Chapter Text
In 1995, the band The Six Crows played their last performance in The Royal Albert Hall . The band was said to have been the music of a revolution, standing against the oppressive government of Margaret Thatcher. The band was band up of six members; Kaz Brekker (singer and piano), Inej Ghafa (bass) Wylan Van Eck , now Fahey (piano), Jesper Fahey (drums), Nina Zenik (guitar and vocals) and Matthias Helvar (sound technician) .
The band was known for many songs, but their most famous easily are Lose Your Soul , This Strange Effect, To The Moon and their last biggest hit All Flowers In Time Grow Towards The Sun .
The band performed their last ever gig, closing the performance with All Flowers In Time Grow Towards the Sun (duetted between KAZ BREKKER and NINA ZENIK ), once the song had ended, NINA ZENIK walked off stage and the band never performed since.
Now, we have been granted access to interview the band for the first time in twenty years since that performance to get to understand the group better.
The first of our six interviews is WYLAN FAHEY. Technically, it is WYLAN and his husband, JESPER FAHEY , but when we arrived at the house, JESPER was out of the country visiting family in Ireland.
WYLAN greeted us at the door, wrapped in a tatty old cardigan and slightly broken glasses. The house is small but homely, surrounded by flowers. WYLAN guides us into the living room where we are met by three dogs. The couple had settled in the south of England, near the coast. WYLAN had officially retired from all aspects of work while JESPER remained involved in charity work.
WYLAN: Oh, excuse them. They’re very friendly. This is Cabbage, he was rescued. This is Lola and this is Puddles.
Cabbage is the oldest, a friendly retriever. Lola seems slightly shyer, a reserved collie and Puddles are trotting around happily, a little terrier.
WYLAN takes a seat by the bookcase, gesturing for us to do the same. The walls are lined with photos from the band, personal photos from his marriage with JESPER and records.
INTERVIEWER: Firstly thank you so much for having us in your home, Mr Fahey.
WYLAN: Please, Wylan is fine. Mr Fahey is my husband.
There is a calming charm to WYLAN. He sits perfectly at ease, Puddles on his lap and Cabbage by his feet while Lola makes herself at home in the next room.
WYLAN: So, who all agreed to do this?
INTERVIEWER: At the minute; it’s you, Mr Fahey, and Ms Ghafa. Mr Brekker is… discussing terms and conditions. We’ve not had a reply from Ms Zenik.
WYLAN let out a snort, shaking his head.
WYLAN: Well, it wouldn’t be Kaz if he just simply agreed now, would it?
INTERVIEWER: Would you say your relationship with Kaz is good?
WYLAN: Of course it is. My relationship with the entire band is good. Jes’s relationship with Kaz is probably better, sure. But I know if I were to phone Kaz, he’d answer.
INTERVIEWER: Would you say the band feels the same?
WYLAN: Yes. Listen, neither of us is stupid. I know how the media painted the band. But what the media saw and what we experienced were two very different things. We were a family, but we were also kids who were angry. How could we not be? Jes was an openly bisexual and coloured man in the 80s, Kaz’s brother had been killed in the Falklands, and Inej was getting bricks thrown into her window every night. Nina was… well. Nina was Nina.
INTERVIEWER: And what about you?
WYLAN: I had to live in my father's shadow. Kaz and Jes and Inej were there to fight Thatcher. I was simply there to fight my father. Though I would consider Thatcher and my father two peas in a pod.
INTERVIEWER: Would you say that everything going on in the world was an influence on the band?
WYLAN: Definitely. How could it not be? If you want to make people listen, you make them sing your music. It’s when they sing your lyrics alone that they get the message. Kaz was very good at doing that, making people stop to think about the lyrics.
INTERVIEWER: Your first album, No Mourners No Funerals, went straight to number one. Do you remember receiving the news?
WYLAN let out a laugh, making Cabbage bark at him.
WYLAN: How could I forget? I mean I remember because I was in bed with Jes. We were very comfortable, and just about to go again when Kaz started banging on our door. We all lived together in this shitty flat. There was three bedrooms, the kitchen and living room were one, and the shower just about worked. But yeah, I remember getting the news. Because I remember I just really wanted Jes to fuck me and we were interrupted by Kaz saying we were number one.
We did have sex though after we heard that to… celebrate. Yeah, to celebrate.
When interviewing JESPER we brought up WYLAN’s memory. JESPER had a similar reaction, laughing and clapping his hands.
JESPER: Oh god . We were like rabbits at the start. I mean have you seen my husband? Isn’t that great, my husband ?
INTERVIEWER: Congratulations on your marriage. I imagine it’s an incredible feeling to marry your partner after living in a time when it was illegal.
JESPER: Thank you! God, if I were to talk to younger me and tell him it really does get better. Sure, things were alright then, but they weren’t this. I come home in the evening to Wy, he’s got the fire lit and is sitting just fucking around on his guitar. Do you know that Harry Styles asked him for tips? Not me. Not fucking Kaz. No, Harry Styles asks my husband for tips.
JESPER throws his hand in the air, still laughing as he lights a cigarette. JESPER sat in the greenhouse next to the home he shares with WYLAN , dressed in bright colours and flip-flops. WYLAN waves from the kitchen window, and JESPER blows a kiss in response before taking a drag of his cigarette and continuing.
JESPER: But yeah. It’s.. it’s something I never thought I’d have. A life. I fall in love with Wylan in a new way nearly every time I see him. His… memory is slipping a little. Nothing too bad at the minute. Just have to be extra clear, write things down and all that. I love him so much.
INTERVIEWER: Would you say the band was accepting of your relationship?
JESPER: God yes. We became the parents. Well. I suppose Kaz was technically the parent, or maybe more a grandparent. He was the one that dealt with the managers and press and record labels. Wylan couldn’t read, so Kaz made sure that he was taken care of in legal contracts, but Wy and I mothered the rest of them. Kaz didn’t do alcohol or drugs, I enjoyed a drink like. Wy did a lot of weed at the time. Inej followed in Kaz’s footsteps and Nina, well. God bless her.
INTERVIEWER: So the band was relatively clean.
JESPER: Sure. I mean we all had our addictions. I gambled a lot, and Kaz really saved my ass. Inej never let go of her faith, she easily spent half an hour praying before a show. Kaz always needed to be in control. Wy, he smoked a lot of weed. Matthias I think was just high on life.
INTERVIEWER: And Nina?
JESPER: Listen, it’s not really my place to talk about Nina. You know, it sucks ass. I can’t imagine losing my partner at, god what age was she? Twenty-four? I can’t picture my life without Wy in it. She lost Matthias so early. Can you blame her for going off the rails? God, like you, saw what happened with Sid and Nancy, right? Drugs fuck you up. We were all fucked up enough without throwing drugs into the mix. It was the 90s I think I sat Wy down and told him that it was getting worse. We were having conversations without him remembering it, he couldn’t go out without smoking something. The fame got to him more than anyone else. Kaz noticed it as well. He was good with Wy, so good. He supported him in all the legal shit that went down between him and his father.
INTERVIEWER: So Kaz never dealt with drugs or alcohol?
JESPER: Nope. That meant losing control. Kaz can’t be out of control. That’s why he was great as a front man. He could control an entire room and no one even noticed. It’s like some weird hypnotic shit.
After interviewing JESPER we met with INEJ . INEJ is the long-term partner of KAZ BREKKER , and also the bassist of the band. It was never confirmed whether the pair got married though there are suspicions. INEJ met us in her home office which had paintings over the wall. It was believed that KAZ was away on business, still keeping an active role in the music industry. We brought up KAZ at the beginning of the interview, and when asked, INEJ was firm in her answer.
INEJ: Everyone always asks that. What am I to Kaz? Why do I have to be something to the lead singer? Sure he can sing. But his songs need a good bass. That’s what I gave. I am a musician and my own person.
INTERVIEWER: Your first song as a band was Buried In Water . Did you expect the band to become more punk?
INEJ: I think at the start we were just trying to figure ourselves out. As a band. Like honestly, I look back on it and I can only imagine the risk that Haskell took to bring us on. Buried In Water is still a great song. It is hypnotic. Kaz made people stop and listen. He has such a way with words, but also I don’t know where he got those children to sing the last lines.
JESPER: Oh god the children . Yeah, I remember. I think Kaz went to the local music school and just picked a random five. We still keep in touch, and they still get loyalties so what’s not to love?
WYLAN: There were children in the first song?
INEJ: Buried In Water was a good first song but then we came out with Lose Your Soul . Kaz is an incredible musician. He went and found another group of kids from the music school and put them on the track. See recording it? Strangest experience of my life. We were in… I think Soho? Yeah. We were in some shed in Soho. Jesper was trying to explain to us the stomps and clicks, Wylan was talking to butterflies, and then Kaz just appeared with a small army of children and gave me the bass. Next thing we know, we have a song.
JESPER: I later found out that the children Kaz brought onto the first album were kids in care. The same care home that he was kept in when his brother died. He was giving them all a shot. We just didn’t know.
INTERVIEWER: Would you say that was a common theme with Kaz? Not knowing?
WYLAN: I mean, you didn’t know but you also did. He just was so good at communicating without actually speaking. The early stuff was really trippy. We couldn’t really put ourselves in a genre. I think my favourite song Kaz ever put out was Jesus . It was such a simple song, really simple. I remember Jes helped with the vocals, and Inej did the killer bass. It was just a solid song. He didn’t do many slow ones, but when he did, they were great.
INEJ: I remember the writing process for Jesus . We went to Liverpool for a weekend. I think Kaz’s brother had always wanted to go there. It brought feelings to the surface for him and he wrote it in twenty minutes. It’s a wonderfully simple song. He followed Jesus through with Oliver’s Army . He was angry. We all were. Nina and I had both escaped war, Jesper didn’t talk about his family in Northern Ireland and we didn’t ask. You just didn’t at that time. He wrote it, and people started to understand it.
JESPER: The first time we sang Oliver’s Army live was insane. Like, insane. It was the first time I think we really got an idea of how sick of everything Kaz was. It was one of his angrier songs. But Oliver’s Army was a call to arms. It worked too. Our fans were out on the streets protesting, Kaz was sick of war. I think losing Jordie was burned into his mind because what were they fighting for? People didn’t get that in the song. It’s a catchy song, it’s fun. Wylan loved playing it on the piano.
WYLAN: The piano riff was actually inspired by Dancing Queen.
JESPER: So we hammered this song. Kaz created it, and we sang it. It was a reminder to people that there were injustices happening in the world, and in society. I… yeah. I don’t talk a lot about the 70s. My mam died, right? Sure. She died. And my da stayed in Northern Ireland for some fucking reason, but I moved to London. I met Kaz, we met Inej. It all just sort of happened. But, I would go home to see my da. He lived in Derry, right in the fucking heart of it all. I’d go home, and it’d just be bombs and guns. I’d go back to London and people didn’t even understand it. Kaz did though. He understood. He understood what it is to know someone you loved died for no reason, that the people who command them won’t even know their name.
INEJ: Something Kaz was really good at doing was putting feelings into words. It’s hard to do that, especially when you’re talking about war. You can only be that good at putting feelings into words when you’ve felt loss.
INTERVIEWER: Do you feel Kaz anticipated how big you would become?
INEJ: I think in his own way he did. Kaz never did anything in halves. It was all or nothing with him. We would be the greatest band or we would be nothing. He made sure we were great. Non-stop rehearsals, everyone was clean. He expected our best at all times.
JESPER: I had no idea what I was doing. Then Kaz explained it to me one day. He said that a song is a life, right? God ok, give me a second to explain this. Because it’s a mind fuck. He explained that a song has a life. There’s a start, a middle, and an end. The same way we’re born, live and die. Kaz said the only reason we are born, live and die is because we have a heartbeat and that’s what drumming was to be. My drumming was to be the song's heartbeat.
WYLAN: Kaz found me busking at Camden. He tipped me £30 and then asked did I want to be in a band, who was I to say no?
INEJ: We met at the cafe I was working in. It was a front. The owner of the cafe trafficked girls and one day, Kaz arrives and asks to speak to the manager. Next thing I know, I’m free. I move in with Kaz and he gives me a bass. He has this front, but under it all, he cares. I think that’s why everything that happened with Nina hit him hard.
INTERVIEWER: What are your memories with Nina?
JESPER: Aw. Love of my life, Nina. She never stopped, but I loved her. We definitely fucked once. Don’t tell Wy.
WYLAN: I know Jesper and Nina fucked.
JESPER: Yeah Nina came onto the scene after our first album. We had done No Mourners No Funerals, and then we did The Heist. She came in, and she brought Matthias. We started getting this really cool, like a new wave feeling. Kaz let Nina sing Strange Effect . God, it was just great.
INEJ: People really speculated that Kaz and Nina were a thing. They never were. I know Jesper and Nina fucked, but Nina only ever had eyes for Matthias. He was able to mix the songs. The first album I think was more soul or acoustic. The Heist started to explore more than that. Kaz liked it, and if he liked it, then that was it. Nina came in and changed the tone. Before Nina, we were singing in anger, but with Nina, we started a different tone. They made it work though.
WYLAN: I liked Strange Effect. I think making The Heist was different to No Mourners No Funerals because we were really a band now. Nina just fitted in perfectly and it was great having Matthias there to help with tech stuff. None of us knew what tech was.
INEJ: And then he died.
In the middle of their tour in 1993, MATTHIAS HELVAR died suddenly of a heart attack in Germany. The band cancelled the rest of their tour out of respect, but per their contract, they agreed to make one more album. The third and final album, Ketterdam , became a worldwide success with NINA singing two songs, and KAZ singing the rest. However, the pair duetted for the title track, All Flowers In Time Grow Towards The Sun.
JESPER: Man, Matthias dying. That was tragic. We were in the 90s then. You know, Wy and I were getting pretty serious. Inej and Kaz were doing whatever the fuck it is that they do. Matthias made Nina so happy.
INEJ: Nina was my sister. We shared rooms, we shared everything. She owned who she was, so unapologetically. I had been made to think my very existence was a reason for me to apologize but she showed me otherwise. I don’t think I’d be half the person that I am without her.
WYLAN: I remember the funeral. I remember just Nina crying and Inej supporting her. The press was fucking everywhere, and Kaz made them disappear in the way Kaz does.
In the middle of the interviews, we were able to meet KAZ agreements to interview him. We met KAZ in the old recording studio, he sat with his cane beside him and a cup of coffee. INEJ was in the room but left when we arrived.
KAZ: Where have you gotten to then?
INTERVIEWER: We were just discussing the death of Matthias.
KAZ: Matthias died of a heart attack. It broke Nina. Naturally. Grief does that to a person.
INTERVIEWER: Would you consider yourself and Nina to be friends?
KAZ: I don’t have friends.
INTERVIEWER: You were Jesper’s best man at his wedding.
KAZ: He paid me.
INEJ: Don’t believe him if does the ‘I don’t have friends’ thing. He just says that to be edgy. He sits and does crosswords with Wylan on Facetime every Thursday and Sunday night and he sends the dogs a Christmas card.
KAZ: Nina let her addiction take over. It was a waste of talent. I always tried to keep everyone sober when we worked, they needed to be clear-minded. Jesper dealt with Wylan whenever he was getting too heavy on weed. Nina didn’t have anyone to pull her back from that, so I did.
INTERVIEWER: What did you do?
KAZ: I sent her to rehab. Which she hated. She blacklisted my name so I couldn’t visit or phone. People have this idea though, that numbing pain will make it go away. That’s not how pain works. Numbing only delays the feeling. We captured that in All Flowers In Time Grow Towards the Sun .
INTERVIEWER: Who wrote the song?
KAZ: I suppose we both did in a way. She added what she wanted to it, and I added my pieces. We sang it, and then we finished as a band.
INTERVIEWER: But you all kept in touch?
KAZ: Of course we did. Wylan and Jesper were like two love-sick puppies, Inej and I lived together. Nina kept in touch with Inej and Wylan I believe.
WYLAN: We met up often for tea. Me, Inej and Nina. It was always lovely, but I saw Nina becoming more and more lost. I don’t know how long she and Matthias had been together, I think they were childhood sweethearts or something. I couldn’t imagine waking up and not having Jes there. It’d be wrong. I think Kaz gave her a hard time, but Kaz only gives you a hard time when he really cares.
KAZ: No one ever asks to be the voice of reason. What was I supposed to do? Sit and watch a talented singer ruin herself because of a loss? No. I wouldn’t. She had a life ahead of her.
INTERVIEWER: Could you imagine life without Inej?
KAZ: Are we here to discuss hypotheticals? There was an occasion when I very nearly lost Inej. Frankly, it’s a blessing she came into my life, and it is a blessing I came into hers. I know what the men who owned that cafe wanted to do with her. I would have broken every bone in a man’s body if it meant keeping her safe. But, I also know to be realistic. At some point, one of us has to leave. That’s the risk of falling in love. Someone always has to leave first.
Could I imagine my life without Inej? No. But I know there will be a time when I will have to live without her, or her without me.
INEJ: Kaz and love is a strange thing. Even now. Yet, I have never felt more loved than when I come home to him. Jes and I do a lot of charity work together, and I’ll come home to Kaz talking to his crows or teaching.
INTERVIEWER: He makes you happy then?
INEJ: Yes. He does. And I make him happy. I think Kaz always viewed happiness as a temporary thing. I hope I changed his opinion, maybe even a little bit.
That concludes the first series of interviews.