Toxic Tommy Interviews Helios Creed
By: Toxic Tommy
Heathen World
TOXIC TOMMY: For the
record, what's your name and profession?
HELIOS CREED: I'm Helios
Creed, a musician, and I do Chrome and Helios Creed.
T: Are you doing Chrome
now?
H: Yeah, I'm doing a new
Chrome project with the original drum and bass section, John and Hillary Hanes.
T: The Stenches?!
H: Yeah, they used to be
known as The Stenches.
T: Is this the new release
on Kozik's Man's Ruin label?
H: Yeah, that was a hook,
a baited hook to see if there's any interest.
T: What do you mean by a
"baited hook"?
H: Well, since its been so
long since I did Chrome I didn't want to waste my time putting all this work
into something and have a lack of interest in it. You know what I mean?
T: Yeah, I haven't seen
it. I'm having a hell of a hard time tracking down a copy. What exactly is it?
Is Damen on it?
H: No, Damen isn't on
this, its just me and people I hired to put together the first Chrome niblet.
T: Does it sound anything
like the old Chrome?
H: Yeah, I like to think
it picks up from when I left Chrome, only 15 years later.
T: What possessed you to
do Dark Matter? Where you seeing flying saucers or just a change from what
you've been doing?
H: No, someone at a record
company, who'll remain nameless, convinced me to record an ambient disk,
because at the time ambient stuff was doing quite well. And I take a long time
doing anything, and I go "I'll see what I could do" and it turned out
not very ambient at all and it probably sold to most of the Helios people
anyway and I don't think any of the ambient people were turned on to it at all.
T: I enjoyed it a lot, I
thought the title track had a lot of the stylings of Chrome. But the
"Carol of the Bells" kept giving me images of an old android, I mean
Andre Cold Duck commercial from when I was a kid.
H: HA - Yeah, we threw
that on there for the hell of it.
T: The timing is so good
for the release.
H: Yeah, Christmas and
stuff. I put the space keyboards on that, but all the music credit on that
track go to Chris McKay (bass player of Helios Creed).
T: Maybe you should talk
to your record company and get some holiday packaging or promotion on that.
H: Not likely.
T: Anyhow, I heard you had
done some projects with the Butthole Surfers.
H: I did two projects. Do
you remember Independent Worm Saloon?
T: Yeah.
H: I did bits on
"Clean It Up" and the "Annoying Song". Of course they
didn't call me to play on their hit album.
T: Well, that's how it
goes. What was the other project?
H: After Jeff quite the
band, he came over and played bass on the new Helios record album.
T: Which one, Cosmic
Assault?
H: Yeah, there's actually
going to be two. One's called Nug, the Transport and I'm not sure of the other
one. Cosmic Assault was quite a while ago. Actually, that was 3 years ago.
T: Was it really?
H: Yeah, Brian (@
Cleopatra) held on to it for a year before he released it. I don't know why,
but he did.
T: So, tell me about the Buttholes.
Do they really do 15 bong hits for breakfast?
H: Hmmm, I know every time
I was with them we were always looking for pot. They smoke as much as I do, but
I never had been around them for breakfast, except Jeff and me had the best
Californian Humbolt stuff. And he can keep up with the best of smokers. Well,
last time Gibby was in town I gave him a bag and he seemed happy about that.
T: So the stories ar true?
H: Yeah, the only one who
isn't the big pot smoker, it would be King.
T: What did you think of
Cleopatra's Chrome box?
H: I'm happy about
everything but them leaving out a couple of songs from Half Machine Lip Moves
and Alien Soundtracks. But you can always get that on Touch and Go. It's (the
box) very beautiful and you get nice stuff with it....sticker and poster.
T: I like the images in
the book from the video "Meet You In The Subway". Were you guys into
a Clockwork Orange thing when you did that?
H: That was Damen's idea.
He said "Let's all dress up like Clockwork Orange". At that time he
thought some band should do that. So we did it and it was just me and him. It
was before we got together with John and Hillary.
T: This was back in the
post-Spain and Lambdin days, wasn't it?
H: Yeah. I've been looking
for those two guys and they're really hard to find. I'd really like to find
Gary Spain, Chrome's first bass player/violin player.
T: Yeah, I really dug the
violin playing on "Slip it to the Android". Was there really a John
L. Cyborg?
H: Actually, when John
Lambdin quit the band we didn't want to create a gap, so we did this program
thing we called John L. Cyborg - a machine.
T: I remember hearing
something about getting back with Damen before he died, but he didn't want to
do it in person, he wanted to do it through the mail. Would you still do it?
H: You mean if Damen was
still alive?
T: No, I mean like a
record company, like Cleopatra, had access to some DAT tapes and gave them to
you to finish.
H: Oh, sure. What I didn't
want to do was Damen to have my tapes and manipulate them. But I'd take his
tapes and manipulate them.
T: Was that like a power
struggle?
H: No, if he was still
alive what I wanted to do was us both to go into the same studio and make a
record like the old days, but that could never happen. But Brian (@ Cleopatra)
said he had some tapes of Damen and if I eventually get them I'll throw them in
on the new Chrome album I'm working on.
T: Wow! I'm pretty excited
about that. Well, The Beatles got away with a reunion like that.
H: Yeah, but I'm sure they
made a lot more money.
T: They have a bigger fan
base! What do you think of some of the covers bands have done of Third From the
Sun? I have a disc of this really bad German metal band called No Yes No you
might have played on.
H: I don't know why I did
that. I think I was just drunk. I was somewhere in
T: What do you think of Prong's
cover back in the 80's?
H: Pretty bizarre, the way
the song sounded to me - too heavy metal!
T: Well, they were a metal
band.
H: And they made a hit out
of it and I guess I was unhappy about it because I like my version much better.
I wish ours would have gotten more notice. They were cool to put the credits on
there.
T: Did you get any money
for that?
H: Well actually, I was
living in a bus at the time and some lady was looking for me and I wish she
did. No, I never did get any money. I ran into Prong's old bass player (Raven?)
and he said he wanted to do something more like I was doing and I said,
"What, suffer? Be in an original cult band and live on a bus?"
T: Where was the bus? What
state?
H: San Fransisco.
T: Did it have
electricity?
H: Yeah, it had a TV,
refrigerator, kitchen, sink, bathroom, shower, bed, stereo, VCR.
T: Was it driveable?
H: Yeah, I took it on
tour. But it was old and could only go 65mph and it leaked.
T: I guess you were a big
fan of the Partridge family as a kid.
H: Actually, it was
exactly like that bus, but it was painted blue.
T: Any plans of a tour
this year?
H: Hopefully this spring.
We'll tour with Farflung opening up as a space-rock band, which has members of
Pressurehead in it.
T: Tell me about any UFO sightings
you may have had?
H: I've had 3 sightings.
The most major one was at
T: What did it look like?
H: It was your typical
flying saucer, round, had 3 lights on the bottom. It was silver and it glowed.
The technology was way advanced. It seemed beyond 3 dimensions. Like, I was
seeing it from here and from somewhere else. I don't know how to describe it.
It had some kind of weird super energy. It affected my psyche, for a while
after the experience I could read the minds of people around me. Then it just
went away.
T: What about your friend,
was he affected?
H: He seemed to think he
had two way communication, like he was reading their minds and they were like
telling us all kinds of shit. It was like they flashed the whole book of
revelations in his head in 3 seconds. I told him, "yeah they told some big
story too!'
T: Any sightings out in
H: I had just ran into
someone the other day who told me about three sightings. But for me, myself
it's been a long time. Of course all these things spark my imagination. I have
always written songs which had to do with extraterrestrial life.
T: Do you think they're
from other planets or dimensions?
H: Both. There's all kinds
of things going on and we are just finding out about as humans what's going on.
Who's to say we're doing such a bad job with the planet we might loose it right
from under our feet. There could be a race of beings ready to take it over. If
we're not going to take care of it some-body else might be waiting for the
chance.
T: Yeah, they could treat
us the way the whites treated the natives.
H: There's all kinds of
shit going on. But my experience on
T: Any Goatsucker activity
in
H: Goatsucker, what's
that?
T: Something that's like a
cross between a Grey alien, and a kangaroo, and it has scales. Farmers in
H: Is it animal or
intelligent?
T: Both, and from accounts
I've read it's made its way to Central America and Mexico so in a few months it
might be up in you neck of the woods.
H: Where did you hear
about it?
T: Weekly World News.
H: I read that! You'd be
surprised how much stuff in the WWN is accurate. A lot of the Nostrodamus
predictions they throw in there are true. I have all these Nostrodamus books
and follow up on that stuff.
T: Well, according to them
we're supposed to get invaded by aliens on November 27th, which is also my
birthday.
H: Yeah, I read that one,
they're supposed to take over the planet, right?
T: Yeah!
H: You read the same shit
I read! That's the only interesting thing you can buy in a grocery store these
days.
T: I'm tired still reading
about O.J. You still see at least one headline a week about him in the other
tabloids.
H: Yeah, he's
boring.(pause) Somebody should kill that guy! I'd feel more justified, I don't
know why anyone didn't yet. You know what I heard?
T: No what, that he's an
idiot?
H: No, I read in one of
these magazines that he went over there just to slash her tires. That was all
he was going to do. But then he saw them and went haywire.
T: That's what happens
when jocks play with knives.