Chris Constantinou Exclusive Interview!

Thanks to Ian Peel for setting this up, here we have an exclusive interview with ex- Ant and current Wolfman, Chris Constantinou!
Me in bold, Chris in italics.

Chris Constantinou

The Wolfmen

Interview for Music For A Future Age

Describe Marco in 5 words.

King Guitarist!… Patron saint to fucked up women!…

What other plans do you have for the Wolfmen?

Single, new video, album, and to play live at some point, somewhere in the future!

You've been busy making a lot of music for various advertisements - do you prefer making music for a 2 minute advert or actual songs?

We wrote some music for the Fashion in Film Festival last month as you know, which was really interesting… Then there’s the soundtracks for I Predict A Riot (James Brown/Bravo TV)… We also wrote some music for Heineken Light in the USA and some stuff for Rimmel. Adverts are easy and fun- songs are a totally different matter – you can't compare them at all.

What kind of things do you write about in your lyrics? Where do you get your inspiration from?

Listening to conversations or what you think people are saying… books… films…the obvious - WOMEN!… anger… lust… love… LIFE… death… all of it.

How was it working with Chris Hughes?

Chris is an interesting character. I never worked with him in the Ants so it was funny to see Marco and him slip back into the old Ants humour and catch up on the stories from that period. We worked on Needle In The Camels Eye Up All Nighter which are on the EP and some more tracks which may be on the album or released at some point. We were going to do more tracks with Chris but he got busy with a few other projects so me and Marco steamed on by ourselves and got Steve Musters in to help us mix them.

I saw Jackie Onassid live a while ago, and saw you play flute (!). I didn't know you played flute- what else do you play?

Harmonica!

How successful were JOA and why did they end?

Some great songs, videos and gigs - so successful from that point of view, however I was always searching for someone who could play guitar like Marco an then I thought why
not call him up and ask him to play on some tracks. We started working together and then Marco mentioned he wanted to get a band together and talked about the idea
and it was pretty obvious that the right thing to do was to pool resources and do it together and then came The Wolfmen…

Who was in JOA and what has happened to the other members of the band since
you started Wolfmen?

Russel Milton on bass is now playing with an American band and touring. Daniel Strittmatter is playing withKOALA. Phil Hardy has a Syd Barrett tribute band…

What did you do after Adam Ant in 1985?

Formed a band with Danny Kustowe and The Count, Bob Wiczling called SF-GO, signed to Miles Copeland, then Friends Of Jack, then formed band with Annabella Lwin, signed to Sony records, then sessioned with loads of bands, then Jackie Onassid, then loads of Jack Daniels and drugs, rehab, you know, the usual… And then teamed up with Marco for The Wolfmen.

Did you enjoy being an Ant?

I loved it!!

Do you have an anecdotes from your time with Adam?

Loads!!

You worked with Annabella Lwin in the 90s, I recently bought Car Sex and Do What You Do on cd and wondered to myself why on earth there wasn't an album.?
What happened there?? How did you get involved with Annabella?

Think I got involved with Annabella through Bob (The Count)… It’s funny because I was taking to Marco today about the possibility of releasing the material we recorded prior to Do What You Do, which was so much better. Some of it was produced by Guy Chambers. Bob was in the original line up of course and then we had another 2 members, Chips and Jo Banham who were great but bad management and bad A&R made sure all the quality material was never released and the band they signed they fucked up… Yeah would be good to get that material out and about. A lot of good stuff.

What tracks will be on the EP?

Jackie Says, Up All Nighter, Needle In The Camels Eye, If You Talk Like That

Will there be an album?

Of course – many.

Has music made you wealthy wise and/or happy?

You can't beat the buzz you get after doing a great gig or writing and recording a great song. Wealthy? Ha ha!

What else have you been up to? Anything we should know about?

All I have been doing is working flat out on The Wolfmen.

Who are your favourite bands/ singers, and what have you been listening to
recently?

I like the singer from the Only Ones, Lou Reed, T-Rex, Velvet Underground, X Ray Spex, PiL, Captain Beefheart… I like watching PJ Harvey perform, she makes me laugh…

Do you like much new music or do you listen to older stuff?

I like some new music but it sounds like a re-hash of what we were doing - most of it worse, some of it interesting. I was at a party and listening to new music that was obviously recorded digitally and then Lou Reed/Bowie/Velvet Underground was played and the difference in sound quality was amazing. So so much better. So I was thinking that we have got used to listening to inferior quality stuff. I would like our second album to be recorded live on tape…