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Lesshelp... LEGENDS OF METAL in Belfast, ROK TITANS who straddle the city betwixt their thighs of steele. Playing a joyous entertaining blend of Grind and Death, this crowd created quite a stir in the Northern Irish musical underbelly before disappearing from view in 1997. Now, they're back... for the new Metallik Millenium... and spidal carnage shall ensue...
Fitted Kitchens caught up with the Hooded Brothers Baggy (vox), Daff (bass), Marty (guitar) and Chris (drums- just recently initiated into the horde) in Belfast's Crown Bar to find out more about these men of mystery and talk some shite over a pint or two...
First off, tell us a bit about the history of Lesshelp... you used to go under the moniker 'Helpless', yeah?
Baggy: "There're some of the band who used to be in Helpless... not me but"
Daff: "Me and Marty. A classic Thrash metal band, your typical style, basically Metallica, Megadeth, early Sepultura. We played round here back in '91, the early 90's, then everybody left..."
Baggy: "It was the classic two and a half hour sets that got me..."
I remember being given a flyer for a Helpless demo at a Sepultura/ Fudgetunnel show in Belfast way back in '91. I have to confess that I didn't buy one, mind. So when, indeed why, did you become Lesshelp?
Baggy: "1994. I don't how it all went wrong."
Daff: "A pisstake band, just changed the name around..."
Baggy: "... just cut the logo in half, used it again. You think of a sensible name, and someone else is bound to have it, so it's unlikely there's another Lesshelp around"
What is this morbid fascination you have about Spides? Dedicating your entire creative output to Spides and the annihilation thereof... explain this crusade on which you have embarked...
Baggy: "Well, somebody has to you know. Global annihilation of spides".
Tell you what, the term 'spide' is going to be meaningless for anyone outside Northern Ireland... and given that Fitted Kitchens of the Living Damned zine is the coffee-table periodical of choice for Metalheadz around the globe, describe a spide for readers...
Baggy: "Moustache... not fully grown, it's like bumfluff. There's actually a full explanation on our very first demo. Probably wears a shellsuit, couple of sovereign rings, keep their coins in 'em, nice heavy gold necklace sort of going green around their neck coz it's so cheap and tacky, if you got a car..."
Marty: "... it used to be Novas, but now it's Corsas. Or a Citroen Saxo"
Daff: "Apparently hippies drive minis though... we used to get hatemail from spides saying hippies drive minis".
I thought good hippies rode bicycles?
Daff: "Well, I've a mountain bike"
Baggy's still on about spides...
"...Dodgy Rangers or Celtic tops, never fuck up talking about football... "
Such venom indeed. Are you forced to commune with spides in the workplace, perchance?
Baggy: "An unbelievable quantity of spides"
Would it be fair to say that Lesshelp is Northern Ireland's Lawnmower Deth?
 Baggy: "Well, if NI needs a Lawnmower Deth, then Lesshelp is NI's Lawnmower Deth. But I am a fan of Lawnmower Deth if that's what yer trying to imply... 'Ooh Crikey'."
What if someone where to suggest that you should act yer age... after all, your all in late twenties. Should you not know better by now?
Daff: "Ah well, we were about 23, 24 when we started, when we put the first tape out. Then there was a five year gap..."
Baggy: "...for our creative juices to flow. The kids don't want to see you every weekend. I think we did play in '97, at the Ivy Bar in Newtownards"
I was at that... I was going for a piss and you were all in the bogs bickering about who was going on first...
Baggy: "Yeah... that was out drunk drummer at the time.. we have that show on video somewhere."
You play DETH/ GRIND Metal... and you cover 'Dawn of Eternity'... which suggests that you spent all yer shekels on Death Metal in early 90's.
Baggy: "I got to see Massacre in '91 on the 'Kings of Death Metal' gig... a classic night out for everyone. That's where it really all went wrong, it was that night that I first bumped into Daff. That was our downfall. If you drew a graph, that's where the line would plummet."
Give us five of yer favourite albums
Baggy: "From that time, or just in general?"
Umm, in general
Daff: "Sepultura's 'Roots', or 'Beneath the Remains', eh, I do like a bit of AC/DC, 'High Voltage'... um, I can't think... aye, 'Number of the Beast'..."
Baggy: "That's choice. It's on my list though!"
Daff: "...'Highway to hell, back to 'DC there. Not too much Death Metal in there!"
Baggy: "It's kind of hard to narrow it down to five... I can give you about 5 per year... there'll always be a classic left out. 'Master of Puppets', 'Number of the Beast', obviously, or 'Live After Death', 'Tomb of the Mutilated', 'Angel and the Dark River'. A full musical spread there!"
And Marty?
Baggy: "...just the full Carcass back catalogue!"
Marty: "Carcass' 'Necrotism, Descanting the Insalubrious', and that's basically it. That's me"
Eh? No chick rok? Motley Crue? Come on, what about 'Girls, Girls, Girls'...
Marty: " 'Girls, Girls, Girls' is good, but 'Dr Feelgood' is a much better album. Whitesnake's '1984' is a very good album. Firehouse's first album is very good. And 'Slippery when Wet'..."
Daff: "...aye, we all loved our Bon Jovi..."
Chris: "Slayer, 'South of Heaven', Napalm Death 'Fear Emptiness and Despair', Deicide, 'Once Upon the Cross'... I'm lost now..."
Daff: "Ozzy! 'Blizzard of Oz'. Sabbath"
Baggy: "That goes without saying!! That's like an underlying theme"
Speaking of underlying themes, what's the Lesshelp fascination with Buckfast Tonic Wine? (readers may care to note that it's the most mingin' bevvie out there)... I've only taken a charge at it once, waking up in my underpants in the sitting room the next day, covered in pink vomit...
Daff: "That'd be about right."
Baggy: "That's part of the fascination with Buckfast. I wouldn't say I drank it every weekend, I don't think I could anymore, but I do like a bottle of Bucky now and again. We took 27 bottles of it to Donnington one year... but there were 10 of us, so it's not that rock'n'roll"
Tell us, what want to do with Lesshelp? What is the meisterplan?
Marty: "World domination..."
Baggy: "... in a sort of stealth type way..."
Marty: "We are the antispides."
Baggy: "The Lesshelp home video is next. The whole story."
Would it be more 'Spinal Tap' or 'Bad News'?
Daff: "Oh, definitely a mixture of both, like. Spinal Tap is better for me, but they're both brilliant"
Baggy: "Did we answer the question by the way?"
Aye, you may have done... but sure, I'll make the answers up anyway. Marty, you're in Spindrift, Daff you're in Nil. Baggy?
Baggy: "I think Lesshelp's enough for me... too much Metal for any one man"
You've sampled some choice Christopher Lee (Hail!) from 'The Devil Rides Out'.. big Hammer Horror fans? What about the copyright case when you achieve yer domination and that becomes your anthem with the kids?
Baggy: "We didn't have any words for that song, couldn't think of any more, so we though 'What the hell, we'll put some samples on, see what it sounds like'. It was even tackier than that at first... with samples out of a Judas Priest video... but it just really didn't fit... I'm actually hoping that 'Whole Lotta Spides' will become our anthem, the kids can sing along to that one"
Daff: "I think 'Spides Drive Novas' is another. Or '195 Decibels' (which is so loud the human ear can't hear it)"
Ah, what about 'Itchy Sac (the bitch strikes back)'?
Baggy: "Yeah, there's a lot of people like that one... and a lot of people like 'Smells like Kurt's Corpse' as well. There's 4 or 5 classic tracks on the first tape that I'd like to do again, so you can actually make them out this time. 'Bowel Blaster', 'Green', 'Byond (Master of the Hound)'... "
 Daff: "...'Backroom of Doom'... "
Baggy: "...that's a classic..."
Daff: "...'Spanish Inquisition'..."
Baggy: "Absolute classic... that needs done live, but we never did get those castanets"
How about 'Respect the Vomit Shouting Man". An intriguing idea... about the guy who 'likes his Tull, like his Quo.."
Baggy: "That's actually about this guy we know, who likes to shout and vomit."
Daff: "All he does is drink, and vomit and shout, and he likes Jethro Tull and Status Quo. And he's called 'Respect', so it's 'Respect, the vomit-shouting man'..."
Tell you what, ask each other a question...
Daff to Baggy: "Are you in love with Heavy Metal?"
Baggy: "Yeah, I'm in love with Heavy Metal"
Daff: "So Marty, which one's better... Spindrift or Lesshelp?"
...a silence descends....
Marty: "They're equally as awesome!"
Baggy: "That was a ridiculous question. I can tell you about the curse of Lesshelp, but..."
Away you go...
Baggy: "It started on day one, when the guy started recording stuff... even today, the curse of Lesshelp was with us..." (he makes a crap effort to account for being late for this squalid interrogation)... "the original master tape for 'City Knee-deep in Dead Spides' melted in my car, and had to be redone... had to redo all the vocals on the latest demo, coz of a technical defect we had... they were blanking out all the other music, we forgot to put a sock over the microphone, I think that's what it was... on the last tape, there was a high-pitched whine all the way through it that nobody could identify..."
Marty: ".. that was Satan..."
Baggy: "...that's basically an idea of the curse of Lesshelp. Whatever can go wrong will go wrong... that's why recording this demo in two weekends took four months to mix... But we only spent 16 hours mixing it in those 4 moths, due to every possible excuse... all rock'n'roll things"
Marty: "Lesshelp's plan is now to gig. It's a secret when, but it'll be the event of the year."
Baggy: "It'll be whenever we get our hydraulic drum-riser. We're thinking about bring a couple of Vauxhall Novas on stage and burning them out. Home video needs done... and we need to do a gig so's we can film it"
How about dispatching a couple of spides on stage? No-one would miss 'em...
Daff: "We were thinking about that, aye... it'd need to be knee-deep in them though..."
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