Music Grilll had the pleasure of catching up with local punk rock royalty Karen and Tony Houghton, AKA Karen Khaos and Sewer Rat of recently formed punk covers band Dreddnautz for a cosy Q&A session at Houghton Towers in leafy Northumberland!
We have split this interview into two parts as Tony and Karen had plenty to say!
We have split this interview into two parts as Tony and Karen had plenty to say!
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| (c) Clemmy Scotswood |
MG: First question, to both of you, how long have you been together as a band?
K: I think it’s a bit longer than that, about a year
MG: And how did you get together? I mean the band - not you and Tony (laughs)
K: That’s another story!
T: (posh voice) I was chased…!!
K: Aye aye (all laugh) Well, basically, Collision [our old band] had all ended, which we were really upset about, and we wanted to do something else. I kept saying to Tony you should put a post up saying is anyone interested in being part of a band but he wouldn’t. So one day I put this post up on Facebook saying “does anyone want a female singer” and then Razor [bass player] got in touch. I said ‘do you want both of us?’ and he said ‘yeah!’
T: He was in Collision for a short time and our other previous band, the Pretty Anarchists He said his band, The Disagreeables, were ready to wrap it in because they didn’t feel like they were getting anywhere, just playing to one man and his dog in a pub and not getting paid. So we said we’ll give it a go but we’ll do a totally new thing and we’ll call it a totally different name.
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| (c) Clemmy Scotswood |
MG: So, because they’re not here, who else apart from Razor is in the band? And what do they do?
T: Mark Foster - he’s the lead guitarist and David Frank Allan - he’s the drummer, along with Razor on bass of course. In The Disagreeables, Frank was on drums and Razor and Mark used to sing but they didn’t really like playing their instruments and singing at the same time. You know not multitaskers. (all laugh) I think they’ve been in a few previous other bands as well and I think Razor was in one with quite a bit of success.
MG: Ok great introduction to the band. Now, Tony first - What did you do musically before this band?
T: Well, I was in Collision, which I was originally in when I was 14. The rest of the band were older and had already left school. The original line up was me; Micky Oliver on drums; Kevin Walker on Guitar and Joe Judd on bass. We were Punk Rock, all the way. It was about 1979, the original days of punk. The Clash were still going – I think they had just brought out Clash City Rockers.
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| (c) Clemmy Scotswood |
They practised in a church in Cramlington, right in the middle of a graveyard and always had a tape recorder set at the back of the room. They’d never have asked me in a million years but this one day, the singer didn’t turn up. They were playing Holidays In The Sun so I started singing at the back of the room and I didn’t realise the tape recorder was going recording the rehearsal. After they heard the tape back, they said ‘F'kn hell, he sounds just like Johnny Rotten!’ and they asked me in the band and that was it. All the kids in school couldn’t believe I was in a real band with people who actually play their own instruments! I used to skip school to go rehearsing in another school along the road when we first started. (lots of laughs)
K: That’s so cool Tony!
MG: Fantastic. Karen, what did you do musically before this band?
K: Well there was Collision, the Pretty Anarchists and then Collision again!
MG: We were at your first ever gig!
K: Ah, you were weren’t you? Yeah, Before that - I don’t know if this is something that should be admitted - but before I was in Collision, the only singing I ever did was in church!
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| (c) Clemmy Scotswood |
T: WHAAAT???!!
K: I did do some busking, on Northumberland Street (Newcastle) but it was always God songs (good natured laughing all round) It was guitar and singing but I’ve never been a proper guitar player by any stretch, just playing a few chords. I’ve wrote my own songs since I was about 20 but they were usually God songs that I wrote or just depressing songs about how shit life was (laughs)
T: Can I just say about Pretty Anarchists though, that was like a full show not just a gig because we used to play the characters of each of the songs, we’d come on and do a couple of Clash songs and I’d be done up like Joe Strummer. It was a proper show, coz it was every 2 songs a different character would come out
MG: Didn't you have a Tardis for getting changed in?
K: Continually getting changed!
T: Yeah, we’d decorated the front of this screen like a full size Tardis. We went behind the screen and when I was on stage doing the Damned or something with my top hat on, Karen would be getting changed to do Blondie or Toyah or whatever.
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| (c) Clemmy Scotswood |
K: Tony even dyed his hair behind the screen….!! (lots of laughing)
T: I did once, aye. Coz I’d already dyed it orange but the big finale was Sid Vicious and I’d just gotten my white Jacket especially for this. I had a swastika T shirt that I’d made, I just wanted to be authentic that’s all, and while she was on singing two songs, I was quickly behind the screen, pair of rubber gloves on and this black hair dye and I was like this (messing with hair) and then I came out and me hair was black and everyone was like ‘how did he get his hair black?? It was bright orange two minutes ago’??? (all laugh)
K: Pretty Anarchists didn’t last that long but we had one weekend where we did, and I know it doesn’t sound a lot, but we did three gigs that weekend - Friday night, Saturday night and Sunday afternoon but with the performance that we were putting on, man, we were backwards and forwards. It was really, really hard work.
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| (c) Clemmy Scotswood |
T: We all had about 7 different sets of clothes in the back (K: It was like doing a bloody pantomime!!) so that’s like 14 costume changes and every one of them gigs we did was absolutely ram packed!
K: It was really good but we were shitting ourselves, you know? We’d only just kinda gotten the whole act together….
T: We did it once in rehearsals, a dress rehearsal, and then that was it - we did the Ashington cricket club and it was f'kn nerve wracking like!
K: The adrenaline we had to have!
T: We had sound effects for that as well, loads of little soundbites in between each act.
MG: So what’s different about Dreadnautz, say compared to Collision and Pretty Anarchists?
T: We all wear ties!
K: Well, what we’re hoping to do really is take some of the best bits of Collision and the best bits of Pretty Anarchists and still kind of hold onto them but create something new with them as well.
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| (c) Clemmy Scotswood |
T: We’re trying to deliver a real authentic experience from the punk era. We’ve talked about doing something along the lines of the Pretty Anarchist‘s changing costumes thing coz it used to draw a lot of crowds and the feedback after that at them gigs was like “I loved the way it was like Stars in Their Eyes - I didn’t know who was coming out next!” And they literally didn’t know. They didn’t have a clue, did they? And afterwards they all said that was great. Nobody else was doing that kind of thing.....
K: I think we should do that again!
T: Oh and can I just say the difference with this band is we’re trying to not do the same songs as a lot of other cover bands. And if we do do the same songs, we’re trying to do them slightly different. Like the way we do the start of Anarchy in the UK and we do a Madonna and Sex Pistols mashup with it! We’re trying to add different things to it all the time and another thing we were toying with doing the odd gig where we just specialise in one band. So Karen would do half X Ray Spex with the band and then I'd do half The Clash or The Pistols, so a full set but just a bit different.
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| (c) Clemmy Scotswood |
K: Really, I just want to be in an X Ray Spex cover band to be honest (laughs) but I don’t think that’s ever gonna happen
MG: Is that where the kazoo comes in instead of the saxophone?
K: Well actually, I just always wanted to play the kazoo in a jazz band and I never got the chance. People think it’s a clever gimmick but really I just wanted to fulfil that dream!
T: It works though! Plus we want to write more original material as well.
MG: So the majority of stuff you do is covers but you do your own stuff as well?
T: Yeah
MG: So at one point in the future do you see yourselves being able to do whole gigs of your own stuff?
T: Yeah maybe, that might be a good idea one day
MG: Tony - What's your guilty secret?
T: Wellll….I like to dress up as Captain America of a night time…(laughs), nah… my guilty secret… I collect 12 inch Marvel figures. Karen calls them dollies 'Oh, he’s in there playing with his dollies again' and I’m like 'They're not dollies, they're fine sculpted figures, that’s what they are'!! And I read comics a lot when she’s not looking!
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| (c) Clemmy Scotswood |
MG: Karen - What's your guilty secret?
K: I don’t know (turns to Tony) what do you think it is?
T: Well I don’t know, do I? It's meant to be a secret!!
K: I do like some Christian rock music actually, I like a band called The Altar Boys and a band called White Cross which is probably a bit of a guilty secret like I must admit. (T: F'kn hell!!) but I do like Lady Gaga as well and, actually I was just thinking about this yesterday but she, long before I was in Collision, was my first spark of inspiration to ever want to do something like that. Not that I thought it would ever happen but I was watching Alejandro video and she’s hardly got anything on and there’s all these men and they’ve hardly got anything on (T: Ooo, I’ll have a look at that!!) I just thought I wish I could just do something like that or something expressive anyway and it just really stayed with me but I don’t suppose I’ll ever go naked on stage or anything!
MG: Tony - you’ve probably already been naked onstage?
T: Yeah man - I’d have my top hat there, hide my modesty!
MG: Who writes your original songs? And what is the song writing process?
T: (posh voice) Well, I tend to write them all, you know being the head songwriter and that. Don’t I Karen? (K: No, I do!) and I’ll allow you to come in now and again with an idea! (all laugh) No, Karen’s the song writer. I’ve been busy writing songs and every time I come up and say ‘Oh look, I’ve been working on a song’ and I sing it to her, she goes ‘mm…..right’ and that’s all I get!
K: It’s always, ‘I’ve got this new song!’ and it’s the same tune as the last bloody song and they’re not really tunes! (laughs) The process is, I pick up the guitar and I just start strumming a chord and then I just put a few together and it just comes out!
T: That Disposable one [track on EP] came out quickly didn’t it?
K: Actually yeah, that was an unusual one because I didn’t do the tune on the guitar but I did do the tune in my head. I never know what I’m going to write the song about, I never have any idea, I’ll just singing some random words and it turns into something. It just kind of evolves.
T: It’s a great song though, that Disposable one. Great sound to it, really good.
MG: What bands are you into, you go to see or listen to?
T: I just listen to a lot of the old stuff. I do try and hunt down different versions of things you know. I listen to the Pogues a lot. Oh, and that was another band I used to be in, called the Rogue Pogues, obviously a Pogues cover band - I was Insane McGowan instead of Shane McGowan (Laughs)!
K: I love Ozzy Osbourne
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| (c) Clemmy Scotswood |
MG: Here’s a daft question. Dreddnautz: who’s the laziest in the band?
K: Bloody Tony I think (Laughs)
T: You're f'kn joking! (More laughs)
K: He never learns anything!
T: I don’t need to learn it coz I already know it!
K: No. He doesn’t always know it……..
T: I haven’t got time!! I think all of you lot are lazy. And very picky. And pointing fingers at one person in particular all the time. F'kn hell! Ooh just wait till I get my own band!!! (all laugh)
MG: And what have Dreddnautz got coming up?
T: We’ve been asked to go back to The Tavern (Blyth) on the 19th of October. It’s a Saturday night; and then we got asked to play at the Plough Inn at Mitford on the 9th of November, that’s a Saturday night as well. Our new EP will be on sale and there'll be a few surprises so make sure you come along!
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| (c) Clemmy Scotswood |
Thanks Tony and Karen. We, here at Music Grilll think it’s a damn good idea to get along to those gigs over the next couple of weeks if you can! These lot are great live! In the meantime check out the band’s links and we’ll see you back here for Part II of our Dreddnautz interview session soon!
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