HANOI ROCKS ARE NOT (SIGH) GONE

HANOI ROCKS ARE NOT (SIGH) GONE

FEATURES

Andy Hughes

It’s more or less a day off for Mike Monroe. Apart from calling in to his management offices in an apartment just off one of London’s main thoroughfares to attend a couple of press interviews, he has little to do but nurse a recent ankle injury and reflect on the recent traumas of Hanoi Rocks—and just where they go from here.

Day Off or not, Monroe is always dressed to kill, and today is no exception. His long blond hair is topped by a military cap of dubious origin, his make-up is faultless, highlighting his intense large eyes and delicate bone structure. Long hands peep out from the voluminous sleeves of his salmon pink minstrel’s blouson, striped trousers are tucked into matching knee boots. One hand has black varnished nails, and as he moves, his soft speech is often covered by the rattling of his vast array of bracelets and bangles. Mike Monroe’s image is on duty seven days a week.

As a child in his native Finland. Monroe was always one step ahead. As his peers adopted the James Dean persona that was the fashion at the time, the young Michael was busy soaking up rock videos of Alice Cooper, T. Rex and Creedence Clearwater Revival, whose influence surfaces with a re-working of “Up Around The Bend” on the band’s latest album.

“I started off wearing my mother’s make-up, and she hated me doing it.” Mike recalls with a wry smile, “although she doesn’t mind it so much now. I was the only kid I knew who was dressing like I did, and that lasted until I met the rest of the band, and we started Hanoi Rocks.”

And what is America going to make of Mike Monroe?

“We were supposed to play some gigs in Texas, but we had to delay them because of my ankle injury. It should be OK, I just think it’ll be funny.

I’ve heard the way they talk on the TV (adopts passable Texan drawl) ‘Hey boy. what you wanna look like that for, are you a boy or a girl?’ and stuff like that.”

Does it annoy you that people are more concerned with your make-up and clothes than with the music you make?

“Not really. Image is important, it’s all part of it, it’s almost as important as the music. Most important is the attitude, you have to reach the audience with the force of your own personality.”

That Mike Monroe and Hanoi Rocks have forceful personalities cannot be in doubt. It’s their sense of commitment that has enabled them to carry on after the tragic death of drummer Razzle in a recent, infamous car accident. Mention of Razzle brings a flash of pain to Mike’s face, and it’s obvious he doesn’t want to dwell on the subject. We pass on, to talk about Razzle's replacement, ex-Clash drummer Terry Chimes.

“We knew we had to carry on, it was what Razzle would have wanted. We got Terry in to help us out on two gigs we had to play in Finland which were too close after the accident to cancel. Terry likes the band a lot, and we’ve known him for a long time. We know him as a very steady drummer, he doesn’t speed up or slow down while he’s playing, he’s very together and very reliable. He’s been around doing various one-off gigs like the Clash dates he did, and he did some work with Generation X, but he’s been looking for something on a permanent basis. We all like him, so he was the obvious choice.”

Some newspaper reports implied that Hanoi Rocks were keen to get away from a developing “Heavy Metal” image, and maybe bringing Chimes in was a step in the right direction. Mike doesn’t agree.

“I don’t think of us as heavy metal anyway, not in the same way that W A S P, or people like that are heavy metal. I also don’t like to stick labels on things...I just prefer to call it rock.”

In view of the tragedy of Razzle’s death and the abrupt departure of bassist Sam Yaffa to live in Spain, a few niggling doubts concerning Hanoi Rocks’ position in the scheme of things is so insignificant as to occupy no time in Mike Monroe’s thoughts. From the band’s beginnings in their native Finland, it’s never been what you could call easy.

After playing gigs around their home country, Mike and the boys decided it would be easier if they tried their luck in London. So they switched one poverty trap for another, although the slum apartment they shared must have been a step up of sorts after living rough round Scandinavia for a while.

Long-awaited interest from a major record company finally materialized in the shape of CBS records, but their marriage got off to a very shaky start.

‘‘Right, we turned them down flat because they tried to talk us into changing our style. They told us we weren’t commercial enough, and they wanted us to become out-and-out heavy metal—or else turn into Duran Duran! We just kept on gigging, and they kept turning up at our gigs. They must have realized we had something going for us as we were.

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“That was when we moved to London, into this really awful apartment with rats in the kitchen and so on, but we really didn’t care. We had interest from another record company, and they kept us waiting around for six months before finally deciding we weren’t what they wanted after all. At that point CBS reappeared, so we signed with them.”

The rest, as they say, is history, with Hanoi Rocks gathering a growing army of fans in England and Europe, and poised to take on the American audiences.

Mike Monroe looks the perfect image of the wasted rock star—sleeping all day, avoiding the sunlight, or emerging at night to sniff out the action. The fact is, Monroe’s lifestyle is the total antithesis of life in the fast lane—a Scandinavian Keith Richards he’s not!

“I’m not like that at all in fact—although, as you say, it’s an image a lot of people build up of me. I think it’s down to people like David Lee Roth, you know, different-girl-every-night, abottle-of-whiskey-every-day lifestyle. But you can’t really do that, especially not while you’re on the road. It’s just bullshit. I never eat junk food, I’m not even all that fond of drinking, and I don’t often go out to nightclubs. I often feel I can have a better time by myself, just relaxing and thinking.

“I try to keep myself quite fit, also. A friend of mine does karate, and he’s taught me quite a few good exercises—just the warm-ups that are concerned with breathing, they’re good for balance and stamina. Singing is a muscular activity; you need to be fit to do it properly. The more fit you are, the better you can do your job onstage each night.”

Assuming that Hanoi Rocks are going to make a success of working in America, there’s a chance at last for the band to make some real serious money. For a band whose motivation has always been satisfaction and enjoyment rather than financial security, the concept of wealth is not one they’ve considered too deeply. What would you do with a million dollars, Mike?

“Well, I’d buy some really nice jewelry. But if I had millions and millions, I’d try to help some people in the under-developed countries in the world. It always seems so odd to me, people like Abba who’ve got ail those millions, far more than they can ever spend, and they do nothing with it.”

The conversation veers to the original punk concept, as prophesied by bands like the Clash, who spent their time pouring scorn on the industry fat-cats and telling anyone who’d listen that when they made money, it’d be used to help out struggling newcomers. Of course, when the royalties rolled in, the Clash rolled out, to spend their time living in nightclubs! Labelmates Hanoi Rocks have a far more honest approach to the idea of giving a helping hand to newcomers.

“If it was a band I knew I’d help—but not otherwise. I started off my career sleeping rough in parks and so on, and when you’re doing that, you have nothing to lose. People may think I’m lying when I say I don’t care if we make money or not, but why should I lie about it?”

Why indeed. Hanoi Rocks should be busy preparing for their next invasion of America by the time you read this, assuming thjey’ve found a new bassist. In the meantime, ponder the philosophy that has taken the band this far: that in rock, as in everything, the more you give, the more you get.

Mike Monroe gives everything...but do you get everything back, Mike?

“I don’t care man, I just don’t care!”