Goldie Lookin Chain - Interview - 2002

You are One-Step Down, the media assassin, is that correct?

1STEP:  Yes, that is correct - with me are Mr. Love Eggs and Mystikal. The other 20 members of the GLC can't be with us this evening because of the new 99p range at the various McDonalds throughout Newport.

MYSTIKAL:  I am Mystikal. I have lived for 2000 years, a bit like Connor MacLeod in Highlander. I've seen many things and I've lived in many different places, hence the neutral, non-territorial accent.

EGGS: I am Eggsy.  The voices tell me to do it, sometimes it’s good some times it’s bad I AM ALSO RENE LALOUX and Chon Ben Wa Balls.

Are you originally from Newport?

1STEP: Yes, we all remember the bus station before it got done up and when the Newport  County Youth  Firm ruled the playgrounds.

EGGS: Yes, it’s where the game begins and on a Saturday like Mad Max, two men enter one man leaves.

What's Newport like?

1STEP: Like a cross between Benidorm and Blackwood. Commonly known as Zooport. Please don't feed the animals.

MYSTIKAL: Newport is the Home of the Chain and Epicentre of All Things Safe. Oh, and cheap tracksuits. Never forget your Leisurewear, clart.

EGGS: FUCKING GREAT, especially when women fight each other outside Pizza Hut, although the police cameras have cut a lot of that out now. So there’s a secret club that meet in the women’s bogs in Zanzibars nightclub I wear a skirt so I can watch sometimes I fight as well, I’m good at fighting women.

Is it big, is it good, and if so why?

1STEP: It's the Gateway City and it's well safe. There's plenty of sports shops to purchase leisurewear in and there's a pub for every 30 members of the population. Draw arrives down the docks at regular intervals and gets distributed throughout the  good people of the town by  men in shellsuits under the cover of darkness. A thriving piazza in the continental John Frost Square is the centrepiece to this cosmopolitan city.

EGG: Its massive, if you have a car you can drive round it all day  playing really loud music, it turns the women into lust machines, one of them  let me touch her outside the cinema once, I had to see the doctor because of the rash she gave me, I really was love sick you might say.

What did the Chain all grow up listening  to?

1STEP: Mainly Eggsie’s selection of theme tunes taped off the telly, free tapes from ‘Hard and Heavy magazine and Frankie Lodge  singing outside of the market. We're all fans of the little known Bob Gumundgies and the Sexual Expertise.

EGGS:  We would sometimes listen in to the harsh sound of street justice being dished out by the bigger kids or Rachmaninov. I also like to listen to people breathing on buses.

Why and how did GLC form?

MYSTIKAL: As a violent (almost immediate) allergic reaction to  bad chart music. Picture this: A man cleaning a farmyard trips and stumbles into what can only be  described as a huge bucket of shit. All  types of exotic excrement are abundant  and slowly but surely, he sinks until his senses are no longer functioning, till  the only thing he is  aware of is the big brown bubble of crap surrounding him.  Nothing else exists. This metaphor works quite nicely to illustrate the layman and his  exposure to the shitty state of modern-day 'popular' music and the  resulting effect upon his psyche.

The GLC are represented as the burly farmhand who  tips the bucket over, laughs at the man and then gives him a  hose down, shocking  him back to discovering the multi-layered beauty of  urban prose and chunky  beats. Something like that, anyway.

1STEP:  Yeah, what he just said.

EGGS: When I went to the home, they said that if I didn’t find a way to vent the thoughts I would cut people again, so I bought a Casio keyboard and started writing urban poetry. I don’t hurt animals at all anymore. The Chain will destroy modern music as we know it and bring the truth to the stereos of kids around the world.

How did you all know each other?

MYSTIKAL: I know everyone that ever lived, but I sometimes meet new people down the pub or at 'Cool 2 B Calm' anger management meetings.

1STEP: Many members of the Chain met either during the 1990 Kingsway Centre Yo-Yo Championships or at tertiary college. The cue for the waterslide at the leisure centre was also a great place to meet like minded people.

EGG: Mainly community service. We have all been chums since 1983, that was the year it all started.

How many of you are there?

MYSTIKAL: 23 at the last count, apparently.

1STEP:  Other members  include Dwain Xaine, Billy Webb, DCI Burnside, 2Hats, Adam Hussain, Mike Balls  (Hardest Man in Soccer Violence), Magwert and Adam's  76 year old  Grandmother.

EGGS: In my mind there’s loads in reality there’s about 23.

What were you all doing before GLC, and what do you do as your dayjob(s)?

1STEP: I worked for Blaenau Gwent Council taking my  one man show, an operatic adaptation of  Jean-Claude Van Damme's  'Kickboxer', around local schools. One day I hope to  make 'Bullseye' the  musical, but the GLC is for life not just for Christmas or any other religious festival for that matter.

MYSTIKAL: I was chief designer of the Westcountry tourist attraction 'Stonehenge'. My remit was mystery, awe and grandeur but I still think it needs a fountain.

EGG: I made masks out of Opal  Fruits and pretended to be the phantom of the opera, a man gave me a pound for my talent once

What was the aim of GLC?

MYSTIKAL:  To bring 'Port life to the masses. Simple as that.

1STEP: To bring light where there was once darkness. And to keep scum like us off the streets.

EGGY:  To vent the pressure (have you seen the film Scanners? It’s like that sometimes).

Where  and how (under what conditions) do you make music?

1STEP: In our own studio at a secret location. We gather at a forum which is known as 'Community  Workshop' and the Chain are  held under conditions similar to those of camp  X-ray, suffering light and  sleep deprivation until beautiful music is   recorded.

MYSTIKAL:

Fags, Rizla, Draw and Strongbow on a Friday night. That's all I'm saying.

EGGSY: We live eat and breathe as one, like a machine. A FINELY TUNED KILLING MACHINE, THIS ALL HAPPENS IN MY MATES BEDROOM.

The music (especially the end of 'Half Man, Half Machine') sounds very fresh, spontaneous, unrehearsed, natural. How do you achieve that?

MYSTIKAL: Through a predetermined combination of curry, alcohol and hyperactive imaginations.  Sometimes we say things that we could never use, just to get it all out of our systems. Like a little wank every day.

1STEP: Through a naturally spontaneous process of rehearsal. Eggsie is a lot sicker in real life and the Chain is a way of curbing his natural excesses.

EGGY: Have you ever heard a Speak and Spell say "touch me" that was pretty much the influence behind it, I’m glad you like it, would you like to see my costume? It’s got a hole for me to wee out of.

How have your 12"s been received?

MYSTIKAL: Mostly in a brown paper bag along with dog porn and a half-eaten Milky Way.

1STEP: Like Micheal Jackson welcoming a visiting child to his chamber - with loving arms. We’ve sold loads and people are weeping in the streets wanting more. Who are we to deny them?

EGGS: Through the post.

Who do you think your demographic are?  (the humour is funny  outside the West, no one laughs when I talk about Norwich,  how have you  managed to take Newport to the (undergound  masses).

MYSTIKAL:   Everyone has a bit of 'Port in them. If you don't, that can be easily   arranged. Newport's a very funny place.

1STEP: You knows the phrase  ' Laugh in the face of fear '? Well people can also laugh out of fear.   Terrifying psychological fear that haunts your every waking moment.  Our  music has a universal appeal in that respect.

EGGS: Literally anyone with ears and a CD player can get into it. It’s been listened to by everyone at the moment, if Jesus were alive he would have a bit of it.

Who are  your listenership? Is it the same people who listen to Pitman?

1STEP: Originally it was the people of the 'Port but they have spread the word far and wide. From  school children to Grandmothers,  community leaders to those with a life sentence.  Pitman's doing alright in Wales and we're known in the Midlands and the North and across the known Universe - everybody's safe.

EGG: Old young and handicapped all come together and feel the vibe.

How did you end up doing a session for Radio One?

MYSTIKAL:  Through an elaborate scheme of bribery and kidnap. 

1STEP: Huw, Beth and James at Radio 1 have been following us for ages. Huw regularly slips into a Newport accent now, another poor innocent victim.

How was it?

1STEP: Kin' mazin'.  Billy Webb said he'd like to 'touch' Bethan Elfyn (the presenter) and it brought a  tear to all our eyes. People came from far and wide to stand and stare and  they will remember the day the Chain came to  town.

EGGS: I cried afterwards.

MYSTIKAL: Despite of the threat of violence it was very nice and everyone had a good time, apart from Adam Hussain's Nan who asked for more custard creams.

What was the response?

1STEP: A good time was had by all. No one had heard the Chain live before so copies are now changing hands around the backstreet and subways for literally hundreds of pence.

EGGS: Like I said, I cried afterwards.

What was the whole Charlotte Church Gate scandal?

1STEP: There was a rumour  going round that the Lungs from Llandaff sang the backing vocals on  our  classic love ballad 'Monkey Love' and that her boyfriend, Steven  Johnson  was Mystikal. Heat magazine exposed her scandalous new direction and a  media frenzy began with the Mirror, the Star, OK, Liquid News and Jonathan  Ross amongst those who went with it. Obviously the GLC had nothing to do with this and were the innocent victims of media intrusion into our simple  lives. I have no idea where this rumour came from. Serious.

Mystikal: Allegedly, we were to release a limited-edition picture porno-disc called 'Stick It In Cider'. I mean, who would ever have associated Charlotte Church with that base level of humour? I didn't find it funny.

EGG:  Bitch had to pay. I saw someone say that in a film once, she doesn’t really owe me money though and she’s not a female dog as I know a lot of female dogs, mainly terriers.

How did  you find yourself in the broad sheets? Why you guys and not Rodney P or Jehst? Is it the humour? What's the secret to  your infamy?

1STEP: Songs about Rollerdisco's, Sexy Ladies, Dog Porn and believing yourself to be a robot have a universal appeal. We cannot be denied. Word of mouth is our strongest weapon and amongst us we know as many words as any Telegraph reader. 25,000 people have looked at our website where there’s loads of MP3’s – that’s been a source of joy and wonder to many.

Mystikal: Think about it. There's a thin line between genius and insanity. We've gone way beyond that - on to the other side, like a shaman who transcends dimensions, a traveler who explores distant shores or a bloke on a council estate who never realised there was a  corner shop on the end of his street. Think of the joy that discoveries like that can bring.

EGG: I used my mind to focus us in and it worked.

Do various prescription and herbal remedies aid your surreality?

1STEP: Draw is the  reason why we get out of bed in the morning and why we go back to bed not  long  later.

Mystikal: Beecham's Powders and a quick toke make everything right with the world.

EGGS: Herbalism is my world

What inspires you? And your sound?

1STEP: What inspires me? The sight of a teenage Mother walking down the street wearing leaisurewear  and gold knowing that the buggy she's pushing is  full of Kappa t-shirts she's  just taxed from Gilesports inspires me. That level of resourcefulness has to be admired. Musically, its the Beatie Boys, Marvin Gaye and S Club Juniors.

Mystikal: The rest of the Chain inspire me.  Without them, I would have never discovered the exciting world that lay right outside my window. People who don't live there say that Newport's a dump. I say 'Yes, but think of all the excitement to be had'. Without the 'Port, there would be no Chain. It doesn't work the other way round, but Newport wouldn't  be half as funny.

EGG: Celine Dion being torn apart by horses.

What's next? Collaborations? Releases? LP? Live?

1STEP: A single, an album, some tidy t-shirts and children's parties.

Mystikal: Once I've finished my Community Service, I think I'll try my hand at sculpting the bushes of roundabouts in Gwent. Safe as fuck.

EGGS: GCSE Traffic management resits.