Alice Nutter of Chumbawamba.

AuthorMillington, Peter
PositionSinger of rock group - Interview

For years, the musical press has consigned the British anarcho-punk band Chumbawamba to the "Bunch of Losers" bargain bin. Then, last winter, the group's pop hit, Then, to the spent more than twenty-seven weeks on the U.S. charts and went triple platinum. This boisterous anthem to the pleasures of drink outsold songs by the Spice Girls and the Brit bad boys Oasis. More astonishing, the single struck a deep chord in the hearts of prepubescent white Americans. A whole new fan base was created.

The irony, the bourgeois shock, if you will, is that Chumbawamba is a group of self-confessed anarchists from the industrial city of Leeds, in Yorkshire, a two-hour journey north from London. They are a bunch of layabouts with little dress sense who don't work and who have communistic values. The band says it is influenced by the do-it-yourself ethos of punk rock and the adrenaline rush of anarchist ideas.

Chumbawamba's international success has brought new opportunities for political notoriety. At the Brit awards (the English equivalent of the Grammys), vocalist Danbert Nobacon poured a bucket of ice water over Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott to protest the "despicable treatment of 500 sacked Liverpool dockworkers, who had been forced to end their picket and accept a derisory payoff." Nobacon was formally charged with criminal damage to Prescott's suit.

The eight-piece band is composed of five men and three women, all over thirty, who play drums, guitars, synthesizers, percussion, and brass.

Chumbawamba's most recent album uses sound collages to separate tracks that address racism and political betrayal. The songs also throw in quotes from leftwing British filmmaker Ken Loach. Part dance music, part political rant, and part rock cabaret, the vocals are mellifluous folk melodies or venomous raps that contrast with clever, shouty choruses.

On their U.S. tour, members of Chumbawamba talked about political prisoners on Late Night With David Letterman. On Rosie O'Donnell's show, they discussed the merits of saying the word "anarchy" a lot. On ABC's Politically Incorrect, blue-haired vocalist and dancer Alice Nutter exhumed the spirit of the late, lamented Abbie Hoffman and urged people to steal the Chumba's record--but only from megastores.

Toward the end of its tour, the pop group played Minneapolis. "This is the story of Lenny Bruce--he was one of your lot!" shouted Nobacon in introducing "Big Mouth," the fifth or sixth song of the evening. "He was a comedian who was hounded to death by the censors, by the cops, by the moral majority, and by the right wing for swearing and telling the truth!"

The band did more costume changes than David Bowie during his Ziggy Stardust period. At one point, a smiling Alice Nutter came out in boxer's gear, with giant boxing gloves, and sparred around the stage. Then she was dressed as a nun, splashing Jack Daniel's on her habit, smoking a cigarette, and asking the audience for condoms. Later, she recited the weather forecast for shipping zones around the British...

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