Former Spacemen 3, Spiritualized, BJM et al bassist Will Carruthers teams up with Glasgow's Helicon for unapologetic new single
Ahead of a UK mini-tour in September, Glaswegian band Helicon are sharing an incendiary new single made in collaboration with Will Carruthers (former bassist in the likes of Spacemen 3, Spiritualized, Spectrum, Brian Jonestown Massacre and Dead Skeletons). Taking aim at a bigoted, nationalistic form of 'Englishness' that's all too familiar in our reigning socio-political malaise, the blistering ‘I’m More English Than You, You Cunt’ sees Carruthers deliver a hilarious and unapologetically sardonic poem on top of a psych-rock wig-out that’s as face-melting as you’d expect from Helicon. Out today, you can stream the song and it
Talking about the single, Helicon’s vocalist and guitarist John-Paul Hughes said: “It was a real pleasure and honour to collaborate with Will on this new track. We're big fans of not only his musical rap sheet but his art and poetry too, so I really wanted to work with him on something. We share a similarly twisted sense of humour and view of the world so I was buzzing when he said yes. The song itself is a 3min 20second hand grenade with all the humour, anger, energy, attitude, politics and poetry you could wish for from 5 Scottish, and 1 "mainly Welsh", cunts.”
Carruthers adds: “It was lovely to work on this pastoral ditty with dark polka psyche legends Helicon. It’s got a tweed tractor, a greasy snatch, the night’s watch and the grumbleweeds. It’s also got more cunts in it than parliament. Not the band.” The lyrics for ‘I’m More English Than You, You Cunt’ are an edited version of a longer poem by Carruthers who – as well as playing in just about all of the upmost influential European neo-psychedelic bands to arrive in the last 30/40 years – is an artist, poet and author residing in Berlin. His most recent book is ‘Playing The Bass With Three Left Hands’, published by Faber & Faber in 2016.
Helicon’s latest single arrives off the back of last year’s ‘Fuzz Club Session’ LP and their second album ‘This Can Only Lead To Chaos’, also released last year on Fuzz Club Records. Next month, the band will set off on a UK mini-tour. Their full list of upcoming live shows can be found below.
HELICON LIVE-DATES
02/09 Mad Ferret, Preston
03/09 Hotbox, Chelmsford
04/09 The Victoria, London
05/09 Berlin Arts Lab, Barnsley
22/10 Sneaky Pete’s, Edinburgh
23/10 The chameleon, Nottingham
19/12 Rumshack, Glasgow
