"I WAS at Waterloo, I fought at Waterloo, in the frontline. I don't know much about reincarnation but I know I fought at Waterloo, I don't have any doubts about it."
Alex Harvey has a fascination for war although he abhors the whole idea of it. He is a warrior on the frontline in rock and roll, although he's not out there to start any wars... far from it. "This band I've got." said Harvey, "we're trying to make peace."
I spoke to Alex in the drab confines of a Post House Hotel in the wee hours of the morning. Harvey, dressed in a black velvet jacket, denims and T-shirt, had plenty of life in him although he had just stepped off the stage a few hours beforehand. I still can't believe the man is nearing his forties. His exterior exudes optimism and youth. They say it doesn't matter how old you are, it's how old you feel and in Harvey's case if you've seen his high energy act you'll know that he could make some of the youngsters reach for their glucose tablets.
Everything about the SAHB is associated with energy, and in turn energy is associated with violence, but that's not what the band are about. Only once (later on in the interview) Alex related an incident involving violence and even then he condemns himself for it. Even though Harvey states, "I don't have any aspirations to be a guru," a man with his dint of experience has obviously got a lot to say. In other words he makes a jolly good interview.
Harvey sat on the edge of his seat looking thoughtful. "I read things in the paper about bouncers getting upset and beating kids up, they won't ever do that at any of our gigs. I wish you would print that. It won't happen and I'll make sure of it. We don't need that, those kids are as good as gold, they only want to have a good time and it pisses me off when some heavy comes up and gives them a hard time.
"The kids need therapy. I need therapy so we are helping each other out. I'll tell you what I'm never going to do, I'm never going to incite violence. I'm never going to tell kids to rip up the seats. That's so easy, groups who do that don't have a sense of responsibility it only makes rock and roll more expensive."
"I get two kinds of communication. Hiedelburg is a town where they're still slashing themselves across the cheeks. We were doing a gig there with a very well known band and the crowd didn't like us. It was at a university, very Maoist, very left, there was aggro from the word go. So we were playing and eventually I did something cheap and fucking silly and as it happened it worked. I'm not advocating this but what I did was pull a right moody. I got the mike stand and ripped the stage to shreds. I don't mean a bit, I annihilated it. The kids in the front row swallowed it and they came to the next concert flashing peace signs. I don't know if I was right or not. I look back on it and think, 'what are you trying to prove?'
"I ended up with stitches, lying on a slab, some wood came up and sliced me, blood came pouring out all over the place, it was a heavy situation. We don't need any heavy situations."
I asked Alex about the incident at Alexandra Palace where a minority of the audience didn't seem to appreciate the SAHB.
"That was great what happened, that was one of the best things that happened to the band. It was the first time we ever got front pages and that was because a section of the crowd didn't like us. Not only didn't they like us, they hated us."
Alex has this almost fatherly attitude towards his audiences. There is no doubt that he has strong communication with his followers.
"Because I've got two kids, I've got to be an optimist. I hate it when people say the world is coming to an end it's going to be polluted. I think that's a lot of shit. Looking at those kids, looking at what they can do. I see a lot of talent. Even these little kids at the front who come along and stretch their arms out. I hate to hear people saying 'awh look at the bastards, they're human being, they've got feelings.
"This week they're looking at us, they look at somebody else, they look at Elvis and think 'he's great, he's something else' and I think whoever's at the receiving end of the stick has got to give something back. I don't think it's sufficient to say 'awh fuck em'. I don't think that's enough. I think you owe them something. If you're going to take something from them, you've got to give them something back, like a farmer y'know.
"I'm just a guy being a professional musician, trying to make a living. But since the band got together and I've seen the things I've seen... I'm not particularly intellectual, but I'm a survivor and can smell what's going on. I feel that there's another change coming. Everyone keeps saying 'when's the rock and roll revolution gonna come?" The rock and roll revolution has been and gone.
"Y'see, there's preconceived idea about rock and roll. Rock and roll originally.. and I know cause I was there at the very beginning. I was sixteen. I can vividly remember the first noises. It was a message, it was a hunter's call and it meant something, a form of freedom, funny as it may sound it did mean that. You had the liberty to say something. Before that there had been nothing.
"Rock and roll meant that kids who didn't know anything about music could learn the E position, get a guitar and amplifier, plug it into the wall and go fuck you. Everybody said that's too loud, but they couldn't do anything about it. The band that expresses that is The Who. That is the first, foremost and final band in that capacity, they express what it means to say 'fuck you' with a guitar and make people angry. I suppose the rest is history."
So if rock and roll was a peaceful way of pacifying violence, what have the kids got now to burn excess energy?
"Well we can't get any louder, there's no point shouting louder. As it happens nobody listens to the people who shout the loudest. I don't have any answers to it. I'm just an onlooker, a guy who happened to be passing through."
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