A strangely sunny day just outside Oxford, England, where righteous rockers Hurricane #1 are 
supposedly rehearsing at a real monstrance-and-ciborea vicarage. We knock, but no, says the 
eldery vicar, shaking his head, the boys aren't here. But wait! He has an idea. Down that dusty 
road, he points, maybe a little over a mile or so. Just keep walking until you hear loud guitar 
squeals. "Aye, that'll be yoor pop group, alright!" 

And sure enough, there's a stertorous chuck-chucka riff emenating from behind a tiny roadside 
fruit stand. Four scruffy musicians answer a padded studio door, and excitedly offer beer, 
snacks, and a comfortable chair while they are finishing working out some troublesome song kinks.
Happy, they are, than an American mag has actually taken an interest in them. On closer 
inspection, however, there's a problem: where is lean, spider-legged guitarist Andy Bell, 
ex- mainstay of the mighty UK band Ride? Or his new vocalist, pugnacious former boxer Alex Lowe? 
The quartet rehearsing here - a still unsigned outfit - sighs, in unison, "Oh. You must want 
those Hurricane #1 guys. They're in the other studio, next door...." Sorry, kids. But thanks
for the Grolsch. 

Door number two creaks open to reveal the wiry Lowe, rasping soul-smooth at the mic, while Bell 
phalanges out a funky little melody line on his laptop keyboard. They've captured the aloof, 
processional pace of "Faces In A Dream," one of the electric-groove hipshakers from their 
self- titled debut. Out here at the vicarage, you have roughly one choice for a well-lit 
interview location: the field outside, where an unfenced herd of sheep watch suspiciously from a
few feet away. Is it true what the English papers say? That Lowe - who's delivered 14 knockouts 
in his 32-bout amateur career - got into a nightclub donnybrook with Liam Gallagher a few weeks 
back? He smiles secretively. "I, um, can't say anything about that. I wish I could, but I can't. 
Honestly. It's a legal thing, so I've got to watch what I say." 

Reportedly, the fight resulted from Gallagher's repeated anti-Hurricane comments in the press, 
accusing Lowe of stealing both his sneering sound and his shag-cut hairstyle. "We've gotten a lot
of inspiration from Oasis records," Bell clarifies. "At least I have. But that kind of put an end 
to any good feelings." Lowe won't say who won when it finally came to fisticuffs, but he will
say this: "I've never been knocked down by anyone in me life. But it takes a lot to set me off. 
Like the other night in Paris. We were sittin' in a cafe, Andy wasn't there, we were with some 
journalists and someone from the record company [Creation] as well, a particular lady. And she 
had these flowers in her hand - we'd gotten her flowers." 

"But these big Greek or maybe Spanish guys came over and started touching her, trying to mess 
with her. And the journalist guy I was with said, 'Leave it, I'll take take of it,' and told 'em 
to piss off. The guys kept looking over, looking at us, and I though 'Alright, now fuck you, 
then!' So I went over to 'em, and they immediately stood up, him and his mates, three or four of 
'em. And I said 'Have you got a problem with that lady?' And he said 'Fuck off' or something like 
that, so I hooked him in the face, put him right over a table, and that was the end of the game." 
Another TKO? Lowe looks incredulous, finding it hard to believe anyone would question his 
God-given talent. "Oh, yeah! Definately the end of the game for that guy!" 

How 'bout a few tips? How do you knock out an adult nuisance? Bell doubles up on the grass, 
giggling hysterically. "And that'll be the last thing you hear on the tape when you play it back 
later!" Lowe chuckles too, then gets serious. "See, when you wanna knock somebody out," he 
explains in layman terms, "You don't aim for here" and taps his jaw with a forefinger, "You aim 
for here." He points further up on his face. "You wanna put their nosebone right through their 
brain." Silence. Sheep bleating in the background. Lowe finally offers a sharklike grin. "But I'm 
not really a violent person, anyway!" 

Naturally, Bell chooses that exact moment to inquire, "Hey! Whadda ya think of the album?" Uh, 
gee, it's, um, the, er, best rock'n' roll record of the season! Yeah, that's the ticket! No! 
Wait! It's more like... the best record of the year! Easily! In truth, it's a solid one-two 
punch to the solar plexus, a funky trip back to vintage Jeff Beck bluesology with twisted little 
touches such as the flute melody on "Just Another Illusion." And Lowe is quite a find: his 
soaring, street-tough voice can transform simple ballads like "Let Go Of The Dream" and "Step 
Into My World" into crescendoing, candle-lighting anthems. How did the pair find each other? 

In early 1995, Bell relates, Ride entered the studio to make its fifth album. As the sessions 
were winding down, co-founder Mark Gardener decided he was unhappy with the group, that he was 
better off solo. Talk about your stiff uppercuts. Bell was flummoxed; a new Ride disc would hit 
stores with no band, no tour to back it. At Creation head Alan McGee's insistence, though, he 
began putting vocalist-needed ads in each week's Melody Maker. In the rural North, 12 hours 
away by bus, Lowe - who'd seen the ad but thought nothing of it - was literally picking 
raspberries and on the verge of abandoning his own rock star dream. But his sly girlfriend mailed
Bell a demo, and three weeks later, Lowe was on that bus and London-bound. What was the pondering 
during the, ahem, ride? "For the whole 12 hours, I was thinking, 'This is it! I'm gonna do it! 
This is it!' I was pretty confident." 

Bell says he developed the new Hurricane #1 approach in relative isolation. "We're outsiders, I 
think. At the end of the day, we're still sort of the forgotten voice of Creation. We've gotten 
ourselves to where we are on our own, and we don't go to any of the posh parties in London, 
basically don't get involved in the whole show business thing at all." He stares at the sheep. 
The sheep, unafraid, stare right back. "Instead, we say out here and rehearse and record." 

To work off studio steam, Lowe begins feinting, dancing around and shadow-boxing through the 
field, as if some imaginary bell has sounded. Has he lost his touch? He shakes his head. "No. 
You never lose it. and I've come close to using it at Hurricane shows sometimes, with people just 
buggin' the shit outta ya. But it's more disciplined than that. Boxing is definately a 
disciplined thing, and you simply learn to discipline yourself." 

Still, you can't help but wonder how a Liam/Lowe match might have gone. Probably a fabled 
two-hitter: Lowe hits Liam. Liam hits the floor. "Hurricane #1" would look good on the back of a 
satin boxing robe.