box one day and changed into Zodiac Mindwarp and someone stole the telephone box, so when he went back to change into Mark Manning he couldn't get back again.
But I think he found his telephone box last week. I think he's back now.
HOW DID the sacking of Zodiac come about?
He deserved it - the bastard. He just spent the money. Our manager, Colonel Uncle Tom Madolf Bulf, was perfectly right that Zodiac was getting out of hand, but the problem was, we got
our advance and that money belongs to us, not our manager.
We used to go see Balfie being all naive, going, Oh wow, men with big cigars have
just given us a quarter of a million quid. And we'd go, Balfie, can I have a set of guitar strings and a roll of gaffer tape please! And he'd go, No, f**** off. And we'd go, Yes, Balfie, sorry, Balfie.
Meanwhile, Zodiac, who really knew the score and had Balfie shit scared and kept
threatening him with all these dubious things about his past - like how he'd signed Zodiac to a £500 publishing advance - would go in and say, Balfie, give me 500 quid, and he'd go in and do that every day and Balfie used to do it, and he'd be so in fear, he wouldn't tell us about it.
And then one day, we looked at our bank balance and £87,000 had gone in four months and Zodiac had wall to wall carpet, TV, video, and thousands of taxi fares from here to Kathmandu and back again. You can't spend 87 grand a on cab fare.
You don't know Zodiac. You think how many clubs there are in London. Well, he gets through all of them three times every night and keeps the cab waiting outside. So one day we discovered that he'd been wasting all this money and we cold him he was a naughty boy and it turned into a bit more of an argument. We started arguing about other things like - it's not fair, we want some money! We want some more money! We got greedy like him and he didn't like it.
But we didn't ever actually sack him. We threatened we'd sack him and he got a bit upset about that and I think he got the message wrong and thought we had and he told the papers. Did he do that to call Your bluff!
No, it was just Zodiac making sure he got in the papers yet again. So he went off in a sulk and went down a pothole in Yorkshire and wrote a new album on a harmonica. He sacked himself. He thought, Right, if they're going to sack me, I'II sack myself first and then they can't sack me, so he did. He got all upset about it and I don't blame him. What would he do without such talented bastards as us! He'd make a solo album and it would get to Number 75
because all the fans would buy it and then he would disappear and never be seen again. And what would happen to the rest of you?
We'd be the new Led Zeppelin. And it wouldn't make any difference?
No, because people go to see everybody, they don't just go to see Zodiac, not now anyway. Like if you go to see Motley Crue, you don't just go to see the singer do you! I'm sure we'd lose a lot of fans and the magic that emits from my fingertips kind of thing, but we'd get by because we spent a whole year working with him, and if you can work with him, you can work with anybody.
It'd be like AC/DC. They weren't that big before Bon Scott died, and now they're massive. It'd be like the Brian Johnson thing where there's a singer and we let him write the words but we'd tell him what to do. I don't think we'd have carried on doing as many songs about stars on my forehead and rings through my willy, because that's Zodiac's trip. But what did happen?
We had this big meeting and Balfie hobbled in with this foot he'd broken playing football, and Zodiac literally picked him up and threw him through a set of double doors, so he was locked out for a while.
And we had this big heavy meeting and started slagging each other off and we decided the only way we could agree whether Zodiac was going to be back in the band or not was the size of his dick. So we all got our dicks out and, it has to be said, his was the biggest, so we let him
back in the band. The chalk marks are still there on the Balfe-King-Outlaw table. You can't fault him on those credentials. There was a rumour that you were going to sack Dave Balfe as well.
Yeah, we should. I really wanted to buy a U-boat with my next advance, but now we'll probably have to pay back-taxes instead, because Balfie forgot he was supposed to be taking tax out of our Wages.
We were going to sack him, but he got down on his hands and knees basically and crawled a lot, and lent me the money to buy a guitar like Angus Young's. That was the swinging vote really.
Slam: Plus, he saw something there in the beginning.
Zodiac met him on a bus one day - I think he knew him through Youth - and gave him a cassette of 'Wild Child' that was seven minutes long and really horrible, and Balfie phoned him up and said, I'II be really generous and give you 500 quid for your publishing. For three years. And he'd buy him a guitar as well, as long as it wasn't over £2OO.
Kid: But Balfie got a BMW out of it, which was his 20 per cent of our advance, and he still had a bit left over to get an artificial lawn laid. It's really funny because I used to live in his house and the week I moved out, he got burgled and he's been burgled eight times since, and he reckons I'm doing it.
WHAT WAS the best bit of 1986 for you?
The best bit was a photo of me and Slam outside the Hammersmith Odeon, only nine months
after we'd formed, standing under a sign saying 'ZODIAC MINDWARP AND THE LOVE REACTlON SOLD OUT'. Alright, it was supporting Motorhead, but it still said 'Sold Out' and our name was there.
But I didn't enjoy that Motorhead tour at all, because it was just before everything
came to a head with Zodiac.
See, the trouble is, he reads something and decides, Right, that's what we'll do. Like one week he reads how Eddie Van Halen tunes his guitar so everyone's got to tune their guitars like Eddie Van Halen because he likes Eddie Van Halen that week.
Basically, everybody thinks Zodiac's off his head, and he is. He's like Hercules -
strong but not always right, and I'm like Icarus - really smart but I fly too close to the sun and shoot my mouth off. And how will he end up?
That's his problem. He can do what he wants as long as he gives us some more money and drugs. See what I mean?
LATER, IN a not too distant part of the metropolis, The Love Reaction and Zodiac Mindwarp himself are recording their new single, 'Tattooed Beat Messiah'.
It's 16 months since I first interviewed the delectable Mr Mindwarp, and once again it's his street guise of mild-mannered Mark Manning who greets me and explains that the secret of having a big willy is to wear your leggings back to front. A year ago you told me you wanted to travel the world and meet people. What do you think of it so far?
I've met enough f****** people to last me a lifetime. I thought I was really clever last year. I stilt do. I'm still a big-headed bastard, but I'm a lot more humble now I think.
Is this supposed to be the truth or what? I'm getting real confused. I'm sure the boys
have told you - this past year has been a very big pressure on my mental health. I don't know what's happening to me.
I'm meeting like millions of people but I don't know anybody. The only people I know are the band. People think they know me from what they've read about me, but that's just somebody's opinion of me, and I get confused that they're expecting this character.
Whenever I read anything about us, it's wrong, whatever it is. I enjoy reading the
things they say because it tells me about them, but it doesn't tell me anything about me. You can't analyse a band like this. I dunno. I'M A CONFUSED PERSON! According to the band, you have trouble being Zodiac Mindwarp 24 hours a day.
That's just when I booze. When I drink, especially if I haven't been doing gigs for a
while, the bastard starts to creep out in nightclubs. I'm having to come to terms with the fact that I do indeed have a serious drink problem. I used to just think everybody else had a problem thinking I had a problem, but the thing is, I'm getting like a serious wino. I find myself doing
these crazy drunken things.
Someone cracked me in the lift at the Daily Mirror party because of something I said. I used to think that drink liberated the self, but if that's my real self - what a monster!
I used to think everything'd be groovy, but I'm starting to understand the song 'Highway To Hell'; it's starting to take on different meanings to me. I'm thinking like, Bon, what are you trying to tell me?! So basically, the problem isn't that you're schizophrenic, it's just that you're a drunk?
Oh, thanks a lot. You could be my analyst, Yeah, I think that's it. I'm a drunk.
But everywhere I look, all I read is Demented Pop Star Zodiac, and if you get told things enough you start to believe them.
But I was surrounded by people who wouldn't tell me what was going on. Some of them were intimidated by the character they think I am, but the band had known me from the word go, and they'd seen me change and they wouldn't say anything.
They thought, Well, that bastard writes the songs and if we say anything now we can forget our little shot to the top.
All I needed was for someone to say, Hey, Mark you're full of shit. Mr Smith and Gimpo (faithful Zodiac roadies), they told me all the time. Smithy sat me down and said, Mark you're being a complete f****** wanker, and I just wobbed out. But I respect his opinion, because he's a big bastard.
I used to think I knew everything. I realised I know f*** all. But we had a massive argument and it was all down to the fact that we weren't communicating with each other. We were talking through other people, like our manager, and in the end the band just said, F*** off, and I screamed off into the horizon on another bender, I think... Oh no, that's right. I made a solo album.
It was just demos, but in my head it was an album. It's very confusing the way these
songs come out. I'd go in there and think, Right, I'm feeling very angry today and I'd look at this DX7 and think, what's an angry sound! SlDESTlCK -- that sounds nasty, and I built up this track with all these nasty sounding things, and then I'd sing a nasty vocal and I came out with this really nasty album about how much I hate my band and my manager.
Then I realised, that band's got balls. Fancy sacking your singer! That's tough, that is. That's the kind of band I'd like to be in.
Like I'd gone through all the emotions of seeing the bad side of it; all the paranoid stuff about what a bunch of ungrateful swines they were, how I'd plucked them from obscurity, and I exhausted myself in five days of making songs about what a bunch of horrible bastards I was in a band with and how they were plotting against me, and then I started looking at the good side of it and what a great band they were.
I got a real psycho album out of it anyway, but when we tried to play it as a band, we ended up with this horrific mutant child, this travesty of nature that took us three weeks to record at the Manor and we just binned it all. I just burst in at one point and said, This is all wrong, and pushed Cobalt to the floor, and grabbed the guitar and said, This is how it f****** goes!! and started playing this horrible out of tune thing. So I ran out and was like skulking around and drawing these pictures on the studio door, thinking, This is not right, this is not right, but I thought this producer, Steve Brown, he's got a Range Rover, he knows about these things.
He was up on the bog with diarrhoea, producing us by telephone. And when I came to do the vocals my lungs and kidneys all packed up thinking, This is wrong! Stop doing this! You are wasting time and money! Then I went into this little studio and put down the guitar and drum machine in five minutes and did the vocals in one take, and I'd taken hours at the Manor and been really unhappy. The guys had a ball there and I was like making friends with the dogs and trying to catch swans and things. I went a bit loopy up there. HOW WILL this story end? Will you have to die or something?
I've thought about that a lot and, being wanky and pretentious for a minute, I'm very selective now about what I read. You know how when you read biographies of famous people you identify with them, no matter who they are? So I've stopped reading murder books for a start, and I don't read about loonies any more.
All this live fast, die young stuff is bullshit. That was a very '60s thing. Now I read about artists who lived till they're 90 and who were sort of together - like Picasso.
I'II tell you what I'm afraid of. I'm afraid I'II get pissed one night and die before my time. It happens. You're vulnerable when you're drunk and I'm not rich enough to be an alcoholic. You need about eight minders with you so you don't go up to someone and yell, Hey, shitface! and he turns out to be black belt in judo and batters you to death.
Junkies just sit in their flat and nobody bothers them, but winos are out there insulting everybody they meet. They need protection! They need help! Have you noticed you've started sounding ominously like a proper band lately?
Yeah, all the kids who bought that first album are going to hate us. It was alright, but it was a seminal album, like early days. Touring with Motorhead was like finding out how to make music and it's the band that makes it, not just the tyrant shouting at his backing band and hitting 'em in the face.
I think that was the last straw when I clobbered Cobalt on stage. I just floored him with this massive punch and I looked at the audience and they're all going, beeeeurghh! So I went over and gave him a kiss and they all started cheering. That really stuck in my mind the way they all
started booing me; it was like a little pantomime.
Alice Cooper was talking about bolts of reality hitting him, and when I hear bootlegs or see our videos, I think - My God! What the hell are you doing?! What did you think you were doing?
I swear to God, there's nothing in my head at all. You know how children play games and it's totally real for them! In our minds we're like these soldiers having a fight with the audience, only they're throwing knickers instead of grenades. We haven't got it down yet though. I look at bands like Queen and AC/DC and I know we're going to get there. It's just a matter of time and that's what I want.
I want to be a serious rock band.
I know I'm an awkward bastard, but I want to do it with the gang, because if you're on your own, you're just a madman, but if there's four of you, there's a scene there and everyone wants a piece of the scene. You got your own way of walking, your own way of talking, and you're not crazy anymore.
I always felt like I was a loony, and it was frightening, but now I realise I'm not, it's just a gang, and it's like a friendly way of conquering the world.
Adolf Hitler should have joined a band.
I'm just waiting for the backlash. It'd be great if we could get away with it like The Beatles - no backlash. I just gotta wait for Yoko Spungen to turn up. Whenever the band gets a new girlfriend, I'm really wary. No matter who it is - they could be the sweetest little thing - all I can see is this Yoko Spungen coming to split my band up, and it scares the shit out of me.
I just look at 'em and won't make any effort at all and then I realise what a prat I'm being. What about your own girlfriends?
I tend to have platonic relationships, believe it or not. I know everybody thinks I'm this wild stud, but there's a few out there who'd tell you different. I tend to fall asleep more'n owt else, if you know what I mean. The band said that if they'd really kicked you out, they'd have carried on without you, like AC/DC. What do you think of that?
I think they might be deluding themselves. It's like the Spinal Tap thing: we're lucky. We're really lucky. We're really f****** lucky that Zodiac's gone - and then they start doing jazz and stuff, Like - this is our new direction. Cobalt Wrote it.
SUDDENLY THE rusting hulk of a U-Boat surfaced in the garden pond and Herr Kapitan Kaos fired a salvo of torpedos into the unsuspecting Zodiac.
"Forget it, Mindwarp, you're all washed up!" he screamed.
To Be Continued.
