Interview taken from HermAphrodite #10

Me – “Has there been any bitterness from others bands at your comparatively ‘easy-ride’…?”

Band make demo, band get airplay, band get signed, band meet Rage Against The Machine, band live happily ever after…

Carolyn – “It wasn’t quite as easy as that.”

Well yeah, between making the demo and getting signed, there were finals to take. And two other band members needed to be procured. It’s just that things seem to’ve fallen very easily into place for them.

Carolyn – “Hostility though? I’m not sure.”

The thought doesn’t seem to trouble them.

Me – “You can all take care of yourselves…”

Carolyn – “We’re pretty tidy in a fight.”

I suggest scrapping with Daphne and Celeste. Cos that seems to give you pretty good press. (Besides which, My Vitriol could definitely ‘have ‘em’.)

Carolyn (to Ravi) – “Did you have your picture taken with them?”

Ravi – “No, that was Som. (thoughtfully) They’re nice girls actually.”

Me – “But they dance like they’re in an Asda advert.”

My Vitriol do not seem to hold this against them.

Ravi – “It was funny seeing them at the Kerrang! Awards.”

Carolyn starts giggling in agreement.

Me – “Were they there because they fancy Slipknot?”

Possibly. Definitely not because they’d won anything.

And on that rockin’ train of thought…

Ravi – “The Slipknot guys are really nice.”

Me – “You wouldn’t know that to look at them.”

Ravi – “I’ve seen them without their masks on.”

Me – “Do they have horrible disfiguring rashes under there?”

Ravi – “No. They’re normal.”

And they’re nice. There goes their street-cred.

And then a materialistic distraction. Prompted by Carolyn sparking up. Which ordinarily wouldn’t be any cause for excitement. But she has a special birthday lighter. Which, being the size of a child’s fist, does admittedly look more like a bugging device.

Me – “It’s huge!”

Carolyn – “Ah. But it does this!”

And at the press of a button, a cigarette emerges from as thin hole at one end. It’s amazing. It keeps them unbent, secure, and fresh. It can even light the things for you. All effort removed. I liken the thing to the Men Behaving Badly Beer Glove, which automatically sets your hand into can-holding position, and guards against accidentally droppage. She’s incredibly pleased with it.

Carolyn – “It was my only birthday present.”

Me – “When was your birthday?”

Carolyn – “Today.”

Me – “And no-one else got you anything?”

Carolyn – “No.”

She pretends to cry, and then realises the hat she’s wearing.

Carolyn – “I got a hat from King Adora. It’s a King Adora hat.”

Ravi – “Very nice chaps.”

Carolyn – “Lovely band.”

And that’s as far as the showbiz gossip goes on this tour.

Carolyn – “Mansun are lovely guys as well, actually.”

And they’re quite happy to support ‘em. Though there are others out there that they’d like to play with.

Ravi – “Rage [Against The Machine] was cool. We played the Reading Mainstage with them.”

Carolyn – “Same stage as Rage! We want to call a song that…”

Which reminds me to thank them for the fish.

Billy The Singing Bass.

With whom they entertained the masses at that fair festival. (The set went along the lines of ROCK – ROCK – ROCK – ROCK – FISH COVERING BOBBY MCFERRIN – ROCK – ROCK – ROCK.) Admittedly, the power of the fish to make me smile was severely diminished by my late summer cottage-bound island holiday, where for a week and a half my family never seemed to tire of hearing the thing sing. But to put that fish in a rock ‘n’ roll context with a monster sound-system? Genius…

Carolyn – “I want a Michael Jackson fish.”

She starts singing ‘Bad’ (in, um, the style of a fish). This is clearly something very dear to her.

Ravi – “Does it do the Moonwalk?”

Carolyn – “I’d like to see it try.”

Me – “Maybe the duck could.”

There’s, um, now a duck model. And a lobster model. I think Som might have started something.

Ravi – “There’s a competition with the single where you can win one of thirty of them.”

Carolyn – “Thirty? It’s ten.”

Ravi – “Is that all we can afford?”

Yup. Ah well.

Oh, and no, they have no desire to electronically doctor the things to play sing Vitriol. Sadly. Their promo items aren’t quite that, um, classy.

Carolyn – “We went to the Kerrang! Awards, and wanted some gimmicky thing to do. Slipknot gave away these really nice whiskey glasses, engraved with the Slipknot sign.”

Ravi – “And Blink 182 had these Whoopee Cushions.”

Carolyn – “Which they put on everyone’s seats. So EVERYONE set them off.”

Me – “They’re very classy guys.”

Carolyn – “And there were free cigarettes, stuff like that. And we gave away little bottles of vitriol.”

Not the acid. Do not be alarmed.

Carolyn – “It turned out to be the cheapest vodka that anyone had ever had.”

Ravi (proudly) – “I never even tried it.”

Carolyn – “It was dangerous stuff.”

And you see, if they’d gone with the other band-name choice of ‘Fray’, they’d never have gone down that path. See where a love of literature can get you… That, and your rock sensibilities that is.

Ravi – “Fray was a bit too metal.”

Me – “And you don’t want to be that metal. Just a bit metal.”

Apparently so.

Ravi – “When we started doing our first few gigs we had an anagram of ‘My Vitriol’ – it was ‘Ivy Riot’.”

Carolyn. – “Yeah. Which is cool. Apart from the fact that there’s no M’s, no L’s…”

Ravi – “It was a question of just picking some letters out, basically.”

And yes, even at such a tender gigging-age, they still felt the need for pseudonyms.

Carolyn – “We were Pinkie for a secret gig. Cos we were getting a lot of industry interest, and it’s not really good experience for a band, just playing to people who might as well be there with clip-boards. Pound-signs in their eyes… It was just nice to play to an audience that any other band at the time would have got.”

They do feel that they missed out on that, in the beginning.

Carolyn – “One night we played a gig with JJ72 at the Barfly in Camden…”

Ravi – “That was our first gig after being signed…”

Carolyn – “The guest-list alone, for us and JJs, was just about capacity of the venue. And they got closed down for that.”

Ravi – “So many people just hanging around outside, the Council noticed…”

Pause. Interruption. Maccam comes in. Five minute warning – he’s got another interviewer outside. Eek. I’ve still got another sheet of questions yet. Ah well. Better just move straight onto the one about toys, then…

Me – “Would you want your own range of Rock Dolls, in the style of Kiss…?”

Carolyn – “Rather than Steps…”

Me (horrified, frankly) – “They’ve got dolls?”

Carolyn – “Yeah.”

Ugh.

Me – “But then your dolls could have ‘em.”

Carolyn – “Yeah!”

And it’s that kind of thing – the destruction of yesterday’s icons with animated play – we should be encouraging kids into. Get ‘em to pick up a guitar, not a range of matching yellow tops for them and their friends. Encourage a bit of passion. And allow escape for the curdled emotions.

In ‘Brighton Rock’, as Som happily tells journalists (alla time), the mob-leader Pinkie always carried a bottle of vitriol with him, as a disfiguring security blanket. ‘HIS Vitriol symbolised his paranoia, delusion, spite, and his craving for control.’ With Pinkie, it was music which unsettled him – with My Vitriol, it seems to be their release. As it can be for us all…

Last revised: 26/07/01