Demon Preacher
Before Nik Fiend (Nicholas Wade) started Alien Sex Fiend and scared assorted grandmothers and children he sang in a band called Demon Preacher and on a little ditty called Royal Northern / Laughing At Me / Steal Your Love / Dead End Kids (Illegal records 1977). An okayish bit of punkery. He then produced the little masterpiece Little Miss Perfect / Perfect Dub (1978 Small Wonder Records). ‘Put your knickers on Joyce Mackinney – I can see your bum.’ Indeed you probably could Nik. Went on to record another single as The Demons Action By Example / I Wish I Was A Dog the latter re-appearing on the album Whose Been Sleeping In My Brain by Alien Sex Fiend.
I like Old Nik ( sort of Alice Cooper crossed with Herman Munster and I mean that in the nicest possible way !!) and I’ve had many a drug-fuelled evening in the company of his music.
Formed in 1976 Demon Preacher had more comings and goings than a brothel (see interview). Featured At one time Razzle in the band who later became drummer in Hanoi Rocks and met an untimely end with Vince Neil of Motley Crue ( f**k there’s a weird set of connections for you) in an automobile accident. Also had Max Splodge in the band at one time.
Uncle Nik remembers….
How did Demon Preacher start?
Aaaaarggghhh!!! It’s like digging back into the furthest chambers of my head! Phew…. I’ve even had to get out my old books of press cuttings to refresh my memory on some of this stuff, it seems so long ago! In the beginning there were two of us, me & Tony Gialanze, a guitarist, & we used to rehearse in a bedroom.
He was one of the few people I knew who was into the same stuff as me. Demon Preacher was created late ’75, the name just came to me, walking down the King’s Road in London. We had a fuzz box orientated sound, thanks to Tony G’s tone bender pedal. We were joined by some mates of Tony G’s – Big Tony Ward (guitar), Geoff Bedz (guitar) & Gel Healy (drums) but were still without a bass. So in came Tony G’s bird, Sharon Mac.
It was really hard to get gigs early on. Punk was pretty dangerous at that time, a lot of people didn’t consider it to be proper music & you could get quite a lot of trouble from just the way you looked. There was like a little network of people, people would come into London from all over the place to see gigs. We just enjoyed rehearsing at first, we used to spend as much time over the weekend as possible making a racket. Our first rehearsal place was in the crypt of a Roman Catholic church in Holloway Road!
First gig was late ’77 at which Sex Pistols members Rotten, Jones & Cook were present. We played a number of gigs at The Roxy Club in WC2 & The Brecknock in N7, Hope And Anchor, etc.
Listening to Royal Northern single now it sounds, if you don’t mind me saying it, pretty rough !! How did you come to record it and remember anything about it?
It may sound rough but I’ve heard that it’s now changing hands for £38 a copy! (Laughs) All I wanted was to get a record released & get started, I wasn’t after awards for production or anything! For the first time it was possible to put your own record out & get it distributed. But you needed money.
It took me ages to get the finances sorted out but in the end, I borrowed it from my boss at the time. He got paid back very quickly plus a profit! This EP was released in January ’78, & featured a total slag down of The Royal Northern Hospital, in N7. We got LOADS of press about it & it caused a really big stink! By this point Geoff Bedz, Tony Gialanze & Sharon had left so instead we had Camilla Branson on bass & cigarette holder, & Kevin Armstrong (who later produced the Alien Sex Fiend Acid Bath album) played lead guitar on the fourth track Dead End Kidz.
I booked the studio for 2 hours, thinking 4 songs to record, half an hour each, sorted! But it took 2 hours to get everything plugged in & working & so forth. Pete McGhee, the owner, let us have the extra 2 hours free. Bless him, he was well into what we were doing. After that recording session, Tony Ward & Gerry left as they weren’t prepared to go 100% with it. They had good jobs & stuff whereas I wanted to do this full-time, all the time!
How did you come to get a single deal with Small Wonder?
Pete Stennett of Small Wonder had heard the Royal Northern EP & because he had sold so many copies of Royal Northern through their shop he wanted to put us in the studio to do a follow up single, which was “”Little Miss Perfect””. A song about Joyce McKinney who had kidnapped a Mormon minister & had chained him up & raped him, allegedly! By that time Joe Schmo had joined as guitarist, I had met him at The Roxy, he was also a good photographer.
Camilla was still on bass, & Kevin Armstrong too, who was also the producer. Drummer Paul Wilson of The Unwanted & The Psychedelic Furs had played with us at the Stoke Newington Open Air Festival but then went AWOL, so Max Splodge (of Splodgnessabounds & Two Pints Of Lager & A Packet Of Crisps fame) sat in on drums. Little Miss Perfect is the only track that has been re-issued on CD, it’s on a Cherry Red released CD called Best Of Small Wonder. Everything else is only available on the original vinyl.
Why did the band break up?
After Little Miss Perfect the band mutated into different line-ups, it would be impossible to list everyone! & it lasted a while longer. We did a lot of gigs, at The Music Machine in Camden at the Brecknock, The Old Queen’s Head in Stockwell, The Pied Bull in Islington. Also at one point we were called The Demons & released a 2 track single called Action By Example again on my own label. That featured Claire Hirst on sax who was later in The Belle Stars & played with David Bowie.
Then we went back to the name Demon Preacher with Razzle on drums, (later he joined Hanoi Rocks) Boo on bass & Jim on guitar, both of whom went onto be in The Babysitters, & Piece (later in Turkey Bones And The Wild Dogs) on lead guitar. This was the final lineup. We headlined a festival on the Isle Of Wight & took a lot of magic mushrooms. The gig was totally mental & a fitting end to the band! When we came back, our heads had been drastically changed & in the end we all went our separate ways, but we stayed friends.
Looking back how do you see your time with Demon Preacher and Punk in general?
It was a massive learning curve. Looking back now, I’m amazed at how people & events were so interlinked & also how much front I had!! I would go & book a gig & then go get a band together! Absolutely good fun. Even the shit bits seem hilarious now! I suppose cos I’ve survived it & come out the other side. So I’m lucky really!
Any amusing anecdotes for my readers to read over breakfast?
Lots! Around ’78 we were going to do a gig on the roof of Beaufort Market in the King’s Road. I think Jock MacDonald (of Bollock Brothers) had organised it & there was going to be a big headliner band but so many punks turned up that the police closed off the street & arrested people & stopped everything. We were lucky not to get arrested ourselves.
We also did a gig in Oxford, where I jumped onto the bar at the side & ran along it, as I went back towards the stage someone set my shirt on fire. I went flying into the drums, they started to burn, & the curtains as well, somehow someone put it all out & we carried on. Munchie from Tenpole Tudor was playing bass that night. That was part of it, playing with all different people. There was another good one at a venue in York Way, I got halfway through the gig & wanted to liven things up a bit so I dropped my trousers, jumped off the stage & ran around the place, half the place emptied!
After that Isle Of Wight gig, I wanted to experiment with new things & Alien Sex Fiend was born out of that!
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