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INTERVJU - ALAN BURRIDGE
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Förra året fyllde Motörhead 30 år som band och samtidigt så firade bandets officiella fanclub, Motörheadbangers 25 år. Klubbens grundare och eldsjäl, Alan Burridge står fortfarande vid rodret och sköter klubben med samma brinnande intresse och energi som för 25 år sedan..
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När han inte följer med bandet på turné eller gör medlemstidningen så är han även författare. Till dags dato har han skrivit 9 st kriminalromaner och 2 st science fiction böcker. Han tog sig dock tid för att svara på GetMetals frågor.
Do you remember the first time you heard the band?
We had a weekly music paper here in the UK in the ‘70’s, called Sounds. New Musical Express (NME), and Melody Maker were around, but I bought those if they had something particularly interesting in them. But Sounds was the weekly ’must have’ music paper. So I followed Lemmy’s departure from Hawkwind, and the birth of Motorhead through the pages of Sounds. Lemmy was always an interesting person, and he’d become something of a character in Hawkwind, so following the trials and tribulations and frustration of getting Motorhead started, and incidental pieces of information about the individuals within the band seemed to be what Sounds was about. They were great to Motorhead, and these snippets of information and concert reviews gradually worked together as a jigsaw. Sounds did this with other bands, of course, and I’d read the paper cover-to-cover to get an overall picture of the music scene as it was then, and knew what Motorhead were up to simply because the interest in music was always there. Rather like some people have friends who talk about football, my friends were into the music scene. So if we met at the pub, it was expected you would be up to date on what was going on, and Motorhead were a part of it, so whatever we had read, we’d talk about, much like the football fans do.
My school friend, Eric, found me a job in a warehouse he worked in. Most of the guys were into the music scene, and someone would record John Peel’s show from time to time, bring in the cassette, and play it through the small PA system. I knew ‘Train Kept A Rollin’ from Yardbirds days, and Peel played the Motorhead version, and it was on one of these cassettes. My immediate reaction was f**k! You see, my favourite bands were Cream, Jimi Hendrix, and The Who. Cream split up in ‘69, Hendrix passed away in ‘70, and The Who were in much the same mould as Cream and Hendrix, they were a 3 piece band with a vocalist. So I obviously liked the power-trio format. And along with Cream and Hendrix disappearing, for me, so did The Who. I adored them until ‘Tommy,’ and ‘Pinball Wizard’ was and still is a great track, but I couldn’t fall for the ‘Rock Opera’ concept. Okay, after ‘Quadrophenia,’ they came back with some great albums, and tracks like ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again’ were as great as the earlier songs. But the first three singles and ‘I Can See For Miles’ and ’Live At Leeds’ roared through your speakers, as did Hendrix and Cream. But with the three them ‘gone’ one way or another, other than the Punk scene all you had was melodic bands like Barclay James Harvest, anything loud and fucking noisy just wasn’t there. The Sex Pistols ’Never Mind The Bollocks’ is a knockout album, but it’s rock! It was and still is a ROCK album. The Pistols and the ’Punk’ scene that sprung up made it Punk, because of the safety pins and spitting and stuff, but no one can convince me ’Bollocks’ is a Punk album, it’s not! Punk was just a tag, a pigeon-hole for the safety pins and spitting bands.
So amongst the spit and the safety pins and the melodic rock, suddenly, Motorhead were there firing through this crap PA in the warehouse. That was it! They were like The Who, Cream, and Hendrix, rolled into one. Some may argue this fact, but I’m talking about the adrenaline pumping aspect also, and all three influenced Motorhead. ’I’m Your Witchdoctor’ was a John Mayall song with Eric Clapton on guitar.
One of Fast Eddie Clarke’s reasons for picking up a guitar was Jimi Hendrix, and he played in the Curtis Knight band, as had Jimi. And Lemmy knew The Who during his Rocking Vickar’s days, and still knows Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey today. He dedicated ’Inferno’ to John Entwhistle, so the connections are intact, and no one can argue differently. So, Motorhead were this joyful sound coming through a void that had lasted, for me, for some six or seven years. Suddenly, from amongst the dross, this supercharged Cream / Hendrix / Who thoroughbred galloped from the speaker system, and the following Saturday I bought the ‘Motorhead’ Chiswick album.
What was it with the music that made you a Motorhead fan? And what was so different with them, compared to other bands at the time?
Well, that’s kind of explained with the first question, but when Eric and I bought the first album, we couldn’t stop playing it, and wondered why? For some reason we were not getting tired of it, instead, it just became better and better. Maybe it was the rebel thing? Eric and I always liked the rebel side of everything. Everyone liked the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and so on, and although they were rebel in their own way, they were very popular rebels. With the Who, I loved the destructive element, the guitar smashing. The Who played in Bournemouth three times, the last gig was ‘Tommy,’ and then they went mega-star. But the first two shows, I was at the front of the stage waiting to get a piece of Pete Townshend’s guitar, but he didn’t smash it! By rebels, I mean band’s who were there, but didn’t have the girls screaming at them like the Beatles and the Stones. The Who, Hendrix, and Cream didn’t attract that kind of audience, and thus I look upon them as the rebel bands. They were in the charts but didn’t have that shit going on around them. And Motorhead are the same.
Motorhead were different because although they came up with the Punk scene, and shared stages with The Adverts and tours with The Count Bishop’s, they were rebel. The whole world was against them, except for their fans, and the fans wanted to see them, and that’s why they kept touring and playing. Even though Motorhead knew the critics had written them off as The Worst Band, they said “Fuck you!” and simply kept going. And they’ve said “Fuck you!” and kept going for the last thirty-one years, and they still sell out tours, and they’re not on the Sixties circuit playing holiday camps, which many of their peers are doing. Ha-Ha! Lemmy could be doing that with the Rocking Vickar’s, couldn’t he!
How did you get in touch with Motorhead, and how did the Fan Club start?
The Punk scene brought with it, the fanzine. Buzzing about Motorhead as Eric and I were, I wanted to find out more about them, but it hit a dead-end. Sounds had coloured in some of the picture, but other parts needed filling in. Printing had always interested me from childhood, and working in the publicity department of a large local company for a while, the print room guys taught me the basics of making plates and using the machines. When I took the job at the warehouse with Eric, it’s your workplace, so you talk to the rest of the people who work there. I must have mentioned printing somewhere along the line, and one day, the sales director asked if I could work a printing set-up? Of course! Although I didn’t have hands-on experience, I knew the theory, so it was clever bullshit really. They wanted flyers printed for special offers, (it was a hardware business), letterheads and so on. They bought the printing machine, and set up a dark room to make the printing plates. They gave me half each day working in the warehouse, the other half, printing. So the idea came to print a fanzine about Motorhead, because if I’d hit a dead-end finding out more about them, then the other fans must be the same. It was to be an attempt at putting something out there for the other fans to respond to, then pooling the knowledge in the second fanzine, and so on.
Eric found a copy of the Sam Gopal album, and this made a discography possible. As I almost finished it ready to print, Brian Tawn, who has produced Hawkwind’s ‘Hawkfan’ fanzine for probably 35 years now, appeared in Sounds, in a column called ‘Wax Fax,’ and he had printed a Motorhead discography, thus scuttling my plans!
So I wrote to Brian, and at first he replied with “Tough Luck!” I replied, and we began getting along better. Then he wrote again, saying Motorhead’s (then) manager, Douglas Smith, had sent him a sack full of Hawkwind mail to deal with. Brian had tried keeping ‘Hawkfan’ going as well as producing whatever he could about Motorhead since Lemmy had departed the Hawkwind ranks, but with this sack full of mail, his time would be limited. He knew I had the printing set-up available, and asked if I could take on the Motorhead side of things? I agreed, not knowing where it would go. Eric and I had been to a gig on the Overkill tour, and played the album to death yet again, trying to get bored with it, but not succeeding, it simply got better and better. We already had tickets for four gigs on the Bomber Tour, Bracknell, Bristol, Portsmouth, and Bournemouth, and Brian arranged with Douglas for us to get a pass for each show, and meet the band. We met the band and have never looked back.
To begin with, although Lemmy had mentioned the fairly obvious name of Motorheadbangers as a fan club name, Phil Taylor’s sister, Helen, started one up with that name. My thing started as an Appreciation Society or something, and Helen was a bit snarling and growling to begin with, but I said, “Look, we need to get together on this to promote the band, we shouldn’t be fighting!” So we advertised each other in our fanzines, and got on with spreading the word, or rather printing the word, by the time Bomber was released, Motorhead were hitting it big, and everyone on the rock scene across the UK were with them, which surprised the bastards who had written them off as The Worst Band. Lemmy’s fuck you was working!
What was / is the purpose with the Fan Club?
Well, you get car clubs, and people who have a certain type of car meet up, and the Fan Club is no different. We meet at gigs, easily recognisable now with our Fan Club T-shirts. The Fan Club’s purpose was and is to inform the fans of what’s been happening, or what is going to happen with Motorhead. Now, as I said, we run our own T-shirts from time to time, and also other bits and pieces of merchandise. We’re going for fanzine number 76 in August, has any other Fan Club achieved that? But if you put me on the spot, I wanted to catalogue as accurately as possible everything Motorhead did and will do in their career. Lemmy has recorded dozens of offshoot things, like Probot with Dave Grohl and so on, and Phil and Mikkey have done too. So the idea was to capture everything for history as it happened so it wasn’t such a difficult job for someone else after the fact.
Do you enjoy working with the Fan Club as you did 25 years ago?
Computers have made things easier. It’s better now you don’t have to use correction fluid and glue to stick in the pictures, That was more fun, agreed, but we knew no different, but technology has made it less time-consuming. It has always been fun, I have always enjoyed it, if it wasn’t fun I wouldn’t have kept going. It’s a part of life now, the family are used to the old man doing his Fan Club thing and mailing it out, and disappearing for a while to get the fanzine together. They’ve been great, but there again I am a Taurus, and once a Taurus starts something he or she does not give up easily, so they’re inclined not to argue with me because once an idea is there the Taurus doesn’t give up on it, he/she sees to through until the end. But yes, each new fanzine is still a challenge, and fun, and I never groan and try and put it off, if I do, the fans are let down, and I won’t allow that to happen.
What motivates your work?
Probably being a Taurus. Also, Fan Clubs have often had a bad reputation, and I always worked to kill it off. Motorhead never disappoint, and I wanted to ensure the Fan Club didn’t disappoint either. As far as I am aware, it hasn’t disappointed anyone yet, most are thrilled with it, many wish they had joined it years ago, but they thought it would be a rip-off, as Fan Clubs have the reputation of doing, but I’ve never ripped anyone off, that’s why we’re still here 26 years on! Join today!
How does the Fan Club and Motorhead work together? Are the band involved at all?
For about the first three fanzines I had to send them to Doug Smith’s office for verification. But it messed up my schedules. Motorcycle Irene and Sue Manley worked in the office then, and they were drinking Vodka at eleven in the morning, so messages tended not to come back. So after the first three, if I had heard nothing after a week, I printed it. Now, Lemmy and the band know I know what I’m doing, so I’m left to do whatever. If they do an interview with someone in the Fan Club and it comes back to me, I know if anything should be taken out or not. Usually, nothing is. If the band say it for tape, they say it for print, but now and again a fan will state their opinion in a review, and I know it’s unjust or unfair, so I chop it out. No one has complained yet. Often, people say things and a few days later regret they said them anyway, I just catch them in the net. But they trust me to just do it, so I do.
How do you think the Fan Club can increase and improve?
The Fan Club is its own entity. The name and address are on the album sleeves, so it’s up to the individual what he or she does. At one of the Hammersmith shows, I had the subscription form printed on red paper. Several Fan Club members helped dish them out. Most of them were on the floor of the Odeon after the show was over, and I had one new member, sent on a red form. If someone buys a Motorhead album, or more then one, surely their sense of curiosity must trigger something? If the address has been there for a quarter of a Century, surely they must think something? Look at the subscription price: £7-50 for the UK, 15 Euros for Europe, and $25 for the rest of the world. In the UK £7-50 will barely buy you two packets of cigarettes. In a pub, £7-50 will barely buy you three pints of lager. What do they want? It’s so darned cheap! Maybe if I trebled the price they’d be happier to join? They’d get the same deal, but whatever. The classic letters are, and I’ve had dozens: “I keep seeing your name and address on the albums since 1980, and I think it’s about time I thought about joining.” Why wait a quarter of a Century? Excuse me, I don’t get it, never have and probably never will. Okay, you have the Internet these days, but when websites began many fans wrote, pleading, Alan! Please keep printing the fanzine, we like it to keep, the Internet changes, so we still want the fanzine as something to hold on to rather than something that might change or get lost in the ozone! Ha-Ha! Couldn’t resist that one!
It has improved, it has a colour cover. For Motorhead, that’s an improvement. Motorhead are about black and white, preferably black, Lemmy likes black. Motorhead aren’t embossed fanzine covers with gold ribbons, come on! If we could emboss a bullet belt, then maybe, but why? Motorhead fans are basic rebels, why would they want a load of flowery bullshit, or the fanzine smelling of Petunias or Daffodils? Hey, did you know, Daffodil is one of the few flowers they cannot copy the scent? Show me a Daffodil smelling perfume! Ha-Ha! You can’t! They tried and it can’t be done! Onward…
Do you have any new Motorhead projects in progress, books etc?
At present, the August fanzine. If I told you I was doing a book, everyone who reads this will keep asking “How’s the book?” and it would cut down the time doing the book answering the question. So, to avoid the questions coming, no, I’m not doing a book.
How many Motorheadbangers are there now?
Getting up towards three thousand. If everyone who ever bought a Motorhead album joined, it would be great, I could run the Fan Club as a job!
How many times have you seen them live?
I don’t keep count. I’m not in this to swell my chest in the pub and say, “Hey, I’ve seen them three-hundred-and-forty-two times.” For me, that’s bullshit. Not by seeing them, but by playing their records, I almost killed my love for The Who, Cream, and Hendrix; I would never want that with Motorhead. A maximum of two, perhaps three shows per tour, this year I’m doing one. The ‘Superfans’ must have clocked up quite a few by now, but as I said, I don’t want to get bored with Motorhead, and backstage, I don’t want them to get bored continually seeing me. I’d rather they said “Ah, Alan’s here!” with genuine feeling, rather than “Oh, fuck, he’s here again!” Doing a whole tour would piss me off, I’m not big on travelling and sleeping rough in the car. Presumably the band admires those who do, and if they get a kick out of it, good luck to them. I’m a rock ‘n’ roller, always will be, but at 55 I’m not fit enough for that lifestyle any more. I did the three a.m. missed the train and wait until seven a.m. for the first one, year’s ago; so I’ve paid my dues.
Favourite Motorhead record?
They are all favourite, there’s not one I hate. If you narrow me down to one track playing non-stop forever as my penance, then it would be the ‘Overkill’ album version of ‘Overkill.’ That track always sounds so fresh and bright, so full of life, it makes me feel like King of the World. It’s probably the energy, there’s so much energy in there, Jimmy Miller caught that whole album so well. But if I wake up and feel like a bag of shit, or I get depressed, the ‘Overkill’ track picks me up. It’s very inspiring, that energy inside it. Live, it has a similar effect, but it’s the original, Jimmy Miller, Motorhead, Bronze records version - a killer. Others will disagree, everyone has their favourite, but you asked, and that’s mine!
Favourite album cover?
More like least-favourite. Joe Petagno should have done every one of them, and Joe is the man for Motorhead. Just look at the sleeves he didn’t do and then tell me! The ‘March Or Die’ sleeve saga is a good one, Joe mentions it briefly on the DVD with the re-issue of the ‘Inferno’ album. When Joe first saw the ‘March Or Die’ sleeve he couldn’t believe how awful it was. So, he drew what he thought it should have been, then sent it to me. It was and still is fabulous. I used it for the fanzine front cover, and Joe did a mail order thing for posters of it. When the band had their copies of the fanzine arrive, they were quite astounded. Joe had drawn it in revenge for ‘March Or Die.’ The band called him, asked him to change the ‘Motorheadbangers’ lettering, and they used it for the ‘Bastards’ album sleeve. It’s okay viewing things with the benefit of hindsight, but let’s just say every ‘official’ Motorhead album should have been released with a Joe Petagno sleeve. If you take note, and re-read the interview Joe did in the Fan Club fanzine years ago, every Joe Petagno sleeve has been a progression from the last one. He is the fourth member of Motorhead and he has done them so proud over the years. A top-notch geezer!
Which other bands do you listen to nowadays?
Across the board. I visit Mr. Kyps, a local venue quite a lot, and review the gigs for them. It’s a great Live Music venue. A few days ago I watched The Hamsters, who were playing a Jimi Hendrix and ZZ Top set. Some guy near me said “It’s too loud!” But The Hamsters guitarist was the closest to Jimi I’ve ever heard, and to get there he needed the volume. Volume sets the adrenaline pumping, and with Motorhead it pumps for ninety minutes whilst they’re onstage. I’m an adrenaline junkie! But Hendrix was the master, and used the feedback and volume to his advantage, and that was part of what made him untouchable.
Favourite things lately are Cream’s Albert Hall reunion DVD from last year, which is fabulous, as are the ‘extras.’ So too the ‘Classic Albums - Disraeli Gears,’ which, like the ‘Classic Albums - Ace Of Spades’ has been put together very well. The ‘extra’ of Jack Bruce singing ‘We’re Going Wrong’ accompanying himself on piano is very moving. The song was emotional as Cream played it, but this version is the one!
Finally, and I’m ashamed to admit it, but I’ve just got around to getting Robert Johnson’s album; which is quite stunning. I should have bought it when I was sixteen. I’d heard his songs as covered by Cream, Zeppelin, ZZ Top, Johnny Winter and suchlike, but never bought the album. You can get it for £2 on Amazon, so what’s £2? May as well buy a copy. Those recordings are amazing considering they’re like 70 years old! When you hear the album, you realise had Robert Johnson not existed, or hadn’t recorded those songs, music would be very much different today. But we won’t go into parallel worlds, they’re a favourite topic, but not for here and now.
I’m across the board with music. Anything that fires me up ends up in the collection: Arthur Lee and Love’s ‘Forever Changes’ album, The Who, The Troggs, local bands DNA and Renegade. And there’s a guy and a girl, both under eighteen, they’re playing www.mrkyps.net in a couple of weeks time, they’re amazing. The young lady plays drums, but she’s flamboyant like Keith Moon, but with John Bonham’s power, and he’s so laid back, and plays this real dirty, overdriven guitar sound, kind of Hendrix, kind of Neil Young. They are the local answer to the White Stripes, but they’re better! They’re called Multicoloured Green, young, so darned good, and haven’t recorded anything yet, they either won or were runner’s up in the local Battle of the Bands at Kyps; incredible. If the right people steer them where they should go they need never clock in at a factory!
How about your own music career? Do you play anything yourself?
There’s an essay and photos on www.alanburridge.freeuk.com titled ‘Diary Of A Would-Be Guitarist,’ which explains it. I know guitars inside out and back to front, but don’t have the ability to play them. If I did, I would probably have been in local bands since I was eighteen and missed the Fan Club thing altogether. Parallel worlds again!
The Fan Club fanzine and books about Motorhead are not the only things you write. You write essays for your website, and a Blog, and have written over ten novels in different genres.
Writing, perhaps makes up for being a lousy guitarist? It’s something, probably through writing about Motorhead, that I can do, and it’s getting better, I hope?
What inspires you as an author?
Ha! I asked Mick Farren this question in the 1980’s before I had written any fiction. If you write, it seems to be something that builds with time. You write shorter stories for ages, then out-of-the-blue, you’re writing and it goes on and on. Inspiration is from living your life, then things gell and you realise perhaps three different stories can be interwoven to make sense as one story. But the three things must touch somewhere within the story, or the characters must meet at some point. It’s not three stories going on and three endings, they must cross over at some point to affect the others which are going on at the same time. Romantic fiction simply uses one story from start to finish, but I like two, if not three things going on within the one volume. Those I had published are now out-of-print, the publisher ran out of steam and money. But there’s always something going on, even if it’s a daily Blog.
Favourite author and favourite book?
There are so many. Stephen King, Robert E. Howard, Muriel Gray, (she compared The Tube before Paula Yates), Tim Willocks, John Grisham. There’s a great success story about a vicar named G.P. Taylor. Look him up on Amazon, his first book was ‘Shadowmancer.’ He’s a fabulous writer and you will be hearing about him soon, as Mel Gibson is directing the film of ‘Shadowmancer.’ Taylor was a vicar, wrote the story, sold his motorcycle to fund getting it self-published as a book. A top-line publisher noticed the book amongst the returns they see from bar codes being zapped each time a book is sold. He bought Taylor’s book, and Bam! That was it! Taylor has written four or five books now, and he’s worth £6 million! The follow-up book is ‘Wormwood,’ and Taylor is a magical writer, but maybe not for everyone, my wife read the first four pages and couldn’t get on with it! Mick Farren also continues to write, and I have just finished his new book, ‘Conflagration,’ which was published in May. He’s the guy who wrote Motorhead’s ‘Lost Johnny’ and ‘Damage Case’ lyrics, look him up on the American Amazon website, a brilliant sci-fi writer, and his Victor Renquist vampire quartet of books are fabulous, you want to be a vampire when you’ve read them. But Farren’s vampires don’t fly, and this makes them so mush more believable.
Since you’ve written so many thriller / intrigue books, have you considered writing a script for TV or movies?
TV and movie script writing is a different craft. It’s a good thought, but I have not considered it for myself. I am a member of the Society of Authors, and we have lunches now and again, and at one of them, this young guy was a screenwriter. He and his girlfriend were thinking about moving out to LA or New York to perhaps get a better shot at it. Tarantino does it and then publishes the film script as a book, so it’s food for thought, perhaps, for the future?
If you had the chance to choose one book, any book that you wish you had written, what would it be?
I am a great believer in Fate, and if it’s ever my Fate to write a million selling Block-Buster, then I will. But it’s like Motorhead writing the ‘Ace of Spades’ song, when they wrote it they didn’t know it would be their masterpiece, and the song everyone remembers them for. And I don’t think writers’ know the same thing about a story or book. Like Dan Brown’s ‘The DaVinci Code,’ it was his fate to write it, had to be, otherwise why didn’t someone else write it before? The story has been there to write for hundreds of years, so it was Dan Brown’s Fate to write it. Millions of other author’s are cursing because they didn’t, but it was his Fate. Same as ‘The Horse Whisperer,’ it has to be something new, or old, to capture the imagination of the public, to make them want to read it, and buy it buy the truckload. Maybe the odd author here and there has found some strange thing which they think will be unusual enough to be a Block-Buster, and it hasn’t. The public are fickle, you can never judge what they want or do not want to spend their money on. But once something like ‘The DaVinci Code’ catches on, and it’s ‘Cool’ to be seen reading it, or use it as part of a conversation, then you’ve hit the big time!
But I am an odd character, not a scary odd character, just odd in that jealousy and envy don’t enter into my psyche or life. They are negative forces, and should be exchanged for Admiration, which is a positive force. Jealousy and envy eat you up and harm you, Admiration is so much better. At the moment I admire G.P. Taylor for his belief in his story to sell his most prized possession, then have it turned around to be worth millions of pounds.
Same question, but with music and a CD?
I’ll keep Motorhead out of this as they are an obvious choice. But there’s a guy we see at Mr. Kyps from time to time, named Steve Thorne; again, check him out on the Amazon sites. His first CD is titled ‘Emotional Creatures Part 1,’ and it’s the most played CD in our home for years. My wife, Jane, has become besotted with it, too, and every track, for us, anyway, is a diamond. I’ve reviewed the CD on www.amazon.co.uk so check that out, and I reviewed his gigs on the Kyps site www.mrkyps.net and those echo my sentiments about him. Steve Thorne should be a mega-star, and will be, I hope. There’s no way I could have written and played it, but it’s a fascinating album. Listen to the samples on Amazon, you might dig it to?
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