Angelic Upstarts - The Interview

Many thanks to Cian Hynes of Riot 77 Magazine, who conducted this interview which was first published in Issue 5 of his 'zine.

No band even comes close to the Angelic Upstarts in terms of speaking their mind regardless of the backlash and one man in particular, Thomas "Mensi" Mensforth has never backed down on his word or turned his back on what the Angelic Upstarts have stood for in their twenty odd year history as a band. Ask Mensi a question and he'll always give you an honest answer, without thinking for a second of the repercussions involved. From a strong working class background in the north east of England, Angelic Upstarts have had a far from easy road to acceptance.

Rising up alongside Sham 69 in the early eighties was never going to be an easy time for a patriotic band to be understood. Suffering constant physical attacks from the right wing, but seldom coming out second best, earned the Upstarts a reputation for sticking with your principles, when it would have been so easy to turn your back and walk away in favour of an easy life. The band came to a halt in 1986, but have again taken up the fight against the fascists with a new lease on life with the backing of Lainey (Leatherface) on drums, Tony Von Frater (Red Alert) on guitar and Gaz Stoker (Red London) on bass. Of course none of this would make the Upstarts what they are today if it wasn't for the killer tunes. Old favourites like "I'm An Upstart", "Police Oppression", and "The Murder of Liddle Towers" to name but a few, go hand in hand with songs from their new album "Sons Of Spartacus" like "Safe Haven" and "Anti-Nazi".

Angelic Upstarts never set out to be a political band - It was the fascists that made `em that and if you know Mensi, you'll know he's not one for sitting on the fence. I met up with Mensi at the Angelic Upstarts first appearance in the republic and the following conversation took place in the Halfpenny Bridge Pub, in Dublin.

RIOT.77: You played in Hartlepool yesterday. How was that for you?

MENSI: Yeah we done Hartlepool last night and then Sunderland the night before. Sunderland was absolutely phenomenal, it was just brilliant. Hartlepool was alright, but I had to work hard, you know? I don't like doing that (laughs). I like the audience to work as well, you know? Sometimes you've got to pull your finger out and do a bit of work.

RIOT.77: Where is Hartlepool, exactly?

MENSI: It's about thirty miles from Sunderland, it's not far. That's only the second time we've ever played there.

RIOT.77: So you're here in Dublin for the Anti-Fascist Action benefit. Why did you decide to make the gig a benefit?

MENSI: I was just approached by AFA and I'm deeply indebted to AFA not just in Ireland, but in England as well. I've never ever refused them to do anything. They've only got to ask us and I'll do it. Simple as that. If it weren't for them, Angelic Upstarts would not exist now.

RIOT.77: How did you get involved with AFA in the first place, `cos you go back a long way with them don't you?

MENSI: Yeah, I've been involved with AFA since `91 or even before that .... going on fifteen years .... basically since they started existing, you know? I became more heavily involved with them as I got older.

RIOT.77: Why do you specifically associate with them as opposed to the other Anti-Fascist groups?

MENSI: Give me an idea of which ones you mean.

RIOT.77: Anti-Nazi League.

MENSI: I wouldn't piss on them if they were on fire. I've got no time for them. I love the ideology of them, I think it's fantastic; I've got no problem with that whatsoever. It's the same as the SWP. The ideology is fantastic, but their actual combat procedures are nonexistent. I'll give you a simple example right -- It's no good if there's a hundred fascists marching down the street and you're standing there with a little banner saying, "WE HATE NAZIS!!!". I want to smash them over the head with the fuckin' banner, you know what I mean? It's as simple as that. They want to engage in some kind of political discussion or have some dialogue with them. But what sort of dialogue can you have with these people? If you can enlighten us, please do. I certainly did try to align myself with the Anti-Nazi League, but I just felt like a duck out of water, `cos they didn't have the aspirations that I had. AFA said to me, "This is how we're going to do it. Do you want to be a part of it?". I said, "Yeah, that's for me".

RIOT.77: Is it because they use physical force?

MENSI: I wouldn't say "physical force". They believe in a physical aspect .... there's one misconception with AFA and that's that you've got to be a hard man or hard woman and that's rubbish. All you've got to do is make a stand. It's simple. If it comes to the physical part, there are people with AFA who at the end of the day .... when you're dealing with bullies you need that aspect to your political argument.

RIOT.77: You tried the pacifist approach earlier on when you first encountered the Nazis, is that right?

MENSI: Oh yeah! I tried everything with them. When I first started off, I tried talking to them and invited them to the shows, with the belief that because I was famous I could change their point of view just by talking to them, because I was that powerful, but that was a load of shit. They just weren't interested. In the end, people were accusing us of all sorts of things, but what's the point in preaching to the converted? It's the Nazis that you've got to approach. But as I said, in the end it all went very sour and we were so much at opposite polls, it was unbelievable. I was physically attacked first and I only responded. I was physically attacked by fascists on many occasions.

RIOT.77: Did they just come up to you and beat you up?

MENSI: There's nobody that's beaten us up, son.

RIOT.77: What happened when they attacked you?

MENSI: Uhhhh!!! ... I responded (laughs).

RIOT.77: Do you still get much hassle off them?

MENSI: Oh yeah. I had a fight on Thursday night.

RIOT.77: Tell me about that.

MENSI: I was just approached by a member of the BNP and asked what my views were on Nick Griffin and his brother, who are the leaders of the BNP I didn't feel at liberty to discuss it. I didn't think I had to express them sort of views. He invited us to a physical confrontation, in which he came off a lot worse than I did and is now minus four teeth. After the gig when there was hardly anyone around, he wanted to make his presence felt.

RIOT.77: So you're fully aware that they still come to the gigs to watch you?

MENSI: Yeah, they have spies. There's never a time when they come to our gigs fully badged-up, but a lot of times you can sense when they're there and obviously they have their spies because they know the things I say. If I had any sort of dialogue with the crowd, the next day they'd know what I said. But I mean, I invite it to a certain extent, you know?

RIOT.77: How do you feel about them being there if they keep their mouth shut? Are you happy for them to be there or do you feel they shouldn't even be let past the front door?

MENSI: Well I'm not happy about it, no. But they've got to be somewhere, so at the end of the day if you can see them, it's a lot better that they're in front of me than behind me. I don't encourage them and I can't involve myself in dialogue with them, because they've got nothing to say and what they say repulses us. I just can't abide them. It's very deeply rooted in us and I can't explain why I feel so strong about it, I just hate them with a passion.

RIOT.77: Do you think they should be let in to gigs to hear what you have to say or do you think they should be kept out of gigs altogether?

MENSI: That's very difficult to say. If there's two or three of them, they might keep their trap shut, but if there's any sort of numbers of them, they do try and intimidate people. I've got to be honest and say, in the present climate, none of them could be swayed by anything I've got to say. I don't know what it is, there must be some sort of animal attraction, `cos they still show up and I can't understand it. In Sunderland, they absolutely know what my pedigree is and they still invite confrontation. If I was them, I wouldn't want to be attacking me. I just wouldn't, you know? I wouldn't fancy that mate. You know when they have their little meetings and discussions that they do? Well about ten years ago the Special Branch raided one of those meetings and I heard through them that I was number one on their death list that they found.

RIOT.77: The Special Branch told you that?

MENSI: I got told by a party whose dad was a police officer.

RIOT.77: Does that scare you?

MENSI: Any man who's not scared is a fool, isn't he? I mean I do get frightened and I never underestimate them. I'm not the hardest man in the world - in fact I'd say I'm one of the softest. I'm that easy- going, it's unbelievable. I'm not a particularly good fighter; it's just that when you're fighting for something that you really believe in, you always tend to do that much better. I'm no fool - if you're going to do it to me, I'll make sure I do it to you first. If I know it's coming mate, I'll kick the living fuckin' shit out of you. So if your opening line is, "What do you think of Nick Griffin? He's a friend of mine." Well .... (laughs). You're barking up the wrong tree, aren't you?

RIOT.77: Are you constantly looking over your shoulder wherever you go?

MENSI: I'm very careful. I mean, tonight, right, is one of the most relaxed I've been in my life. I just can't imagine any of them turning up here. I generally feel quite relaxed after gigs anyway, but you're always that little bit apprehensive, especially when you're out and about like we are now. I'd be apprehensive of snipers, because that's what we do as well. We do the same to them and we've had some great results. We caught Ian Stuart one time in a bar when we were doing a gig and we were just touring the area beforehand.

RIOT.77: Did you beat the shit out of him?

MENSI: Yeah.

RIOT.77: He used to come and watch Angelic Upstarts play didn't he?

MENSI: He had been a couple times. I think it was in 1980 he asked me to go to a Skrewdriver gig. He said they weren't Nazis, you know?

RIOT.77: Was this supposedly before they got into that?

MENSI: Well here's the story (laughs). It was in the 100 Club and he was saying he was just proud of Britain and England and I said, "Alright! I'll listen to anyone". I'll listen to anybody if you've got something to say, you know? Anyway, he asked if I'd come down to the show and I'd see what they were like. So I walked into the 100 Club with my cousin and took one look and they were walking around with German helmets on and all that (laughs). I said, "Let's get out of here" (laughs). After that we had various street confrontations and this is the god's honest truth - he always ran.

RIOT.77: You always said he was a coward.

MENSI: Yep! I always thought that. I did send a message to him when it became very strong in the late eighties and asked him if he wanted to come and meet us and I would have had it straight with him in the street.

RIOT.77: Talk to him?

MENSI: No.

RIOT.77: You planned on beating him up?

MENSI: Yeah, but he wouldn't meet us. He declined my offer.

RIOT.77: Do you think he always got other people to do his dirty work for him?

MENSI: Yeah I do. Now Nicky Crane ...

RIOT.77: You respected Nicky Crane didn't you?

MENSI: Yeah I did. He's dead now, but I did have respect for him. I mean his politics were garbage, but I spoke to him on numerous occasions and he was quite an intelligent bloke. I met him at various street confrontations as well and he never took a backward step. That's the sort of respect I had for him. He did actually say to me on one occasion when I was standing outside a bar in London with about ten lads...he came by on his pushbike and stopped and came over and started talking to us. He said to me, "I've got to tell you something and I've never told this to anyone before, but if I was surrounded by the people that you are surrounded by, I'd win the war". He got back on his bike and peddled off. There's not many other people that would admit to that. If you talked to any of the others, they'd tell you I'm a commie, I'm the biggest wanker in the world, I'm a dog, I'm a nigger lover, I'm everything, you know? He was one of the ones who I thought if anyone was going to change it would be him and he did change before the end. He renounced what he'd done and came out and admitted he was openly gay.

RIOT.77: Was that a well-known fact with you?

MENSI: I knew it all the time, yeah. He used to like little boys and he used to work on the door of gay clubs and do all that S+M shit, or whatever you call it.

RIOT.77: Are you saying he was a paedophile?

MENSI: No. I'm not saying that, no. He liked young lads, not kids. He liked boys, sixteen or eighteen or whatever. I don't really know the age, but I don't think he was a paedophile. When I used to talk to the hard nuts and things, I used to confront them with that and they'd flip. Their whole hierarchy is made up of paedophiles and child molesters. Webster and all them had convictions for child molesting. I'd say, "And there's your main man Nicky and he's a homosexual". They'd say, "No!! No!! That's all rubbish. You're just saying that". But in the end he came out.

RIOT.77: They obviously knew in the back of their minds though?

MENSI: Well they didn't want to admit it, because he was one of their main men, you see?

RIOT.77: Did you used to wait outside Skrewdriver gigs to get Ian on his way out?

MENSI: Well what we used to do was .... their gigs were never advertised, they were always kept secret and it was just word of mouth. But we knew the area well, where they used to tour, so we'd see if we could capture him. We got him in a pub in Swiss Cottage in London and another time in a McDonalds getting his breakfast (laughs). My friend stabbed him in the arse with a fork as he was jumping over the counter. One of the lads by himself caught him at about 7:30 in the morning in Kings Cross buying a newspaper and my friend was buying a bottle of milk. At the end of the day he was just a fuckin' money grabbing leech. All them fuckheads were the same. They were just ripping the fuckin' hole out of everybody, charging a fortune for everything and with all their glossy magazines. At the end of the day it was just all about money. Because like, Ian Stuart is from a middle-class background, isn't he? His mam and dad are professionals and he was always trying to say he was working class. He was never working class.

RIOT.77: Where did he grow up?

Blackpool.

RIOT.77: Is there any particular reason why you've avoided playing in the Republic before? Would you have come over here in the early eighties?

MENSI: I would have come over at any time. Wherever I'm asked I usually go. Obviously there's certain places I wouldn't want to go. There's certain strongholds, you know? Southern Ireland is a place I've always wanted to play.... always. I always wanted to play Belfast as well, but I'm just a bit worried, you know? It might cause more trouble than it would prevent, `cos at the end of the day I couldn't sit on the fence. I'd have to say where I'm coming from.

RIOT.77: I wanted to ask you about the IRA if you don't mind. You've been somewhat vague about your feelings towards them and whether or not you support what they're doing in the north. Could you clear that up?

MENSI: It's very difficult for me as an English person to have strong views on them .... I'm going to put my hand on my heart and say that I do support the armed struggle. I support the armed struggle and I hate violence and I hate the way the innocent are caught up in it all. I do still believe there are innocent on both sides. It's like when you were talking about the Anti-Nazi League - it's all well and good being left wing, but if you're English and left wing, as soon as you mention the Republican movement, nobody wants to know. You can support the Palestinians, Peruvians, Colombians, whatever and all of them have right on their side, especially the Palestinians, but how you cannot support the struggle of people so close to you is something I don't understand about left-wing. I think it's because it affects English people a lot more than anybody else in the world and I'm English and I can't help being English, you know? It's what I am. It's like the thing with Serbia .... I detest the way NATO are glorifying everything, but then I don't like Serbia for the way they attacked Croatia .... it's very complicated, you know? What I disliked about the Republican movement was that from what I saw, there wasn't any political agenda. Although I was very close to the INLA I didn't understand the different factions. I get frightened sometimes with the revolutionary aspect, like with Solidarity. I totally supported solidarity, but once they got in they were worse than the people they replaced. Sometimes that frightens me about the Republican movement and it's always in the back of my mind, where as the IRSP always seem to have that backbone straight away. "This is our agenda and this is what we're working for". Like a socialist alternative.

RIOT.77: So just to be clear on this, you definitely feel the Brits should get out of Northern Ireland and you do support the Republican cause?

MENSI: Without a doubt. I know it's deep-rooted and everything and I don't have any solutions to it, but it certainly doesn't belong to .... how can you just take it, you know? There's a history, but I'm not personally responsible for that history and I don't see how people can still support the people who are responsible. It's the same people who are in the same jobs, just a different generation. What I see in Belfast is, if the average English working class kid could see what was going on, everybody would be in the IRA. I would, son. If you had to put up what they have to put up with .... on the first night I was there I was threatened with my life.

RIOT.77: By who?

MENSI: By a British soldier. I never said a word to him, I only answered a question and he didn't like the answer. What he said was .... we were sitting in a lad's house just off the Falls Road and there was one of them dividing walls and someone was throwing bricks down. I heard this noise and this kid starts shouting "Stand still! Stand still!". I looked around and there was the RUC and these army Land Rovers and they all got out and asked me who I was. I told them who I was and where I was from and the soldier said to me, "What the fuck are you doing here?". I said to him, "Well, I could ask you the same question". He held up the butt of his rifle and said "I'll smash your fuckin' head in". I was terrified when I went, but I was invited there and I was right when I went, but during the weekend the only time when I was frightened was when I seen a Union Jack. I thought, "Fuck me, I'm English and it frightens me, so what must the fuckin' kids who live there feel like?" It gave us a completely different understanding and respect for what was going on. Even if you put your hand on your heart and say you hate violence, if you seen what was going on around you, you would join it. To me there isn't any two ways about it. Whether or not I'd be brave enough to join is another matter, `cos some people can talk about this and there's others that can actually do it.

RIOT.77: How do your parents and family feel about those views, because you were raised English Protestant, is that right?

MENSI: Yeah, I was raised English Protestant. My Dad doesn't really have any strong views on anything; he was a trade unionist all his life. I mean, if I sit down and talk to him about certain aspects, he understands. I do try to talk to other lads as well who are of a similar persuasion to me, but are anti-Republican. The thing I find with left-wing people, even the SWP and credit where it's due to the Anti-Nazi League, you can't have dialogue with them. I'll tell you something, the only time I've ever been threatened with political violence since our conception in 1977, has been from people of right- wing persuasion. I've never been threatened by people of left-wing persuasion. That tells a true story, you know?

RIOT.77: You pulled out of Holidays In The Sun last summer. Why wouldn't you play at that?

MENSI: Yeah, that was the year before. I was becoming disillusioned with certain other bands that were taking the stage.

RIOT.77: Condemned 84?

MENSI: Condemned 84 and Section 5 .... and I'll say it right? They're fuckin' out and out racist fuckers, that's what they are. There's no two ways about it. When they say they're not political, I'm not fuckin' interested. You're out and out fuckin' fascists, so why don't you just come out and admit it, because what you talk is fuckin' bullshit. You're fuckin' Nazis and you're fuckin' proud of it.

RIOT.77: I've asked plenty of bands what they thought about Condemned 84 and out of about twenty bands Hard Skin were the only one who'd speak out against them. Why do you think people won't discuss their views on that band? Is it just fear of being beaten up, do you think?

MENSI: Yeah, they're scared of all the repercussions. But I've had all the repercussions, haven't I? So I couldn't give a fuck. If you want it, fuckin' bring it on. Angelic Upstarts are one of the only outfits that will say that. Fuckin' bring it on and we'll meet. You see, the thing with bullies is, they want to beat people up. They don't want a fight. They don't want a punch-up. They want to beat fuckin' people up. So what do they do? Get their little Pakistani and kick him about with about ten of them. Bash a refugee silly and stab him? You won't cuntin' do that to me. You can have us with twenty or thirty kids that will give you a proper row. Which one do you want? I know which one they want. They want the fuckin' easy touch, you know? Unfortunately the Angelic Upstarts are not an easy touch and never will be. Never have been and never will be.

RIOT.77: Did you explain to Darren Russell your reasons for pulling out and how did he feel about it?

MENSI: Yeah, I told him exactly why it was. He actually listened to us and withdrew Section 5, but I didn't think that was enough. I was willing to play with Section 5, and this has never been reported before, if the singer would get on stage and announce that he has made mistakes in the past and that he would forget his past, go forward and leave those politics behind. If he did that, I would play with them, but he wouldn't. Do you know what he said? He said, "I have no politics. I'm not political". Well, how big a fuckin' copout is that? He's a fuckin' Nazi, the fuckin' lot of the them are and I won't share a stage with them.

RIOT.77: Were the Upstarts the only band that pulled out because of that?

MENSI: I believe so, yeah.

RIOT.77: Do you think other bands should take a stand?

MENSI: It's up to themselves. What you've got to remember right is that the Angelic Upstarts have had a good time, we've been out here twenty-five years and you'll see tonight that the audience will appreciate what that means. I couldn't just go through the motions; I've got to have some purpose. It's all down to individuality and if you don't want to be involved, I didn't ask you to be involved, but don't dog me off because I am, which is what plenty of them do, you know? I seem to be the only one with politics and I never had any in the beginning. It was them that made us political, it wasn't anybody else. I didn't jump up and say, "I want to be a leftie" or "I want to be a commie". I didn't say I wanted to be anything; I just don't want to be you. I just don't want to associate with you. What one of those fuckers says every time I see him is, "I just like to have a drink and a laugh. I'm not political, I'm just proud of my country". Every time I see him he says the same fuckin' thing and I've never seen him have a drink and a laugh yet. They don't know how to have a drink and a laugh; they're too busy dogging people off.

RIOT.77: Speaking of being proud of your country, what about a song like "England"? Will you be playing that tonight in Dublin?

MENSI: I wouldn't like to.

RIOT.77: Why not?

MENSI: I played it last night and you know earlier on when I was saying to you that I was researching some history, well I found out that my grandfather was killed in the war in 1944, when he was hit by a bomb. He was a civilian and he buried the workers from the shipyards. In 1915 one of my relations was killed by a German U-Boat. I just found all of this out a couple of weeks ago and you have to understand that when I sing "England", I'm singing it for them. I'll only sing it in somebody else's country if I'm asked to. If somebody asks us and the majority want us to sing it, then I'll sing it. But if they don't want us to sing it, then I won't, because I think it's very difficult for someone else to relate to. My view is that I'm proud of where I come from and I am proud to be English. But I think the man who is from wherever has as much right to be as proud of where he's from, without a doubt. But if my country has done something to his, I wouldn't want to show him disrespect by singing it and I think there's so much history between England and Ireland that I wouldn't want to show and disrespect and it's as simple as that. I think the main thing is not to show respect for England, but to show respect for Ireland while I'm here.

RIOT.77: I didn't think you were ever going to play it in England again either.

MENSI: I wasn't going to, but they were screaming for it last night and it just crept back in.

RIOT.77: You've done a lot of work with Captain Oi! and I know you're close friends with Mark Brennan, but you also said once that politically you're as far apart as you can get with him. Can you elaborate on that?

MENSI: I don't think Mark will resent this, but Mark is a Tory. He's an out and out Conservative, he's a bluenose, you know? But I've got to say, fair play to Mark, he's always played the game with me and he's always been fair. Mark has been a lot fairer than some of these big record companies and if he says he's going to do something, then he'll do it. But yeah, I am politically miles apart and we don't really engage in political dialogue (laughs). We'll just walk away, you know? He provides me a service and he releases my songs when nobody else will. The thing is with Mark, he's not ashamed of what he is and he'll tell you what he is, though I think sometimes he tries to sell himself as a liberal (laughs). He's a bluenose.

RIOT.77: One of my favourite Upstarts songs is "I Understand", which was originally called "White Nigger, Black Nigger". Why did you change the name of it?

MENSI: Because I didn't want to be offensive to anybody. I thought it was a very sensitive period and it was a word that I used in the early days and I didn't understand how derogatory it was. I didn't want to cause any more offence, because it was about a kid who I thought was brilliant and I didn't want to offend his family.

RIOT.77: Jake Burns sang on that. How did that situation occur?

MENSI: We used to knock about with them lads. Not so much Jake, the lad I used to knock about with was Jimmy Reilly and Thomas Reilly, the drummer and his brother. They were a class act and we'd just go on drinking benders. Someone asked me about Jimmy Reilly the other day if he was a Catholic or a Protestant and I honestly didn't know, `cos I never asked him. I didn't give a fuck what he was. I found out when his brother died though that he was a Catholic. It just never came up; I wasn't interested, you know?

RIOT.77: Alright then, moving on to music. What happened with the last line up? It all fell apart last year.

MENSI: I didn't kick them out, but I'd just been asking and asking them to do new songs all the time, because I was just bored shitless with doing the same songs, but nobody had any interest. So fuck it, I'll find somebody who has, you know? Frater kept telling me that he's got these songs and would I listen, but I wasn't interested. He kept on and on though and eventually I had a listen and that was it, really. You've got to have enthusiasm, which I think they had, because I haven't got that much these days. I'll tell you something though right, I would love to play Dublin every night of the week, because of the atmosphere here, but I could only play Hartlepool once every twenty years. I've actually looked into my heritage lately as I was saying, to see if I could find any Irish roots, but there's none. I was hoping I could play for Ireland -- maybe Mick McCarthy would pick me?

RIOT.77: What about the new sound? When I first heard "Sons Of Spartacus" I thought it sounded more like you had joined Red Alert as opposed to Tony joining the Upstarts, `cos you used to have a really bass and vocals driven sound, where as now it's got that heavy guitar influence. Are you happy how it turned out?

MENSI: Yeah, I love it. It just evolved and that's how it came out. I told Tony how I wanted it to sound and he came up with it. I didn't want any rehashes and I told him that, and he came up with it. I like the album a lot.

RIOT.77: Do you think it sounds very different to your earlier stuff?

MENSI: I think it's along the same lines as "2,000,000 Voices" and "Reason Why", which both deal with the same sort of problems. I think it's a lot more international. Someone said the other night that they were disappointed with some of the in between songs. He said it's "gone soft in the head music".

RIOT.77: The ballads?

MENSI: Yeah, but as I said to him, the thing is, if you feel strongly about something, there's certain ways of saying things .... As Joe Strummer once said, you can punch somebody in the face or you can stick a needle in their eye and sometimes one is better than the other. I can't shout and fuckin' scream for the rest of my life.

RIOT.77: "Bandiera Rossa". Where did that come from? It's a cover isn't it?

MENSI: Yeah, it's a traditional Italian communist party song and the kiddies love it. My bairns love it. When that song comes on they go crazy and I don't know what it is about it. They all start bouncing around. I was standing in a queue waiting to get into a gig and this girl started singing that song and I thought, "That's a nice song, where have I heard that before?" I got my book out and it had some communist anthems in it and there it was. I thought I'd like to do a punky version of it.

RIOT.77: That's Betty from Reazione singing on that. How did she manage that? Did she come over especially to sing that or was she just in the country at the time or what?

MENSI: She just done a tape and sent it over and I sampled it. She didn't know she was going to be on it. You've obviously heard her voice and I think she's just got one of the sexiest voices ever and she is a sexy little girl, you know? Fuckin' beautiful.

RIOT.77: Why did you re-record "Action Man" for the album?

MENSI: I'll tell you right, because Mark Brennan asked us to. He asked us if we'd do it and seeing as I'd never done anything for him before, I said I'd do it. It came up in a conversation with him and there's a certain tape that exists where we're doing all the demos for that album and I said to Mark, "If you had heard the way those songs were meant to sound from that "Still From The Heart" album you'd realize how good they were", because they were good songs, it's just the production that is shit.

RIOT.77: You covered "The Green Fields Of France" before, which is one of my all time favourite songs. Did that hold any meaning to you or did you just like the song?

MENSI: Ian Stuart covered that as well (laughs). Do you know what he thought it was about? He thought it was an English song about the English (laughs) .... I swear to fuckin' god he did. I swear on my Granny's grave, he did. He didn't know what the fuck he was singing about. What a fuckin' prick. I swear to god, he thought it was about the English soldiers in the First World War (laughs). What a bastard fuckin' plonker!!!

RIOT.77: What were your reasons for covering it?

MENSI: I just loved it. It's a great song.

RIOT.77: How did your affiliation with TKO come about over in America?

MENSI: We were just in San Francisco and they said, "We could put this out", you know? When you get to our age and you've been around as long as we have, you have a .... I hate to say "cult following". Does that mean the same couple of people keep coming to see you? We've still got something to say you know and certain people still want to release our stuff and certain people still want to buy it.

RIOT.77: You toured there last year. Very different scenario to your last tour there in `82 I'd imagine?

MENSI: Yeah very different. In `82 I just wanted to go home, you know? What are we doing here? There's people pulling up to the gigs in Cadillacs. What do they know about what I'm singing about? We played the Peppermint Lounge in New York in `82 and they were charging fifteen quid to get in for fucks sake. But this time it was fuckin' brilliant.

RIOT.77: Was there good turnouts?

MENSI: CBGB's was packed to the door and most of the others were sold out as well. We done a gig in San Diego with a band called Pressure Point and there was about 150 people there and it was the best fuckin' gig of the whole tour. The kids were just so solid and together, it was unbelievable. That's what it's about, you know? One of the lads got stabbed by the Ku Klux Klan or something though. One of Pressure Point's friends. Typically they stabbed him and ran away. We played with the Generators as well over there who are a fuckin' excellent band.

RIOT.77: Did you hear their version of "I'm An Upstart"?

MENSI: I've heard it, yeah and I love them to bits, they're great fuckin' kids. I just got a real good buzz off them. I'd love to go back.

RIOT.77: Your first three records are commonly regarded as the best the Upstarts have to offer. How do you feel about the ones you done after that? Do you still stand by them?

MENSI: I stand by all of my lyrics because they always meant something. We went through different phases and there's certain songs I never listen to, but I really like "Sons Of Spartacus".

RIOT.77: Yeah, it really does grow on you after a while.

MENSI: Yeah it does. I can't really explain it. Some of the stuff like "Last Tango In Moscow" -- you get bored and you start doing different stuff in the studio and you think it sounds good when you've had a few drinks, but it's really shit.

RIOT.77: Alright, I better let you go Mensi. Anything you'd like to add?

MENSI: No, I just love Dublin.

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