Planet Rock Profiles

aired ITV - 4th February 2001

An in depth interview with Huey, intercut with clips from the band's videos. Huey sits in a bar-style room on a stool, leaning on a table with a glass of wine and ashtray beside him. Wearing jeans and a dark t-shirt, smoking Marlboros and looking very sexy. (though obviously we only like him for his music, eh ladies?)

Presenter: Tom Dunne (hereafter known as TD)

"SCOOBY SNACKS" VIDEO & TD VOICEOVER

TD: To all intents and purposes, the Fun Lovin' Criminals could  have walked straight out of a Quentin Tarantino movie. They look like gangsters and they walk like gangsters, so are they gangsters? Well no, not really...they dress the way they dress to impress their family, and although some articles have suggested that there past is a little dodgy, nothing has ever been proven. Although lead singer Huey is indeed an ex-Marine, and strangely enough, they really do own their own garbage company. But enough of that. Europe in particular has embraced the band's blend of hiphop and Huey's whispered vocals    - like returning emigrants, his family have done well in America, since leaving Sicily. The albums, "Come Find Yourself" and "100% Colombian" have produced several hit singles and made Huey a star. And his more than passing resemblance to a young Robert de Niro hasn't done him any harm. So, Fun Lovin' Criminals - the truth, and mostly the truth.

CUT TO HUEY.

HUEY: Being a youth in New York City, ah...you're given a lot of opportunities that a lot of other people sometimes aren't given - and maybe shouldn't be given. I was given an opportunity and I kinda went for the quick buck and I got in trouble. I was young enough and ah... y'know, God bless, I was ah, able to go and serve my country, instead of y'know, ah, getting poked in the butt in jail. Well, I never wanted to get up early again, after being in the Marines, cos you get up very early - on average, four AM. So, I figured I wanted to just kind of wake up around four in the afternoon from now on. So the only way to do that would be working at night, and ah, there were a coupla options open to me at that point - there was an embalming job open, but that kind of stuff didn't appeal to me. But, working at a nightclub did, so I got a job as a bus-boy. And my first night at work I saw...what was that? The ah, George Clinton and the Parliament/Funkadelic, and I didn't know they played for like eight hours, so we were there till like five in the morning.
Y'know, we were the guys who worked at the club who were in a band. There were a couple of guys who worked at the club that were in bands. One was like a hardcore band, one was a metal band and then there was us. So if any band kind of like cancelled the opening gigs, our boss would make one of the bands that were working for him play - for free, cos we were already getting paid being bus-boys or bar-backs or what have you. So, over a year and a half we played like friends' parties and things like that, and then somebody came down, some like really official looking guy with a card that said CEO, at EMI records - God bless him, I guess, y'know...he said, "You guys wanna make a record?" And we were like - dropped the ice buckets immediately.

CUT TO "THE FUN LOVIN' CRIMINAL"  VIDEO & TD VOICEOVER

TD: Contracts and criminals normally only mean one thing in New York, but Huey and friends were happy with this one. And the first album, "Come Find Yourself", was recorded at breakneck speed.

CUT BACK TO HUEY.

HUEY: It's easy to make your first record, cos it's ah, your whole life in the making, really. So just when you're given the opportunity to put something on tape, it's...it really kinda comes easy, and we did the first record in I guess, about five days. Which is, y'know... now, it's like unbelievable, you got like Def Leppard taking like fourteen years to do a record - and even though the drummer's got one arm, that has nothing to do with it. But any band's point in their career when they get to make a record, all they wanna do is make the record, and they're not thinking beyond making a record. It's all about "Jesus, we're getting the chance to make a record!". So we just went in there. We thought the record company was gonna like, all of a sudden change their minds or something like that, and stop us from recording, so we tried to do it all really quickly.
You know, we were very very.. actually frightened that we'd have to go back to work at this nightclub, so the money that we got for our advance, we went and we bought a garbage company - or we bailed out a garbage company that was failing. Which everybody thought we were completely nuts about, but it's worked great for us and it's given us the opportunity to kinda not give a fuck too much. Can I say that? I'm sorry, I keep doin' that... Ah...but, it helps us out in our music too, cos we're not always concerned about writing a single and our record company's really cool, and they don't, they just kinda let us do what we wanna do, cos they know that we're completely nuts and even if they'd say, "Hey, you shouldn't do that", we're gonna do it anyway. And not because we're adolescents in our heads, it's just that we have a pretty good idea of what's funny, and we think other people appreciate the fact that there's not a whole bunch in between us and them. When they see "Maui Homicide 2000" or something like that, or they hear a song, they know it's coming directly from us to you, y'know, no middle man, so that gives us the opportunity to do that, which is cool.

CUT TO "THE FUN LOVIN' CRIMINAL" VIDEO WITH ON-SCREEN CAPTION:
The Fun Lovin' Criminals were formed in New York City in the early '90s by three former barmen - Huey, Fast and Steve (later replaced by Mackie).

TD: The band's emergence seemed to coincide with a lot of "Pulp Fiction"-inspired gangster chic, and there's no doubt the band were happy to cash in on that fashion. However, coming from where they did, they were more entitled to than most.

CUT BACK TO HUEY.

HUEY: We figured early on we weren't gonna try and fake anything, we weren't gonna, y'know, try to be like English schoolboys or something like that, we had to be what we were to kind of get our point across honestly. And y'know, people say, "Oh, it's very Scorsese-esque, and y'know, Huey, you look like Robert de Niro when you go like that," (PULLS DE NIRO FACE) Yeah, yeah, cos people like Robert de Niro act like people like me. And Scorsese writes movies about people like us. So in  essence you're getting the non-homogenised version with us, rather than y'know, having people act like people like us.
We just wanted to do it the way we were brought up to do something, y'know, in our work ethic that our parents taught us, so if that means y'know, we wanna look nice when we play shows, yeah - we do, we dress nicely. I mean, you see, I wear a t-shirt, everybody wears t-shirts, y'know. But, y'know, when you do your shows you wanna present a nice image in case your aunt sees a photo and she goes, (AUNT VOICE): "Oh, he looks so handsome!" Not like go, "Look at it, he's a bum and he's high" So you can be high, and wear a suit and get with it with your family.

CUT TO "SCOOBY SNACKS" VIDEO & TD VOICEOVER.

TD: Coming from New York, inspiration for the songs was everywhere, and working at The Limelight, one of that town's trendiest clubs, you only had to look around to see all of life.

CUT BACK TO HUEY.

HUEY: There was this guy and he was working at this club that me and Fast were working at, and his father was a pharmacist. So he'd have all these pills on him at all times; all different variety of pharmaceuticals, I mean thousand count jars of  valiums - chika-chika-chika - he'd walk by us, he'd be like chika-chika-chika, and just grab a couple and give 'em to us and go "Have some scooby snacks". And we were like, "Wow..."
And of course, we'd heard the term before, with the cartoon and whatnot, and even on the street when people talk about drugs, but the way he used it it was very funny, and everybody was kinda happy whenever he came by. And y'know, Fast and I being kinda like pretty broke at the time got high on valiums one time, and we were y'know, like I guess walking by a bank and this whole story kinda started forming. That was when "Pulp Fiction" had changed everybody's minds about movies. Like, you could make a movie that was borderline twisted and sick, and still be hilarious. And there were a coupla movies before then that were like that, but that one was one that kinda like everybody remembers when that movie came out, you know. We kinda wanted people to get the joke of what we were talking about with the story about the valium, and how you could do something twisted and sick and have it be kinda funny too at the same time.

CUT BACK TO "SCOOBY SNACKS VIDEO & CAPTION:
This song contains sound clips from Quentin Tarantino's films "Pulp Fiction" and "Reservoir Dogs".

TD: The band's second album "100% Colombian" was inspired more by the European success and the huge amount of time they spent there. It's a fine album, but one which they themselves initially dismissed as a mistake.

CUT BACK TO HUEY.

HUEY: Well, we wanted to be able to make another record, and that was pretty much it. And we knew we had had success with the first record and we knew statistically, that if we put out another record and it didn't do as well, it's probably what's gonna happen because y'know, "Scooby Snacks" was such a big hit. So we were trying to write songs that were maybe a little, almost on purpose, different from the first record. We did a lot of good songs on the record, but there are things that we tried to explore, cos we produce it and we arrange it and we edit it and mix it and all that stuff. So y'know, we got outta your mind with....y'know, you have to get perspective, and we didn't have ANY on that record. But there's good songs that came off it, y'know, we were just starting to figure out we were actually supposed to be doing, and then actually how we felt, and they weren't the same thing, and that was kinda what was going on. Y'know, I think in some ways, y'know,everybody wants to be Frank Sinatra but nobody is - but Frank Sinatra, and that was kind of us figuring that out.

PART TWO OF THE PROGRAMME OPENS WITH
VIDEO CLIP OF "LOVE UNLIMITED" & TD VOICEOVER.

TD: Despite the band's reservations, fans and critics alike loved the second album. It's standout track was "Love Unlimited", an apparent anthem to the inspirational power of the music of Barry White.

CUT BACK TO HUEY.

HUEY: I used to have these babysitters and they were these BEAUTIFUL women - and I didn't know it! (LAUGHS) And they used to come over, play all this soul music and stuff. I really think that that's when like some kind of gene is released in your body to bring you to puberty or something, cos it was very automatic. I remember sitting there one day, "Love's Theme" came on (SINGS IT, SWAYING IN TIME) der-de-der-de-de-der...I was like, "Wow..." and I was like, starting to feel different, maybe a little high, maybe she was smoking a joint inthe room and I got a second-hand smoke, I dunno. Then the next Barry White song came on, which was "Never Gonna Give You Up", and I was just (SNIVELS, IN BABY VOICE):
"You know, if my mom comes can you stay for dinner?" and she was just like,  "What?!" (LAUGHS) "What happened to you, boy? What's wrong with you now?"

CUT BACK TO "LOVE UNLIMITED" CLIP WITH CAPTION:
This song is a tribute to Barry White, whose music made Huey realise that women are "the most beautiful things on God's green earth".

TD: In between proper studio albums the band also released "Mimosa", a collection of unusual versions of their own hits, and cover versions of songs from bands they loved, like The Climax Blues Band and 10CC.

CUT BACK TO HUEY.

HUEY: It was a compilation thing, man. We put some stuff out on B sides and things and all these people started asking about it on the internet, can they buy it and get like a whole bunch of them, and they all wanted to do this Christmas thing, like, our people wanted to have us put out MP3s on our site so they could download it for Christmas, cos all these songs were loungey, and I suppose you could try to get, y'know, high in front of your parents with one of these records on or something. So we put it out to see if we could, y'know, get paid for Christmas...it didn't work. But the garbage company was doing really well at that point, y'know, we had gotten ourselves a new route, so it wasn't really something we were taking to heart. (CLOSE-UP ON HUEY'S ROLEX)
I mean, we did sell quite a bit in like Far Asia and the Pacific Rim, which we were very surprised about. Apparently there's an artist named Mimosa there who's very famous, and we kinda like....(LAUGHS)

CUT TO "LOCO" VIDEO & TD VOICEOVER.

TD: As I said, the truth and mostly the truth. With the band having been a bit disappointed with the second record, the third was seen as an opportunity to put things right. Which they did.

CUT BACK TO HUEY:

HUEY: Well, this was the record that we figured we had to make. This was the one that we wanted to make when we made "100% Colombian". Being the situation as it was at the time, we weren't really writing songs like that. And having Mackie in the group kinda opened us up to a whole different style of rhythms that we could go and play with. Y'know, instead of just having a guy who could play rock music and then slow down and play hiphop music, we had a guy who was like a world-class drummer, that could do anything, y'know. So you'd play him like a little riff on a  keyboard, and he'd play something on the drums, and things would just fall together greatly. So we did a lot of songs that way on the new record. The fact that people know of us already gives us an advantage, where they'll give it a listen, rather than just be like, "Oh these guys are fuckin' crazy". But hopefully they'll give us a listen and then go, "Oh these guys are fuckin' crazy".

CUT BACK TO "LOCO" & TD VOICEOVER.

TD: Not crazy, but definetley fun loving. So - to the new album. Everything you wanted to know about it, but were afraid to ask. Take it away, Huey.

CUT BACK TO HUEY, WITH PROMO COPY OF "LOCO" CD IN FRONT OF HIM.

HUEY: Alright, we'll go track by track.

1. "Where the Bums Go". It's a song about this place that we buy sandwiches late at night when we're drunk. You know, when you come out of the bar or the pub, whatnot, you wanna go to this place. And when you go there, there're just all these complete bum people there, like dudes with one arm drinking Heineken outta cans, y'know, that kinda shit. So we figured it deserved a song.
2. And then "Loco" of course is about a guy who....(LAUGHS AT SELF) "Of course!"...is a song about a guy who wants to date a girl whose boyfriend just died. So...and his friend's telling him, "Don't be crazy, man, don't, no. Just leave her alone, let her mourn."
3. "The Biz" is kinda self-explanatory, y'know, if you listen to the lyrics and that, it's very funny.
4. "Run Daddy Run" is kinda like, y'know, I like to get into sociology a lot, and this is a song about how we thought we were bad when we were kids, y'know. We thought we were the bad-ass little kids of all time, and I'm sure anybody who comes from a rough neighbourhood, they'd think, "Yo, my crew, when I was growing up, we were the baddest", but no way. You got nine year old kids now toting guns and they just don't give a goddamn...So it was a song about how we have to come to terms with what's going on - either we bow down and let these crazy kids take over the world, or we put them in jail. (LAUGHS) No! Anyway, it's just a little subject we can all  think upon, y'know, more of a suggestion than any statement.
5. "Half A Block" is just my reluctance to ever be saved or have any redemption in my life. But it's funny, because salvation is, we use a female metaphor, which is fairly interesting. And it's a very nice song - slow jam for the ladies. (LOOKS AT CD)
6. Oh, "Superhero", which is actually called "Swashbucklin' in Brooklyn". Which is a song about a guy who works in this seafood restaurant where you gotta dress up like a pirate. Y'know, you ever been to this things, you see them in America? They got these guys...anyway, the guy's walking home from work one day, right, and he hears this screaming like, this woman screaming. He turns down an alley and there's these two guys there, they're like robbing and about to do bad things to this  lady, and he freaks out, he pulls out a knife and he kills them both, right. The woman freaks out, runs away, tells her father, and her father tells her to, and she goes and tells the Daily News or the Post, so this guy becomes a superhero. And all he pretty much does is he gets me, my character in the song, to be his homeboy, y'know, to ride on the boat with him, tell his story to the world, and y'know, help him with his shit, y'know. And we make a part of Brooklyn safe, the dock area, until of course the Mob and the cops and the police and everybody y'know...
7. OK, now we're onto "Bump", which is a really good song. It goes back to the kind of like, the genre of "Love Unlimited" where I'm telling a story about something that happened to me that...this one is not so universal, because, y'know, everybody - every man became a man, y'know, and every woman, y'know, became a woman. At that point, we all kinda go our seperate ways. This song in particular is about when I used to work at the nightclub, and I was a bus-boy. And you had to work all the nights the club was open, and one of the nights - Sunday - was gay night, right. And, y'know, gay night's gay night, it's just a bunch of fellas hanging around having a good time, drinking a lot of Red Bull. What I always thought was really funny was  that there was this one time there was this beautiful woman there, and I met this beautful woman, and I just had to write a song about it, and it's fantastic. But lyrically, I think I've touched on something that will pretty much go down in history as probably what will bring the genders together. Through humour! I think if I can quote myself, "My phobia drowned while I was gettin' down."
8. OK, we're gonna move on to "Microphone Fiend" now, obviously, that's a cover song from Eric B & Rakim. We tried to do that is if Erik B & Rakim was fronting Parliament, or something like that. It's kinda funny.
9. "My Sin" - this is me trying to be Buddhist again, like "Up on the Hill". Well,  I figured I'd try to...man, I just can't get it right though, and I can't figure out exactly how to, you know, forgive myself for being me. But that's the...once again, I try to take it down to the street and let it go, that's what that one's about.
10. "Underground" is a song I wrote when I was completely drunk, I recorded it when I was completely drunk, I played guitar solo when I was completely drunk, and it's just about me being completely drunk. I woke up one day after being completely drunk, and had these lyrics in front of me, and I was looking through 'em and I couldn't make heads or tails out of 'em, I was like, " 'My ghetto prince is smiling underground?!'  What's going on? I've lost my mind..." So I printed this song, and Fast went..."Wow..." I love Fast, cos y'know, every once in a while he tells me to go to hell, but a lotta times when it's borderline, he'll give me the benefit of the doubt and go, "Yeah, that's good." So that's how that song got on the record.
11. "She's My Friend". You gotta have a song about your girl, y'know. Throughout everything, throughout us...you know, and you...(TO CAMERA:) Guys, you don't know it, but we fart at night when we're sleeping, and they don't hold that against us. Me, I've been, y'know, I've been with my girl a long time and I don't think I've ever heard her fart. I think she goes like outside...I don't know what goes on, but that's a good girl. It's not about farting though. This is just about, y'know how (GOES ALL SERIOUS:) despite what boys do, we are very, very loving people.
12. "There Was A Time", OK, the next song, "There Was A Time". This was one of Fast's I think genius moves, where he took a Country record that he really liked the melody of the lyric, and totally mismatched all this other music to this track. And this is the one that we wanted Shirley Manson to sing on, because we thought it was such a beautiful lyric, but the way it's recorded, it's actually he's playing a record, and we're playing around a record. Which is a very strange concept to kinda get into - for us, anyway, cos we have very few moments of clarity. But this one kinda came off really good, kinda spooky, as if they're singing from the grave, it's very strange, it's about forlorn love and whatnot. (DRAINS HIS WINE GLASS WITH APOLOGETIC LOOK TO CAMERA)
13. Moving right along...."Dickholder". "Dickholder" is a little ditty, in the vein of Lynard Skynard, fantastic song, fantastic lyric too. It's about a person, an individual that I will not mention because it'll just get me in too much trouble. I know how things are, and I'd rather just deal with this thing "a mano a mano", unlike everybody else in the music business. But it's a song about a guy who works for another guy, who is just the worst son-of-a-bitch you'd ever wanna meet in your life, y'know, the guy he works for is a darling, really great guy - he's in the music industry. But this guy is like his dickholder, and it's fuckin' horrible, and he's out of his mind, so he deserved a song.  And I thought what was great is at the end of the song, kinda we did a like, old skool punk rock song where when the song ends, you scream the title of the song, so everybody knows what song you just played. That's what we did on that one, too. Once again, Mackie on the drums on that song - unbelievable, can't even believe, he is one...anyway, excuse me.
14. Moving right along again, to "Little Song". This is us being as Country/Western as we can possibly get, as beer-swillin', cryin' in your beer kinda song. It's a song about a condemned man and despite all the things he's done, life goes on, and it's gonna go on past him. He's about to be executed in Texas under George W. Bush's "kill everybody" policy, so that's what that's song's about.

Transcribed by Sara