“I’d said, ‘All that weird stuff is crap!’ When I came back I said, ‘Can you play me all that weird crap I was rude about?’” Alien Sex Fiend’s mushroom-powered path to prog appreciation

In 2018 Alien Sex Fiend co-founder Nik Fiend told Prog how an experience with mushrooms on the Isle of Wight turned him on to progressive music, not long after he’d told his wife Mrs Fiend that he never wanted to hear any of it again.

“I started getting into Hawkwind when I was cleaning windows. Some of it was a bit too far-out for me when I was 13 or 14, but I’d heard Silver Machine and picked up this sampler that had Master Of The Universe on. That was the beginning – I wanted to find out more.

The first guys I did music with had an echo unit, and that was the first time I heard Pink Floyd's Relics, which is one of my favourites. Then in the late 70s, with Demon Preacher, we went to the Isle Of Wight to do a gig and ended up doing magic mushrooms.

That changed my headset. I’d been quite rude to [wife and synth player] Mrs Fiend not long before, saying, 'All that weird stuff is shit – I don’t wanna hear it!’ When I came back I said, ‘Can you play me all that weird shit that I was rude about?’

Now I love Can's Tago Mago, Neu!, King Crimson's In The Court Of The Crimson King – when she played me 21st Century Schizoid Man my head nearly flew off! I was mad on Frank Zappa too: his music would set me off doing big murals on my bedsit walls.

Silver Machine - YouTube

Watch On

Hawkwind’s In Search Of Space is mine and Mrs Fiend’s ultimate favourite album; we’ve been playing it back-to-back in recent times. It really takes me on a journey.

Master Of The Universe is our favourite track – I still get a rush when I hear the words, ‘The wind of time is blowing through me.’ They were cooking when that one was going down!

Hawkwind inadvertently influenced Alien Sex Fiend. When we first started out, we used to jam indefinitely and we did a cover version of Silver Machine. Lemmy said he liked it.

We’ve been in and around their music with our funny career. We did our single I Walk The Line with the Flicknife label when they were doing The Chronicle Of The Black Sword.

Now we’re both on Cherry Red. It’s mental – Mrs Fiend and I looked at each other and went, ‘Fuckin’ell! This is unreal!’ Hawkwind deserve a lot more credit.”