The Gaye Bykers On Acid video for their current "Git Down" single has caused quite a stir. But that's nothing compared to their forthcoming film...Lisa Tilston talks to frontman Mary about humor, censorship and the phallic symbolism of the humble British cucumber. Acid (back) drops: Parker

Aspiring pop stars, beware the humble cucumber if you want to get on TV! Singer Mary of the "dirty and depraved" Gaye Bykers On Acid has warned me that I might find their video offensive - certain TV channels won't play it - and I'm cowering behind the sofa, ready to be appalled and disgusted.

On screen, the band - introduced as the Lesbian Dopeheads On Mopeds, and dressed in some kind of Seventies designer nightmare - crash through "Git Down (Shake Your Thang)" but miserable fail to impress a panel more interested in socks than singing. As a parody of the worst kind of TV talent contest it's hilarious and horribly accurate, but was I shocked? Well, no, not very. I can't imagine what's supposed to be so offensive about it. Mary wonders hopefully whether it could be the way he bites his cucumber microphone in half. OK, in terms of suggestiveness it's not really on a par with the girl in the Flake advert, but who know what goes on in the dark minds of TV producers?

"The video hasn't been officially banned, it's just that nobody will play it." Mary tells me, looking decidedly un-depraved, un-disgusting and un-defiled by success. I don't get the impression that he's longing to corrupt the nation's pop kiddies, but hell, I've been wrong before. Oblivious to the suspicious workings of my brain, he continues: "I can't believe the amount of censorship and the double standards operating in the media at the moment. I find women in suspender belts with heavy metal bands behind them much more offensive than our video. Something like Motley Crue singing "Girls Girls Girls" is just sexploitation, really crass and tacky, but its so institutionalized that people take it for granted.

"Censorship's an issue that we take very seriously. We're fans of Zappa and the Dead Kennedys anyway, people who think you should be able to express things in the way you want, I find it amusing that John Peel can do a show on "Rebel Rock" and yet nighttime radio doesn't allow anyone a voice. We've had to self-censor our videos, but we still get "Great, let's ban the Bykers!" and that's not what we want people to know us for."

Humor's often seen as a subversive force, and songs about taking drugs - or wanting to live in a world where you wouldn't need to - aren't likely to endear the Bykers to the PMRC (Parents Musical Resource Centre). But humor's also been used by them as a weapon against the slow- witted, giving them a reputation for being difficult interviewees. I was expecting smart-arsed comments and endless "Star Trek" conversations, but in fact Mary turns out to be a charming, intelligent and very well-informed.

"The media's created this image for us and so we get all the inane questions. A stupid question deserves a stupid answer. Of course we have a sense of humor, we don't take ourselves too seriously and we're not the world's most stable people, but there are certain things we think it's important to put across. We've grown up constantly in the media and it's been confusing for us to be categorized when we don't know what we're going to do next."

Still, it's likely that their forthcoming epic 50-minute film will help shake off the grebo-airhead- scumrock cartoon image they've been given. Made to accompany the album, it's an escapist fantasy that tells the story of the band so far. More films are planned through their production company, and this should that they're "multi-media artistes and not just piss-artistes!"

With or without accompanying visuals, the album is , as Mary succinctly puts it, "better musically than most people would have expected from us." It's a rapturous rock ‘n' roll bike with a puncture, funky, punky, and full of disconcerting rollercoaster ups and downs. Much of its eccentric sparkle can be attributed to Tony, who brings a whole new meaning to the term "axe wielding maniac." It's his guitar that which comes squealing through the vinyl forest and runs rings around the blues, rap and spaced out sonic suspense that makes up Drill Your Own Hole.

The diversity (and, some would say oddity) of the Bykers' musical influences isn't just a hip rip- off of the current sampling mania, though it may have something to do with the punk ethic of appropriating parts of other cultures, magpie fashion. The magnificent "Zen Express" could have been written by the Beatles, and most of it probably was. This is of no concerns to Mary, who stamps on McCartney's head and grinds his wholesome little face into the mud with youthful abandon.

"I like the Birthday Party, Butthole Surfers, Big Black, a lot of left-field bands like that, but we're into pop culture as well. When I was at school I was going around with soul boys, and I used to listen to my brother's Pink Floyd albums and my dad's jazz records. Between us we like so many different things and we try to encompass them all, which is why it sounds confused."

Faced with the choice between earing the money or mixing with he deadheads at the sixth form college, the teenaged Mary went to work in a printing factory. At the same time he took a course at Leicester Poly, where he met "real decent kids from the inner city, punks, skinheads, everything." It was them who gave him his name (after porn star Mary Millington) and go him going to gigs. The combination of work and wild weekends became too much, Mary went on the dole and somewhere along the line a band was born.

"We all lived together in a squat in Leicester, on the nineteenth floor of a high-rise. It was where the council used to send the mental cases and drunks. They all lived in this scummy place. Environment is so important and it's a real problem just being young and looking for your own space. I really respect the dirty, punky kids you see around, who obviously revel in it, but you can't live all your life like that or you turn into a tramp. People need the security or somewhere to live and I hate to think that kids get into smack because nobody cares."

Mary admits to being confused about the band's rapid success. "We had this naive confidence, but when it happens your mind goes completely and you end up on such an ego trp. When you're being asked questions and having your picture taken and making films your self- importance blows up out of all proportion, and I despise that. The others are coping much better, I'm the one that's gonna crack up. Personally I am really happy, but that's a selfish attitude. I just hope what we're doing makes kids realize they can do what they want, say what they want, and enjoy it.

So there you the Gaye Bykers On Acid. Cynical, contrary kids who care. Serious people with and over-developed sense of humor. "Multi-media artistes", even. The small screen would be lucky to get them...but I don't think we'll be seeing the "Mary and McCartney Christmas Special" for a while yet.

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