No.1 Interview with The Fink Brothers From 1985

Across the Cursed Earth they came, two stinking mutants glowing green with radiation. Fink Angel and his brother Mean Machine Angel - two of the galaxy's ugliest, meanest criminals. They were heading for the 22nd Century's largest conurbation Megacity One for a fun evening of death, destruction and ten pin bowling. Then an idea struck them...

THE STORY SO FAR

Fink and Mean, known collectively as The Fink Brothers, have ditched their crime routine in favour of pop music.

The reckon they can coin the creds (money to you, citizen) by selling massive quantities of records.

So, after time-warping back to the 20th Century, they've signed up with Madness' record label Zarjazz.

Their first single 'Mutants From Megacity' is an anarchic dance song that sticks up with two green, grizzled fingers at Megacity's finest lawman, the famous comic character Judge Dredd.

By sheer coincidence Fink looks a little like Suggs and Mean bears an uncanny resemblance to Carl from Madness.

Pin-up material they are not - but you can still rely on No. 1 to come up with the first interview with The Fink Brothers themselves.

MAD MUTANTS

No. 1: How would you describe your record?

Fink: "It's really scrungey."

Mean: "It's dance music."

Fink: "Yes, we can understand your Earthlet trend of dancing. We had to realign our brain cells to the modern pop music of the 80s.

"The kind of record we'd like to make would be unlistenable to the average norm. (That means you and me, citizen.)

"People'll have to buy it or we'll turn to crime."

No. 1: I thought you muties hated norms, yet you're sitting here with me...

Mean: "We'll take your leg off later."

Fink: "We only hate norms because we were kept out of the city by them. Mutants aren't allowed in Megacity One, it's the law. They tend to warp out."

Mean: "It's nice here because there are no Judges. Judges are the people we really hate. Especially Judge Dredd."

No. 1: How come he appears on your record?

Fink: "Records about Judges are illegal in Megacity. If you were a norm and made a record about a Judge you'd get seven years in an iso-cube..."

Mean: "Which is not very nice."

Fink: "It's also seven years if you get caught with the record."

No. 1: We have a record here by The Human League named after Judge Dredd's famous line, 'I Am The Law'.

Fink: "Poofs."

Mean: "No, no, what are they?"

Fink: "I think they're grovelling squirmers."

Mean: "Humes."

Fink: "Norms."

Mean: "We have utter contempt for humes."

Fink: "No, they're grovelling, squirming norms because they were in praise of Judge Dredd, which is utterly comtemptible... really normish (both dissolve into hysterics)."

No. 1: As an awesomely ugly duo producing hip dance music, you're obviously going to be compared with Wham. Have you heard of them?

Mean: "I've heard Wham!"

Fink: "It's the noise he makes when he butts people."

Mean: "I'll butt anything, walls, vehicles..."

Fink: "My first musical experience was hitting someone over the head with a metal bar."

Mean: "There's a band over here called SPK that hit inanimate objects. We only hit live objects."

ZARJAZZ

The Fink Brothers are obviously going to be very big when it comes to audience participation on tour.

But what of their record company Zarjazz, the label set up by Madness - whose two vocalists could easily be mistaken for Fink and Mean with a large amount of make-up on?

No. 1: Zarjazz recently had a hit with Feargal Sharkey. Does the name ring a bell?

Fink: "Norm."

Mean: "Boring norm."

Fink: "We're using these norms to put out records on Zarjazz to make us a few creds."

Mean: "They have their uses."

No. 1: There's also this wacky band called Madness... (This is definitely the wrong question to ask. Fink starts to snarl at me and Mean begins to polish his metal claw menacingly.)

Mean: "Good name but... (sighs)"

Fink: "They're not mad at all."

Mean: "They don't know the meaning of the word."

Fink: "They've never poisoned whole families."

No. 1 (Trying to change the subject hurriedly): Tharg, the editor of 2000 AD comic, is a Betelgeusian. Is it easy to spot a Betelgeusian in a crowd?

Mean: "Oh yeah, certainly."

Fink: "The red dial on their forehead usually gives it away."

No. 1 (To Mean): You've got a dial on your forehead, too. What's that for?

Mean: "It's basically stages of viciousness. I can go from one to four. If they get the Mean Machine coming at them on four then they've had it."

No. 1: What's your favourite hobby?

Mean: "Going up to four."

MUTIE-VISON

These muties are very touchy people. Mean hasn't killed anything for hours - or so his press officer says - and he's beginning to get an itchy dial.

I can't possibly ask them if they'd enter the Eurovision song contest ... or can I?

Fink: "Yes, we would."

Mean: "But we'd have to kill all the other contestants."

No. 1: How would like to be remembered in the pop biz?

Mean: "For slime, for sludge."

Fink: "For evil."

Mean: "Our basic drives are fear, hate, pain..."

Fink: "Jealousy, greed, envy."

Mean: "All the good norm points reversed."

No. 1: What's your favourite strip in 2000 AD?

Fink: "Strontium Dog, he's a mutie."

Mean: "Yeah, he kills a lot of people. That's good workethic."

Fink: "He tries to catch criminals which a bit contemptible, but at least he does it for the creds."

Mean: "At least he does it for gain, which is OK by us."

No. 1: How are you boys giong to kill me after the interview?

Mean: "Slowly ... we always kill people slowly."

Fink: "We needn't kill him, we could always torture him..."