Noel Fielding made his first appearance on Never Mind The Buzzcocks nearly 17 years ago – and now he’s a team captain back for his fifth year of chaos.
Now facing off against Sophie Willan, as well as a host of celebrity guest captains across the series, Noel will have to keep his wits about him in order to be crowned champion once again.
Speaking ahead of the new series, Noel shares some of his biggest rock n roll stories, talks about how the show has evolved over the years, and what to expect from the upcoming episodes.
We’ve just wrapped filming on series five of Never Mind the Buzzcocks. How do you feel this season’s gone?
It’s been good. Actually, this series has been really good. I mean, it's one of those weird things where I think if you like the show and it comes on, you'll always be pleased. It's one of those jobs I never look at and go “Oh, not this again.”
We had some great guests on this time – we’ve got a Christmas edition coming up with Jessie J and Guz Khan - I love Guz. He's really funny. And some really cool pop stars on as well.
It's a stacked guest list. I think at one point you have all members of 5ive as a single entity…
That was hilarious. You know what? The boy bands are actually really funny. We had the whole of 5ive on and that was carnage. But because they were in their own band and in their own comfort zone, their own internal bantering was really hilarious.
How did it feel to be reunited with the rest of the Buzzcocks gang?
It's mad, but I feel like Greg is really good at being the host. He can be quite cutting, and he can be quite charming, but he keeps it quite edgy. And obviously you've got Jamali who's like a viper. He just slays people and then just sits back. Every now and then… Bang! He hits these one-liners. I always love working with Greg. I loved doing Taskmaster. I'm really quite good mates with Jamali now, and likewise I really love Sophie.
Speaking of which, how great is it that Sophie is back on the show?
Yeah, she's very funny and very unusual, and her physical comedy is great. She says such weird things. And her own shows are fantastic, you know? I'm a massive fan of what she does.
Do you feel like you have to keep up with the latest music trends?
A little bit… sort of. I'm a bit sketchy on the boy band stuff. But there's enough iconic stuff and classic stuff and rock stuff and I'm alright on things like the 80s or the 90s or the noughties.
The show is getting on to being 30 years old now – what do you think is the secret to its success?
It's a strange show. It's a music show, and it feels like it should always be there. Do you know what I mean? You don't otherwise get to know what bands or pop stars are really like and you don't get to see them just chatting and being funny. I think it is always my job to sort of try and get them to show off their personalities.
I think Paloma Faith back in the day was always a really good booking. I knew Paloma was really funny and I was like, “just be yourself” and you just sort of try and get them involved and make them feel comfortable so they can be funny.
Is there a trick to getting the best out of the guests?
Yeah. Weirdly, I'm quite good at getting on with people. For example, if you have someone like PinkPantheress on, I'm quite good at making them feel relaxed enough to be funny in that environment.
What was funny about Pantheress was that she kept whispering stuff to me and it was really funny, but she wasn't saying it out loud. So, I kept saying “Greg, she's just said this” and it was hilarious. Half the job is trying to make friends with someone very quickly. It's a bit like being the host of the party really.
Do you think people look up to you now as the grizzled veteran of the show?
Yeah! Maybe now. But back when I first started The Mighty Boosh was doing well – we were doing gigs at the O2 and Wembley… So, weirdly, if you can imagine it, bands like Kings of Leon or Towers of London or whatever… they'd be like, “S**t, you played the O2!” and went and treated us like we were bigger than the bands that would go on Buzzcocks.
So how heavy were the old tapings, and when did things start sobering up?
I used to always take whoever was there out afterwards. It was very rock'n'roll in the beginning, but I think maybe it’s nice more people from X Factor and pop stars started coming on that we got a little bit more professional.
Like we had Jedward on my team. That was pretty insane as an experience. They were quite unusual, but they were so big in the pop world at the time, I can't explain how big they were.
How else do you feel the show has changed since its early days?
It was a lot more rock and roll back then. It was all shot in the old Top of the Pops studio, which is a lot smaller than you’d think it would be. It's very difficult to watch stuff that you're in, because you were there, but I think me and my partner watched like seven in a row of the rebooted series one night and we were like “this is really good, this show”. Not that I didn't think it wasn't, but the way it's edited and the way the speed of it and the pace of it and stuff… it felt really cool. Like a very different show to back in the day.
A few guests notoriously walked off…
Yes, they'd walk off or they'd get annoyed. I remember sitting next to Wiley, the rapper, and he just went “I'm not feeling it” and just got up and left in the middle of the show and never came back.
Well, on that note, your first appearance on Buzzcocks was back in 2007, and it was quite an eventful one.
God, that’s nearly 18 years ago… but Donny Tourette was on Phil’s Team, and I was a guest over on Bill Bailey’s side. The Towers of London were this band who had a bit of an aura around them at the time – they had their own reality show following them about and everything. The Boosh used to hang around with them all the time and I was best mates with the guitarist, Rev. So, they were all in the dressing room – the whole band, all my mates.
In Simon Amstell’s words, Donny was a “particular nuisance” and really wanted people to know he was punk.
Yeah, and Simon eviscerated him. Do you know what? The thing about Donny is he's the loveliest kid ever. I felt quite weird because obviously he was quite drunk on red wine and all the comedians were sort of piling in on him a little bit. But because he was my friend and I was Rev's friend, I was trying not to pile in on him. I felt a bit torn because obviously the comedians are all my friends as well, but like these are like my rock'n'roll friends, so I think I was trying to protect him a little bit.
Do you have a Mount Rushmore of Buzzcocks guests?
There’s so many, looking back. Amy Winehouse is definitely up there. A few of my favourites were before my time. I missed some of those really old rockers, from when Mark Lamar was doing it, guys like Lemmy. Alice Cooper is a big one – he was a guest host and I got to do a little sketch with him. We kept in touch after - I ended up playing him in a thing for Sky Arts about his friendship with Salvadore Dali, (Urban Myths: The Dali and The Cooper) and he was ringing me up going, “Hey Noel, I'm on the golf course!” and he'd be telling me about all these stories about him and Salvador Dali. He always does a Halloween show at the Roundhouse, and I took my mum, who’s a huge Alice Cooper fan and he took us backstage and chatted to her for like half an hour. He was amazing.
I think another would have to be when we invited Courtney Love on as a guest captain - what was quite good about that was I’d hung out with Courtney for like five years. I was quite close to her, so it was weird having her on as the other captain.
At the time of this interview we’ve just bid farewell to Ozzy Osbourne. Did you ever rub shoulders with any of the Osbourne Clan?
Yeah, yeah, I did. Black Sabbath was a bit like a sort of religion in our house. My mum and dad are huge Black Sabbath fans, so I think I was always very starstruck. I met Ozzy at an award thing once, just to say hello. I got to meet him and chat to him a bit. I did know Kelly quite well. She came to see the Boosh play in LA at the Comedy Store and I hung out with her a bit. I sent her a message when I heard the news. Really sad.
What was amazing was the reception. People were just devastated. Birmingham looked like Princess Di's funeral or something. It sort of feels like we're losing those people that you can't replace. It's like they're going and it's like there's never going to be another Ozzy. It can't happen. Funny enough, when I first started hanging out with Courtney Love, I was staying at her house for New Year's Eve and I arrived and we were getting some tea, when she said “Actually let's go round to the Osborne's house for tea. They make better tea than me.” And I was pinching myself going “I'm with Courtney Love walking around to Ozzy Osbourne's house to have a cup of tea.” I don't think they were in. That was the hilarious thing. Courtney was just shouting “OZZY!!!” through the window.