What is Biggleswade? Most people think this word is was used by beggars in the 15th century where they would use the ‘biggleswade strip‘ to receive the finest copper coins in the land in exchange for showing a bit of leg.

In fact it is my home town and the birthplace of “the best shit band ever” Ratpigeon.

Formed in 2002 as the infamous cult Spazzcore Deluxe Da Action Pumppa (Beefcake), Ratpigeon showed what they were made of to a small audience in 2003 and actually made a woman cry in a heap of sadness… Maybe her kitten had just been flattened that day by a obese gentleman, but Ratpigeon knew they were on the correct pulse.

After playing through a series of houses (one of which I was honoured to witness as they performed with a 6ft “man’s member with love spuds” behind them) they are now hitting London with their increasing loving fans!

Having opened for acts including UK Subs, Splodgenessabounds and Kunt and The Gang, Ratpigeon are still abusing the ears of the world with their brand of music fuelled by a mutual love of 80’s glam and metal, old school punk rock and British loonies such as Mark E Smith and John Otway.

The keep it fast team spoke with the singer Luke to find out how “sexellent” they really are:

If Ratpigeon are mentioned in your home town it seems everybody has heard about you and even people seeing you in London for the first time walk away grinning at the end of the show, why do you think this is?

Without sounding cliché I’d like to think its because we are genuinely original, I mean people say they have never seen a band like Ratpigeon, but that could be a bad thing as much as a good thing, there’s probably very good reasons why no bands sound like us, probably because most people have some degree of decency and taste.

Obviously our tendency to rock out like motherfuckers and not give a shit what we say/do onstage may also contribute to this. Sometimes we like to move.

The words we choose to sing may cause some smiles ,usually ones such as “Fuck’, ‘Cock’ and ‘Piss’.

Does any of the members dress up for the performance?

We’re all dappa guys. Though I do tend to change my clothes before I perform. I like to pay homage to all my favourite bands of the 80s by wearing some flamboyant outfits, it adds a visual aspect to the performance.

Like watch any 80s glam video,the music is usually amazing but if these guys were wearing plain white shirts and had sensible haircuts it just wouldn’t be the same. Fun, OTT, party rock n roll is bound to make a comeback soon and I for one am gonna jump on the fucking bandwagon when it does and cause a stir, albeit minimal one.

Has any fans decided to do more then just nod their heads to your tunes?

One thing I’ve noticed is we seem attract a lot of boys, mainly in their late teens who have large beer-bellys and like to take their shirts off, drink beer and act like Neanderthals. I like encourage this sort of irresponsible behaviour .

Once someone invaded the stage when we were playing dressed as a Mexican wrestler, me and Graeme decided it would be funny to kick him to the floor and sit on his face, smack him with our guitars and stuff whilst playing, we then realised it was one of our mates.

What is the worst performance you have done? Was it a bad crowd or bad playing?

One of 2 shows here.

We played Rhythms of the World in 2005, we were booked on to play Club 85 about 3 in the afternoon on the Sunday. I was pissed by about 12, I think Graeme was too, Jack was on a comedown from the previous day’s magic mushrooms and Alan wasn’t happy for some reason.

We came out to play and although some of our mates were there, the sea of mothers with pushchairs and young children we saw making up most the crowd spelt a recipe for disaster.

Knowing the only way we were going to go down well was if we walked on and did a series of songs from the childrens TV show Wigggles, we walked on ,did our usual set, played really badly and walked off to less than half the people we walked on to.

Then there was the time we played the Phoenix in Hitchin when Graeme got so pissed he collapsed mid song and spilt beer over the amps. But we found that funny, even Alan who’s stupidly expensive amp was temporarily broken.

What is the best thing someone has told you at the end of a show?

Several people have asked us where we get our drugs from. Even though we practically never touch a thing apart form alcohol. And we’ve had to sign autographs for some crazed American women before. Some guy said our music was “rude”, not “rude” as in offensive, “rude” as in radical, cowabunga dude surfer speak shit.

One guy came to an early show and gave us an awful review, I think saying I should get a job doing sound effects for the next Godzilla movie. A fan of ours (we didn’t have anything to do with this) tracked the guy down sent him some rude emails. We nearly got in trouble for that.

But seriously the best thing some guy ever said to me was John Otway‘s bassist, I can’t remember the words but he showed some level of faith in us and told us to stick to it.

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Fantastic! Well the keep it fast team hope that Mad Mac will Glam up and show off some of his bad ass moves next time they play!