'Everyone Thinks I'm Just That Machine Gun Fellatio Guy. I'm Not': Pinky Beecroft On Finding His Way Back To Music

Pinky Beecroft, formerly the frontman of Machine Gun Fellatio, is returning to the scene with his first album in nearly two decades.

Machine Gun Fellatio

Matt Ford has the weary, meditative air - shot through with a winning streak of mischief - of someone who has lived in many skins.

Though Pinky Beecroft is currently his moniker of choice, he once toured with a band called The White Russians, and is perhaps best known as the man who was once the lead singer-songwriter of raucous alt outfit Machine Gun Fellatio.

But that era - an era of controversially debauched shows and reckless drug-intake - is long-gone. Beecroft is a man prone to reinvention; nothing proves this more than his upcoming record, Lonesome Wolf. It is his first full-length album in nearly two decades.

“It’s completely, totally, nothing like any of my previous output,” he explains over a Zoom call. “I just really wanted to make this record. I wanted to do it the way I’d always wanted to do a record - with a sound that was something that I would want to listen to. Lots of my previous records were things I thought other people wanted to hear.”

Lonesome Wolf’s reflective, mature sonic palette is the last thing you would associate with a man who was once in a band famous for wearing nipple tassels onstage. “It’s a lot more mellow and consistent,” he agrees. “It’s not jumping all over the shop - it’s a really thought-out sound.”

It is moody, slow, considered, the kind of record that could only have been written by a man who has grown up. “I wanted a non-violent record. I wanted something I could put on and just feel at peace with. There’s so much fighting for attention out there. I wanted a record that wasn’t fighting for attention.”

The album, slated for an August 14th release, follows seventeen years of radio silence.

“I guess I was at an age where you go, well, radio’s not going to bother,” he says, gesturing at the strands of silver hair escaping from his beanie. “I could release Billie Eilish’s album, and no one would play it, just because I am who I am.

“And so when you get into that headspace, you go, well, what is the point? Because putting out an album - recording it, mixing it, mastering it, following it up, promoting it - is an expensive business.”

Music, for him, became an exclusively personal venture. “And I was quite distracted by my day job,” he adds. Eventually, he stopped working so much and had more time on his hands - and then producer and musician Damian Cafarello asked if he wanted to record a song. Recording one song turned into recording many. “It kind of took on a life of its own,” he shares.

So far, feedback from friends and colleagues has been astoundingly positive. “Lonesome Wolf seems to have a good strike rate; it seems to appeal to youngsters as well as people my age. I’ve got to find a way to get this to the people without knocking on doors.

“It’s scary because I’ve got to not go bankrupt. So I’m trying to turn this thing into a thing. Which feels insane. It’s hard enough when you’re twenty and pretty, let alone doing it when you’re 105 and should be dead.”

He possesses mixed feelings about being back in the public eye.

“I wouldn’t say there’s fear, but I would say there’s irritation,” he says, flashing a trademark impish grin. He loves making and playing music. The social media and promotion side of things… Not so much.

“It’s like, shit, I don’t know anything anymore.” He is suffering from what he calls “an attack of dumb.” He feels like a newborn, unsteady on foal legs. “I don’t know how the industry works. I don’t have any clue how to put a record out in 2026. So I had to do what I do in response to those situations: just gather information endlessly.”

It was a bizarre journey. “I hadn’t been anywhere near social media in over a decade. I’d kept away very deliberately. So it was like trying to figure out the whole business again, from the ground up.”

Has his odyssey through this brave new world of a social media-dependent music industry made him want to crawl away from the spotlight again?

“Yeah.” Another grin. “A bit.”

There are, ultimately, positives and negatives to the whole experience. “I like learning things, and it’s been an enormous learning curve. I feel like I’ve learnt more in the past two years than in the previous hundred years. I think that keeps your brain ticking over, so maybe I won’t get dementia after all.”

Now, streaming rules the industry - a stark contrast to his career with Machine Gun Fellatio.

“MGF got popular right smack bang on the peak of illegal downloading. So it was kind of more difficult at that point in time to sell records. People would come up to me and go, ‘I really like your record, I downloaded it yesterday.’ And it’s like, ‘Great, thanks for letting me know,’” he snorts. “I think that’s why we developed such an enormously insane live show.”

He doesn’t mince words about his Machine Gun Fellatio days - he is clearly glad that they are behind him now.

“I really don’t miss it at all. It was never really my thing.”

He explains, with refreshing honesty, “It wasn’t my band. It was the conception of someone else. And good on them for having that dream, but for me it was like, ‘I don’t know what I’m doing here.’ It just wasn’t my natural space. So I’m overwhelmingly relieved that I don’t have to do that anymore.”

His only regret, he says, is that he didn’t leave sooner. “I was keen as hell to get away. Whether I should be saying that, I don’t know. People should probably shut up about what happened.”

The decision wasn’t made without an element of guilt, however. “Afterwards, I felt some days like I’d pulled the rug out from under some people that I really liked. And that’s kind of why I did the reunion tour eventually.”

In August of 2024, it was announced that Machine Gun Fellatio were to reform as one of four support acts for TISM's Death to Art Tour, alongside The Mavis's, Ben Lee, and Eskimo Joe. The band did not play any shows again after the TISM tour.

“One of the nice things about the reunion tour was that a lot of the people in the band had changed for the better. We kind of grew up,” he says.

There were moments during the reunion tour where properly rejuvenating the band seemed like a good idea. “Look, if it wasn’t for a few little bits and pieces I’d be happy to do it again. The first rehearsal was really exciting. I didn’t think it would be. I was quite scared going in. I hadn’t played those songs for twenty years. Hearing them blasting, it was like, wow, this is good.”

But, ultimately, MGF is better left in the past. “That’s my biggest problem. That I’m just that MGF guy. And it’s like, ‘No, I’m really not. That was someone else’s idea entirely.’”

He adds, “In any break-up, you kind of want everyone to want to break up, because it just makes it a lot easier,” he says. “But I just couldn’t handle it anymore. I just didn’t like me. I was just lost. I needed to find out who the fuck I was. Immediately. Which sounds a bit intense, but that’s how I felt at the time.

Does he like himself better now?

“I do,” he says without a second thought, before smiling, both sheepish and content. “Oh, I probably should have paused before I answered.” But he knows better than to take it back - because it is the truth.

Lonesome Wolf will be released on Friday, 14 August. Pinky Beecroft is also touring in support of the album - tickets are available via the venue websites.