Rusty Chaos – Scutty Neighbours – Interview Exclusive
Written by Gaz E
Sunday, 17 October 2010 05:00
Scutty Neighbours vocalizer and socializer Rusty Chaos, not content with burning eyebrows off with unregulated pyro and dazzling the ladies with his penchant for zebra-striped lycra, went one step closer to infamy when he took time out of his busy, Stryper-listening schedule to audition for TV’s lowest common denominator light entertainment programme, The X Factor. With his performance clip now a critically-acclaimed internet phenomenon, what better time to catch up with the auburn avenger and get the lowdown on all things Scutty and Cowell related?!?
When you mad bunch of metal bastards formed Scutty Neighbours what bands did you aspire to be like?
I think the first plan was to knock out some dirty DC tunes – I even think we tried a Danko Jones cover – but the AC/DC vibe didn’t last very long, neither did our first guitarist. As for other bands, I think Turbonegro and Tokyo Dragons were also thrown around but what was coming out was utter nonsense. I think we all brought something different to the table that’s why
it never came out right. There was Frank’s doom/thrash/grind/death/black/core, Chris, our first guitarist, wanted an DC cover band I think, Kenny was into anything rocky/metal and I was listening to a lot of dad rock and glam.
The difference between ‘Noise Police’ (which I gave such a glowing review to one of my quotes was actually on the Scutty business card!) and ‘DE45’ is highly noticeable – you guys became a really good band in the interim…do you agree?
‘Noise Police’ was pretty funny and we were drinking a lot of Strongbow at that point, but I know where you’re coming from. I listened to them one after the other a couple of days ago and it kinda sounds like two different bands with an angriness running throughout. ‘DE45’ was inspired by tonnes of Jack ‘n’ vodka so we spent more time drunk. We didn’t just have one sound for our band, we’d listen to something loads and say “let’s write a Judas Priest song” and so on. That’s pretty much how each song came out. Not to sound big-headed but I think we’re getting better and better as time goes on, it’s the whole love/hate relationship that keeps us going.
One thing that always makes me laugh is when I remember you telling me at Hard Rock Hell 3 that your song ‘Indie Cunts’ (which I was championing) wasn’t one of the band’s better songs yet you were gonna be burdened with it like Warrant are burdened with ‘Cherry Pie’ – still agree?
Haha, NOOOOO!!!! You ever get those occasions where you instantly regret what you’re saying but can’t stop yourself, well….. I actually don’t mind that song but half of the band hate it, probably something to do with the one riff that circles for three minutes. In its defence I think we wrote it in about fifteen minsutes. It’s straight to the point though – Get out, you fucking indie cunts. I wish it was ‘Cherry Pie’ then I’d be sat in a Malibu condo scratchin’ my balls in retirement.
You’re getting some great gigs – like supporting The Dwarves!!!
It’s starting to feel like were getting a bit back, we had the Dwarves gig which was pretty cool, Hayseed Dixie was a good laugh, depressing watching the promoter supply them with case after case of beer but….you have to start somewhere. The Luchagors, haha, catching one of them knocking some las
s’s back out in the dressing room, priceless. It’d be awesome to get on a full tour, unleashing the butchery up and down the country, nowt finer!
And what about Slugfest? We have to mention that! Me and Johnny H kept telling Darrel Sutton that he had to put you guys on and, when he did, we were just hoping that you wouldn’t be shit!! You weren’t – you ruled!
That place was fookin’ ace – “where the fuck are we?!?” Haha, I love the faith you had in us. Shit?? Ha, you know us too well. Trampolines, free moonshine and fireworks in a basement – how could that gig not be good!? We were more worried that people wouldn’t bother with us because we came from over the border, how wrong we were. It’s a lot easier and more fun to play when the crowd give you something back, was ace to go down so well. Well worth the eight hour round trip, ending with a 3am conversation about Stryper firing out bibles at live gigs, we missed the boat on that one!
We can go on no longer without mentioning your X-Factor audition this year – tell us all about the day of the audition and the build up….
Build up…….England were playing the night before so 6am wasn’t a good sight, and I was missing Billy Idol at Donington that day too so nothing started very well. We got down to the NEC and cracked open the Jager/vimto, dutch courage at its finest. The filming started – it was a mix of waiting for an hour, film for two minutes, wait for two hours then a bit more filming and so on. I did all the filming with Connie in the morning – was fookin’ boiling. If you hadn’t noticed I look like a drum stick lolly in my audition. Even got Connie playing air guitar to ‘Beardy Mother Fuckers’. Next was a load of questions and them trying to make me slip up and say something completely stupid but I was wise to their antics; “So you wanna be a rock star, you must like the women then, you must think you have a lot of sex appeal?!” What?! How about no. The worst bit of it all was sitting waiting to see the judges and 3000 people booing the two fat fighting girls off stage – that’s one hell of a noise.
And then what about the actual performance? Classic from where I was sitting!
I wanted to slide out with my cowboy boots on fire but I got shot down on that. I also had a fireball shooter but quess what…..no dice, Mr Cowell’s got sharp shooters dotted around somewhere. So I was chatting away to them, found out Louis Walsh knows Skid Row, yeah ok. I went on to introduce my song which was ‘Beardy Mother Truckers’, rewritten for the 8 year old audience The X Factor holds. “Sorry, I can’t let you do that” haha faaaaack, so I ended up doing ‘Walk This Way’ – why I did that I’m really not sure and why I chose the Run DMC version, what was I thinking? I couldn’t be more white. Unrehearsed, I carried on regardless. They cut the part out where I was reading the words off my arm. I managed to get to the first chorus and decided that was it, you can see on my face how I though
t it went, gutted. They didn’t even vote. I rocked out like a drunken idiot on national telly. I tried to keep a smile on my face. Good fun and I don’t regret doing it.
Was that silent crowd reaction real or some TV trickery to try to belittle your obvious awesomeness?
It was a little of both, but it made good TV. They cut a lot out of it. I was up there for 4 or 5 minutes. I did have an argument about me saying I never said I could sing, I wanted to get it out about who needs to sing when you can use Pro Tools but to no avail. They could have cut it and destroyed me completely, I suppose I have that to be thankful of. Haha, awesomeness still intact. People only seem to watch that programme for the idiots like me and it wouldn’t be as funny if they didn’t cut it. All I really wanted was to go on Harry Hill’s TV Burp anyway, I ain’t got a phone call yet though.
Did Simon Cowell come good on the Bon Jovi tickets?
He’s the legend. Turned up to the 02 wondering if he’d left me tickets on the gate, got to the window and the lady smiled when I told her who I was. She gave me two pretty good seats and two meet and greets with Richie Sambora – I nearly fizzed myself. Gig was awesome and after that sat backstage in the dining room, enjoyed a few Jovi beers and waited and waited. I think an hour went by and the tour manager came in and said “Richie went home ages ago.” Balls!!! I wasn’t that bothered, it’s said you should never meet your heroes, on that occasion I never did. I don’t really understand why people give Simon such a hard time, I wrote a thank you letter for the tickets saying how good I think he is. How many folk do you know who tear people’s dreams away in seconds and just grins about it?
Your audition made the ads in the build-up to the new series launch of The X Factor but you had to settle for sister show The Xtra Factor for your appearance – how have you dealt with the aftermath of this now-legendary piece of television?
I was pretty disappointed about not getting on The X Factor but that’s the boring show, I like the crazy wannabes on ITV2. I think there’s a difference of about 9 million viewers – which is a shame – but I’m getting a few people asking questions now. There was a guy in the take-away the other night saying “Theres that dickhead off X Factor” – haha, I like those ones the best.
You didn’t want me to mention this interview to anyone else from the band because they’d give you shit for being bigheaded – do you think they might see it after we put it on the site and send messages to them about it?
Ever since you wrote ‘Rusty Chaos & Co’ in the review from Hard Rock Hell, that was it. Apparently I’ve got Lead Singer’s Disease now, I kinda like the hostility though, it brings us closer together. We’ve been laughing about this interview, I couldn’t keep my mouth shut but hey, any publicity is good publicity. Maybe our next album will be sooooo good that you just have to interview us all, that’ll keep all parties happy.
On a more serious note, are you really gonna put a Stryper cover into your live set?
Thought this gem might come up. A couple of weeks after we laughed about it, we learned ‘Soldiers Under Command’. We have talked about playing it, just not found the right gig yet. It’s a cracking song, shame about the lyrics though – how metal can you be singing about God and overcoming evil, I mean…the good book – it says we’ll win! WTF!!
If a legendary comedian appeared out of the sky in an old telephone box and told you that the music of Scutty Neighbours would, Wyld Stallyns-style, be the basis on which future civilisations were based, do you think you could deal with that?
Only if I can rock out in a vintage Van Halen t-shirt listening to ‘Battle Stations’. How good would that be though, a whole beardy civilisation. Our new song ‘Lemmy I Wish You Were My Dad’ would have to be like the lord’s prayer. I can imagine it now… giant gold statues of Frank’s beard. Deal with it?? I’d lap it up – anything to get me out of my job 
now!
Finally, as a sharply dressed rock warrior yourself, who are your top five fashion icons in RÖCK?!
Haha, this is a good one. I’ll give you the Bully run down.
iiiiiiin One – John Gallagher from Raven ; pioneers of sports memorabiliametal.
iiiiiiin Two – Dee Snider for pretty much the same reason ; no-nonsense gig attire.
iiiiin Three – Blackie Lawless ; how many people you know with fireworks out of a codpiece?
iiiiin Four – Kip Winger ; he’s my new favourite rock god. His rugged good looks, I bet he never spent a night alone.
Bully’s special prize – 80s metal, full stop ; they made anything look good – vests and leather pants, you can’t go wrong!
Photo kudos to Ian Cates, Louise Upton, Guy Berresford, Phil Howard and Sausage Fingers