Possessed By Death Tripping

Since the early 1980’s Alien Sex Fiend have gleefully dodged genre labels and brackets. The UK two-piece darkly tongue-in (rotten) cheek sound mixes elements of Goth, psychobilly, punk, electro-fired shock rock, and various brands of electronica- for a distinctive and one-off experience. Last year Cherry Red Records- their long-running label- released the third in their classic album boxset series- The 13th Moon Years. This features the project's last four albums, as well as a ton of bonus tracks- taking in Nocturnal Emissions (1997), Information Overload (2004), Death Trip (2010), and Possessed (2018).  Both members of the band-Nik Fiend and Mrs Fiend, kindly agreed to give us a rare/ in-depth email interview- discussing the bands' origins, their career, and of course The 13th Moon Years boxset.

M[m] What are some of your earliest sonic memories? And did any of these inspire you to want to create your own music?

Nik Fiend: I remember travelling somewhere in a car, I wasn’t very old at all. My father had a small transistor radio he’d taped to the dashboard, & I heard “Telstar” (by The Tornados) playing on it. I was in the back of the car, but I felt like I had gone into another world. That’s the earliest memory. Later on, my mother used to play The Rolling Stones, The Beatles & other singles on our old radiogram. My sister & I & she would all jump around the living room, I don’t think you could call it dancing! My parents would also have some mad parties with lots of music. As for creating my own music, I don’t think I ever thought about that – back then it seemed the only way of attaining that was by being proficient on an instrument or having a good singing voice! It was really the advent of punk that opened up the possibility for me – I felt like it felt… it was an explosion of possibilities.

Up til then my background didn’t offer the options of getting into music or art, it was working class, east London, so I was expected to go into manual work or a factory or something. The school careers advisor told me to expect nothing from life! So, I’ve done brilliantly!! (laughs) I’ve never been one for listening to other people’s advice though! If I had I wouldn’t have achieved anything. So yes, punk was the game changer.

Mrs Fiend: There was often music in my parents’ house, my father had been a jazz drummer, he was always playing either his jazz or classical music records. So, I was exposed to that until I got my own small radio with an earpiece & could hear Radio Luxembourg – yes under the bedclothes at night! Then I had my own record player. By 15 I’d got into things like The Velvet Underground plus early Pink Floyd and Hawkwind. I’d also had piano lessons as a child, but I had never thought of creating music myself, until ASF happened.

 

M[m] Please briefly discuss how/ when Alien Sex Fiend came about? And was it your first sonic venture?

Mrs Fiend: It was the first for me, as I said I’d never thought about being in a band!

Nik Fiend: Not my first – I started in around late 1974, I think, with a couple of friends I knew. Just jamming, covering other people’s songs, I reckon that gave me the bug & I started to think that maybe I could do something. Later I moved to North London which seemed to be an epicentre & got various punk bands – Demon Preacher, The Demons.- together. That was all a learning process – finding rehearsal places, booking recording studios, I made my own records, did loads of gigs, making posters, flyers, all that stood me in good stead for what came later with ASF. The personnel would change a lot – sometimes someone would step in for one gig never to be seen again! (laughs). Then I had an “experience” -  shall we say? – at a gig on the Isle Of Wight thanks to some magic mushrooms, after that I said to Mrs Fiend to play me all of her weird records again – I had a different mindset after that & decided to do something different.

Mrs Fiend: We’d moved into a flat above Yaxi (former ASF guitarist) & we’d hear weird noises coming up through the floorboards which was intriguing…

Nik Fiend: I knocked on his door & we got chatting & ended up setting up The Boneshakers, a short-lived outfit, but when the other 2 people left, we started doing stuff on our own. I jacked in the idea of a “band” as such – I wanted something looser, more experimental, more of a collective. The original idea of Alien Sex Fiend was to create some music on cassette tapes as a background to making art & a magazine. There was no masterplan, as such. Yaxi’s friend, Johnnie (former ASF drummer) joined in & Mrs Fiend was involved too – again loosely initially. Eventually, I booked a small 8-track recording studio to get some ideas down on tape & that went so well that I booked a few more sessions, though it still wasn’t a “band” as such but bit by bit it cemented down to us four.

I compiled the resulting tracks onto a cassette which got reviewed in Melody Maker (now defunct weekly music paper) as “The ugliest thing in the name of music”, which I thought was a splendid description! That review led to a gig at The Batcave club in Soho. We date Alien Sex Fiend as a “band” from that gig – 1st December 1982. Because from that point we never stopped.

Mrs Fiend: My original brief was to “make some weird noises & bang a bit of percussion”. It’s expanded somewhat since then! (Laughs)

 

M[m] What made you select the project's name, and did you have any other names you nearly went with?

Mrs Fiend: There were a lot of boring band names around at the time – like The Shirts – though I don’t know if that actually was a band name, but that type of uninspiring name was around…

Nik Fiend: We had a list of names – some ridiculous like Cloven Hoof Thunder War Lizard – taking the mickey…

Mrs Fiend: That sort of name gave away what the music was likely to sound like though…

Nik Fiend: We didn’t want something like that – also it was still a “conceptual thing” – it was making a magazine & art as well as the music – under one umbrella. “Alien Sex Fiend” was one suggestion & it immediately stood out to me, sparking a load of ideas -. with “alien” covering outer space, being an outsider, being different. “Sex” is infinite! Then “fiend” is a monster or an addict. Over time, the music took over from the original idea, & the “background music” became the foreground! But it felt right…

Mrs Fiend: The magazine continued too as our occasionally issued “Fiendzine” & of course the artwork has continued on those & all of our releases, posters, T-shirts, etc..

 

M[m] There has always been an element of quirkiness/humour within the project makeup, which has developed/ grown over the project's existence. Did you ever find it difficult to try to balance this with your darker/ more horror-fed side?

 Mrs Fiend: No, our songs come out how they come out! We don’t try & balance things, we just do it. We’re serious about what we do, but we’re not “po-faced” – we don’t take ourselves too seriously!

Nik Fiend: There’s quite a lot of irony… The whole world’s going mad – people are obsessed with a load of twaddle - whether that’s 24-hour rolling news forever speculating about something or social media or cat videos, etc, etc, - the only way to get through some of that is to have a sense of humour. So much of what we do is spontaneous, so It’s difficult if not impossible for me to rationalise or analyse what we’ve been doing – quite naturally - for the last 42 years! ASF started out as one thing & morphed & will continue to morph in its own time & in its own way. Me and Mrs F go along with the ride!

 

M[m] The Cherry Red classic albums boxset separates your album career into three - please talk a little about the first two of these- touching on what you feel were the high points in each set, and which albums didn’t come out as you had hoped?

Mrs Fiend: As with most of ASF, it wasn’t all planned out in advance – initially Cherry Red Records wanted to put out a Box Set, they decided on the 1st four albums, “Who’s Been Sleeping In My Brain?”, “Acid Bath”, “Maximum Security” & “It – The Album”. We said ok, because the originals & re-issues had all sold out, so those albums were no longer available in a physical format. That set has sold really well, and they keep re-pressing it! Consequently, they were keen on releasing a 2nd Box Set the following year. That naturally took in the latter 4 studio albums on Cherry Red – “Here Cum Germs”, “Another Planet”, “Curse” & “Open Head Surgery”. That set sold out on pre-order before it got to the release date, again it’s been repressed several times.

Nik Fiend: We’d soon know if there was a problem, which has been the case all the way through – if our first single hadn’t sold well, we wouldn’t have made the first album! It’s a miracle! No-one told us what to do, or said “Here’s the formula”, it wasn’t promoted with flashing lights, etc – but it just keeps going.

Mrs Fiend: With hindsight, I suppose it could look like a pre-planned run of releases – but it wasn’t.

The high points would definitely be the inclusion of the John Peel BBC Sessions on Box Set Vol 1, they had never been available before. Also, the bonus tracks - particularly all of the “I Walk The Line” E.P. Then on the 2nd Box Set, again the bonus tracks are a high point – especially “They All Call Me Crazee” & “Hurricane Fighter Plane” which are massively popular in Germany in particular, “It Lives Again” too, also “Stuff The Turkey” (ASF’s Christmas single) and “Haunted House” which stormed the US dance charts. Single releases like those that weren’t on an album & many B-sides can all get lost over time, so it’s great to have them included in these sets.

Nik Fiend: As for which albums didn’t come out as we had hoped – there aren’t any! Mate, we wouldn’t have put them out!! No-one forced us to do anything – it was by our own hands, it’s hard to have the same mindset that you had at the time – but I do know that I was 110% behind each & every release – we did what we wanted to do, what we thought was right, there was no room for compromise. I’m happy!

M[m] Last year we’ve saw the third in the classic album boxset series- The 13th Moon Years. Taking in the four albums 1997’s Nocturnal Emissions, 2004’s Information Overload, 2010’s Death Trip, 2018’s Possessed. The first album in the set saw you focusing on various forms of electronica- please talk a little bit about how/ why you chose this focus for the album?

Mrs Fiend: We’d set up our own 13th Moon Records label In the mid-1990s, but almost all of those albums have been out of print for years & unavailable on physical format, Cherry Red suggested those releases be covered by Box Set (Vol 3), otherwise a big chunk of our history would be missing.

Nik Fiend: With “Nocturnal Emissions”, at the time I wanted to take a bit more of a back seat on the vocal front & get even more involved in the production side of the music for a start.

Mrs Fiend : Also, we’d got a music computer by this time - thanks to the Inferno computer game soundtrack project we did in 1994 - so I was able to program a bit more than I had previously, although we still recorded to tape & as always played live in the studio as much as possible. We recorded “Evolution” which was the starting point of the “Nocturnal Emissions” album at Youth’s Butterfly Studios & ended up going to all-nighters, parties, etc…

Nik Fiend: It was quite an optimistic time with a new generation of young musicians, with little or no boundaries at that time. We were around lots of creative people, our music had influenced them, which was great, we were DJing, they were DJing, they were remixing, we were remixing… It was another creative time, a different side…

Mrs Fiend: Although we’ve always had electronic elements in our music…

Nik Fiend: This was a different emphasis, that’s all. Without swamping everything in guitar, though there are guitars on there. A mate of ours calls it his “ASF summer album” – he starts playing it around May…

Mrs Fiend: You need to explore different musical areas, to keep yourself fresh.

M[m] Information Overload saw you shifting all over the genre map- moving between from electro-punk to psycho ambience meets hazed techno beats. Please discuss why you feel the album turned out this way?

Mrs Fiend: From your description I ‘d have to check THAT album out! It sounds very interesting!! (Laughs) Job done!

Nik Fiend: It was a fairly traumatic period for us, a number of things were going on over the 7 years between this & the previous album. It’s in the sleeve notes of the box set if you want to know more! It’s no mean feat – writing the songs, recording them, mixing, compiling the tracks, doing the artwork & at that time getting the album released under our own label & doing gigs as well.

Mrs Fiend: Whatever is going on in your personal life & various events all have an effect on the music you produce. I’m always quoting Nik’s lyrics from this album; it was way ahead of its time. People are feeling “information overload” now due to things like excessive smart phone usage, Nik was banging on about it 20 years ago, he could see where things were heading. “Internet porn & rubber excitement, click here for further enticement”, is a brilliant line, “rape & pillage in the global village” I could go on!

Nik Fiend: People are being manipulated & herded like cattle & they’re willingly letting it happen – the cover artwork I did for this album hits the nail on the head.

 

M[m] As an album Death Trip has a decidedly ramshackle feel- with a return to a more goth-meets-garage rock vibe. What fuelled your decision to go back to your more guitar/bass-bound side for this release?

 Mrs Fiend: Wow! It just goes to show it’s all to do with the “ear of the listener”! Like “eye of the beholder”. Everyone hears music differently. Again, it was not a conscious decision, it’s just how those songs happened at that time.

Nik Fiend: Each album has its own particular sound & feel… there’s a particular period of time that’s encapsulated in that particular album. I play a bit more guitar on this one, so perhaps that’s what you’ve picked up on, I’m particularly proud of “B.B.F.C.”!

Mrs Fiend: That’s just me & Nik, his vocal & main guitar were recorded live together whilst I was doing the bass line & additional vocals, so it has a very live feel. A friend of ours reckoned it was the best punk song ever & he puts it on at full blast whenever he’s had a tough day with work!

Nik Fiend: The only real conscious decision on this album was to release it on vinyl – the big vinyl resurgence hadn’t happened then, & I wasn’t sure if other people wanted vinyl too, but they did & it sold out.

Mrs Fiend: This is 6 years after “Information Overload” so it was bound to be different.

Nik Fiend: It was a really popular album, so we’d toyed with a vague idea for a “Death Trip 2”, we did a lot of alternate mixes in preparation, but the release didn’t happen mainly cos we were playing so many gigs at the time. The big thing for the Box Set version is those mixes can finally be heard now.

M[m] The Possessed album followed on with the use of guitars & creepy atmospherics but with a more set-if-shambling groove, with an almost grim blues feel in places. Are you fans of the blues genre, and what personally were your influences on this album?

Nik Fiend: It’s quite hard to avoid blues music, rock is based on it for a start! It’s the origin of guitar music…

Mrs Fiend: Again, no specific influences for this album.

Nik Fiend: Not intentionally anyway, we love music – end of!

Mrs Fiend: The main difference with “Possessed” was we’d got back together with Mat Pod (from the “Nocturnal Emissions” period) & Simon “Doc” Milton (guitarist from the late 1980s to early 90s).

Nik Fiend: It was great working with both of them again, They hadn’t worked with each other before, but they bonded immediately – they got on great together. But we never even gave it a thought that they wouldn’t’!

Mrs Fiend: They’d both come back into ASF for some shows in 2012 – including 30th-anniversary ones - they’d gone so well, everyone – us & the audiences - were loving it, we were on fire as a band & Nik felt we HAD to get that line-up recording…

Nik Fiend: We all loved experimenting… we were lucky that we got the album recorded because Doc passed away in 2016 – completely unexpected & a terrible shock to everyone. Thank goodness we’d seized the moment & got those recordings done. The sessions were highly enjoyable times.

 

M[m] To date Possessed is your last released album- do you have plans for a new album yet, and if so any hints on what we can expect from it?

 Mrs Fiend: I think we’re still getting over compiling Box Set Vol 3!

Nik Fiend: That set covers 28 years’ worth of events – it turned out to be a much bigger project than I first thought. It took a lot of time trawling through our archives, checking out different mixes of songs, particularly to find bonus tracks that were worth being included. It was very enlightening, but it did make me very reflective - cos it’s going through the past. It’s a lot of years to re-live & a lot of shit happened! We were very hands-on with the Box Set – not just the tracks but the booklet of artwork, photos - we’ve either done or overseen all of it!. But we’re always working on new ideas… we always have…

 

M[m] You are clearly fans of horror/ all things ghoulish- so with that in mind please select/ talk about five or so items that impacted & Informed all you do- be they books, films, directors or works of art?

Nik Fiend: In no particular order - films like Eraserhead, Clockwork Orange, the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Evil Dead & old B movies like Plan 9 From Outer Space, Freaks, also The Cabinet of Dr Caligari. & the TV series of “The Munsters”…

Mrs Fiend: We did like the original “Addams Family” but we preferred The Munsters – the Addams family knew they were weird, but The Munsters thought they were normal – I nearly damaged myself laughing at some episodes. The TV series was being re-shown around the time ASF started up in 1982…

Nik Fiend: & we met Grandpa Munster in New York! We’ve been influenced by everything including the kitchen sink - literally – we sampled one on “Death Trip”!

Art-wise I would have to say Salvador Dali and comics such as 2000AD. I wasn’t a big book reader in my earlier years, but I did read Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas by Hunter S Thompson, also some William Burroughs…

We started amid an explosion of all sorts of stuff – a comic’s influence wouldn’t be alone though; it would have been added to whatever blender I had going on at the time – anything & everything would go in. Even a photo could trigger something, it was very free. You weren’t being hit by endless drivel…

Mrs Fiend: Add in Forbidden Planet for me – the soundtrack for that is amazing. I did love the original Star Trek TV series but other than the spacey bleeps I can’t think of any direct influence on me though! We’re bound to have forgotten something, but these are all definites.

 

M[m] What has impacted in the last few months- be it film, music, or art in general?

Nik Fiend: I really liked “Moonage Daydream” the film about David Bowie by Brett Morgen from a couple of years back – I hadn’t seen it before & we both really enjoyed it – the editing is brilliant, I can’t imagine how long it took to put some of the sections together. Original footage, live bits, studio, abstract sections, with Bowie interview extracts as a voice over. I found it refreshing & I ended up buying the DVD so I could re-watch it - I’m old skool! Since then, I’ve had a bit of a Bowie phase off the back of that – which has been interesting…

Mrs Fiend: Though Nik’s assured me that he won’t shave his eyebrows off! (laughs)

 

M[m] what’s next for ASF- any shows lined up, new box sets, other releases, etc?

Nik Fiend: (Laughs) I’ve never known what’s going to happen next with ASF – we end up in the middle of something before we’ve thought about it! Fuck knows! & beyond!

Mrs Fiend: Thank you & bye-bye from us!

 

Big thanks to Nik and Mrs Fiend for their time and efforts with the interview.   Classic Albums Volume 3 - The 13th Moon Recordings can be brought directly from here.   The band's website is here