Nothin’ To Lose - Interview

The punky, sleazy band have their residential roots firmly stuck in the heart of Camden in London. After headlining the Purple Turtle’s “Hotter Than Hell” and being Metal Hammer’s demo of the month for April, it seemed that Nothin’ To Lose were hot property and well worth an investigating.

I met up with the majority of the band in the Worlds End in Camden mid week and the music was a tad too loud (and the pub company a bit too ‘Indie’ for the liking) so the interview was conducted in the residence of Mick Priestley (guitar) along with Maxi Pornscar (vocals) and Muggsy (bass). The surroundings were certainly interesting, walls coated in posters - the most noticeable one being a giant Kiss poster on the door. It certainly boded for an interesting chat (or at least his perception on the grand scheme of things) as Gene Simmons is Priestley’s idol.

Nix speaks to three of the four (five if you count ex-Playboy, Dave) filthy souls who it appears have incredibly filthy agendas consisting of rock n’ roll excess, Chris Martin trashing, men with meat hooks in their back and crazy apple messaging stalkers.

Nix: How did it all start?
Mick: Motley Crüe reunion gig!
Muggsy: He was pissed (Mick) and I was pissed. He was looking for band mates and breasts. Then he found me, then Max then he was like “Do you wanna be in a band?” and we were like “Ok!” and then we started. I couldn’t really remember it, I woke up the next day -
Maxi: I insulted him
Muggsy: Yeah, you called me a c*nt. I woke up the next day with a CD on me with like a couple of songs. I was like “what the f*ck is this?”. I had a listen and then it all of a sudden came flooding back to me. I found his number, then I rang him (Mick) and then he was northern and he scared me so I decided to join anyway.
Nix: (Laughs) So it was just all out of fear?
Maxi: (To Muggsy) I think you made some kind of promise to him
Mick: (To Nix) You’ve heard the CD right?
Nix: Was at the Hotter Than Hell gig ... which was ‘hotter’ than hell.
Maxi: It was really hot wasn’t it?
Mick: Everybody came out five stone lighter than when they came in
Muggsy: My hair stuck to my face like a paedophile and I only got there at half past ten
Mick: The sweat was dripping off my nose. My hair was stuck to my face too. Its usually a good three or four songs before that happens!
Muggsy: I glued my hair straight with industrial strength gel. I was there for about 45 minutes then it all went wiry and stuck to my head so I looked like a rapist.

Nix: Who would you say your main musical influences are?
Mick: Its classic rock influenced but its up to date sounding. For example, someone like Buckcherry - they sound very AC/DC, you know
Muggsy: We pretty much sound like stuff that has long solos in it and raunchy stuff. Naughty things, naughty things!

Nix: So I take it everything has come from life experiences?
Muggsy: There’s no ‘feed the world’ or stuff like that. Its all basically girls, drugs, sex, girls, drugs, sex, girls - its fun!
Mick: I think on the internet somewhere, it said “they sings songs about subjects that matter” - drinking, shagging, drinking more, shagging more, fighting, shagging a bit more, drinking ‘til you pass out then waking up and doing it again.
Muggsy: It may have been done and stuff, but people seem to like it so we’re going to keep doing it.
Mick: (To Nix) It’s like you said about the ‘Camden Crawl’. It gets full of sh*t. Shoe gazing! Its those sh*tty f*cking Indie bands that nobody gives a sh*t about. Its time to rock again.
Maxi: We could all sit around and say we don’t give a sh*t. We love our songs and who really wants to listen to that anyway.
Mick: I could write a song about how my dad never understood me and (mock) “I went to graduate at Oxford but it still didn’t ease the pain”.
Muggsy: Or I “hate my parents because they paid for me to go to university”
Mick: It’s a f*ck up man. There’s a big scene playing rock and roll sort of music but people like from NME - you’d never see it on the front page. Its always been there. But people are getting sick of this garbage when they turn on the radio.
Muggsy: We know our shoes look cool, we don’t have to look at them on stage. We like looking at people who like looking at us! (Laughs) I’m an attention seeker, he (Mick) likes cleavages and he (Maxi) likes looking at people in the crowd - in fact, he pretty much knows everyone! (Loud) I know you! You’re my friend!
Mick: What about the groupie thing the other day?
Maxi: Oh my god, I was DJ’ing the Robin Black aftershow and these three little girls are there. They didn’t even look old enough to be in there. They just came up to the DJ booth and said “We’re your groupies”. I said “I’m the DJ - the bands are upstairs” and they were like “No, for Nothin’ to Lose”- and I was like -
Muggsy: Sweet! I wish Jake (drummer) was here, he’d do that. He’s got a bit of a weird thing where he likes to pretend that he’s a paedophile. But he’s not really, he’s got an older girlfriend, she’s about 26 -
Mick: (High pitched) What?!, his girlfriend is about 26?
Muggsy: I’m the only one with a girlfriend who is younger than me, so I’m the only one that is sticking to nature.
Mick: I like the way that as the band has got better and better gigs, our girlfriends have got fitter and fitter. You could take like a flick book of girlfriends and go ugly, ugly, ugly, fit!
Muggsy: About two years ago it was hard to get sex with a girl, now they’re sort of giving us ‘heads’ in taxis and night buses and stuff. (Inaudable) But you didn’t hear about it as Mick was droning on about Chris Martin, again!

Nix : Why do you think people should come and see you guys over anyone else?
Mick: Because we kick ass more than anybody else. Nuff said! You can either come and see us kick ass or you can go and see another band and watch them ‘not’ really kick ass (laughs) next question! We have more people coming to see us than the next band because we’re better.
Maxi: Careful Mick, or you might not be able to fit out the door!

N: Is there any bands on the circuit that you can’t stand?
Maxi: They just ‘died’ so its ok!
Muggsy: The ready made *******
Maxi: I don’t know, we seem to get on with most people. We’ve had a few problems with a few of the older bands but -
Mick: There’s a big scene here and everybody gets along. Its not like “oh that band, I f*cking hate them, I want to punch them”.
Muggsy: When you see them in a club you’re nice to them, but from a professional playing point of view, if they get the headlining spot and you’re supporting you’re kind of like “damn”. Then if they support us, we’re like “haha!”
Maxi: There is like competition but we have to get along with each other because we play the same kind of music.
Muggsy: We buy each other pints when we see each other. We just want to headline!
Mick: It’s a nice kind of vibe. It’s a big scene that we’re in and its an exciting time to be a band that’s in it. There’s always another band popping up to play sleazy, dirty rock and roll songs.

Nix: What would you say is the state of the music scene at the moment in general?
Muggsy: They all suck hairy b*lls!
Maxi: There’s always good and there’s always bad, its just that its predominantly bad! Lots of bands just seem to be really boring at the moment. It just needs a kick up the *rse as a lot of music just seems rather bland. Like Coldplay (everyone laughs). I’m still trying to figure out how they became so popular.
Mick: I think it’s the same as its always been. If you went back in time twenty years you would like what you chose to listen to and there would be loads of cr*p about. If you were a rock n’ roll fan in 1992 or whatever when Nirvana were top of the charts you’d probably think it sucked then. You can say its always been ok or its always sucked because there is so many different styles of music there’s always going to be a lot of stuff that people aren’t going to like.
Muggsy: The reason Coldplay got famous is that if you write songs that depress girls because they have just broken up with their boyfriends so they can listen to and cry to then you’re going to make it. Its what a lot of people pick up on, the moment you write a ballad -
Maxi: Our songs just make girls cry!
Muggsy: That’s because we’re having sex with them at the same time (laughs) and pouring beer on their heads (pause) because we rock! (Pause then laughs) sorry, I’m sitting in a flat in Camden so I’ve got to talk sh*t!

Nix: You were Metal Hammer’s demo of the Month for April, how hard was it to get in there or was it a case of them coming to find you?
Mick: Was as simple as sending them the demo and they liked it. They picked it out of a lot and went wahey! A lot of people were saying, who are you shagging to get that. There was no ‘shagging’ of anybody involved. They rang us up because they really liked it.
Maxi: They called you up I think (Mick) and you thought that they were going to do an article on us, in fact they just called us up because we sounded like cool people to hang out with!
Muggsy: They said we sounded like their cup of tea which is good!

Nix: Have you got anything else media planned over the coming months?
Maxi: We were maybe thinking of setting fire to the Kerrang! offices (evil laugh)
Muggsy: Kerrang!’s orifices? (Pause) no, we’re going into PowerPlay magazine which is international.
Mick: We were in PowerPlay magazine for June and we’ve been in a lot of fanzine’s and stuff. Metal Hammer, Bubblegum Slut - I mean, I won’t say anything else about it but we’re lined up for more soon! We’re on Total Rock Radio every so often.
Muggsy: He’s (Mick) weekly on Total Rock.
Mick: (suave) I co-host a radio show, I’m very cool! It’s on from 3 til 7 on a Sunday afternoon. It’s one of the biggest audience shows on there. I’ve done my research and stuff on all the shows and its about half a million people that listen to it.

Nix: What’s been your best gig that you’ve had so far?
Muggsy: The Underworld (Camden) for the Xmas Rock Xplosion where we headlined. We had “Captain Howdy” who was hanging by meat hooks through his back behind us when we played “Psycho Man” so that was a pretty good gig.
Maxi: They were like proper suspension meat hooks.
Mick: He was a proper suspension guy and he was dangling around behind us. Swinging around.
Maxi: He amazed and horrified people at the same time.
Mick: People didn’t know whether to laugh, cry, cheer or vomit. There was Renegade Playboys, Skintight Jaguars and us. There was a pause before we came on and this guy comes out and the guy from this freak show was eating light bulbs and he layed down on a bed of broken glass. Someone stood on his head into the glass. He said he was going to get a hammer and do a blockhead thing with a hammer and nail into the head. I dared him to do it with a power drill, like a big Black and Decker. I said, just drill it into your face. He said “right, I’m gonna do that”. We’d thought he’d finished and he’d come out again and all we saw was the stage lights on this nutcase drilling a big power drill into his face.
Muggsy: The reason why that gig was good, especially for me and Max was that it was the first gig that Nothin’ to Lose had done where we got all our booze for free, other things and got laid by somebody who we didn’t know purely because they liked the band! That was a proper sex, drugs and rock n’ roll gig.
Mick: There was a big queue outside the Underworld too to see us, and we were like ‘wahey!’.

Nix: Have you ever had a really sh*tty gig, like one you’d like to erase?
Maxi: The one we did in Nottingham was pretty bad for me.
Muggsy: My hand froze up while we were playing and he was ill.
Maxi: I’d had about half an hours sleep and I smelt like a corpse.
Muggsy: I woke up about 5 o’clock in the morning because I knew I’d spend six hours trying to find you. I have a problem with my hand on stage sometimes. I can go eight sets and my hand be fine in practise but on that stage my hand seized up. I just gave up and started smacking the strings with my fist.
Maxi: It was a pretty cool gig though, everyone seemed to enjoy it. Everyone afterwards said that it was cool but while it was happening it was odd.

Nix: What’s the biggest challenge that you’ve had so far?
Muggsy: Finding Max
Maxi: I’m not that bad, oh ok, I used to be.
Muggsy: We told him to turn up two hours before a photoshoot. We said to be there for five when it was supposed to be at seven. He turned up at eight and Jake (drummer) had to leave at like five past eight!
Maxi: I did go off on my tangents. I’d disappear for days on end and nobody would know where I was.
Mick: It’s a bit like when Black Sabbath did a tour and Ozzy disappeared and they found him like three days after in this hotel. Ozzy about a few minutes before the gig was found out that he’s apparently gone out and met these red Indians because they’s herded the smoke when he was on his hallucinogens. He got smashed off his face and like these Indian guys are sitting there in a massive circle smoking this massive bong.
Maxi: Yeah, that sounds like me.
Muggsy: Max is hard to find but good to keep.
Mick: I think the things is we had a hard time finding the right line up. The original guitarist wasn’t to be the guy, then we got another guy in - it was just a case of finding the right guys. We have Dave, but the other guy -
Muggsy: He didn’t do the drugs, he didn’t do the sex and he barely did the rock n’ roll.

Nix: Best song of all time, a non-Nothin’ To Lose one?
Muggsy: “It’s raining Men”, I like listening to that while wearing my Speedos and smearing myself in peanut butter (laughs)
Maxi: Zeke - “Lets Get Drugs”!
Muggsy: I’d have to have “You’ve Gone Wild Because I Have You” from Wild Tattoo. Because every time I think I’ve not been weird enough, something else happens.
Mick: (playing with his stereo) The worst line ever “Let me drive this little red love machine” (laughs).
Muggsy: Sounds like you’re having sex with a sunburnt midget.

Nix: Do you have any strange road stories?
Muggsy: The strange, strange stories come from individuals.
Maxi: The first time we’d met was possibly the weirdest. There was this mad ice cream truck once selling magic mushrooms. A police van turned up and tried to arrest them.
Mick: What about that time where you but that glow stuff on your (Muggsy) c*ck?
Muggsy: At Reading I broke a glow stick in half and put it on my k**b and then ran around with all these people coming out of their tents on acid seeing this green p*nis running past. I accidently rubbed it on the back of some girls head. I was stark b*llock naked and someone was like “hey, you’ve got a green c*ck” and anything it touches turns green. Since then, I think I’ve lost my sex drive!
Mick: When we were driving up to Nottingham, we were on the motorway and the car on the right smacked into the barrier thing. It came about an inch across in front of us at about 80 miles an hour and got destroyed by this Royal Mail van. We were like ‘whoa!’ with all these cars spinning and flying.
Muggsy: Me and Max have this police warrant out for us in Mornington Crescent. We stole a filing cabinet and we were running up to taxis with our hands in the shape of guns saying “get out the f*ckin car!”. We then decided to jump over two cars then these two blokes came out and said “you’ve ruined our car” and then they’ve got the CCTV of us. Then there was a police thing out for us for a while. We couldn’t go back to our rhythm guitarists for a while so we fired him (laughs).
Mick: My stalker as well. That was a weird one. I haven’t seen her for a while. To cut a long story short, I f*cked this girl and she was really weird. One day she was all “I love your band” (simpering). Literally, she would stand on the end of the street for like ten hours in the freezing cold and then bring me apples (everyone laughs hysterically). When we did the Christmas show, because that was only at the Underworld, I forgot the guitar boost pedals so I run home and I got the pedal and come out and she was standing there. I run past this nut case. I’d seen her there, on the Monday or the Tuesday, she’d waited like ten hours and she’d carved ‘sorry’ in it with her teeth! That is the craziest thing I’d seen in my entire life! She’s then try and ring me at like half two in the morning and say “I’m homeless, I need help”.
Muggsy: See, if you’d stop sh*gging tramps, you’d be fine!
Mick: She wasn’t a tramp, she was just bonkers! She was pretty bad in bed which was a tragedy! (To Maxi) Remember you f*cked that Polish girl, the one with no chin? Anyway, as the girlfriends have got fitter, maybe the stalkers will get fitter.

Nix: Finally, after all the madness - what are your aims for this year?
Mick: We’ve a tour planned. The main aims of the year is to get into lots of magazines and boosting the profile. We’ve got an album to finish and getting the tour done, then do another tour - just basically getting the word out as much as possible. We’re currently unsigned.
Maxi: Its good though because a lot of bands get involved with labels really early on and it really hinders what they are trying to do.
Mick: If you get signed to some sh*t record label that’s it. There’s a time when you want to get signed. There’s no point going ‘we’ve done one gig, we’ve got a song recorded and we’ll sign to the first record label that comes along’. It’s a case of finding the right label that will work hard for you and do the best for you.

Check out Nothin’ To Lose’s Myspace at www.myspace.com/nothintolose for more information on tour dates and releases. Also check out their demo review on the reviews page.

Words by Nicola (Nix) Crichton, photographs courtesy of Dany Serrano

© Pure Rawk 2006