The Times August 10, 2006
Shock and Horrors: at last, a band parents can hate
By Adam Sherwin, Media Correspondent
Scary: Essex band The Horrors - but they are a lot more intelligent than they appear.
Not so scary: The Arctic Monkeys
Faris Rotter - vocals
Tomethy Furse - danelectro longhorn bass
Joshua Von Grimm - fender jaguar
Spider Webb - vox continental organ
Coffin Joe - bangs the drums
HAVE the Arctic Monkeys lost their cool? A new rocky horror show is sweeping Britain’s teenagers and tastemakers with a sound that parents will learn to hate.
The NME has cleared the front page this week to hail the Horrors, a ghoulish five-piece from Southend, in Essex, who look like Victorian undertakers and sound like Screaming Lord Sutch (leader of the crazy Monster Raving Looney Party) after a heavy by-election defeat.
Led by the pseudonymous Faris Rotter and guitarist Joshua von Grimm, their signature tune, Sheena is a Parasite, is 1 minute and 20 seconds of screaming over a primal rock riff.
The Horrors on the cover of rock mag NME
Hundreds of fans have been turned away from their chaotic live shows, sometimes curtailed after 15 minutes, which are populated by “14-year-old chav kids in Hallowe’en make-up”.
But the Oscar-nominated actress Samantha Morton has starred in their (banned) video and the band have achieved 300,000 plays on MySpace, which catapulted Arctic Monkeys and Lily Allen to No 1. “They look awful and sound terrible — but so did the Sex Pistols,” enthused Conor McNicholas, the Editor of NME. “Why wait to put them on the front cover?” It is a sales gamble for NME to place such a relatively unknown group on its cover but McNicholas said: “When even Gordon Brown professes to like Arctic Monkeys, the Horrors are the sound of the generation gap — a band your parents will hate.”
Teenagers are instead flocking to noisy, fun and accessible bands, and McNicholas believes that the Arctic Monkeys have lost their lustre. “They give the impression of a band moping around the music industry looking like this is the last thing in the world they want to be doing.
“We found 800 kids in Middlesbrough diving on to the dancefloor for Sheena is a Parasite. We knew then that this was a real movement by kids looking for something new.”
Even the NME had “never felt so physically threatened by the atmosphere at a gig” than at the Horrors’s recent sold-out show at the 100 Club in London. Rotter accidentally “glassed” a fan in the front row, cutting open his cheek.
But they are not the wastrels they might appear. Rotter, otherwise known as Faris Badwan, is a product of Rugby School. The son of a neuro surgeon, Badwan, 19, hopes to complete his degree course at Central St Martins College of Art and Design, if stardom does not interfere.
Von Grimm secured a first in physics at City University, London, which he has put to use by designing circuitry for the band’s guitar-effects pedals.
DEGREES OF COOL
ARCTIC MONKEYS
Home: Sheffield, South Yorkshire
Average age: 20
Education: Barnsley College
Pin-up: Alex Turner
Style: Hogarth in a hoodie
Anthem: I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor
Sales: 1.8 million worldwide
THE HORRORS
Home: Southend-on-Sea, Essex
Average age: 19
Education: Rugby School, Central St Martin’s College of Art (so they are quite posh)
Pin-up: Faris Rotter
Style: Dr Terrible’s House of Horrible with cravats
Anthem: Sheena is a Parasite
Sales: 300,000 MySpace plays
timesonline.co.uk
Shock and Horrors: at last, a band parents can hate
By Adam Sherwin, Media Correspondent
Scary: Essex band The Horrors - but they are a lot more intelligent than they appear.
Not so scary: The Arctic Monkeys
Faris Rotter - vocals
Tomethy Furse - danelectro longhorn bass
Joshua Von Grimm - fender jaguar
Spider Webb - vox continental organ
Coffin Joe - bangs the drums
HAVE the Arctic Monkeys lost their cool? A new rocky horror show is sweeping Britain’s teenagers and tastemakers with a sound that parents will learn to hate.
The NME has cleared the front page this week to hail the Horrors, a ghoulish five-piece from Southend, in Essex, who look like Victorian undertakers and sound like Screaming Lord Sutch (leader of the crazy Monster Raving Looney Party) after a heavy by-election defeat.
Led by the pseudonymous Faris Rotter and guitarist Joshua von Grimm, their signature tune, Sheena is a Parasite, is 1 minute and 20 seconds of screaming over a primal rock riff.
The Horrors on the cover of rock mag NME
Hundreds of fans have been turned away from their chaotic live shows, sometimes curtailed after 15 minutes, which are populated by “14-year-old chav kids in Hallowe’en make-up”.
But the Oscar-nominated actress Samantha Morton has starred in their (banned) video and the band have achieved 300,000 plays on MySpace, which catapulted Arctic Monkeys and Lily Allen to No 1. “They look awful and sound terrible — but so did the Sex Pistols,” enthused Conor McNicholas, the Editor of NME. “Why wait to put them on the front cover?” It is a sales gamble for NME to place such a relatively unknown group on its cover but McNicholas said: “When even Gordon Brown professes to like Arctic Monkeys, the Horrors are the sound of the generation gap — a band your parents will hate.”
Teenagers are instead flocking to noisy, fun and accessible bands, and McNicholas believes that the Arctic Monkeys have lost their lustre. “They give the impression of a band moping around the music industry looking like this is the last thing in the world they want to be doing.
“We found 800 kids in Middlesbrough diving on to the dancefloor for Sheena is a Parasite. We knew then that this was a real movement by kids looking for something new.”
Even the NME had “never felt so physically threatened by the atmosphere at a gig” than at the Horrors’s recent sold-out show at the 100 Club in London. Rotter accidentally “glassed” a fan in the front row, cutting open his cheek.
But they are not the wastrels they might appear. Rotter, otherwise known as Faris Badwan, is a product of Rugby School. The son of a neuro surgeon, Badwan, 19, hopes to complete his degree course at Central St Martins College of Art and Design, if stardom does not interfere.
Von Grimm secured a first in physics at City University, London, which he has put to use by designing circuitry for the band’s guitar-effects pedals.
DEGREES OF COOL
ARCTIC MONKEYS
Home: Sheffield, South Yorkshire
Average age: 20
Education: Barnsley College
Pin-up: Alex Turner
Style: Hogarth in a hoodie
Anthem: I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor
Sales: 1.8 million worldwide
THE HORRORS
Home: Southend-on-Sea, Essex
Average age: 19
Education: Rugby School, Central St Martin’s College of Art (so they are quite posh)
Pin-up: Faris Rotter
Style: Dr Terrible’s House of Horrible with cravats
Anthem: Sheena is a Parasite
Sales: 300,000 MySpace plays
timesonline.co.uk