Warmduscher

Joyous punk-funk sleaze from Fat White Family’s sister band

“THE band name comes from a nickname I was given by a couple of German perverts,” says Clams Baker, the 45-year-old frontman of south London reprobates Warmduscher. “It’s a pathetic insult – a

warmduscher is someone who’s too much of a pussy to take a cold shower – but I like the way it sounds and it looks good written out.”

Now on their third album, the freak-funk of

Tainted Lunch, Warmduscher are the latest act from the sprawling scene centred around Brixton venue The Windmill to stumble into something approaching professionalism. The band share a member (guitarist Adam Harmer) with The Fat White Family, as well as an Epicurean outlook on life. “We all make sure to give a fuck without actually giving a fuck, if that makes sense,” says Baker, a Cape Cod native (hence Clams) who spent a decade in New York hustling for house label Strictly Rhythm before settling in London in 2008.

Warmduscher took shape when

Baker, then fronting gonzo minnows

Black Daniel, ended up improvising on stage with Fat Whites talisman Saul Adamczewski at a New Year’s Eve party. “We had a lot of fun so we kept doing it,” says Baker, who concocted 2015’s Khaki Tears and last year’s

Whale City with Adamczewski alongside Harmer, Ben Romanshopcraft (also of Childhood and Insecure Men), drummer “Lightnin’”

Jack Everett and electronics guru

Quinn “The Witherer” Whalley, of acid-house duo Paranoid London. “It’s a vehicle for fearless expression,” says Romanshopcraft, known as Mr Salt Fingers Lovecraft. “No-one is precious, there’s no fear in making mistakes, and that’s a freedom in itself.”

The band barrelled into producer Dan Carey’s studio earlier this year and knocked out Tainted Lunch in four days, which, despite Adamczewski’s exit from the group, is their strongest set yet, with each member contributing to a luridly joyous punk-funk that evokes Suicide, The Fall and local spiritualists Alabama 3. “It’s groove-oriented,” notes Romans-hopcraft, “with a ’90s hip-hop ethos.” Impressively, the band have managed to follow through on that promise by roping in rapper Kool Keith on G-funk cut “Burner”, plus snagging an intro from regular champion Iggy Pop. “Whale City was full-on black magic, like we were possessed and weren’t in control of what we were doing,” says Baker, whose mordant humour skewers a cast of ne’er-do-wells on the likes of “Midnight Dipper” and “Grape Face”. “Tainted Lunch is breaking out and combining genres most people aren’t interested in combining. It wears its influences on its sleeve, and allows us to grow into something that can be anything, really.”

Baker initially tried to make Tainted Lunch a concept album about the German factory worker who poisoned his colleagues over several years by dosing their food with toxins. Luckily only the title remains. “We’re professionals!” sighs Baker. “I don’t have time not to be and we’re all sick of working so hard and being broke. We want to do whatever it takes to get what we deserve – the money and the power!”

Tainted Lunch is out Nov 15 on Leaf; Warmduscher tour the UK from Oct 31

“They took the best vibes of the coolest bands that got right to the edge of the atmosphere of Earth in the ’60s and went that extra step 50 years later. God bless Warmduscher.” Iggy Pop