interviews

In the early 80s Hanoi Rocks were tipped for stardom, yet after the tragic death of their drummer Razzle in a drink driving accident, Hanoi struggled on before being told by their glamorous lead singer Mike Monroe that he couldn't carry on. Such sweet loyalty is rare in rock n' roll. The Beach Boys, AC/DC and Kiss all carried on after losing founder members and even The Manic Street Preachers who cite them as an influence carried on.
Hanoi Rocks are part of a lineage which stretches back to The Dolls, through to Guns N' Roses and the early Preachers who proclaimed them as `seminal'. Monroe went solo post Hanoi and then formed Demolition 23. Pure Voltage hooked up with him in London where he was a guest star at a Backyard Babies gig to talk about Demolition 23, Steve Stevens and Jerusalem Slim, Billy Idol and Nasty and Uzi Suicide.

Mike has spoken before in the past about how Steve Stevens ripped him off by jumping ship on the Jerusalem slim project for the Vince Neil band, taking song titles and music with him. Before letting rip on the diminutive axe meister , he just laughs at Star's Billy Idol badge.

Then he (Nasty) was on a retainer for like four months and nothing happened, the manager was trying to fuck me . Got another one, put this European tour together and I just said whichever countries we'd advertised like Sweden I said I'll do those gigs and call off the other ones. It was going to be a disaster so then we did that tour but then Nasty signed up for the Swedish dates.We were starting to get record company response here and Kerrang coverage, it was a good time to come and play here and then Nasty just did the last gig with the Backyard Babies where we were opening up and Nasty said he was going to leave, he was going to stop playing altogether which was bullshit because he had gotten himself a deal in Japan while on my tour, he got himself a solo deal, so Thanks a lot pal! so he fucked it, he fucked the whole thing. I couldn't find another guitar player and sadly enough Jay Hening just shot himself last Spring, killed himself.

" What happened was a visa thing with Jay Hening (Demolition guitarist), so Nasty(Suicide) just came to sit in for Jay(making it a near Hanoi reunion) and then at this press conference, they were asking him `What are you doing whoring with this band? Cheap and Nasty, what's happened to them? and he's like "Well I'm a permanent member of this band, Y'know I'm here to stay" so I was like `Wow!, because we'd just agreed before the conference that he was going to say that he was only here temporarily. He just decided to go "I'm with the band" Y'know and it was like are you serious? "Yeah, yeah, this is what I want to do".

(laughs)What have you got there (looking at star's badge) Billy Idol, you like Billy Idol?(Does his Bromley via LA accent to a tee) OK, I look like Billy Idol (works his hair into a makeshift quiff and sneers), only better!

Billy was a funny guy. Yeah, I like Billy he was like more than a music video. He was like `Wiggle the camera a little, don't let 'em see your face'. He was going in the bathroom every five minutes (sniff!).

"He (Billy Idol) used to be in the studio for like two million. I did the `Not Faking it ' album with the guy who engineered `Rebel Yell' and he was saying they were mixing one day and you know Keith Forsey and them guys, they would go in there with a pile of blow there mixing and everyone else would go home and the next morning they were still there (sniff) `Not enough hi- hat, gimme some more hi-hat' Yeah, let's go".

" Oh, yeah, he left to be in that band, now there's something about loyalty. What a great guy (sarcastic). That just turned to shit because Steve was full of shit, pretending to be a rocker and he wasn't, just using me to be whatever he wants. He plays from the loins, while I play from the heart (laughs). So, it was a clash. We did some very good demos, promising but then the producer was Michael Wagner, a German heavy metal producer. It was supposed to be two weeks, turned into three months. I tried to stop the record, but I couldn't . The record company had already spent $300,000 on it, `What you wanna spend another $300,000?' So, it's finished, it's a piece of shit, and then it gets out even worse. People were going to be totally confused about what I am.

" This was the first press conference in Finland since Hanoi...since Razzle died and everything and all they wanted to know about was drugs. He was going to say he was just filling in for Jay, right but in front of the press - he said ' I'm in this band now'.

We all went to Germany for one day and did press.as I had co-written the songs with Michael and (Little) Steven for the Demolition 23 album.

At one point Michael gets up to go to the bathroom and they started asking Nasty about the lyrical contents of the songs and instead of saying `I don't know, ask Jude' he started talking about the songs!

How did you meet up with Backyard Babies?"I met them on the Demolition 23 tour in Sweden, they opened up for a few shows in Sweden, then they called me to be a guest DJ at their record launch party because Joey Ramone cancelled.
What did you play?

[The Backyard Babies tell me that when they got mike to DJ at their album launch party they joke that he played mostly his own stuff.]
"A whole bunch of stuff - old Alice Cooper, Punk, Pistols' Bodies, stuff like that, because Joey Ramone went to New York to play. So I ended up doing the DJ thing. I played some harp over The Doors' `Roadhouse Blues' (live version) and it has no harp!
I went to see David Johansen in N.Y. doing his Buster Poindexter stuff. Have you seen it?
" I've heard about it, Johnny (Thunders) told me about it, Johnny went to see him, Johnny didn't even recognise him when he went to see him!
I haven't seen the show though, but I hear it's great.