Alternative Press
December 1989
By Jason Pettigrew

DOUBLED BARRELLED SALVATION
A chat with Screaming Blue Messiah Bill Carter. Jason Pettigrew looks to see where the bullets come from.

High speed car chases. Espionage. Being in the line of fire. Blowing away your neighbours. The kind of things that can get you killed or incarcerated. Or you can live these incidents vicariously through the Screaming Blue Messiahs, a band whose dangerous, jagged rhythm and blues workouts and unbridled energy by way of the state hospital can slam your blasé carcass up against the wall hard enough that you'll have to pick yer teeth up in the next Congressional voting district. The Messiahs' new record, TOTALLY RELIGIOUS is finally out after an acute case of low profile for two years.

"I think this is kind of resolving the Messiahs as a band," says Mr. Bill Carter, the Blue's leader, songwriter, singer and guitar terrorist. "We all felt that we put a lot of life into what we had done and we weren't ready to call it a day. There was a lot of dissatisfaction happening with the band; we weren't getting on, stuff we recorded wasn't coming out the way we wanted, promises to the record company, different management, all kinds of problems. It was getting to the point that it wasn't being fun anymore. I feel now 'cause we've had a lay-off that it's become an opportunity to enjoy it again and we just have to see how it goes."

Carter, drummer Kenny Harris, and bassist Chris Thompson have been tearing up stages for many years. Their American debut at the New Music Seminar (1985) was as subtle as a shotgun blast to the chest. They toured in the opening slot for the Cramps' last major US jaunt, and unequivocally mulched them up enough times that roadies began sabotaging their set. Their gigs are displays of true rock fury leaving smoked amps, broken strings and decimated eardrums in their wake. It's not 'fun' – it's fucking cathartic.

Carter and Thompson were in a band called Motor Boys Motor along with singer Tony Moon. They released one album for the Albion label and one single for some subsidiary of Stiff Records. Moon departed, and True Life Confessions drummer Harris was brought on board. (Moon was a close personal pal of a certain Robyn Hitchcock. In fact, Chris and Bill play on a little gem of Robyn's called 'Eaten By Her Own Dinner'). The Screaming Blue Messiahs were born and their debut, import-only mini LP GOOD AND GONE was released. Produced by the late Vic Maile, the record contained six tracks of R 'n' B shot up with punk and rock hypertension.

Since then, the band has released three steaming records, GUN-SHY, BIKINI RED and the new TOTALLY RELIGIOUS platter. It was rumoured that Maile's death from cancer earlier this year suspended the new record's release indefinitely.

"No... not at all," Carter resigns in low tones. "I talked with him before we did the album and he said he kinda had enough of me (laughter). I don't know... we were friends."

Carter dismisses any hint of being caught as a singer producer's band. "As far as I'm concerned, producers are just a problem. I mean... it boils down to the same thing – you're just arguing with them. We (new producers Howard Gray and Rob Stevens and the band) agreed on the goal; what we wanted was a decent record that sounded a bit hard-hitting and sounded a bit near to what we're all about.

"It's just sometimes how you get there and the route to it is where you differ... but that's just working with people. It hasn't been an easy record to make, that's for sure."

Well, hell, Bill, why didn't you just do it yourself? Who would know better about your band than you?

"It had never been actually suggested in a way that nobody burst out laughing! (laughter). Because we haven't had a kind of great success, it's kind of hard to get people going around saying, 'Oh yeah, we'll let that nut produce the band.

"I tend to pull everything to pieces every day and want to do different takes and different this and different that to try to make the whole thing cohesive and that can't go on forever. Sometimes I wonder... I'm still not sure how to go about recording. You have such high hopes and then you kind of get too close to it and then you come out and some things are better than you imagine. It was a workman-like job under the circumstances. If we were to go in tomorrow, it would sound completely different.

One thing that sounds different is the live show. It's different from the records. Like the difference between watching a TV movie and actually having a sawed-off shotgun barrel deposited in your mouth. It's as close to Armageddon with a PA system as you can get. When the Messiahs threaten to dessimate an entire city block during 'Twin Cadillac Valentine', 'Jesus Chrysler Drives A Dodge' or 'All Shook Down', the carnage is so compelling that you forget to run for cover.

Bill perks up. "Well, that's the beaut! I think if we've got the right attitude and play with freshness and intensity and spontaneity and play for people who encourage you... you get egged on by the audience. When that chemistry comes together, you start to move."

Ah, but wait! I feel an irony attack coming on. Bill has never been the kind of guy to do the cocktail lounge working of the room.

"Well, it's a two-way thing... It's a different type of communication, really. If we wanted to have a Tupperware party we could do that later."

Fair enough. As a veteran of many Messiahs' gigs, I feel that the band gets caught up in the energy so much that all metaphor aside, it does get dangerous. I remember one gig where Bill, who does not use guitar picks, ripped a chunk out of his thumb onstage without missing a note. When asked about it after the show, he couldn't remember a thing.

"It isn't... it's... it's just a state you get into. I mean... it's pretty frightening just to keep it on course. It does suck you in."

Detachment, I offer.

"Yeah, I think that's a fairly accurate viewpoint. Well, it is a bit. I'm sure that's why you get some people flashing themselves or Iggy Pop walking on glass and stuff. You do get a sense of diminished responsibility onstage, which is kind of healthy to a point, but it's kind of... I'm more interested in getting off on the atmosphere of it or the sound of it... it seems like slow motion (disgust). I don't know, I don't know what to say about it (laughter). It's embarrassing, really!"

TOTALLY RELIGIOUS' opener, 'Four Engines Burning (Over The USA)', is a fist flying reclamation. The first lyrics ram home the sentiment: 'I woke up this morning / Bent on destruction'. A two-year layoff hasn't mellowed the man out one nuclear flaming iota. Bill's lyrics are the perfect compliment to the driving energy generated by his bandmates. Other songs, past and present, have found our guitarslinger experiencing bodies floating in sweet water pools, taunting hitchhikers on the highway to hell, and trapped in towns where redneck justice stands tall (among other things).

Gee, Bill. Are you a happy guy?

"Happy? I'm optimistic. They probably aren't the most sociable lyrics... yeah, but you got to realise that it's a strange kind of cloth to wear. It's a funny thing to do to pick out of your personality. It's very harsh, uncompromising, psychotic, two steps removed from the world attitude, but... it's... I don't know, it's... I can't really justify it... and to do it repeatedly is...

"I was talking to somebody else about this. Take Clint Eastwood. Is he a happy guy? Blowing people away in films? What's that? It's a dream world. In my way of thinking, that's what a lot of what we do is. Escapism. It's far better to get that out on a friendly piece of plastic than me mumbling around the supermarket."

Plans call for the band to tour the States at the beginning of 1990. If you haven't seen the blur, get on the case. But there's just one loose end that needs tied up before I hand up and abuse my hearing with four speakers burning. Are the Messiahs really just a rhythm and blues band from England?

"What would you call Jimi Hendrix?" offers Wild Bill. "What kind of music is Jimi Hendrix music? It's not like Aerosmith. If you could say to Jimi Hendrix, 'Hey, what sort of band are you in?' and he said 'a hard rocj band' that would not say anything about what he did. We're a rhythm and blues band. It's kind of mutant (laughter)... on the hald shell."

How about what I read in some magazine: 'sound like Bo Diddley baby-sitting the bastard son of George Thorogood and Squeaky Fromme in a little house located near the mouth of hell'?

Bill stops, smirks and responds, "Let's have a cup of tea, then."