Courtesy of RockNet.
From out of the ashes of the United Kingdom's Flesh For LuLu
comes Gigantic. Flesh For LuLu was probably best considered an
alternative band, before alternative became grunge. Listening to
them now, you'd have to say they're a good pop band. The band
never really got the treatment they deserved in the United
States. But that was then and this is now. Vocalist Nick Marsh
and guitarist Rocco Barker have put together a brand new outfit
that is far more powerful than Flesh ever was...
Rocknet: Who is in Gigantic and when and where did
you guys get together?
Nick Nasty: Well, there's Me and Rocco (Barker) from
Flesh For LuLu and we've been joined by
two new guys, Al Fletcher (on drums) and
Dave Blair (on bass). We got together
about a year ago in London and we got
very lucky. Got a record deal, man. You
know we were on the welfare line.
Rocknet: You guys were called the Infidels for a while, weren't
you?
Nick Nasty: Yeah, and then we found out there's another Infidels.
Some horrible disco band from Canada. So we blew that
out quickly. We didn't want to be Infidels U.K.
Rocknet: So how did you guys get signed?
Nick Nasty: I was basically pouncing around the Reading Festival
last year and I ran into this guy called Willoughby who
works out in Phoenix, Arizona. Willoughby was a D.J.
and he recognized me from Flesh, I gave him a demo and
he phoned me up three days later and said "I gave a
tape to this guy Benjie Gorden, and he's freakin' out,"
and I was just like, YES!
Rocknet: Right before Flesh For LuLu ended, didn't you guys
almost have a deal with Hollywood Records at one point?
Nick Nasty: Yeah, it was close, but it didn't come through.
Rocknet: Speaking of Flesh For LuLu, whatever became of the rest
of the band - Kevin Mills, Del Strange Fish and James
Mitchell? Do you keep in touch with them?
Nick Nasty: Yes. I still see Del quite a lot. He's reformed his
punk band he was in before, called Peter and the Test
Tube Babies. They've done a new album and I see Del in
London all the time, he's like a drinking buddy.
Kevin's working for a band named Incognito. He does
tour managing and stuff there. James went back to
college to do his journalism course. So that's the
story of those guys.
Rocknet: I was looking back at the last Flesh album, "Plastic
Fantastic," and the first half Kevin and James wrote
and you and Rocco wrote the second half. How come you
guys never wrote together?
Nick Nasty: With Gigantic, we basically all wrote all the songs
together, which is more of a healthy kind of working
environment, you know? The reason Flesh really split up
is because there wasn't a definite...to coin the oldest
cliché of them all, there were musical differences.
That's true, there were two separate trains of thought.
Rocknet: You wrote my favorite song on that album, "Stupid on
the Street."
Nick Nasty: You know that lyric? It was from when me and Rocco were
hanging out in New York with Joey Ramone and we were in
this bar called Save the Robots. We'd been playing a
couple of shows with the Ramones and Rocco was kind of
like pretty out of his head and I was losing it a bit.
Joey turned around to me and said, "Hey Nick, Rocco,
let's go get stupid on the streets." And I wrote that
down there on the spot.
Rocknet: I saw you guys once in New York at the Cat Club and you
guys rocked!
Nick Nasty: Flesh For LuLu was always better live. Whereas Gigantic
is more of what you get on the record. It's a very live
record.
Rocknet: I never thought Flesh For LuLu quite got the credit it
deserved. Do you feel that way?
Nick Nasty: I did at the time and I especially did about three
years ago when I was on the welfare line, do you know
what I mean? I must admit I was thinking, what went
wrong there then? Because I thought Flesh For LuLu was
a good pop band.
Rocknet: I see you're playing guitars as well as handling
vocals. You didn't play guitar in Flesh, did you?
Nick Nasty: I did play guitars earlier on and I just sort of felt a
bit limited on stage. And then I just basically wanted
to leap around a bit, make more of a threat of myself,
you know?
Rocknet: On to your new album "Disenchanted." Tell us where it
was recorded, who produced it, how long it took and all
that good stuff.
Nick Nasty: We did it here in L.A. with a guy named Tim Palmer.
He's done Pearl Jam, Tin Machine, Robert Plant and
stuff like that. He basically just wanted to drag us
out here to do it, so he could drive around in a purple
Mustang with the roof down and have a good time. It
took about a month to record. We were in a place called
Track. Track Records in West Hollywood.
Rocknet: Do you have a favorite song on the album, or one that
is close to you?
Nick Nasty: That's difficult you know. With Flesh, I always liked
two or three songs and hated the rest. But with this
album, it's just like the general consensus in the band
is, they can put out anything they like as a single
because we're happy with all of it. I don't have a
particular favorite.
Rocknet: You've got a song called "She Was Always Mad." Now,
didn't that song used to be called "She Was All Mine?"
How did that get there? You guys change the lyrics
around a little?
Nick Nasty: Yes, how did you know about that?
Rocknet: Secret.
Nick Nasty: Did you hear an early demo?
Rocknet: I have one in my hand right now.
Nick Nasty: Well basically, we were doing a show in London and I
had a screaming round with my girlfriend just after the
sound check. I then went and turned up and improvised
the lyric. Everybody said, that's more like it. It put
a new slant on it.
Rocknet: So where do you see Gigantic fitting into today's
American music scene?
Nick Nasty: It's early days now. It's too soon to tell. I don't
know how we are going to be conceived.
Rocknet: There's nothing quite like you guys.
Nick Nasty: You don't think so? That's cool. I've been listening to
like K-Rock, the last couple of days since I've been
here. It's really hard to tell if it's Pearl Jam or not
Pearl Jam. I mean everything sounds the same. I can't
tell the difference between them, Stone Temple Ding
Dong and whatever. Hopefully this band's a bit maverick
to all that. Basically what we are doing is a very
primitive form of genre. It's two guitars, bass and
drums. Hopefully we don't sound like all the rest.
Rocknet: So are you guys doing any videos?
Nick Nasty: Yes. It's going to be for the song "Disenchanted," the
first single. I'm pretty excited about that. I very
much like pouncing around in front of the camera.
Rocknet: What about tour plans?
Nick Nasty: We're playing a show tonight at the Viper Room and the
South by Southwest thing in Texas and we'll do a few
dates with Bush as well.
Rocknet: So what do you foresee for the band's future?
Well, hopefully, not too predictable. It's such early
days. Who knows where it's going to take us. All those
songs on the album are very much like existentialism. A
lot of it was about despondency, unemployment and
living in the underbelly of the counter-culture. So
maybe the next record is going to be like a disco
party; we've got a record deal! Yahoo!
Rocknet: In closing, is there something you'd like to say to our
readers and your fans and soon-to-be fans?
Nick Nasty: Come and see us play. It's such early days for us.
-Interview conducted by Alex Richter
NOTE: RockNet thanks Kris Ferraro and the great folks at Columbia
Records, and thanks Nick Marsh for being a great interview.
Cheers!
