In this month’s Bizarre – on sale now! – The Mighty Boosh star Noel Fielding talks to us about his new art exhibition in London. We also got the chance to ask him some questions sent in to Bizarre via our Facebook page, and this is what he said…

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You’ve spent a lot of time in the US recently – what’s the scariest thing you’ve seen in the States?
Jim Monroe
 
I went to Philadelphia and it was frightening. I was visiting this theatre company that did weird stuff, and they owned this apartment at the top of an old building, separated from the rest of the world by huge metal gates. But when we got to the building they were like, “OK, let’s run for it to avoid all the crackheads and beggars!” And as we ran across the carpark all these people came shuffling out of nowhere, looking like creatures or zombies – and I remember us jamming the gates shut to keep them out.
 
We had a party on the top floor, and we were just standing on the fire escape looking out over Philadelphia. And in the distance it looked beautiful – we could see the lights of the business district of the city. But right below us looked like Beirut or something, with all these burnt out cars and weird buildings with the windows boarded up.
 
Then we heard this weird noise and this ice cream van appeared – and it was painted brown! It wasn’t even on the road, and it just drove across the grass outside the building, playing this weird, discordant tune. Diddle-ding-ding-ding! All out of tune. And all these people starting coming out of these condemned buildings – and our hosts told us it was the Crack Van!
 
It was driving around slowly and all these people were running after it – it was terrible, like Dawn Of The Dead. And I thought, this is so America – you’ve got all these crackheads running around, and on the horizon you’ve got these big, beautiful skyscrapers.
 
“And that’s how we got the idea for the Crack Fox. He was also based on hanging out in Brixton, where you get loads of rude boys in puffer jackets looking a bit dodgy on mobile phones. The Crack Fox was a blend of the two experiences. But we should’ve used the brown ice cream van – it was such a horrible brown! The cheapest paint you could get – sort of creamy. Terrifying! One of the most frightening things I’ve ever seen in my life.
 
Ask Noel if he wants to come and live in my attic in shackles ;) lol
Sarah Campbell
 
Yeah, right, of course…
 
What’s the best recipe for chicken soup?
Ian Guillermo
 
Just get a whole chicken and put it in a cooking pot. Don’t even pluck it – just keep the feet, the eyes, everything. Then leave it for four or five years. Occasionally stir it, and bring it to the boil around 7,000 times. And don’t forget to grate the beak, and obviously put a bit of Lego in there. And some of those magnetic letters you stick on the fridge. And just a tiny amount of blood from an Indian boy’s finger.
 
Has old Greg had his downstairs mix-up sorted yet?
Beth Saffron Bathory
 
He doesn’t need to! He’s come to terms with it. He was going to have an operation, but he’s enjoying himself now. He’s found some clubs where that sort of thing is hailed rather than reviled. In fact, he’s reached that point where he’s a bit of a legend on the club scene – a bit like Leigh Bowery was years ago. Greg arrives at a club and heads turn. He’s a proper legend in his own lifetime. I love Old Greg – I feel like he’s someone else. I don’t feel like he’s part of me.
 
Mr Fielding, would you like to touch my boobs?
Nicola Rochard

Nicholas? Oh, Nicola. I’d be more interested if Nicholas wanted me to touch his boobs.
 
“Well… I haven’t seen them, but I can imagine it wouldn’t hurt. I don’t really need to see them first, I suppose – but how would I be touching them? Would they be isolated from the rest of her body? Is she going to send them through the post? Do I have to be blindfolded? Is it through her Nanna’s knitted jumper? Or will she just walk towards me, naked? Or does she want me to draw on them? I need a little more clarification. And maybe some photographs. Does she want to touch mine? How does it work? Is it like a swop thing – like penpals?
 
Any plans for a Mighty Boosh movie?
Scotty Hamilton
 
We got a little sidetracked. After the big Mighty Boosh tour we needed a break and to do some things separately. A little later Julian and I wrote half of one film, then we started writing another movie, and we also had some meetings in America and there might be a possibility of doing TV stuff over there. And we also wanted to get the Mighty Boosh album done – and we’ve done the album now, and hopefully it’ll be out soon. So it’s just a matter of deciding what to do next, really. We’ve got two really good ideas for films that are half written up – and one TV thing.
 
Are the Boosh doing Season 4 or what?
Trev Hendrick
 
Well, we’d really like to do a fourth season, and then do a film. But you can’t do a film and then come back to doing TV. It feels like a step back. Its like Spaced – I remember talking to Edgar Wright, and I said he should do a third series of Spaced. And he said that he really wishes that he had, but now he’s making films it’s really hard to go back to TV. TV isn’t really a step down, but a lot of people see it that way. We just want to be sure – we might not want to do TV things after we’ve done a film.
 
Could you ask Noel for hat-wearing tips for men with big bouncy hair?
Peter Rimmer
 
If you’ve got big hair, your hair becomes the hat and that makes life difficult. It gets confusing…
 
If you’ve got big hair, then a top hat is good – top hats are always good. Not a ridiculous top hat, though – not a stove pipe hat. Bowler hats are good as well – but not those stupid woolly hats that skaters and Johnny Depp wannabes always wear. They never look very flattering.
 
I’d personally go for a military, metal, chocolate toy soldier type of hat. Or if you’re wearing a trilby hat, attach some wolf ears. Trilby hats are great – you can screw them up, throw them in the ocean, and they’ll still find their shape again. That’s the sign of a quality hat. But if you’ve got a big face, don’t wear a small hat – it makes your face look bigger, like you’re looking in the back of a spoon. If you’ve got a big face, wear a big hat – like a cowboy hat. The big hat will knock everything else back.
 
Having dealt so effectively with the Crack Fox, how would Noel advise Boris Johnson on stopping the recent spate of fox-on-baby violence in London?
Pearl Riley
 
Wow, it’s a lot of responsibility to come up with this answer. Those baby attacks were pretty frightening. But it’s one of those things – like if someone dies from a bee sting, you hope it’s only an isolated incident.
 
It was weird with the Crack Fox, because we almost did a thing where the theme was urban animals coming together like in The Warriors. In that film, all the gangs of New York get together in Central Park to form one big gang so that they outnumber the police. And we were going to do a thing like that, where gangs of urban animals would come together and take over the city as they outnumber people by 10 to 1 – and that was originally going to be the story of the Crack Fox. And there was going to be a posh fox who came down to London from Cambridge, and he was going to be the brains behind the revolt, and the Crack Fox was going to be the leader as he had all the contacts. But the Crack Fox was only doing it for his own hidden agenda, and wanted to mess everything up. But the posh fox found out in the end, and stopped the whole thing.
 
But the idea of urban animals coming together to defeat mankind was an interesting idea. It’s terrifying – like Hitchcock’s The Birds or something. It’s easy to forget that they’re wild animals because they’re living in urban places. No disrespect to the people whose kids have been injured in these attacks, but if that happened in Africa and a lion came along, you wouldn’t be surprised – but because it’s happened in London we’re all really shocked. But they are wild animals.
 
Once when I was tripping at the age of 15, we sat on top of a hill in the middle of the night – me, my mate and his girlfriend. Then suddenly about 10 foxes came out of nowhere and sat in a semicircle around us. And they just sat there – we were just staring at them. They weren’t aggressive or anything. It was really weird. I felt quite frightened, but my mate wanted to communicate with them – and his girlfriend was just really upset. It was one of those moments which you can only have if you’re on drugs. You know… it definitely happened, but how weird was that!? I’ve never seen that many foxes before in one place!
 
But I don’t know what Boris Johnson should do. Maybe people should just close their windows in the summer. It’s terrifying though – the stuff of nightmares. My mum actually had a dream that a fox came in and was strangling her on its hind legs – and I remember thinking that was really bizarre. I also had a dream about a fox years ago, which had really black gums. I could see its gums and they were really black and shiny, and I kept thinking that this fox must have diseases. It was quite a haunting image – canine teeth coming out of black gums. And it kept biting me. Then I was worried that I’d got diseases too – definitely some STDs! That doesn’t really answer Pearl’s question, but you still have some brilliant fox facts.

Check back at Bizarremag.com for the whole interview soon!