The Objex Interview

• 30th Jun 2007

“Wow, you’re the first Americans we’ve ever met,” The Objex are something of a novelty in Ramsgate.

It’s not that hard to imagine that NO American has ever before travelled to that distant tip of the south-east coast of England that looks out over the Channel to Belgium. It's even easier to imagine the reception they received when they eventually arrived.

…When we caught up with The Objex it was in Liverpool, mid-way through their first UK tour…

Blast off back to the future its modern retro-punk from The Objex. More than a band they are an image, a fashion statement. In Felony Melony they have a front-woman to reinject the sexy swaz back into punk music which has been soiled by the mark of pierced-nose stinking skinheads. “Skinheads are different here.” Jim Nasty explains, “In America they’ll fucking kill you. If you see skinheads at a gig in The States you know they are there to fight.”

Loads of my mates have skinheads. In the UK it’s fashion, its music, its culture. It’s an example of the cultural differences between two nations that sees themselves as brothers in arms. “Here all your newspapers look like our tabloids.” Not sure what Jim means by this. I’d hate to see the size of their broadsheets if this is what he’s getting at. I suppose the band have seen only the top-shelf best-sellers. The Sun, The News Of The World, The Daily Mirror. I think you have to order the broadsheets from Amazon to get a half decent print paper nowadays. Anyway let’s not get distracted. The Objex aren’t homesick, God no, they’re happy to be here. It’s just clear the finer things in life are homemade in their eyes. Like guitars and kick pedals, but we’ll get back to that.

I encourage to them to tell me about Las Vegas and bang, they’re off and the interview is over before I’ve had a chance to ask them their favourite colour and if they could be any robot from any sci-fi movie or cartoon ever which one would it be? All I’ve got to write about now is Las Bloody Vegas. Then I figure, this might not be such a bad idea.

You think of the Nevada desert what do you picture? The sign: Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas, The Rat Pack, Fear and Loathing, Oceans Eleven et al. Nicolas Cage landing Con Air on The Strip.
“We avoid The Strip as much as possible,” explains Aly 2x, who grew up there. “We only go there when friends come to visit us.”
It seems Hunter S. Thompson was not far off in his description of Las Vegas. “It’s a place drunk on gambling.” Aly 2x is The Objex bass player and the subtly attractive female member of the band. As opposed to Felony Melony who with nine-inch Mohawk, blood red lips and a rack to die for is conspicuous to say the least. Melony walks into a room and you want to know who that is. Melony takes the stage and you instantly know who she is. Melony is the girl who you want to be kicked in the face by tonight.
Getting back to The Strip; The stereotypes are there and Las Vegas wants to enforce the images of sun, sand and Tropicana in the desert because it wants you to vacation there, so once you are there they can pump you full of cocoa butter air-conditioning and keep you awake for 48 hours straight until you no longer know how much money you haven’t got. What they don’t want you to see is the filthy mess that surrounds Sin City, the largest growing economy in America.
But this is where you can find The Objex, probably hanging out in The Double D Saloon. You can gamble there, you can gamble everywhere in Las Vegas. “There’s gaming even in supermarkets or in the gas stations people play cards all day.”
The casino moguls have real power in the state of Nevada; they are mini-governments in themselves. They make their own rules and they make their own money. Again, go back to The Seventies and watch Al Pacino as Michael Corleone going clean in the casinos, paying off Senators and Congressmen with back-handers. I know it’s tiresome, but educate me otherwise! I throw every movie cliché at the band. I joke there are bodies buried out there in the dunes. They don’t laugh at me, they just nod. “Yeah, it happens…”

Jim Nasty tells us a story about the time when the sewage blocked up and the filth from the pipes flooded The Strip. Gross justice it would seem that all the crap hands dealt and massive crimes overlooked should come back and fill the street in a river of piss and shit. Only the story ends that an hour later it was all gone. The town’s authorities had a plan in place if such an event were to occur. Sure the smell lingered but then according to the band, “it always smells there anyway.”

The band are being well looked after on this tour by Demob’s experienced singer Andy K. Their only casualty so far seems to be Joe Perv’s kick drum pedal which snapped a hinge mid-set last night.
By all accounts, mine included, the gig was a great success. “We’ve played so far with ‘traditional’ punk rock bands so last night was really special, we enjoyed playing with different kinds of band,” says Jim. The Dead Class and Flamingo 50 were the other bands of note on the bill, a co-promotion between Inner City Sumo and The Dead Class who discovered The Objex on Garageband.com, a track rating community based website.

When asked if the girls hold their own up on stage, Jim says, “Sure! We have a picture of Aly literally punching a guy out.” As for Melony, there seems to be a level of respect from the crowd that keeps her out of trouble during gigs, “In Edinburgh the stage was only a foot high so there were people flying all around us, but they don’t fuck about.” The Objex may have Joe ‘Perv’ in the band but we were all a little guilty last night of ‘perving’. We know how he must feel when you have a front woman that hot! It’s enough to put anyone off playing drums but trashing your equipment, intentionally or not, on a low-budget tour can be expensive. Having to replace kick-pedals is also, but in this case for Joe, a necessity.

When the topic of equipment comes up it sets Jim Nasty off. “You can’t get left-handed Gibsons, Fenders anymore, they don’t make them. You have to order them, so I have to use any old shit, as long as it’s left-handed.” Joe is also left-handed as is Melony. They say all the smart ones are. It’s really only left-handed people who say that.
Joe recalls playing for the first time ever on this tour with all three drummers on the bill being left-handed. You have to be a drummer or a techie to appreciate that coincidence. Have you heard the one about the sound engineer who says to the left-handed drummer, “Can’t you play open handed?” and the drummer replies, “Fuck you; switch the kit round.”

The Objex leave town as they found it, one kick drum less and a lot of jaws that still need picking up. I never got to ask Melony about her wardrobe which apparently takes up half the tour bus, we talked a lot about the Nevada desert instead. “Look us up if you’re ever in Las Vegas,” they say as they depart. “OK, sure.” I say, but I’m not sure I want to go there anymore; you only reinforced every fear I had about the place. Think I’d rather meet you in Ramsgate.