Between Tranmere Rovers Supporters Club and the Birthday Party, between the John Peel Show and the Benny Hill Show, fall Half Man Half Biscuit

MARTIN ASTON sampled the assortment. MEIR GAL manned the camera.

"God gave us life. So that we could play
With our mates in the street
With the ball that we bought
From the shop last week"

The name is Half Man Half Biscuit. The origin ?

"It's an anagram of PSV Eindhoven"

Funny how they have half-stumbled, half-leapt out of some dead ordinary Birkenhead bedrooms and found themselves topping both independent singles and albums chart.

This has by no little means been due to the kindly patronage of John Peel who saw in these five lads something endearingly shambolic laced with a very real, very funny sense of humour.

That and an obsession with football. Actually obsession's not strong enough a word.

Boys Own material, sure, but look where Half Milk Half Cream are playing next month. New York. Yeah, New York in the US of A. The State Of Pop, 1986, then? It's enough to make you laugh...

"God gave us life
So that we could take sweets from strange men in cars
And get driven through the woods to stroke
Non-existent puppies...
They also gave us Una Stubbs, Little and Large, Keith Harris, Wendy Craig, Thora Hird, Matthew Kelly, Eartha Kitt, Lionel Blair..."

Nigel: "We don't overdose on TV... I watch as much telly as the next person."

Dave: "And I'm the next person and I watch a hell of a lot!"

Nigel: "We don't look on it as 'victims of TV culture' or anything like that although possibly it could be."

Can you list five favourite things in order of preference?

"Yeah, football, food... then everything else swops around each week."

"Do you mind, sir, if I ask you a question?
If music be the food of love, are you the indigestion ?"

Nigel Blackwell is the biggest wag of the lot, ably supported by Dave. Then there's drummer Paul, guitarist Simon (incidentally Nigel's brother) and bass thumper Neil, but it's Nigel who collected the Soccer Stars, played Waddington's Table Soccer, bounced the ping-pong ball off the wall and did a diving header through the sliding doors, watched the soaps every day, and remembered 99% of all known David Coleman commentaries. That and writing Half Milk Half Plain's lyrics.

"Most of them are written beforehand. I just have an idea for about four lines and then because the rest of them always write the music longer than that, I have to think of more. That's why the lyrics often go into a totally different subject half way through. I do improvise, though. "99% of Gargoyles Look Like Bob Todd" was written about 10 minutes before we recorded it."

Dave: "You woke up one morning and called it 'Scrambled Eggs', didn't you? Oh no, that was Paul McCartney. That was how he first wrote 'Yesterday'."

"A million housewives every day pick up a tin of beans and say
'What an amazing example of synchronisation"

If you ever needed to sum up an attitude, then knowing that Half Blanco Half Negro turned down a slot on The Tube so as not to miss a Tranmere Rovers home game (their league fixtures are pinned up next to a provisional list of gigs to ensure that no two clash) will take you a long way to sizing up the group's association with the music biz. Nigel: "We won't do tours because it doesn't suit us really. Who wants to do 10 nights on the run ?" Dave: "We'd just do it over three months or so. Two a week or something like that."

Do you care about being able to play well ?

Chorus: "No, no..."

It's the spirit that counts, then? Neil: "It's just having a laugh, innit ?"

Dave: "Simon's a very competent guitarist"

Nigel: "I mean, he is a guitarist."

Where did you buy your instruments from? Woolworths?

David: "Paintshops, shoeshops, cakeshops. Actually my Nan had to move house so that she could buy me a synthesiser. That's the truth. This was five years ago. It's a Siel monophonic synthesiser. Society Electronische. Five years ago it was quite innovative but nowadays they're knocking them off for about £45 in London, 'cos no-one wants to know about monos anymore.

"I've just ordered a Yamaha DX21 which is as far as my price range can afford to go. I've also got a double manual keyboard organ. It's a real sad story. When you first start learning to play the piano or organ, you get one of those with the rhythm box built in, and all the arpeggio chords. So all I used to do is press the buttons and make nice blippy noises and lie across the bass pedals. I only use it now as a practise amp. You put the synth on top and plug it into the practise amp and play away. But because I've only got that Siel mono live, it's very frustrating. You want to go" — impersonates Rick Wakeman double-handed spread — "but you can't, 'cos only the top note comes out. You go like that and a little piccolo sound comes out. Top G or something. When I finally get the Yamaha, I'll have forgotten how to play chords, it's been so long. My left hand's seized up!

"I'll still use it to do the riffs on because there are nice, tacky sounds on it. That's half the beauty of it. There's no big DX7 wodges-of-sound wafting through which is not what I want."

Do you have any heroes?

"Edward Rayner of Split Enz. He's a brilliant keyboardist. He's not obtrusive but he's done some brilliant riffs."

"Oh darling sugar honey
When it was nice and sunny
And when I had some money
We would go see Echo And The Bunny...
Men"

What about you, Simon? Come on, you're the only musician in the group, or so your brother Nigel says. Is it all down to you then?

"I got me new amp today!" he excitedly tells me, like his Dad's just given him an increase in pocket money. "It's a Sunn amp. It's quite a nifty little combo, it's only small but it's powerful. It's a 100 watt. I was using a Peavey amp which I've given to Dave for his keyboards."

What was the first guitar you ever bought?

"Err, I never bought a guitar, my folks bought it. I got a Columbus 225 copy. It used to have a tremelo arm on it (GOSH!). Now I use a Tokai Telecaster which you can play anything on - lead, rhythm. Very comfortable and with a nice action. I've also got an acoustic but that stays in the house.

"When I first got the Tokai, it was eating strings like nothing else, so I recently changed to a lower gauge, y'know, so it's OK. Nice sound."

And with that, Simon gets hauled off to soundcheck. Neil the bass biscuit, takes his place.

"I've got a Rickenbacker 4001. I got it 'cos I like the sound. I've just got me new amp which is a Marshall. It's just a raw sound. I've always wanted one of them."

And that's all Neil has to say on music.

Nigel: "I only play rhythm guitar and very limited at that, so I'll just try and get any kind of tune, y'know. I learnt guitar from the Denny Laine Book of Guitar actually."

Now we know.

"Praise the Lord, you all look so beautiful
Bulging waistcoat, 30 inch of neck
Shine your shoes and head for The Crucible
rush the baize and keep the crowd in check
Everybody's doing The Len Ganley Stance"

"We sent a demo to Probe, which is a Liverpool company" explains Dave, "just for their personal enjoyment, 'oh, you might like to listen to this!'

"We didn't give it to them thinking 'oh, you'll like this, make a record' "Well they rang us up the next day," Nigel continues, "and said 'it's great, we wanna make a record' and we thought 'ohhhhhh...' They said go back and make some more songs' and the next thing we know, there's an album out."

It's doubtful that the real success of "Back In The DHSS" has gone to their heads.

Nigel: No, it's the same. I'd like to think it hasn't affected us in any way."

"Mary had a little lamb, the doctors were astounded
Everywhere she went, gynaecologists surrounded"

Dave: We're not really part of the Rock 'N' Roll industry. We're just like a small growth on its leg." If you really want to know where Half Hope Routine get their daily manna from heaven, watch the telly, especially all the soaps, early Saturday evening viewing, children's programmes, all the sport you can handle, sitcoms and most everything else. Ever heard The Skids' TV Stars' with its rousing chorus of "ALBERT TATLOCK, ALBERT TATLOCK!"? This lot's a big chip off that block.

Len Ganley, is of course, Britain's top snooker referee. A hero!

Nigel: "Our music is music for people who didn't get lifts to school. It's that kind of thing, y'know, for want of a better word, that people can relate to."

Nigel's favourite groups are The Fall, The Birthday Party (of old), The Residents and The Stooges "...very good for getting rid of people out of your house."

Dave's choice is Abba.

"I think they typify everything that was good about pure pop music. No ifs and buts, no fancy wrapping. Dead down to earth. They set out to be a really successful pop band and made it."

Nigel: "I'm not a belly-laugh kind of person. I can't really write things about politics or war or love or love.

"My girlfriend looks like Peggy Mount
What am I supposed to do?"

I just feel I'm not qualified to write about things like that. Even living as we do in Birkenhead.

"I write about things but I never get serious. I have serious moments but not really in music. Saying that, when I sing "I hate Nerys Hughes From The Heart" I really do. As Crass would sing "Get rid of the bomb", the same amount of feeling is there when I sing about Nerys Hughes. It's the same level of angst. There is a lot of angst, isn't there?"

Ten out of ten for attitude, sincerity, honesty and Nigel's impersonation of football manager Bob Stokoe in the 1973 Cup Final.

"They said beware, there's an Albert Hammond bootleg in the house, in there
An Albert Hammond bootleg in the house
Some man introduced himself as Stanley Rouse
Came in and left this Albert Hammond bootleg in the house"

"Albert Hammond Bootleg" is one of the B-sides of the new Half Sharp Half Daft single "The Trumpton Riots", which tells the story of some inner city unrest and explosive violence in a children's TV programme. The B side of the seven-inch is "All I Want For Xmas Is A Dukla Prague Away Kit", a reference to Subbuteo.

God save and God help Half Man Half Biscuit.