Press and Interviews

'Rock 'N' Roll Liquorice Flavour' is the latest LP from The Creepers. Marc Riley, ex-Fall guy, now cult figure and cartoonist, is the group's frontman.

It's been a good year for rock 'n' roll renaissance men.

Front runner in the stakes must surely be big Jon Langford: Mekon, indie supremo, producer, writer, artist and even a Drifting Cowgirl! But running him a photo-finish second has got to be his chum, ex-Fall guy and now chief Creeper, Marc Riley. A man of similarly hidden and playful depths.

The Creepers' new LP 'Rock 'N' Roll Liquorice Flavour' has just been dashed off with - surprise, surprise - Langford on attendant knob-twiddling duties. And it's a record scuffling with Riley mini-classics - dirty little pieces of grit that crystallise into dark pearls after compulsive listening. It continues a proud, quirky heritage of wayward and sardonic releases from the amiable ex-Fall guitarist.

With his neatly trimmed hair and ultra-neutral high street clobber Riley looks nothing like the sort of guy you'd imagine producing such essentially independent music. At a push you might take him for a happily married man (he is), a strictly brought up Catholic (he was) or even an unashamed Bob Dylan fan (right again). But would you also have sussed him as a professional kids' cartoonist and fledgeling satirist?

When he's not gadding round the old punk venues of Europe with his Creepers, old father Riley holds down a day job at Oink comic, a fortnightly aimed at 8 to 15 year olds.

'I went to school with Patrick Gallagher, Oink's editor', he explains. 'He'd worked with people who'd been on Buster and Whizzer and Chips; real boy's own stuff. I've got an art O-level, and I was going to do an A-level when I joined The Fall. So it follows from that really.

The character I do is Harry The Head; he once got three wishes that backfired and he ended up just being a head. Then there's Burt The Smelly Alien and Horace Ugly Face Watkins.

'But my fortes really lack of style. I do very simple drawings. But there's talk of us setting up a new mag that'll be a lot nearer the knuckle and more for adults, I've done some writing for a dummy of that. That's more up my street with my lyrics being quite humorous and all'.

With so many chortlesome albums to their name, it's a wonder The Creepers never did make a bigger crossover. But after this latest Creepers project Marc's starting on a demo work with a loose-linking unnamed outfit incorporating New Order's Peter Hook. 'Just messing' claims Riley, but some serious studio work looks afoot and covers of Van Morrison's ' I Can Only Give You Everything', Iggy's 'Male Stunner' and poll veteran Screaming Lord Sutch's 'Would You Believe' are already down as potential workouts.

At this rate I'll end up the Paul Young of punk' quips Riley. Riley's rock 'n' roll - the fun flavour floods out.

(Pete Paisley, Record Mirror: 5th December 1987, p38)