Q
March 1988
By Andy Gill

"Built to burn Rubber"
Screaming Blue Messiahs: music to drive by.

"Driving is the last form of freedom," says Screaming Blue Messiahs mainman Bill Carter. "Physical freedom, anyway. They'll probably stop it soon. I think it's quite a special thing to have. Cos 99 million people can't do it – in the third world, they can only walk down the street. They couldn't move anywhere. It's a luxury."

It's a luxury Bill likes to indulge as often as he can, and intensely as possible. Cars are the only things which animate this rather broody baldheaded guitarist – apart, that is, from live performance, when his sullenness gets channelled through his Telecaster in a Wilko Johnson-like frenzy which sees his shiny dome ricocheting around the stage like some wayward pinball. Cars are the inspiration that's driven Bill through an early stint with the Beefheartian R&B outfit Motor Boys Motor, and now three albums with the Messiahs, culminating in the streamlined powerglide of Bikini Red, an album built to burn rubber.

"Yeah, I liked that idea," says Bill. "I think music should be heard in cars. That's where I think it's best. Some cars. Not all cars. Some cars shouldn't be allowed to have music in."

Oh? And which cars might that be?

"Communist vehicles. Any communist cars – any cars where there's thousands and thousands and thousands of them all looking the same. They shouldn't have anything in them. And cars that have got great engines in them, that sound good, shouldn't have anything. So you're down to vans really..."

Bill's car comes into the second category, being 5000 quid's worth of Dodge Challenger, a small car with a high-performance engine. "It's a 440 six-pack SERT. That means it's got three two-stage carburettors on it. 71/2 litres with three two-stage carburettors that come in on a secondary vacuum." Which, roughly translated, means it goes like a bat out of hell. It's American, of course, but then so are many of the better things in life, in Bill's view.

"It's an inspiring country, but if you went to China, that might be too. It's just access to new imagery, really. We're living in an old country, it's quite tired, and there's not a lot of things to excite you. Whereas America is just like an adult playground, there's lots of things that are funny and exciting."

Not only that, there's lot's more freedom too. "They want you to do what you want. Whereas here, if you do what you want, you don't know your place. It's a different psychology. The bottom line is they like success, they like people to have a go at things, whereas here they don't like people to do that – especially fat, bald people. They shouldn't be in bands, shouldn't be doing it. It doesn't come in line with their idea of what a band should be: over here they think a band should look like The Clash or Keith Richards."

When last spotted, Bill Carter was cruising smoothly through the lower reaches of the British Top 40 with the Messiahs' first hit single, the infectious cartoon caper 'I Wanna Be A Flintstone'. The future, it seems, is looking that little bit brighter for fat, bald people in bands.