Lords Of The New Church: Hanging Out On Portobello Road

Originally published in Rave-Up #9 (1985)
By Devorah Ostrov

The Lords of the New Church engage in deep and meaningful conversation while drinking heavily on Portobello Road.

Brian, Stiv & Nick pose with a reasonable facsimile of Dave.
Photo: Devorah Ostrov

I've interviewed Stiv Bators many times over the last eight years or so, and he's always provided some very entertaining banter. This exchange with Stiv and the other Lords of the New Church was extra special because it was done on their home turf — a wine bar on Portobello Road in London, England.

Rave-Up: I'm so used to talking to you guys in hotels and backstage. It's weird to actually see you outside during the day, in public.

Stiv: We actually sometimes go out in the streets!

Nick: We're usually shopping for haddock or something, Grape-Nuts...

Rave-Up: The last time you played in San Francisco, there were all these 13- and 14-year-old girls at the front of the stage. Is that the influence of MTV showing "Dance with Me"?

Stiv: I think so.

Rave-Up: And then they all ran away when they saw what you guys were really like!

Stiv & Nick ham it up on Portobello Road.
Photo: Devorah Ostrov

Stiv: Did they? You're that ugly, Nicky! No, it must have been Dave kicking the girl in the face. Scared the shit out of 'em!

Rave-Up: Are you going to do more videos?

Stiv: Yeah! We're supposed to do one with just a... I won't even say. Godley and Cream... But he mentioned someone... I don't know. Don't ask me.

Rave-Up: Earlier, Nick was saying that you want to open for some big heavy metal act when you come back to the States.

Stiv: Yeah, that would be fun! We could reach a bigger audience for one thing. America isn't as diversified as it is over here. Over here, heavy metal kids won't go to punk shows. The only difference between punk and heavy metal is the haircut, anyway. They dress the same. And now everybody's growing their hair long so...

Rave-Up: So, tell me about the album you're working on [it was released last October and is called The Method to Our Madness]. I've heard it's going to be much more over the top than your last one. Were you getting slagged off for being too commercial with "Dance with Me"?

Stiv: Yeah, in a way. It was too diversified. This next one's going to be sort of like Donovan, you know, songs about peace and love and flowers.

Rave-Up: Yeah, nobody will buy that one!

Stiv: We'll be in the Guinness Book of World Records as the band who sold the least albums. It's us and Wind in the Willows [pre-Blondie Debbie Harry]. Nah, it's gonna be much more rock 'n' roll.

Rave-Up: More like the first album?

Stiv: Yeah, but even more so rock 'n' roll. The first album still varied off a little. This one's based around a lot of guitar riffs. The eternal E chord!

Peek-a-boo! Brian & Nick try to hide
behind the wine bar's signage.
Photo: Devorah Ostrov

Rave-Up: Will it be as political as the first LP? Or more personal songs?

Stiv: I don't know yet. No, there won't be any personal songs 'cause nothing happened in my life this year. It's been boring. No tour.

Rave-Up: You lived out at Stonehenge for a while. That must have been exciting!

Stiv: Yeah, that's true. It was! Stepping in cow shit, you know... I just decided that some stuff is okay personally, but unless you read into it, and it really conveys the emotion, it gets boring. It's really just self-satisfying. Politically, you gotta watch what you say too. I've already said a lot, and I don't want to repeat myself. So, I don't know what the hell we're gonna write about!

Rave-Up: The first time I interviewed you after you formed the Lords, you said that England was anti-rock 'n' roll bands, and you felt that the Lords would have a hard time making it in England. Has that changed in the last couple of years?

Stiv: Yeah. We thought... Well, we were playing places like the Marquee and not even filling it. When our first album came out and we went on tour, we wouldn't even play London. About a year later, we played the Hammersmith Palais with the Damned. We thought we might fill it, you know. And it ended up that they turned away 3,000 kids! And most of them that came to see us had Lords' t-shirts on. We didn't even know where to get the t-shirts! It really surprised us. We see the trend now moving away from techno-pop. It's like everybody's growing their hair... We didn't realize how many people are into what we're into. We thought we were going to get all these punks and skinheads coming to see us, but it was all these kids that are into leather now and have grown their hair. They're the ones into the Stooges and the Dolls and Alice Cooper. I didn't realize that there were so many here.

Rave-Up: All you need now is the press.

Brian & Stiv pose with a special friend.
Photo: Devorah Ostrov

Stiv: Yeah, good PR. In one way, it's good that it didn't happen before because it would have been too early maybe. See, a lot of bands get a lot of press in the beginning with their first album, and they're just a flash in the pan. You get everything they've got and that's it. They're gone. The Stones didn't do it till their 10th album. People don't realize that, but for a long time, they only had a cult following. That's how we prefer to do it, build up a grassroots following.

Rave-Up: Are the Lords bigger in Europe than Britain?

Stiv: Oh, yeah! We were voted the #1 band in Finland.

Rave-Up: Weren't you voted the best singer as well?

Stiv: Yeah, that was 2nd for best song.

Brian: Best live band in Spain.

Rave-Up: Does that surprise you?

Stiv: Yeah, it does! In France, we're almost like the #1 new band.

Rave-Up: Why is it though, that rock 'n' roll is so much bigger in Europe than England?

Stiv: The English kids follow the press too much. They're confused, they don't know what they want. They're like sheep. The journalists more or less choose the trends and program their way of thinking. The kids in France and Finland, and all that, are more suppressed. They're like the Midwest in a sense — they're not like that, but you know, in a way — they don't have these music papers coming out every week telling them what to listen to.

Rave-Up: Is it true that the English kids weren't into the Lords because all of you used to be in other groups?

Stiv Bators & Nick Turner

Photo: Devorah Ostrov

Stiv: In the beginning, yeah. The press gave us a real hard time about that — "outcast bands" and all that shit! But then they did an about-face 'cause we had such a strong grassroots following. The kids demanded it! So now we're getting real good reviews and they're taking us seriously. They thought we'd break up after one album. They thought we were just getting together to make a buck. But now they see we're serious.

Rave-Up: Weren't you getting flack about being a "punk rock supergroup" as well? [Stiv was in the Dead Boys; Brian was in the Damned; Dave was in Sham 69; Nick was in the Barracudas.]

Stiv: Yeah, but they've stopped doing that. They see us as the Lords.

Rave-Up: In a way, it's good that you've done it without the support of the press.

Stiv: Yeah, in a way it's good. It's sort of anti-press in a way. [Sarcastically] Plus, our PR agent was great! Never got us any interviews or nothing. That really helped us out. We're with IRS [Illegal Record Syndicate] now, you know, the PR company which doesn't exist.

Rave-Up: So, you kinda get interviews on your own?

Stiv: Yeah. Did you ever call the office and try to set up an interview?

Rave-Up: I was going to call them for directions on how to get here.

Stiv: They wouldn't even know.

Rave-Up: But I couldn't find their phone number in any phone book anywhere.

Stiv: Yeah, it's a secret organization. And we're their best-kept secret!

You can read my other interviews with Stiv Bators here: 

The Dead Boys: Brand New Band, Same Old Stiv
Stiv Bators: Two Extraordinarily Candid Interviews

Lords of the New Church: I Catch Up With Stiv & Nicky