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 Girlschool are legends, and almost any rock fan will at some point have heard something by the band, and were one of the bands that many people were looking forward to at the Hard Rock Hell festival.
Komodo Rock's Mike Elliott sat down with the band, and what followed ended up having very little to do with music, but certainly gives an insight into the feelings of the band, and how, no matter how they may disagree on a subject, they have such a strong bond together, that they still have a great time.
Mike Elliott: I'm going to start with a really weird question.
Enid Williams: Weird sounds good.
ME: What's the one question that you wish you were asked in an interview but never have been.
Kim McAuliffe: The one question is “Why?” But we have been asked “why do you do it”, which is probably after 30 years the one question I ask myself all the time. After 30 years why do you do it, and the fact is it's fun.
Jackie Chambers: If we didn't enjoy it there's no point, it shows with bands that don't, a band that's going through the motions stands out a mile. You can't fool an audience. If you stop enjoying it quit.
EW: Probably something like can you explain that set of lyrics, or how did that riff come about.
KM: Which is completely boring!
EW: Or, something completely different like Politics or ecology.
KM: We don't keep going for politics.
EW: That was my personal view.
KM: You've started something now, we're having an argument now.
JC: Why do you always argue?
KM: Why do you want to keep going Denise.
Denise Dufort: As a band?
KM: Because we love it.
ME: So politics then, you brought it up, so who are you going to vote for at the next General Election.
EW: That's a real tough one.
KM: That's easy for me, I've always been left!
EW: But there isn't a left anymore.
KM: Well I don't care.
EW: The Labour party is very right wing, and has the same economic policy as the Tory party, and when you have private equity investors buying up half the country.
KM: Don't care Enid!
EW: And the loss of civil liberties in this country.
KM: I hate that!
JC: Just don't get her onto CCTV.
EW: When the day comes when you can't put on a rock concert, then people go “oh my civil liberties have gone.”
KM: I must admit, and I'm quite upset about it, I'm Labour and my families always been left, I do think that I would leave the country because of all the stuff that's going on, all the surveillance. I don't care what they say, it's just a lack of peoples rights. I just don't want to be monitored all the time.
 DD: Thanks for getting onto this subject!
KM: They don't seem to mind, I agree with Enid! I don't want my phone calls monitored, I don't want my emails monitored. I don't to be looked at where I go everyday, I hate it. The reason why I moved out of London, I live in the country now, is I don't have any CCTV cameras there, so I can actually walk around without getting spotted.
JC: You've got her started now! And back to Girlschool!
KM: I think it's shameful, it's disgraceful.
DDD: What is it, 300 times a day your spotted.
KM: I'm absolutely so passionate about this.
DDD: It does help with crime though.
KM: No it does not.
JC: I have a different opinion on that, if it infringes on your really private life then yes, but if you've got nothing to hide...
KM: I'm so angry about this!
JC: We have this debate in the van all the time!
KM: Mike Oldfield, I thought he was brilliant. He left the country not because of tax or whatever but because he hated the surveillance, and if I had the money he had I'd be out of here too.
DD: But you do have the money! Goodbye!
KM: Well yeah I would, and I will fuck off, but I don't want to, because I love London!
E: I think it is relevant to Girlschool though. From the point of view that if our civil liberties get eroded any further, then it will get more difficult to do the things we do. It does start infringing.
KM: I think it's absolutely disgusting, I don't want to be tracked everywhere I go.
M: Freedom of movement, freedom of speech.
KM: Everything.
JC: It doesn't stop you having freedom of movement. It just monitors what you do.
KM: Yes it does Jackie. So you want to be monitored then?
JC: I would prefer that if someone mugged me in the street.
KM: That's rubbish! It wouldn't help that!
JC: Well it did capture Jamie Bulgers Killers.
DD: And Stephen Lawrence.
JC: It's caught so many criminals.
KM: They would have caught them anyway. That's two out of thousands.
JC: I'm only naming two.
 KM: I'm sorry, I do not want to be watched 24 hours a day, and I do not want people looking at what I'm saying, my emails. But these two apparently don't care!
DD: I do care, I don't like being watched 300 times a day.
EW: What I don't think is understood, if you have a particularly authoritarian government, then it seems to be a lot dodgier, and we have a supposedly democratic government. But the fact that even then, you can't hardly trust governments, but most of the cameras are owned privately. You can put cameras up privately wherever you like, so it's not just a case of lets have the cameras in places where we think we're most likely to catch crime, it's everywhere and there's no regulation on it.
JC: Who says where crimes going to happen though.
KM: It's absolutely shocking!
EW: There's no regulation though, you can't even go have a shag down the common without knowing your being watched, so who knows what might end up on YouTube. She was in the army you know.
KM: Yeah she wants to be watched!
JC: For six weeks Enid...
KM: The reason I moved out to the country, which I have now done, is because there are no CCTV cameras where I live. And they all slag me off for living where I do, but I can go on with my life without being watched, which I quite like.
JC: I'm not even aware of it, I don't even notice it.
EW: You can tell we're very divided down the middle in this band on this particular political issue.
KM: Enid, I live somewhere I don;t get watched, you live somewhere where you get watched!
EW: I don't leave the house!
ME: So to bring it back to music, do you think that it's a slippery to where somewhere down the line it could stop your freedom of expression as musicians.
EW: Eventually, but not particularly cameras, but the whole civil liberties thing yeah. Yeah totally.
ME: Like you were saying about not being able to play a rock concert.
EW: Even within music, there's a very hands on underground movement around the internet, but even that's controlled. Rupert Murdoch bought MySpace, and it's very institionalised very big business.
DD: This is meant to be a Girlschool interview.
KM: This is the interview, we're talking about something that's relevant.
EW: Smaller labels are bought out by bigger and bigger companies. They're run by accountants and it starts to effect the music.
DD: Don't ever bring up politics again!
KM: Enid did! But why not, I'm so angry about being watched all the time!
JC: We'd never have guessed!
EW: My mother was German, we can go on a whole road down there, she was very young when Hitler came to power, but you start to get a sense of how things creep up on you, and before you realise it you've got a dictatorship and it does happen, and I think that one can be very naive to think that it's only them being arrested.
KM: These two just don't seem to give a damn, and I get worried.
DD: We do! Just not as much.
EW: Not as passionate.
DD: I don't like being watched 300 times a day, I live in London so what can you do.
KM: I don't want to be watched.
 DD: Well you don't, that's why you live where you do!
EW: The abortion debate has come up a lot lately, and it's remained pretty level, but in America it;s particularly absurd. And if women are in a position where they have to have children against their will that is a far reaching problem.
JC: Look what you've done now, our journey homes gonna be hell!
EW: Going back to heavy metal, people sometimes say “Oh you really seem to enjoy it, and you've been going for so long, how do you keep it fresh?”
DD: Because we hate you!
EW: Well yeah she hates me, part of the reason is, well Jackie came in later, I had a break in the middle, but part of it is doing what you really feel passionate about, and even though we might be disagreeing here, when you get really fired up something, it makes me want to write a song, something that you would put your heart and soul into, that you care about that much. That for me is a subject for a song, and you can give it that energy, because it something that you really care about that really matters to you, and as you get older, you can become very cynical.
ME: So when you say you get passionate about the songs, can we expect a new album at some point.
JC: Yeah next year.
DD: We're recording in December.
JC: We haven't written the songs yet. There's going to be one called CCTV yes or no. She's passionate so she can write it.
DD: We went and saw the Pistols the other day and we got really inspired, so yeah, write a song called CCTV.
EW: Kim, we're going to write two verses in defense of freedom and liberty, and the other two write two verses saying...
KM: I don't want to be free, I want to be looked at! Is that what you want to do?
JC: Yeah, lets annoy you!
EW: We don't mind voyeurism.
JC: We didn't say wanted to be watched, we're just not as apposed to as you two.
KM: I want to be watched, oh look at me when I go down shopping, oh yes here I am.
EW: I smile.
KM: I'm going down the road, oh hello, that's nice!
EW: Oh yeah, when your on a train and the disembodied voice that comes out and says Take your feet off the seat. It's like where are you?
KM: And then when your almost home, your walking up the street, oh your nearly there, oh that's nice!
EW: Kim have you experienced that? There's a voice, people are looking through the cameras.
DD: Bloody cheek!
KM: CCTV is rubbish.
DD: Shut up!
And with that, Girlschool were gone heading out for possibly more drinks, and no doubt more arguments, and if we're lucky the first few riffs and lyrics for their next album, which may well be a CCTV concept album!
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