Helen and Dave talked to Wez, Jimbob and Fruitbat on their Worry Bomb tour.

Are you going to get annoyed if we ask you why you got a drummer? I mean, you've probably been asked it once or twice before.
J: We haven't actually been asked yet.
F: Ever.
F: Never ever been asked that.

Is that true?
J: No, we have actually been asked that.
W: Every time.
J: I mean, the main reason it's a boring question is because the answer is boring. It was really just... we fancied a change. It was a sort of fairly logical thing to do, just out of boredom more than anything else. And we did it quickly, and it worked really well.

Are you going to get anyone else in?
F: Not in the foreseeable future.
J: Not even in the unforeseeable future.
F: Well, you can never, like, see the unforeseeable.
J: This is true.

Just recently, the NME had a big article about you, and slagged you off quite a bit...
F: Oh right yeah, the Steven Wells thing. You see, we actually really liked that piece. Everyone else thought it was a slag off, but we actually understood what he was on about. He was actually slagging off the fans more than he was slagging us off.
J: I mean, it didn't bother me at all, because, y'know, this tour's been sold out, and we feel pretty settled in anyway, and ready to just carry on. I don't actually feel we've got that much to prove anymore.

What about the difficult fifth album? It's recorded now...
J: It was easy.
F: I mean, the most difficult album to make was probably 30 Something, because we actually had to write quite a lot of that while we were making it, and I'd be in one room doing the music, and he'd be in the other room writing the lyrics, and that was in a real concentrated time, we didn't have enough money to get any more studio time. This one was really easy to make.
J: We lived at the studio for about six weeks, so, y'know, basically we went in and did the work, and then we could go in any time we wanted, so there was no real pressure.

So it's not difficult finding inspiration for new songs, then? You've done four albums, and you've written about virtually every major social evil there is.
J: Yeah, I mean, the lyrics are always hard, but.... I mean, they've changed in their style, as well.

You've been accused of mellowing out a bit, of calming down - is there any truth to that?
W: Nah, we're never calm.
J: I've probably mellowed out a little bit... I don't know. We try and ignore everything that everybody says, really. Some people say we've mellowed out, some people say we're now a punk band again. We really don't think about it, we just plod on regardless, a bit like Status Quo.

What's the new album like - is it simply Carter with a drummer, or is there any change?
J: It's definitely changed because of Wez, y'know, 'cos we've played a lot of it live, and we've never ever played anything live before on an album, it's always been, y'know, pre-ordained... pre- programmed, so, er, just the fact that it sounds live. I mean, it's easily the best album. I think the first couple of albums was, like, Carter with the original concept, the drum machine and that, and I think probably the third and fourth album could've been done with a drummer, but we didn't know.

Have you done it too late?
J: No, we haven't done it too late at all. It's like a new lease of life for us, it's not a second coming or anything, 'cos we've been around too long, we don't need that. It's a fifth album, we ain't going anywhere.

Are you embarrased about being called "The Unstoppable Sex Machine", and are you going to do an MC Hammer and just become Carter?
J: Nah. I mean, to most people we are Carter, it's only wacky Radio 1 DJs that like to say it, 'cos they get to...
W: Wacky?
J: Yeah.
W: Oh, right.
J: ...they get to say the word 'sex'.
F: It still is the full name of the band, that'll still be on records...
J: We still have a hell of a lot of sex.
W: Can't stop me.
F: Mainly with ourselves.

You've been covering 'Trouble' on this tour - what d'you think of Shampoo?
J: I've always liked classy pop acts, y'know, pop bands that swear... like, the difference between Take That, Bad Boys Inc. and Boyzone, very clean-living bands that, er, none of them have got girlfriends, you know, they constantly say things like that, and they don't drink, and they don't smoke, and they go to bed early. Wheras East 17 and Shampoo make class pop records, but at the same time they're animals.

D'you reckon Shampoo'll be around for a while?
J: I really don't know. I don't really necessarily think it matters.
F: Some bands, they just make one album, and it's brilliant, and that's it, but they're still a great band.

Do you think they're better for just being a pop moment?
J: No, I mean, I'd like the to make ten albums, and grow beards and stuff.

East 17 and Boyzone have both got singles out for the Christmas number one, but you haven't gone for it this year. Why not?
F: Because it's a complete and utter waste of time.
J: We listen to Radio 1 a lot in the car, and there's so many Christmas records out it's ludicrous. And most of them are rubbish.

Who d'you want to be number one this year?
J: East 17. I think it's done with a certain tongue-in-cheek style...
F: And the jingle bells bit doesn't happen till the end.

With the 'Let's get Tattoos' video, and the TOTP appearance - is that selling out, or is it taking the mickey?
J: It's taking the mickey. I mean, if people don't understand irony, then that's not really our problem. But the idea that a band like us is going to have, like, scantily-dressed dancers in a video and on Top of the Pops...
F: It appealed to our sense of humour.
J: ...but the idea that we'd do it in a Lionel Ritchie-type way is ludicrous.

D'you reckon it sold you more records?
J: Er, no it didn't, it went down the charts. Basically, we went on TOTP and loads of girls were screaming, and we had to be cleared out of the studio because they couldn't film anything else because they wanted to get near these half-dressed blokes, but... once it's done, nobody really knew who we were.
F: It's not followed up by being constantly in Smash Hits.

Well, you used to be in the pop press all the time.
F: We were in Smash Hits long enough for them not to like us, after the Smash Hits thing, after Philip Schofield...

We were going to and try and avoid mentioning that. D'you reckon you'll be back in Smash Hits again, in a couple of years time?
F: It depends. If we start up our own soap opera...
J: No, I think we might. The editor likes us.
F: The thing is, Smash Hits is mainly about, kind of, good- looking people and sex, and we don't really fit into that.

These Animal men said something about their fans and your fans....
J: What, about their fans being beautiful and ours being ugly?
F: Yeah, the thing is, though, it's the same people. We've actually realised that, being on this tour, their fans are the same people as our fans, they've just got different T-shirts on.
J: That's one of the good things about These Animal Men.
F: They say some interesting things.
J: They talk a lot of nonsense, which is more interesting that people telling the truth all the time.

So have you seen quite a lot of them during the tour?
J: Yeah, they're really good friends of ours. They wouldn't be here if we didn't like them.

The Family Cat have supported you quite a lot - they've had no success at all, they keep putting out single after single, what was the recent one, the 'Michael Portillo' one...
F: There was one after that, wasn't there?

Oh, 'Jonathan Aitken', yes. D'you reckon they're ever going to have a hit?
F: If the right song happens, and it gets played on the radio... it's just one of those things, really. We've always championed the Family Cat because we think they're absolutely brilliant, always have been...
J: They're not that marketable, as a product...
F: It's the same thing, y'know...
J: ...and they've got a useless record label.
F: ...they're not very young, they're not very sexy, their image doesn't fit in with the way bands are projected nowadays.
J: If they were American they'd probably be massive, but they're from Cornwall. And then you get REM, and people like that, who do the same kind of, y'know, quality songs, but sell millions of records.

You're virtually at the end of the tour - d'you ever get the temptation to think "oh, it's the end of the tour, have a bit of a rest from it"...
J: Nah.
F: Some days you feel tired.
J: There's countless times before you go on when you just don't wanna go on stage, but once you get on there... I've always got that feeling of people paying money to come in and that, and you have to somehow get into it. And also, with all these gigs there's been a really good atmosphere, and you can't help but get sucked into it.

You've got a very close-knit fan base - d'you think that's a problem, having the long-haired indie kids who follow you about?
F: But on this tour it's been a lot more of a mixture y'know, it's not just those people, like there's a lot of fourteen, fifteen year olds, a lot of people that have obviously only seen us on Top Of The Pops...
J: And also a lot of thirty-year-old skinheads, and crusties, and mums and dads...
F: We've always been a bit of a family group.

The other question we could ask you, but were trying to avoid, is the thing about the hair.
J: I mean, basically... I don't know. I was just at home, and you think... For a start, it looked stupid, and it was growing all over, I was growing the rest of it, and that bit, I was just tying it out of the way, it was like a hat or something, it was just in the way, so I cut it off. And also 'cause, like, when you make a new album, you feel like you're starting again. It'd be terrible if we came back and we were wearing shorts, and I had the same haircut, and Fruitbat was wearing a cycle hat...

Who did it first, you or Miles Hunt?
J: He cut his hair before me.
F: Clint Boon from the Inspirals did it first.
J: Clint Poppie as well...
F: And Al, he cut his hair...
J: But, I mean, really, it's quite simple that everybody gets their hair cut, and the amount of people who've come up to me and said 'why did you get your hair cut, I used to have hair like yours', and, it's like, 'why did you get your hair cut?'

Because you did?
J: People just basically get their hair cut, just 'cause you're in a band doesn't mean you're not allowed to get your hair cut, unless you're Status Quo, where you have to look the same, or Robert Smith, probably couldn't get his hair cut...
F: I think he should.
J: Well obviously he should, because it looks ridiculous.

Well, that's about our list of questions gone - anything else you want to say?
J: Erm... no. There never is.

How many interviews have you done this tour?
J: About three hundred.
F: Average of about two or three a gig.

And we come in at the end.
J: Trouble is that ninety percent of them are absolutely crap.

When we got in touch with your promotions company, they said people have been asking you about 'Let's Get Tattoos' as your first single.
J: You do get some really daft questions, you know. But not today.

Carter USM were talking to Dave and Helen, in October 1994.

You can find the Official Carter Homepage (kept by none other than Fruitbat himself, apparently) at http://www.cityscape.co.uk/users/fm93/index.html.