Kenickie: Because Rizzo Didn't Have The Right Ring To It!

Originally published in Teenage Kicks #2 (Fall 1997)

Interview by Devorah Ostrov/Intro written by Michael Cronin

The ladies of Kenickie: Emmy-Kate, Lauren, and Marie

Johnny X apparently skipped this photo session

More than halfway through the year, only a handful of standout albums have been released. Kenickie's At the Club, a bona fide pop gem, is one of them.

Fuelled by several hit singles, including the maddeningly catchy "In Your Car" and "Punka," At the Club landed in the Top 10 on the UK charts. On the eve of the album's US release, Kenickie came over to play a few gigs in New York, Boston, Los Angeles, and San Francisco.

Kenickie demonstrate proper public transport etiquette
(publicity photo)

The crowd at Bottom of the Hill was treated to an hour-long set of highlights from the album, interspersed with witty stage patter from dual guitarists and singers, Lauren Laverne and Marie Du Santiago.

Meanwhile, bassist Emmy-Kate Montrose and drummer Johnny X grounded the performance with a steady beat.

Hanging out poolside at the Phoenix Hotel before the show, Lauren and Marie (who've known each other since they were four, seem closer than sisters, and frequently finish each other's sentences) filled us in on the Kenickie story — so far.

* * *

At the Club (EMIdisc - 1997)

Teenage Kicks: You're from Sunderland?

Marie: Yes. It's a city on the Northeast coast of England, near Scotland. But we've just moved to a house in Camden. We love our little house.

Teenage Kicks: From what I understand, you formed the band while you were still in school because you always wanted to be friends and didn't want to separate when you got out of school.

Marie: Well, it's true. We had left school, but we'd only just left by about a week. We all went to college to do "A" levels, but during the summer holidays, Emma was going to go to a different college than us. So, we just decided to be a band, because it's a laugh and it would mean we'd get to hang about together quite a lot.

Teenage Kicks: You went to Catholic school. What was that like? They couldn't have encouraged you artistically.

Marie & Emmy show off their home in this magazine feature

Lauren: Oh, it was fucking fantastic! I loved Catholic school. My mild, loving nature shown through under the guidance of the nuns.

Marie: It was hell on earth! But it's over now, so we prefer not to think about it. Don't go there.

"In Your Car" picture sleeve 45 (EMIdisc - 1996)

Teenage Kicks: Did you know how to play anything when you started out?

Marie: No, but we learned.

Teenage Kicks: How long ago was that?

Marie: Two- and a-bit years.

Teenage Kicks: It sounds like you've been playing a lot longer than that! It doesn't sound like you were groping in the dark, trying to figure out what you were doing. At the Club is a fully realized record.

Marie: Thank you. Well, we always wanted to learn, and we didn't want it to sound amateurish and stupid.

Teenage Kicks: How did you decide which instruments you wanted to play?

Kenickie illustrated as Josie and the Pussycats

Marie: I already knew a chord from watching the telly and copying it. [Lauren's] dad had a guitar and taught it to her. Emma played the bass because it was crucial; that's what makes a band sound good. X [Lauren's brother] played the drums really well, so he did that. It just turned out that way.

Teenage Kicks: What kind of bands did you listen to growing up?

Marie: Roxy Music, David Bowie...

Lauren: Sparks, Kylie Minogue...

Marie: Kylie Minogue — very important. Betty Boo. Did you have Betty Boo? You have to pursue Boomania, the first Betty Boo album!

Lauren: Suede, Manics...

Marie: Manics, you know, are our favorite band. They're lovely, the Manics.

Lauren Laverne & Emmy-Kate Montrose

Lauren: I think James just comes to see us 'cause he knows we fancy him. But I fancy Nicky more!

Teenage Kicks: Have you played with them?

Lauren: We were going to do a gig with them but...

Marie: We did a TV program with them instead. They were big enough to schedule it so they could do the gig after the show. But we had to cancel the gig.

Teenage Kicks: What TV show was it?

Lauren: Jools Holland. It was a New Year's Eve spectacular, so it had a big celebrity audience. Some of our idols, like Noddy Holder, were there. Charlie Watts, Paul Weller...

Kenickie - publicity photo

Marie: Paul Weller... We think he's saucy!

Teenage Kicks: Did you meet Noddy Holder?

Kenickie on the cover of Melody Maker

Marie: Yeah, he's great. He talks like he sings! He's the loudest man you've ever heard in your life, and he's only just talking in a moderate tone.

Lauren: Lauren Holder... That has a nice ring to it!

Teenage Kicks: Imagine going through his closet!

Lauren: Oh, God! Apparently, the hat was very heavy.

Marie: He used to reflect the stage lights off it, onto girls he fancied. So he could see them better!

Teenage Kicks: Is there anyone you'd really like to play with?

Marie: I'd like to have the Rolling Stones support us.

Lauren: The Rolling who? Oh, I don't like them — they eat babies!

Teenage Kicks: You put out a couple of independent singles before signing to EMI. Did you get a lot of flak for going from an indie to a major label?

Kenickie - publicity photo

Marie: The first indie label we were on [Slampt], were the only ones that were interested. They were so underground and lo-fi.

Teenage Kicks: They'd print like 100 copies?

Marie: And burn 99!

Lauren: I will not sell my music!

Marie: The indie music people are all over the charts anyway. Nobody's bothered. There's a very fine line between indie and mainstream.

Teenage Kicks: How long did it take to record the album?

Lauren: Four weeks.

Marie: We took one week to do "Punka" and the B-sides because we needed a single out fast, and we didn't have anything recorded.

Lauren: We sort of record very quickly and write very quickly, as well.

"Catsuit City" EP (Slampt - 1995)

Marie: But it's taking longer and longer as we go because we're doing more stuff. We just did a song for the next album, and it's got a string quartet on it. So, that took a day or two to organize.

Teenage Kicks: Is it mostly the two of you that write the songs?

Marie: Mostly. Everybody puts in a bit, though.

Teenage Kicks: You used different producers on the album. Why was that?

Lauren: We did the rocky stuff with John Cornfield, who did the first Supergrass album. But for the rest, the more personal stuff, the sad songs like "Robot Song," we got Andy [Carpenter] who's our friend. We just wanted our friend.

Teenage Kicks: How much control do you have?

Lauren: All. Complete. Total.

Marie: Everything that's on the album is on there because we want it to be.

Lauren: That was our main contractual stipulation — total artistic control.

Kenickie grace the cover of the '97 Festival Guide

Teenage Kicks: On "In your Car," there's the line: "I'm too young to feel so old." What do you mean by that?

Lauren: "In Your Car" sounds cheerful, but that doesn't mean the lyrics are all cheerful. It's about starting out on this very hectic "pop star lifestyle." The good times feel completely like Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! But the bad times… You feel very, very old. Like you're living out some 35-year-old's life, living on your own and worrying about money.

Teenage Kicks: The album covers a whole gamut of emotions. Some songs are happy — about clothes or going out and having fun. While other songs are sad and introspective. Which are your favorites?

Lauren: It's like children. You can't choose.

Marie: I can. I choose the brightest child who brings in the most money for Mom.

Lauren: Then I choose the crippled child, 'cause I can send him out begging!

Teenage Kicks: It seems that in England, the bands are younger...

"Punka" picture sleeve 45 (EMIdisc - 1996)

Marie: There's supposed to be this big uprising of teenagers — bands such as Ash, Bis, and Kenickie. But teenagers have always been in bands. It's just that they've not necessarily been signed to major record labels.

Teenage Kicks: And you're all lumped in together and compared to each other.

Lauren: Ash basically sound like Thin Lizzy with Stevie Wonder singing. I couldn't even say what Bis sound like. But we were all teenagers when we started out, so it's an easy comparison. But George Harrison was 15 when he joined the Beatles. Pop is a teenage medium. So, I say, why shouldn't teenagers play it? ✨

* * *

Promo video for "In Your Car"

Sex Gang Children: After We Spent An Afternoon Stalking Him, Andi Politely Invited Us Round For A Cup Of Tea!

Originally published in Rave-Up #10 (1985)
Interview by Devorah Ostrov & Sara Brinker
Photos by Devorah Ostrov

Sex Gang Children at the time of this interview.
L-R: Kevin, Andi, Cam & Terry
Photo: Devorah Ostrov

Andi Sex Gang is soooo nice! How nice is he? Not only did he sneak these two fanzine journalists into Sex Gang Children's London Lyceum show last summer (along with several other kids waiting expectantly outside the backstage entrance), he also found relatively comfortable hiding places for everyone, and mapped an escape route for us into the main hall. Our hero!

A couple of days later, Sara and I "bumped into" Andi again (some might say we'd been surreptitiously following him for hours!) on Carnaby Street, and he invited us round to his place for a cup of tea. He's polite as well as nice! We swooned while he spoke of Édith Piaf and old movies, and while we waited for the rest of the group to turn up for rehearsal, we asked Andi a few questions.

My photo of Andi was 
used in the CD booklet for Blind!

Rave-Up: We really admire Sex Gang Children's attitude towards the kids that come to see you. Is it important to you to take care of your fans?

Andi: That's human nature. You're either a cunt or you're not. It's not a selling point of the band. Our selling point is our music, the live shows, and our records.

Rave-Up: Sex Gang Children tends to be categorized as a doom and gloom/ gothic/death rock band. Do you ever feel a bit trapped by the cult following for that genre of music?

Andi: It's not a matter of being trapped so much by a cult following... I think most of our followers are basically big fans and have great faith in the band.   You just want to be able to prove to everyone that you're not as limited a band as everyone thinks you are.

Rave-Up: There seems to be a great desire in the music press to limit you and label you.

Andi: There is. It gives you a feeling of being picked apart and exposed. It can make you feel incredibly naked.

Rave-Up: From some previous conversations we've had, you guys seem to be great fans of a variety of music and still able to get excited over other people's work.

Kevin Matthews & Cam Campbell
Photo: Devorah Ostrov

Andi: Yeah, it's true! We are fans of music and excited about what we do, excited about the people and the things in life. I'm excited by the fact that Steven Spielberg is in the position to do what he wants to do, and at the same time, he's offering entertainment for millions of people. That's brilliant! It gives us faith.

Rave-Up: Who are your heroes?

Andi: I like a lot of film stars — Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, Robert De Niro. I like Divine as well; he's a person of incredible style. I like the real stars, old film greats. They have no grand illusions about themselves.
   You know who I really like and admire? Billy Joel! He doesn't go around saying, "I've got an image." Or, "I'm a Batcave artist." He doesn't need to sell himself with cheap slogans. He says it all with his music.

Rave-Up: Are you guys working on any videos?

Andi: We did a video for the Édith Piaf song ["Les Amants D'un Jour"]. Graham Bentley, who does our lights and works with us behind the scenes, set up an appointment with Radio Luxembourg because they were greatly interested in us and they had a European cable network. We went up to Northampton, chose a location, and made a video on the spur of the moment. Then we stayed up for four nights editing and sussing things out. We went back to London, went to Radio Luxembourg, and the video was flown out to their cable network in Europe to show that very night.

Andi proves he loves Billy Joel by posing with one of his albums.
Photo: Devorah Ostrov

Rave-Up: Is it true that you finance everything yourselves?

Andi: Everything we do is self-financed. We keep everything to a minimum. We have to!

Rave-Up: So, you don't need the limos or the big hotel rooms?

Andi Sex Gang & Terry MacLeay
Photo: Devorah Ostrov

Andi: No, we aren't spoiled by the money. I remember the first time we got involved in a huge festival [Futurama 4, 1982]… We drove up there in a shitty old van that leaked, and we were hungry, and we just jumped onstage. We showed them the best of ourselves, while everyone else had this complacent attitude. It was supposed to be the festival of the year. When we got there, we had never seen such a lethargic atmosphere. Everyone was just waiting for something to happen.

Rave-Up: Nothing was happening, so you made it happen!

Andi: Yeah... That sounds like such a cheap thing to say, but it's true! We blew a lot of bands off the stage. In fact, the only two bands that stood out that night were us and Southern Death Cult. Everyone else just went through the motions. We were the only two bands that gave it something!✨

David Kaffinetti Has A Good Time All The Time! Spinal Tap's Keyboardist Talks About His Real-Life Rock 'N' Roll Career.

Originally published in BAM (January 1991)
By Devorah Ostrov

Publicity photo for This Is Spinal Tap
with David Kaffinetti top right

Whenever David Kaffinetti changes his address, he has to submit an additional document to the post office for "Viv Savage" — the fictitious heavy metal keyboardist he portrayed in the 1984 film, This Is Spinal Tap.

An accomplished musician in real life, Kaffinetti (credited as David Kaff in the mockumentary) laughs good-naturedly while emphasizing, "There really are people who write to me and put Viv Savage on the envelope!"

David Kaffinetti

Invited recently to speak to the audio-engineering students at USC on the making of Spinal Tap, he entered wearing Savage's trademark doctor's smock and, staying in character, bellowed, "Hello, this is Viv Savage! You folks are so lucky to be here!" Afterwards, he signed dozens of autographs — all as Savage.

"I have a great affection for Viv," says Kaffinetti of his affable alter ego whose philosophy is: "Have a good time...all the time."

Instead of being bothered by Savage's popularity, Kaffinetti revels in it. "I played him very close to my heart," he notes, "just a little bit dimmer. If people like that character, chances are they'll like me."

Born in the port town of Folkestone, Kent (in south-east England), Kaffinetti began practicing classical piano when he was 5 years old. At 10, he discovered rock 'n' roll in the form of Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, Elvis Presley, and Bill Haley. He never turned back.

Rare Bird featuring Kaffinetti (right)

Kaffinetti first played keyboards professionally with Rare Bird, an early progressive rock outfit, which influenced bands like Emerson, Lake & Palmer.

In 1975, after recording five albums with Rare Bird, he joined forces with Badfinger guitarist Joey Holland and Humble Pie drummer Jerry Shirley to form the short-lived "supergroup" Natural Gas.

My Spinal Tap 1984 World
Tour backstage pass

Unfortunately, although Natural Gas provided his meal-ticket to California, he was fired after completing the demo tapes that secured them a record deal.

These days, Kaffinetti can be found playing with the Oakland-based Model Citizenz, a band he describes as a cross between Journey and Living Colour!

"It's a wild combination," he agrees. "We definitely have that kind of gritty rock sound, but there's also a very commercial side to it."

Consisting of vocalist Bruce Jay Paul, guitarist Don Ervin, bassist Brian Abbott, drummer Doug Freedman and Kaffinetti on keyboards, Model Citizenz has been playing Bay Area clubs for just over a year.

And not long ago, they recorded a four-song demo tape at San Francisco's Secret Studios. Michael Ingram, Kaffinetti's songwriting partner for the past fifteen years, engineered the sessions.

"Lost (Without You)," a beautiful ballad written by Kaffinetti, Ingram, and Paul is included on the demo tape. While "Gone Too Far," a Kaffinetti/Ingram collaboration (with ex-Billy Satellite bassist Ira Walker) has been put forward for Eddie Money's upcoming LP.

David Kaffinetti as Viv Savage in This Is Spinal Tap

As to whether there'll be a sequel to Spinal Tap, Kaffinetti will only say that the three principals involved with the original — Michael McKean, Christopher Guest, and Harry Shearer — are "talking about it." However, he hints that it could entail filming a live concert in England, as well as incorporating segments cut from the first film.

He adds, "I just hope I'm a part of whatever they do!"