Fat White Family: 'We want to make your skin crawl'

Brixton, in the parlance of Kirstie and Phil, is rising, but the Queen's Head pub steadfastly resists a gastro makeover. Continue up the road from the Academy, and up past the locksmiths and the pawn shops sits this unvarnished landmark of the old Brixton. As I arrive on a Friday afternoon, two members of Fat White Family, Lias Saudi (vocals, cowboy hat, dry northern wit) and Saul Adamczewski (guitar, missing tooth, jumper on the brink of disintegration) sit in a back booth in a cloud of cigarette smoke, working their way through a bag of cans. When I leave 90 minutes later, there are four policemen in the front bar helping a patron into a pair of handcuffs. The pub is home base for the Fat Whites, and you can take that literally. More than regulars, not quite employees, they rehearse here, sleep here when homeless – which appears to be quite often – and occasionally help out behind the bar. They were due to stage one of their Slide-In nights here tonight. "But the landlord double-booked us with a bashment wedding," says Saul. "So we're playing over the road instead."

It's said that artists are the footsoldiers of gentrification, but you could hardly accuse Fat White Family of smoothing the road for London's well-heeled. Locally, they've a reputation as clownish agitators. Look back at the Guardian's coverage of the Brixton street parties held after Thatcher's passing and you'll find photos of Fat Whites flying their homemade "The Bitch Is Dead" banner ("A genuinely festive day," recalls Lias, fondly). When a swanky new restaurant called Champagne + Fromage opened down the road, they organised a picket. "We started a Facebook group called Yuppies Out," explains Saul. "It was kind of a joke, really. We used all this extreme left rhetoric…"

"Pictures of Stalin," says Lias. "Everything in capital letters."

"The Evening Standard wrote about us like we were a serious militant group – class warriors!" laughs Saul. "But then you've got people on the left saying we're not taking it seriously. We're hated by both sides."

Fat Whites' debut album, Champagne Holocaust, does not suggest a band keen to ingratiate themselves with the industry at large. Released online back in April but getting a CD issue this month, it's a shambolic, deranged, hugely enjoyable set of country blooze and lyrical deviancy that recalls the Fall, the Cramps and especially Country Teasers, the wilfully offensive UK post-punk outfit led by Ben Wallers. "His lyrics are the best," beams Lias. "Pure misanthropy."

'It's interesting to investigate the fringes. Better than self-indulgent love songs about some girl you've met. And to make it sexy, to make people slow dance to this song about a nonce, it's a good trick'

Certainly, Champagne Holocaust is a record locating something appealing in the appalling. Alongside cuts such as Bomb Disneyland and Who Shot Lee Oswald, there is Cream Of The Young, a lascivious slow jam that finds Lias drooling about "15-year-old tongue". It is, says Saul, "written from the persona of a sort of anarchist paedophile trying to deal with his own desires", and it's perhaps the most uncomfortable example of Fat Whites' sorties into the taboo.

"It's interesting to investigate the fringes," says Lias. "Better than self-indulgent love songs about some girl you've met. And to make it sexy, to make people slow dance to this song about a nonce and his terrible passions, it's a good trick."

"We did a session for [6Music's] Marc Riley and had to change that lyric," adds Saul. "It became '50-year-old tongue'."

Did that feel like selling out?

"I wanted to make it younger," grins Saul.

"I quite fancied getting on the radio, to be honest," decides Lias.

A new Fat Whites album, due for release next year, has the band turning their hand to glam rock. "That clammy, seedy sound," says Saul. "The stuff that makes your skin crawl." In the meantime, there's a new single, Wet Hot Beef (Parts 1, 2 and 3), out – when else? – on Christmas Day.

"We didn't have budget for a video, so a friend took us out to a cabin in the woods and we dropped acid," says Lias. "It was funny until the rain started. Then it all became a bit Heart Of Darkness."

The band have noticed that whenever anyone writes about Fat White Family, they fixate on how unwell they all look. Lias, though, isn't bothered. "Rock'n'rollers are supposed to be close to death, aren't they? It's your job to be out there on the edge, pummelling your body with weird shit."

"It's always 'dirtiest band ever,'" says Saul. "Just because I've got a missing tooth."

Ah, the tooth. How did you lose it?

"The bassist punched it out," says Lias.

"Years ago," confirms Saul. "When I was 18."

Have you considered a replacement?

"We tried, a few years ago…" starts Lias. "Hold on, are you talking about the bassist or the tooth?"

Fat White Family play the 100 Club, W1, 10 Dec