Interview: Chumbawamba
The streets of Prague are walked freely these days, but Alice Nutter knows them from way back, before the stunning collapse of communism and the even stranger rise of her band, Chumbawamba.
It’s a cold, rainy night in the Czech Republic, and Nutter is killing time, wandering the cobblestones before she plays a sold-out show to 1,200 waiting fans. Chumbawamba divide their duties evenly, and Nutter – with her bright-blue hair and affable, bookish manner – serves as the group’s primary spokeswoman. When she reaches a gated passageway, she stops.
“We played a show down there once,” says Nutter, pointing into the dark. “Before the wall came down. It was this tiny squat, basically. And all these kids from Poland came on trains and buses from, like, 10 hours away. It was incredible. We had to play again the next night just so the people from Prague could see us.”
Nutter walks on, reminiscing about the days when her group’s records were available here only through a small underground network. Back then there was order to the universe. The Cold War was a constant, as was the fact that Chumbawamba would never be anything but an obscure eight-person collective of anarchists from Leeds, England. The emergence of the band’s Tubthumper – a Top 10 album featuring the sensation “Tubthumping” – was about as likely as jailed playwright Vaclav Havel being elected president of the then-Czechoslovakia.
Nutter takes a left and heads toward the club. It’s only 20 minutes before show time. She passes her band mate Dunstan Bruce at a pay phone, but the fans milling about in front of the venue take no notice. A lot might have changed since the upheavals of 1989; Chumbawamba might be the most unlikely success story of this or any year; but they still aren’t recognizable pop stars. Things haven’t gotten that weird.
PART I: THE SUBTLETY OF CHUMBA
“THIS SONG IS DEDICATED TO NOEL GALLAGHER and Prime Minister Tony Blair,” shouts Dunstan Bruce before the group’s second song. “They’re great friends. They drink champagne together.” He pauses to let the insult sink in, then adds, “This song is called ‘I Can’t Hear You ‘Cause Your Mouth’s Full of Shit.'”
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And then music and lyrics collide at once. Bruce and fellow vocalist Danbert Nobacon lurch and rap at the front of the stage: “I can’t hear you ’cause your mouth’s full of shit/I can’t hear you ’cause your mouth’s full of shit/Do something about it/I can’t hear you ’cause your mouth’s full of shit.”
Suddenly the lilting voice of Lou Watts floats in: “If you think you’re God’s gift, you’re a liar,” she sings. “I wouldn’t piss on you if you were on fire.”
And then Bruce and Nobacon get back to work.
“I can’t hear you ’cause your mouth’s full of shit/I can’t hear you…”
Even in English, the Czech crowd understands every word.
WITH SUCH UNPLEASANTNESS OUT OF THE WAY, the band members retreat backstage after the show, where they chat and lounge idly. They drink a whiskey drink, they drink a vodka drink, they drink a lager drink. Unfortunately, there is no cider available to round out the lyrical synchronicity.
All eight band members wear stark black shoes, black socks, black army pants, black sweaters. It’s as if they’re trying to blend into the cover of a Spinal Tap album. How much more black could they be wearing? The answer is none. None more black.
“You look all raggle-taggle if you don’t decide,” says Nutter of the dress code. “Imagine if the Black Panthers had worn woolly jumpers, all different colors.”
In truth, however, the members of Chumbawamba look less like a militant organization than like a group of philosophy grad students. They are in their early to mid-30s, extremely friendly, pale, studious and obviously in tight with the fringe elements of the world’s hairstylists. There is Nutter (vocals, percussion, blue hair), Nobacon (vocals, no hair), Bruce (vocals, percussion, bleached hair) and Watts (vocals, keyboards, spiky hair). And then there are the others: Boff (vocals, guitar, bleached hair), Harry Hamer (drums, leopard-patterned hair), Jude Abbott (vocals, trumpet, bleached hair) and, finally, Paul Greco, the bassist and owner of a hairdo somewhere in transition from Sid Vicious to Coolio, or vice versa.
They are an odd lot. Earlier in the day, at a photo shoot, they scowled at the camera in unison. The moment the photographer took a break, however, they began laughing and joking like the old friends they are. You can feign anger only for so long. “If you see us live, you know we have a sense of humor because we’re just not cool,” says Nutter. “We wear stupid costumes. It’s not dignified. It’s more Liza Minnelli than Verve.”
Interview: Chumbawamba, Page 1 of 3