Do your thing

“We’re a garage/punk/blues band,” begins Neilo Thing, mulling over the group’s distinctive look.

“But that’s not all we like,” he continues. “Mick Jagger was very flamboyant and a big influence. Then there’s The Cramps, and Iggy Pop, who’s just something else. And of course there’s the New York Dolls. When you bring them altogether, you get a big mess – which is me.”
Lately, The Things have grown in reputation as the band that puts the ‘psycho’ in ‘psychobilly’, helped no end by their extravagant live shows. For example, the frontman’s been known to wear ladies clothes onstage. “I’m actually quite comfortable with women’s clothes,” he assures us.
Even shoes?
“Yeah, I’ve no problem with the shoes. The trick is to always have thick heels. I test them out first. I jump around a bit and if I don’t break my ankles then I know I can wear them onstage.”
How does one go about gaining the inclination to wear women’s clothes?
“It’s from seeing pictures of bands all dressed up – it’s glamourous, but it’s also very rock’n’roll. So you start off wearing a bit of eyeliner. Then you wear a neckscarf, and then you think: ‘Ah, fuck it, might as well do the whole thing’. So when you know there’s no one else in the house, you run up and try your sister’s clothes on, and if you like them, you keep them.”
Sweet! While his mother and sister “think it’s gas” that he cross-dresses, some reactions aren’t so positive.
“I come from an area on the north side of Dublin where I get looks when I go out to catch a bus,” he laughs. “And even at gigs, if people haven’t seen us before I can see the way they don’t know what to make of me at first. But I couldn’t give a shite.”
Has he ever experienced any hairy moments because of cross-dressing (waxing experiences aside, of course)?
”No, because they’re usually too scared to say anything to me! They think I’m fucked in the head. But I’m really a nice fellow at the end of the day.”
The spooky-rock look, it has to be said, is more accepted now that it’s been picked up by a few bands on the Dublin scene, and internationally, the UK’s newest hopes The Horrors.
“Without knowing it, they’ve just started to do what we’ve been doing for the past three years, but there’s no point in getting pissed off about it,” he says philosophically, if only to soften the impending attack, which goes a little something like this: “The thing about The Horrors is that as individuals, they all look the same.” Bam!
“They look as though they sat around a table and said ‘you’re going to wear this and you’re going to wear that’.” Kapow!
“But that’s what we’ve got above all other bands – we’ve never worried about all wearing the same leather jacket on stage or having to dye our hair black at the same time.” And that, ladies and gentlemen, is a KO.