The Stool Pigeon music newspaper

The young man is standing naked apart from his pants on stage. Cherubic, berserk, glassy eyed, grinning and swaying. His discombobulated appearance is at stark odds with the churning, eyesight-deceiving speed at which he’s changing chords. This is hardcore punk played at 580 ccpm - chord changes per minute. He looks angry for a second, then forgets why, and starts laughing again. He wiggles his arse at a gaggle of young women who are only marginally less pissed than him. He is, of course, wearing Motörhead underpants. The terrifying yang to the guitarist’s anarchic yin is the bassist. Wiry, not naked, growling like King Leonidas, he roars as the song finishes, “How many of you cunts are from Shoreditch?” Some people in the audience look terrified; some burst out laughing. They play another song that lasts for about 100 seconds while the young singer who has gone the colour of sprouting broccoli is offstage and shredding his vocal cords just millimetres away from stunned looking faces.

The guitarist suddenly remembers what he was angry about and turns round and hurls his instrument at the drummer, while the bassist glares and shouts: “Fucking boring, boring, boring, boring,” before walking off stage. It’s 7pm. Welcome then to the world of Beestung Lips, phenomenal punk rock, post hardcore miscreants from the mean streets of Moseley, Birmingham.

A few days later, I’m talking to the guitarist, Thom, who is now fully clothed and a lot less chemically deranged than he was on stage at Notting Hill Arts Club. He cradles a can of Becks like he hopes amniotic fluid will seep out of it and envelop him in warm hangover bursting protection. “I’m having a terrible time today,” he says. “We had a cat party last night and it got really out of control.”

What’s a cat party?

“Oh, you know - a party where everyone comes dressed as a cat and gets fucked up.”

He kicks at the thick layer of beer cans that make up the carpet: “I don’t remember much about that gig. We started drinking in the car on the way down and the last thing I really remember is someone betting me that I wouldn’t do the entire gig in my pants. If half the people looked terrified and half the people were laughing their heads off then that’s exactly the kind of response we want. No half measures.”

Beestung Lips are still a fair few months short of their second birthday. Formed from the wreckage of cult Brummie no wavers Noise Noise Allore, they were the stand-out band at Birmingham’s excellent inaugural Supersonic festival where they featured the enigmatic, and quite possibly mentally unbalanced, Biff - probably one of the most entertaining and hypnotic frontmen to tread the boards of the toilet circuit this decade. He came stumbling on stage like a mincing fascist, like a weird hybrid of Sir Oswald Mosley, John Spencer and David Niven, drooling, prancing, spitting, throwing bottles, high kicking and generally squealing like a stuck post punk pig. It was preposterous yet totally brilliant. The band lacked structure and routine, though, and Biff and bassist Nathan left the crumbling group to form Beestung Lips with Thom and drummer Alex. They all moved into a house together, like the hardcore punk Monkees, and set out to inspire their new direction. By getting wasted for an entire year.

Thom describes the time: “Well, the band was formed after a drinking session. We pretty much woke up the next day and said let’s be in a band. And then we spent a year getting absolutely obliterated. And our first record ‘Songs To And From An Iron Gut’ reflects that period. It’s really chaotic.”

Speaking about Capsule - a record label/promotions company that supports local/extreme music, as well as running Supersonic - he has nothing but praise: “I haven’t got a bad word to say about them. They really, really care about what they are doing. They make sure you always get paid. It’s such a rarity to find people who care about this sort of thing so much.”

He says the experience of living together and recording helped to foster a “gang mentality” and this attitude is apparent during the interview. Biff, the singer, has become ill and moved back to his parent’s house while he recuperates. Thom says politely: “He’s a very private kind of person, so probably wouldn’t want this kind of thing discussed outside of his circle of friends… All I can say is he’s ill and we have no plans to replace him - we’re just going to wait for him to recover and get strong again. We wouldn’t replace him anyway. He’s one in a million. He’s our friend.”

But the band haven’t been idly resting on their laurels. They have a full album written and are sending tracks over to Biff, so he can decide how they’re going to sound when he’s back on track. Thom adds: “We only need to record it. The way we do it is to do everything live apart from the vocals. That way you get more honesty. It’s a bit of a change from the EP. It’s not like we’ve made a prog record or anything. The style is a bit like a mix of Black Flag and Jesus Lizard. Henry Rollins’ massive neck and David Yow’s massive cock in a blender.”

And talking about the chaotic London gig, Thom laughs: “We’re just bored of the bullshit. Fucking rock star poseurs with flashy amps. If you can get rid of that and get it dangerous… there’s nothing better than feeling that real danger in the air. Nothing beats it.”