spotlight Now |
Zodiac

The Love Re

N.

BAD BOYS

17 - Friday, February 12, 1988 - North Shore News

_— one-time nt), iS
oOcAL BOY makes a ks. Sim Th snder hide oe
vet Cris Reashaw: Britain's ion.
nt metal dram & The Love React

nom + Net osiag Minder?

Van drummer finds new music,

new style with brash British band

EXIT NORTH Vancouver resident Chris Renshaw. Enter in

his place Slam Thunderhide, drummer for England’s Zodiac

Mindwarp.& The Love Reaction, brash bad boys of British

rock.

Fade to MuchMusic, late 1987.
The host describes the group's |
Prime Mover video as ‘‘intense,’”
barely disguising her disdain. In it,
under the power of Zodiac, prim
Catholic girls turn into lusty
leather-clad vixens; nuns’ heads
later explode.

Cut back to North Vancouver in
1983, a Slam Thunderhide-to-be
leaving home for London to try to
make his mark in the music
business.

First for Renshaw wes the band
Ring of Roses and a reco:d deal.
Next came singer Zodiac Mind-

STEPHEN
BARRINGTON

feature writer

warp, who spotted the drummer
during a sound check and wanted
him to join The Love Reaction
along with Flash Bastard, Trash D.
Garbage and Cobalt Stargazer.

Behind each name is a personali-
ty trait -— Flash for his guitar play-
ing, Stargazer ‘‘because he’s ..
always three sheets to the wind,’’
Trash for his low standards in
practically everything and Slam for
his drumming. Mindwasp speaks
for itself.

Preferred garb is leather, prefer-
red color: black. All have beards
of some sort. Intense eyes peer out
from behind long hair, sunglasses
or-hat brims. Me

oot

ca

Pounding drums, searing hot
guitars and brutal vocals have won
the group a substantial British fol-

owing. The band’s single Prime.

Mover reached number 18 on the
high-competition British charts,
and popularity across the Atlantic
is growing.

Time magazine described the

-group as “‘harking back to the

brash activism and overheated
playing of the late-’70s Clash era.””

“People are bored with clean
rock,’” says Thunderhide, 27.
“People want to see bad boys
again. I think we fill that gap quite
nicely.’’

As testimony to the group’s
no-holds-barred image, a British
music magazine put ‘‘inviting the
group to a party”’ on its list of 10
things not tc do.

With the group's driving sound
described by Thunderhide as
“‘neuro-spasm rock,’’ Zodiac
Mindwarp & The Love Reaction
last year played to full houses of
appreciative fans on the group’s
major North American tour.

“Every club we'd play was full,
and without any advance publici-
ty,” says Thunderhide. Fans
responded with what is apparently
high praise — ‘‘By the end of the

————
See
i ————

a

evening, we had them smashing
their heads into the monitors.”

But nobody takes them less
seriously than the band members
themselves. In the British music
press, the group is often likened to
just-visiting-this-planct aliens, a
comparison understandable in light
of the band’s out-of-this-world
playing style.

Instruments are treated to a
psychadelic paint job and given
names — Thunderhide’s drum kit
is called Earthshaker; Cobalt plays
his Sleazegrinder and his Scarab.

“We're generally just a fun-
loving drinking band; we don’t go

-out to hurt anybody — we usually
end up hurting ourselves.””

OF his present persona, the
former cab driver and garbage col-
lector says: ‘‘These are just the
clothes I like to wear, this is what I
do, this is what I’ve evolved into.”’

And he did not, as one Brit
magazine said, wash dishes
alongside Bryan Adams.

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