Extraordinary decent criminal

“It’s gonna be a pretty interesting summer,” Huey reckons. “We’re lucky enough to be asked to play all these cool little parties that people are having.” Slumped on a hotel bed in Dusseldorf before a gig, the Fun Lovin’ Criminals singer is happily extolling his lot. He’s hanging out with the rest of the band – they’ve got room service, they’ve had a smoke or several, and everything’s alright with their world.

“You know, I think God’s smiling on us. That’s always a good feeling,” Huey proclaims. “Makes you feel like you’re doing something positive, and to do something purely positive is very rare nowadays.”

The band are currently undertaking a massive tour, taking in many big festival gigs and with dates booked right up to the end of 2002. One ‘cool little party’ they are particularly looking forward to is Witnness.

“For Witnness, I won’t say there’s a lot of special props or pyrotechnics that we can bring to the show, cause we’re kind of on time constraints. I’m not sure how long we get to play, most likely about an hour, so we want to cram as much music as possible into that time. But I might tell a few jokes,” he warns.

Huey will be celebrating his birthday after the Witnness gig, on 8th August.

“I’m gonna stay in Dublin for my birthday, keep it special. I think I’m gonna go by the places I own part of, see if I can’t scam a few free drinks. Voodoo is a nice place to spend time in and The Dice Bar, our new joint, which is right around the corner, is pretty nice too. A little more seedy, but I kinda like that.”

As for expanding the FLC empire, are there any more business ventures on the horizon?

“I think we’ve done with bars for now – I don’t wanna oversaturate. The copper mine in New Zealand is doing really well. We’re selling a lot of copper filament to Asia, you know, for their computers and stuff. I think we might get into some chip manufacturing plants in the Pacific Rim somewhere. That’s computer chips and what-not. Not french fries.”

Huey suddenly gets an attack of the giggles, before returning to the subject of forthcoming attractions.

“We’ve got a good interest from some movie companies who want us to produce films for them, although with that comes a lot of work. We’re concentrating now on putting a live album together, which we’ll probably record in the fall, and bring out next summer, but down the road the films will be coming through, maybe when we’ve finished touring.”

Due to their fondness for the Irish capital, they’ve oft-expressed a desire to record their live album in Dublin’s Olympia, but sadly there might be a problem with the size limitations of the venue.

“We really wanted to do it at the Olympia. We still may, but I just think that with all the equipment we’ll need, like a mobile truck to do all the recording and multi-tracking, we won’t be physically able to get it down that road, you know, that tiny little side street to the stage door,” he laughs. “But we really want to do it at the Olympia, mainly due to the love we feel at that venue from the people when we play there. I mean, we’re three guys from New York, you know, we haven’t changed much. We still appreciate every day and we don’t take any of this for granted. So to come to Dublin and do those shows we did in the Olympia was fantastic. Momentous. Life-changing!”

Once his list of superlatives is finally exhausted, Huey and I chat about ‘Bump’, the latest single to be taken from their Loco album.

“We’ve got some cool things on the single, like a really good dance remix, for all the people out there who like to rave. Me and Fast did that, and I don’t think we’ve ever done a complete dance song before. Fast used to be into all that electronic stuff before the FLC got going, and when we were putting the song together, we decided we needed a remix that people could play in clubs, you know, ‘cause that’s what the song’s about.

“Me and Fast were working in a club back in 1995 and I was a bus boy at this gay night ‘Bump’. It was just a really good vibe, you know, no fights or any of that bullshit. And I met this girl there who was very beautiful. I think some girls like to hang out at gay clubs, ‘cause the music’s good and they don’t have guys buggin’ them. I’m a guy, and I see how guys act towards women nowadays and it’s not very chivalrous. In fact, it’s almost misogynistic lately and I can see why women would be upset and frustrated by that.

“We wanted to tell the story of the whole era of what we were doing right before we got signed. Fast had blonde hair that was real big, so he put a wig on for the video. The director picked this model, Jodie Kidd, to play the girl, and she’s a really nice lady. We’re doin’ ‘The Bus Stop’, which is like this old dance that people used to do at the club, later known as ‘The Hustle’, and everybody gets out on the dance floor and does this big number. It’s a lot of fun. Kinda like a gay Boogie Nights.”

Huey’s favourite place, besides Dublin, and in high contrast, is the sun-soaked paradise of Maui.

“Lately I’ve been really wanting to be in Maui. It’s a very, very, very cool place. We’re gonna go back there in September for a couple of weeks, which is gonna be real nice. That’s where we made our little movie, Maui Homicide 2000. We’ve been asked to do a sequel, and right now we’re in negotiations with a lot of movie companies about it. It would be funny if we could expand it and make it a full-length film. But the DVD is coming out next month, so I guess we’ll wait and see if people like it enough to warrant another one.”

I ask after Huey’s fellow band members. They shout “Hi” down the phone, as he describes the scene.

“Fast is walking back and forth. He’s eating a piece of bread. He just passed me a joint. Heh, heh, heh! Mackie’s good, he got a new shirt today and he’s very happy with it. It’s light blue with white collar and cuffs. He looks very slick.”

Naturally, I can’t resist asking what Huey’s wearing.

“Right now I have on white and Kelly green sweats and sneakers. I look like an Irish soccer hooligan.”

So just how do the boys spend their time between shows?

“There’s a hell of a lotta drinking involved, I won’t lie to ya. We hang out like regular guys, you know, just talking shit and enjoying ourselves.”

There’s a pause before Huey suddenly exclaims “German hip-hop has to stop!” It seems he’s been momentarily distracted by some on-screen abomination. “It has got to end, I’m telling you. There’s something very, very wrong about it. Just seeing these orange-headed guys rapping on German TV is really hilarious. Their fervour over hip-hop is only equalled by their nationalism.

“German TV does have this cool station,” he continues. “They have this show called Space Night, and they just show all this footage of Earth from space, be it from the space shuttle or satellites or what-have-you. It’s nice to look at the earth from above and they play this cool music behind it. Very astral. They also have a thing on the net, called spaceimaging.com where you can focus down on certain parts of the world and stuff like that. It’s great to actually have satellites that’ll do your bidding.” he chuckles.

I tell him about the FLC drinking game to be found on the Planet Fun Lovin’ Criminals fan website which involves watching an interview with the band while you knock back various quantities of alcohol in accordance with certain occurrences – every time a member of the band swears, for example, or if Fast is wearing The Black Shirt. Or you might down a large shot if the interviewer fails to mention the word ‘cool’. Huey gives a gleeful cackle and repeats this to the others.

“That is amazingly flattering. We totally approve. Any way people can distract themselves from the everyday drudgery of life is great. Actually, part of our future plan is that we would like to control vice right around the world, and be in charge of liquor distribution worldwide,” he states. “That’s what we’re aiming for now. Global consolidation.”

The Fun Lovin Criminals play Witnness, Fairyhouse Racecourse, Co. Meath on 5th August. The single ‘Bump’ is released on 13th August on EMI. The Love Ya Back DVD will be available from 27th August