Huey Morgan: “Reggie Kray wanted to collaborate on music with me”

Can you remember either of the chart positions Fun Lovin’ Criminals’ ‘Scooby Snacks’ reached in the UK Top 40?

“No, I don’t care about that stuff.”

WRONG. Upon its original release in 1996, it peaked at Number 22, but after being reissued in 1997 with a cover of 10cc’s ‘I’m Not in Love’, it reached Number 12.

“Isn’t that nice?! [Laughs]”

When you first wrote it, did you feel it was a hit?

“Not really. I was just telling stories and I suppose it caught on because we made an attempt to let people in on the joke using Quentin Tarantino samples [from Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs], so we worked extra-hard to make that song accessible.”

Tarantino demanded, and received, 37 per cent of the royalties and a co-writing credit…

“He had to start a musical publishing company to get paid! [Laughs] I’ve spoken to him since then and he’s really flattered by it and told me being immortalised in music was cool for him.”

Which two bands did Fun Lovin’ Criminals perform between at Glastonbury in 1999?

“I know this because there’s a great story behind it! It was Lenny Kravitz, us, and then Skunk Anansie, right?”

CORRECT.

“During the day, [Glasto founder] Michael Eavis comes by on his little golf cart and says: ‘We’re getting pushback from Lenny Kravitz saying his spot is not where it should be and he would prefer to play your spot.’ We replied: ‘We don’t care! We’ll play now if you want! We’re here to have fun’. Eventually, he came back and said: ‘We’re going to keep the running order as it is’, explaining that Lenny thought he was bigger than us and wanted to go on after us.”

“Two weeks later, I’m back in New York City in a nightclub where I know the owner, and Lenny Kravitz comes in. I gave a waitress $100 and asked her: ‘Can you get a champagne bucket, fill it with ice and put one Heineken beer into it. Then give it to Lenny and say: ‘This is from Huey and the Fun Lovin’ Criminals saying thanks for opening up for us at Glastonbury’? The beer got delivered and Lenny looked up like someone had slapped him in the face! [Laughs]”

An easy one: which singer/songwriter used to play Fun Lovin’ Criminals ‘Love Unlimited’ before he went onstage?

“Wow, that was pretty cool. The legendary Barry White.”

CORRECT. In his autobiography, he raved of FLC’s ode to him: ‘A great sound, a very funky beat. I love it to death. Thank you, boys.’

“Barry White was such a huge part of my life and I felt I was repaying him with that homage-song, so for him to use it as his entrance music and praise it in his memoir felt amazing. He created such a lane for himself. No-one can do The Walrus of Love anymore, bro!”

Which two movies do you play drug dealers in?

“I’m being typecast, huh! The first one was the Laurence Fishburne movie Once in the Life – he’s a friend and he flew me out by Concorde to do a day’s work on it. And I played a transvestite dealer in Headrush.”

CORRECT.

“My character in Headrush had lots of backstory that didn’t make it into the film. I was taught how to run in heels by a bunch of drag performers in New York. I had my legs shaved even though I eventually was wearing trousers. Man there was so much training! [Laughs] Just reminiscing about it making me giggle and blush at the same time.”

With all the preparation you put in for the role, do you think you could win RuPaul’s Drag Race now?

“Well, you know what, I probably could dude! [Laughs] Just imagine a Rocky montage with Huey with a bunch of drag performers in Manhattan where the whistle goes and I run in five-inch platforms!”

Talking of acting, apparently you once turned down a role on The Sopranos?

“At that point I wasn’t interested in acting, so it wasn’t something I pursued, but also there’s some people that come from my background that aren’t fans of The Sopranos because it was a little hokey, and I sit in that camp. Like for instance, I owned a garbage company [like gangster characters in the show did], so a lot of things they were doing were cringey and corny and that’s one of the reasons I didn’t do that show.”

Which 2011 Plan B video do you cameo in?

“This was another of those one-day things! I don’t remember the name of the song, but B’s cool and asked me to be in the video and the drummer in my old band [Fun Lovin’ Criminals’ Frank Benbini] tagged along because he was desperate to be in it. He was hamming it up the whole time and Plan B told him to calm down [Laughs].”

WRONG. It was called ‘Prayin’’

“That’s right, ‘he was prayin’ to get out of jail – because we were all in prison. Whatever happened to that kid? He was really good. Did he just fall off because he didn’t want to join the Illuminati in their sex sessions? I’m joking of course!”

Talking of prison, notorious gangster Reggie Kray was a fan of yours…

Yeah, I visited him in jail because he wanted to be a songwriter. He had some interesting lyrics to say the least! He’d seen what Fun Lovin’ Criminals were doing and realised we had authenticity and asked for a meet. He said something right off the bat which made me realise he wasn’t as one-dimensional as people made him out to be. At that point, I was 30 years old, and he had been in jail at that point for 30 years, so he said: ‘Look, you know everything I don’t know about the world and I know everything you don’t know about the world’. He was letting me in on the fact we could maybe complement each other and do something together.”

“He was nice enough when I met him, but obviously he has a reputation. His songs were what you would imagine, but actually a lot better than you would have thought – though it wasn’t something I ended up doing because I wasn’t super-comfortable with the people around him, who I didn’t think had his best interests 100 per cent at heart.”

Which icon once told you at the 2008 BRIT Awards: “I used to have a picture of you on my wall and oh, the things I used to do to that picture”?

“[Laughs] The only reason I know this is ‘cause my mom made me watch that video not too long ago when I was visiting her. That was Amy Winehouse.”

CORRECT.

“I hope the movie Back to Black is kinder to her and her legacy than some of the other things I’ve seen.”

You highlight Winehouse in your 2015 book Huey Morgan’s Rebel Heroes: The Renegades of Music & Why We Still Need Them.

“Renegades are important. We live in a world that has so much fucked-up shit going on and these things aren’t being discussed by the artists that are supposed to reflect society. Now I’m not saying I was Crosby, Stills & Nash… when I was making records, but I did try to talk about things I experienced, be that my time in the Marine Corps or running around with nefarious characters in New York. I don’t see a lot of that coming out of Drake, who’s the biggest artist of the 21st century flying around on 777s and my man can’t even say anything about the socioeconomic situation in his home country of Canada, where they’re shitting over the famers and stuff. Everyone’s watching their bag and don’t want their money fucked with.”

What posters did you have on your wall growing up?

“I had movie posters, and I framed my 12-inches like the first [self-titled]  Van Halen record, and ‘The Best of Earth, Wind & Fire, Vol. 1’ – the first album I ever bought. It was just me and my mom in small apartment, so I didn’t masturbate that often as a kid!”

Can you name any guests who appeared on the 2006 episode of Never Mind the Buzzcocks that you hosted?

“When I guest hosted or the time everybody wants to talk about when I threw the mug?”

When you guest hosted…

“The Smiths’ bass player Andy Rourke – he was really cool. I got along with him great. What a sense of humour too! When I heard he’d passed [in 2023], it made me cry.”

CORRECT. Apart from Rourke, you could have also had comedian Reginald D. Hunter, The Three Degrees’  Sheila Ferguson, and Natalie Cassidy, aka Sonia Fowler from EastEnders – a show you’re famously a fan of…

“When I was growing up in New York City, PBS – the Public Broadcasting Service – would play lots of British TV shows and my discerning taste brought me to EastEnders. I smoked a joint with Finley Quaye in The Queen Vic one time! We went out while we were filming Top of the Pops together and found The Vic.”

As you mentioned, you provided Buzzcocks’ last ‘controversial’ moment during a 2013 Rizzle Kicks-helmed episode where you smashed a mug during the Next Lines Round, before walking off set as the credits rolled…

“I was having a personal low point, and was moving house the next day so I was under tremendous amounts of stress. Without getting into it too much, being a former marine with stress disorder and white wine… shit happens! I’m not making excuses – that was on me.”

Which country’s government allegedly complained about the title of a Fun Lovin’ Criminals album?

“[Laughs] Colombia.”

CORRECT. According to Select magazine, Colombia’s government made complaints about the implications of your 1998 album ‘100% Colombian’.

“The Colombian diplomat in London had a problem with it and contacted the British government over it, as if I was a British subject, who told him: ‘You know this band are American?’. They then tried to lobby the British government to say or do something on their behalf. It was hilarious!”

On which two songs do both Fun Lovin’ Criminals and Garbage appear?

“That would be our alternative version of Garbage’s ‘You Look So Fine’, and Garbage did a version of our song ‘Korean Bodega’ with Shirley Manson singing.”

CORRECT.

“We sent them ‘100% Colombian’ – haha! – and ‘Korean Bodega’ was their favourite song. I wrote the music and lyrics for it when I was age 11. My mom had got me a Tascam MiniStudio, and I was always producing music. That’s why I learned to play guitar, bass and drums – so I’d have music to produce. We toured with Garbage and they were fantastic to learn from – Shirley is an amazing frontperson and me and Butch [Vig, Garbage member and storied producer] would spend hours talking about how to manipulate different sounds.”

One of your other notable collaborations was with Echo and the Bunnymen frontman Ian McCulloch on numerous cover versions including Wayne Newton’s ‘Summer Wind‘ and Louis Armstrong‘s  ‘We Have All the Time in the World‘…

“We had a couple of tunes that we had recorded as his band and we were calling it Echo and the Funnymen, and there’s still two [unreleased] songs – one’s called ‘Crackerjack’ and it’s really fucking good! He’s a great songwriter and we had a cool vibe happening.”

Who did you present the British Breakthrough Award to at the 1999 BRITs?

“I know BB King presented me with an award at some point. That’s how I met him and it was fucking awesome*! I don’t keep any of my awards… Who did I present one to?

WRONG. Belle and Sebastian, who beat Steps amid claims from their manager Pete Waterman of online vote-rigging.

“[Joking] Which one showed up – Belle or Sebastian? Controversy indeed!”

You left the Fun Lovin’ Criminals in 2021 and are back with a new band called ‘Huey Morgan: The Fun Lovin’ Criminal’ while the rest of the FLCs soldier on, who you dubbed a ‘sad and creep tribute act’…

“I have a new record more than halfway done which I’ve been doing for a couple of years now.”

“I understand there’s a lot of stuff that’s going around that’s unseemly and a bit tatty and that’s unfortunate. The band [FLCs] should have broken up a couple of years ago, but the other guys didn’t get the memo, that’s all. There’s nothing I can do about it. I’m managed by [Creation Records supremo] Alan McGee now. He called me up one day and said: ‘Do you know those scumbags in your old band trademarked the name Fun Lovin Criminals while you were still in the band?’ [Laughs] I didn’t, but that’s one of the reasons I’m not in the band anymore ‘cause they were scumbags.”

“That kind of stuff lends itself to the idea that I’m happy I’m not with those guys anymore. It’s not something I’m concerning myself with ‘cause I’m not about to fall over anything behind me. I am the Fun Lovin’ Criminal – they’re all my stories, I wrote a lot of the music and produced a lot of that stuff with them, and it’s just a shame it got to this point.”

“What’s important is I’m still doing what I’m doing and it’s going to be fun to get out there and play with my brand new band and make some people happy again.”

*BB King played on ‘100 % Colombian’.

The verdict: 7/10

“Oh wow, that’s cool man!”

Tickets to see Huey Morgan: The Fun Lovin’ Criminal at The 100 Club in London on May 4 are available here

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