Back in London, I was the Ready Brek kid* – it was freezing but I had a warm, fuzzy glow on the inside. Sporting a virile Latino moustache and a beautiful new chica, I enjoyed my homecoming until it was pointed out to me that having a ‘cock duster’ and a girlfriend 15 years your junior weren’t things to be particularly proud of.
It was only in the UK that people associated a moustache with gayness. In other parts of the world, it meant that you were tough, reliable and even streetwise. Stateside in years to come, I would be treated with the utmost respect by Yankee fans who were brought up to look upon the ’tache as a symbol of upstanding virility and virtue. The guys all wanted to hang with me, not because they wanted a shag – at least, I hoped not – but rather to bask in the presence of good old-fashioned manliness.
Besides, how could I be gay with a tanned nymphet on my arm? I had tried encouraging 18-year-old Katrine to smoke whenever she felt like it and smear herself in olive oil before sunbathing – so she’d wrinkle prematurely and our age gap wouldn’t be so obvious. But the results would take years to show.
Instead, I treated everyone to my very own Nasty Bastard cocktail, made from Brazilian Cachaça 51 (or Cinquenta Uno as they call it – in reference to its strength) and liquid guarana (a plant extract that taken in large quantities lends energy) that I’d brought home with me. Some of us (though not Justin who was resolutely anti-drugs at the time) then smoked the quaintly named but potentially brain-demolishing ‘pain y queso’ or ‘bread and cheese’ – a joint of marijuana (bread) sprinkled with cocaine (cheese) that I’d tried in Venezuela and may well have contributed to my gormless jungle meanderings. Myself, Dan, Justin and Ed talked plenty of gibberish that night, into the small hours –– mapping out our plan to hit the Camden music scene with a flamboyant glam-rock style that showcased not just our singer’s sky-scraping falsetto but, perhaps more importantly, a collective antipathy to what we perceived as fey ‘indie’ music. What we didn’t foresee at the time was that three years later we’d be feted as a gay metal band, proving that the more macho you try to act, the gayer you become.
* Kids on a TV commercial that ran in the seventies and eighties, who ate a porridge-like breakfast that gave them a radioactive-like ‘perma’ glow.