"Old muscle cars, choppers, vans, skateboarding, science fiction," exults Fu Manchu frontman Scott Hill, rattling off a few of his favorite things. "We grew up with all that shit, and we're still into it now. It all works its way into the band, at some point."

If you've ever wondered what Black Sabbath would sound like with suntans and a fleet of dune buggies at their disposal, check out King of the Road, the latest release from Southern California's Fu Manchu. The bong-rattling soundtrack to an endless summer of two- and four-wheeled fun, King of the Road offers up such rubber-burning anthems as "Boogie Van," "Hell On Wheels" and "Grasschopper," all of which are welded to the titanium undercarriage of bassist Brad Davis and drummer Brant Bjork, and revved to maximum overdrive by the brutally concise guitar riffs of Hill and Bob Balch.

Recorded in less than two weeks at Monkey Studios, the Palm Desert home studio owned by former Masters of Reality honcho Chris Goss, King of the Road is a transcendent distillation of Seventies rock heaviness and Eighties punk aggression. It's a combination that Fu Manchu have been perfecting since 1990, when Hill and Davis first formed the band. "AC/DC, ZZ Top, Black Flag and Kiss are probably our favorite bands, collectively," says Hill, and you can certainly hear evidence of all of them on King of the Road; like Monster Magnet and Queens of the Stone Age, their closest contemporary cousins, Fu Manchu rock purely for the sheer joy of rocking.

"We made the record with Joe Barresi, who mixed [1997's] The Action Is Go," says Hill. "When we go into the studio, we already have an idea of how the songs should be arranged, but there were times where I'd be playing a riff and Brant would go, 'Keep playing, keep playing!' and jump on his drum set. We wrote 'King of the Road' and 'No Dice' that way."

For the most part, the album's lyrics were inspired by watching old biker films, one of Hill's preferred pastimes. "I've just been into biker movies ever since I can remember," he laughs. "I think I have just about every one ever made. There's one called Free Grass, with Casey Kasem; it's like a late-Sixties one, where they're trying to smuggle marijuana from Mexico to the U.S. in the gas tanks of motorcycles. That's a big favorite."

These days, however, there's little time for Hill and his cohorts to kick back and watch their favorite flicks -- they're too busy holding down the support slot on Anthrax's current U.S. tour. "We've been out with them for three weeks now, and it's going really good," Hill says. "We had no idea what to expect before we went on tour, but we're going over pretty well with their fans. By about the third song, everybody's bobbin' their heads and cheering. We're a different type of rock than they are, but we're still heavy, so I guess that helps."

Fu Manchu's heaviness has definitely helped them win fanatical followings outside of the U.S. "We've done about seven tours over in Europe," Hill says. "We're getting ready to go back there and play some shows with Slayer and Iron Maiden, so we're all very excited. European rock fans don't care what you look like, or what you do onstage -- they just wanna hear rock music. We go over well over here, but there it's just nutty! Same in Australia -- they just go crazy."

According to Hill, the highlight of Fu Manchu's last Australian sojourn was a pilgrimage to the grave of AC/DC singer Bon Scott. "We actually went there two days in a row," he enthuses. "We took a bunch of pictures, and Brant left a little marking on the sidewalk in front of his grave. The first day, we were walking through the cemetery with our road manager and roadie, looking for his grave. The caretaker saw us, and he immediately said, 'You guys need to go to the very back, and all the way to the left.' It was like, 'Long-haired freaks? They must be here to see Bon Scott.' That was a really, really cool experience."

Less obvious heroes get a shout-out on the last track of King of the Road, a pedal-to-the-metal rendition of Devo's "Freedom of Choice." "We're all big Devo fans," Hill insists. "When we asked our fans to email us what song they wanted us to do, that and Foghat's 'Slowride' got the most votes. We thought that people would expect us to do 'Slowride,' and we could probably make 'Freedom of Choice' sound more like one of our own songs." No reaction has been forthcoming from the Devo camp, but Hill is keeping his fingers crossed. "I'm curious to see whether Mark Mothersbaugh hates it or likes it, or whatever," Hill laughs. "I'll bet he'll like it because we really tweaked it -- but we're such big fans that even if he hates it, it'll still be cool."

DAN EPSTEIN
(February 4, 2000)