Fat White Family's Saul On Why Crystal Meth Hasn't "Taken Off" In England

"This is Saul, I'm gonna do the interview." But we were allotted time with the band's vocalist Lias Saudi? "Well I'm sorry; you're just going to have to interview me instead... I write the music as well; it's my band as well, you know?" Alrighty, then!

Fat White Family's lead guitarist Saul Adamczewski is in Paris at the time of our chat ("My girlfriend lives here and we've got a lot of friends here") and, when not touring, he divides his time between the City Of Love, New York and "[his] mum's sofa in South London".

Although he's "really proud of the record" Songs For Our Mothers, Adamczewski admits "there are parts of that album that, like, I regret". "There was certain points where I was just being really belligerent in the studio," Adamczewski recalls, adding, "[I like to] see how far I can go with my friends, and just to see what I can get away with". Adamczewski speaks in a slurred fashion. He also seems fascinated by word usage: "Funky? Man, I've never heard anyone use the word 'funky' for a long time"; "Oh, man, I love that expression 'shithouse'".

There's a repeated phrase in Fat White Family's Whitest Boy On The Beach that kinda sounds like "In Australia". "No, no, he just says, 'Das steiner' - it's German," Adamczewski corrects. Maybe they can change those lyrics during their upcoming Australian shows? "That's a great idea... We will change it for the Australian shows."

Severin Black, Fat White Family's drummer, actually lived in Melbourne "for a year just before he came back to join [the] band". "I hear the music scene's great over there," Adamczewski commends. But he wants to clarify something: "I just hear the drugs are very expensive over there. Are you going to say crystal meth is cheap? Is that what you were going to say?" Well, we do have an Ice Epidemic over here. "We don't have it in England at all," he states. Why's that? "Do you know what? I have no idea. I've really thought about it, because - I mean, it does exist in England, but in a very weird way: the only people who take it are these kind of like very rich, in the kinda upper echelons of the drug scene - [it's] the older kind of druggies that take crystal meth... There's no tweakers. It's weird."

When told crystal meth is a gutter drug in this country, Adamczewski continues, "I know, yeah, and you see it everywhere in America. I mean, it's a fucking devastating drug; it's as bad as crack or heroin, isn't it? I really don't know why it hasn't taken off in England, because you can also buy all the stuff you need to make it over the counter in England, which you can't [do] in other countries. All my Australian friends are like, 'Wow, man, you guys should fucking like buy this shit, you know?' You can make it here, but no one does it." Could this be because cocaine is so cheap in England? "Yeah, coke is cheap and shit in England, and people like it cheap and shit." When asked whether he thinks those who indulge feel fancy when they take cocaine, Adamczewski offers, "I mean some do. I don't because I know that my coke costs, like, 40 pounds and is mostly made up of, like, stuff that they give to babies who are having teething problems." Or baby laxatives? "Yeah and [there are] some laxatives in it. So I don't feel too classy." 

Adamczewski stresses Fat White Family's spin-off band, Fat White Manson Family, is his "personal side-project". "It's not because I'm a fan of Charles Manson as a person, it's just because I really love his - he made a really great record called The Family Jams...  It was one of the records that inspired us to start - to be in a band and it's, like, one guy singing and, like, nine girls singing backing vocals and it's all acoustic. So it was just something to do with my friends and I was kinda hoping that we'd get booked for, like, weddings and bar mitzvahs and things like that, but it never really took off. We played about four gigs and they are all on YouTube, actually, so you can watch them all."

He reckons Fat White Manson Family "did a pretty good job". "In fact we got contacted by a bunch of Manson freaks who live on Spahn Ranch, which is where The Family lived back in the day and they contacted us and said, 'Oh, you've got to come and play here,' like, you know, 'We think what you're doing is amazing,' which freaked us out a little bit." Did they all change their phone numbers after that? "I don't have a phone, but we politely declined the offer."

After admitting that "nothing in the mainstream" music scene is exciting him at present, Adamczewski shares some bands that he thinks are "really good": "I really like a band called Destruction Unit, a band called Sheer Mag, there's a band from London called Meatraffle - lots of little bands."