Here’s An Interview with Nick Blinko of Rudimentary Peni During the Making of the Death Church LP
and it’s from IQ32 fanzine, November 1982, below.
“Right now we’re at work on a 12-inch 45 for Crass who have kindly offered us the opportunity to record on Corpus Christi. At the moment it’s called ‘Death Church.’”
—from the interview below
While researching a piece about the 20th anniversary of Rudimentary Peni’s Archaic EP (2004)—which, by the way, is my single favorite release from the band outside their 1980s material—I found the following interview with Rudimentary Peni singer and guitarist (and outsider artist) Nick Blinko. On archive.org I found a scanned-in, xeroxed copy of IQ32 fanzine from 1982. This interview was in it. I decided to clean up the interview by way of transcribing it into the transcript format below. (It’s very possible, by the way, that archive.org’s copy of IQ32 was taken from the almighty UK Zine Library—a great resource I highly recommend you browse and support.)
Over the years I’ve read a lot of Rudimentary Peni interviews—well, “a lot” meaning as many as I could find, since the reclusive trio from Abbots Langley, Hertfordshire are a notoriously interview-averse lot—but I can’t say I’d ever come across this particular Blinko interview before. (And if I had encountered this interview at some point, I’ve bloody well forgotten about it!)
IQ32 was a zine that came out of Liverpool, England in the early 1980s. (The actual scans of the zine are at the bottom of this post.) IQ32 was named after the Necros 1981 IQ32 EP and was produced by “Digger,” aka Graeme Wood, an anarcho-punk fan and college student in Liverpool at that time. (“I live in Sunderland but go to school in Liverpool,” Digger/Graeme writes.) I’m not sure how long IQ32 lasted or how many issues were produced—but I do know at least three issues were made. The Nick Blinko interview below is from IQ32 Issue #1, November 1982.
Before we get to the interview, I’d like to point out a few things about its unusual nature and insert a bit of context. This Nick Blinko interview is noteworthy for a few reasons:
1) Foremost, it’s an interview with singer-guitarist-artist Nick Blinko! That itself is pretty rare. The overwhelming majority of Rudimentary Peni interviews—and again, there aren’t a lot of them—are with bassist Grant Matthews. (He does a great job with them, by the way.) Sure, there are some Blinko interviews to be found here and there on the web, but I can count them on one hand.
And, besides—
2) This interview was conducted during the pivotal period of writing Rudimentary Peni’s Death Church LP, which recently (2023) celebrated its 40th anniversary. Below, Blinko goes into some behind-the-scenes detail about that LP’s creation. This interview is from the Autumn of 1982, and Death Church was not released until the middle of Spring 1983, about half a year after this interview took place. Blinko says “about seven minutes” of Death Church were written by the time of this interview in the late Fall of 1982.
So, here we have a unique snapshot of Peni in a transformative period, in an important time for the band after their first two, furiously fast EPs had been released and had made their impact both on the punk scene and even on the UK indie charts—yet it’s also before Death Church was a finished or even fully realized work. Believe it or not, Rudimentary Peni’s second release, the Crass-produced “Farce EP,” the direct precursor to Death Church, entered the UK indie charts at #7 on July 3, 1982, and would stay there for about 13 weeks, according to Barry Lazzell’s Indie Hits: The Complete UK Independent Charts 1980-1989, a book published by Cherry Red Books in 2002. The Death Church full-length—again, according to Barry Lazzell’s book of UK indie charts—and as strange as it may seem now—topped even “Farce,” and would debut at #3 (!) when it entered the UK Indie Charts on September 19, 1983. Lazzell’s book has Death Church staying in the UK Indie Charts for an unbelievable 3 months!
3) And last but not least: Nick is actually kind of feisty in this interview! He shit-talks other bands, like The Business and The Exploited. (“Bands like these suck on the lifeblood of the punk scene,” Nick grumbles.) And, perhaps most amusing to me, he also shit-talks Oi! evangelist Gary Bushell! In later interviews—what little there is of them—Blinko’s personality is a bit more subdued. I thought it was fun to see the more irritable and snide (and, uhm, “punkier”?) side of Nick’s personality come to the fore here.
So, here’s the interview, with the scans beneath it. The introductory paragraph to the interview was written by Digger/Graeme Wood. Info on Graeme can be found after the interview, too.
RUDIMENTARY PENI INTERVIEW
IQ32 Punk Fanzine
Issue #1
November 1982
by Digger (Graeme Wood)
Rudimentary Peni are a three-piece band from King’s Langley in Hertfordshire. They were first brought to my attention last October when I heard Jello Biafra raving about their first EP on Outer Himalayan records. The debut release was indeed a classic as was the follow-up on Crass. The band specialises in short sharp 100mph blasts (the two EPs contain 23 songs between them), sounding like a cross between Crass and the Dead Kennedys.
IQ32: Usual rubbish: When and why did you form, and who influenced you?
NICK BLINKO: Formed June, 1980. Boredom the only reason. We like Crass, Discharge, Gang Green, Necros, Saccharine Trust, Minor Threat, Neos, DKs, Poisons, Epileptics, The Worst, Amebix, Part 1, UK Decay, early Wire, early Banshees, and Teenage Jesus and the Jerks. Don’t know how much they influence us, though.
IQ32: Did you find it hard to put out your own EP and did you get any help from anyone?
NICK BLINKO: Although we got a bit of bread off benevolent buddies, putting out your own EP is fucking murder. All those de-pressing plants rip you off, especially If you only have the minimum number of records pressed up—500. We also got badly ripped off in shitty studios.
IQ32: How did you get in touch with Crass for the second EP? (The “Farce” EP.)
NICK BLINKO: Grant went with Stage 1 ‘zine to interview Crass and they knew of our EP. Grant had one and they liked it and offered us a record with them, which was really good. Thanks to Crass. We were pleased with this EP (“Farce”) but Jon [Greville, drummer] doesn’t like the vocals and many people have said they prefer the first EP.
IQ32: Do you play many gigs?
NICK BLINKO: About 1 a month.
IQ32: Your songs are all very short. Do you play a short set or a normal length one with millions of dead short songs?
NICK BLINKO: We play about 25 minutes with about 16 songs. Playing live is a pain in the arse. Who needs it?
IQ32: Do you class yourselves as part of the “punk scene,” and do you feel you have anything in common with hands like GBH, The Business, Exploited, etc.?
NICK BLINKO: Inevitably we are part of the “punk scene,” but I’m not sure these other bands are. In some ways there are sparse (?) moments during their music–tee hee! Bands like these suck on the life blood of the punk scene. No doubt they’d say that about us if they ever saw what we fucking look like! Ha-ha!
IQ32: Are you anarchists–do you think it would ever work?
NICK BLINKO: We are not anarchists, but I think anarchy will come about. If it doesn’t happen quickly of course there’s more chance of them destroying the world.
IQ32: Any future plans? What about gigs up north?
NICK BLINKO: We played the midlands – Nottingham, which wasn’t much fun–we got heckled, etc. It’s a pain in the arse. I wish we’d stop it.
Right now we’re at work on a 12-inch 45 for Crass who have kindly offered us the opportunity to record on Corpus Christi. At the moment it’s called “Death Church.” Tracks are “1/4 Dead,” ‘’Dutchmen,” “Inside,” “Nothing But a Nightmare,” “Blasphemy Squad.” We hope for 15 minutes per side but we only have about 7 minutes of new material at the moment.
Words to “1/4 Dead”:
3/4 of the world are starving,
the rest are dead
overdosed on sensitivity
nail varnished to crosses.
IQ32: What do you think of Gary Bushell, etc.?
NICK BLINKO: He keeps trying to track us down by sending his minions after that tell-tale photo to bury the hatchet in our brains. We wouldn’t do a feature unless they did it without photos. Oi! is run by Bushell for his own means.
IQ32: How did you get the name Rudimentary Penl?
NICK BLINKO: Grant thought of it. So many people hated it we just had to use it.
Thanks to Nick Blinko for this interview. (Rudimentary Peni interview dedicated to Sean.)
IQ32’s ‘zine correspondence address was:
Digger
6 Judges Drive
Newsham Park, Liverpool
L6 7UB (?)
A few notes:
Digger is Graeme Wood; he’d moved to Liverpool to become a student. In the third issue of IQ32 he mentions he was working toward, or had obtained, a Bachelor of Science degree. This info on Digger and his zine is at Brob Tilt’s Zine World website.
Scans of the Blinko interview as it appeared in IQ32:
The full scan of issue #1 of IQ32 is online at archive.org and can be viewed HERE.
There’s a much more recent (2023) interview with Nick Blinko HERE.
Much thanks to UK ZINE LIBRARY. The 1st issue of IQ32 is there, and I suspect the copy that I found on archive.org was lifted from that site. I highly recommend supporting UK Zine Library, here: https://ukzinelibrary.blogspot.com/
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