Overpriced drinks, amateur pole dancing...It could be any night in Soho. But tonight there's a biker guitarist writhing about the greasy stage to a crowd of screeching birds. Rabid rock n rollers Eagles Of Death Metal are indulging themselves and their effusive female following with a Ladies Night - surely 'Death By Sexy' is more erotic than this? The next day I meet EODM frontman Jesse Hughes: interviewing this dude is alternately like navigating a trap laden sleaze circuit and keeping pace with an amphetamine fuelled genius; my favourite combination!

SO, JESSE, WHAT IS IT ABOUT ROCK N ROLL THAT MAKES YOU FEEL SEXY?!
That's probably the voodoo element of it, there's a little bit of the unknown...I don't give a fuck what it is, as long as it is, you know what I mean? I approach it sincerely, I really believe in what I’m doing and I'm not trying to bullshit anyone. I'm not here to save whales or tell you who to vote for...Just to have a big party and to remind everyone that life is actually fun!

AND ARE ROCK CHICKS BETTER THAN AVERAGE BIRDS?
I like women in general. I mean I’ve got my Grandmothers' names tattooed on my arms, they're my heroes! Real rock n roll women can almost be any woman. It’s the attitude of just having a good time, where that sense of insecurity is gone.

HOW ABOUT LONDON LADIES?
Are you kidding? You were at our Ladies Night, so c'mon, it was such a bang, man! I didn’t want it to end, I hung out all night long and then I paid you know, the bicycle guys? We hired two of those, me and a couple of girls that I met and we raced around Berkley Square! We paid 'em, like 50 quid each to race, it was like chariot fucking races - that's how I ended my night in London, you can’t ask for more!

ARE YOU DANGEROUS?
Of course there’s an element of danger to me, darling, I mean - yeah!

ARE YOU SINGLE?
Newly single. I exist better in relationships believe it or not - I love women and I love flirting; men don't truly know who they are until they’re with a woman, that's how you realise yourself.

WOULD YOU SAY THAT YOU WRITE LOVE SONGS?
'Chase The Devil' is a pure love song, and of course 'I Want You So Hard'!

IS IT LUST OR IS IT LOVE THOUGH?
Well - I love lust but I don't confuse the two, and I'm never dishonest about it. I'll be backstage flirting with a girl and she'll say, 'You're only saying that cos you want to get into my pants,' and my response is 'Duh! Hello?' (Laughs) 'I Want You So Hard' was written because I was desperately trying to date a girlfriend of mine who I adored and one of my own friends told her that I was 'bad news.' And because I am a God damn devil my attitude is like, 'OK, I'll take the words of rejection and I'll wrap them into a song and give them back, and then I'll be accepted!'

IT'S LIKE AN OPERA WITH THOSE CONFLICTING THINGS VOICES! SO WHO IS YOUR IDEAL WOMAN?
I like beauty, I like class, I like elegance and fidelity...Those are simple things. I also enjoy enthusiasm for wanting to experience something with someone else, and the ability to share and grow...

BLONDES OR BRUNETTES?
Again darling it's...I mean I've dated seriously both. It's the girl. I like darker eyed blondes. I mean you don't have bright bright eyes though, baby, like Hollywood blondes, you know what I mean. Those icy fucking snake eyes. See, I have dark blue eyes. I have my grandmother's eyes. I used to think I was adopted cos I was the only red head in the family, and everyone's got dark hair and green eyes. Maybe I look like the postman!

AND SLEAZY...
It's a balance between where the words stifle the movement and where the movement can be inspired by the words. It always starts with a sensation; the lyrics to all of my songs could be 'I got a feeling'. You can actually see it on my face when I'm performing, I'm experiencing a sensation...I wish I could just drop it on your tongue and you could trip out like this, cos this is fucking bad-ass! I feel like a little Richard White fucking honky preacher up there sometimes, it's kind of a weird-ass combination.

SOMEONE SAID YOU GUYS PROVE WHY ROCK MUSIC SHOULD NEVER BE STRAIGHT...

That's why I approach rock n roll the way I do. It's part Rocky Horror Picture Show as much as it is serious metal rock. Yeah you can’t take yourself too seriously but you have to take your music as serious as a heart attack... Where glam rock failed is that they stopped taking the music seriously and it became an inflated coke fucking flaccid fantasy...If you're promising cock and balls, you'd better show up hard or else you’re full of shit.

SO YOUR VERSION OF ROCK N ROLL ISN'T STRAIGHT, IT'S...TWISTED?!
It's a twisted, dark world, baby. It is darlin'.

DO YOU LIVE THE ROCK N ROLL LIFESTYLE EVERY DAY OF THE WEEK?
I mean I'm a single Dad and a very serious father, a member of the PTA! But I ride a motorcycle and sometimes I fight, as you can tell. (Gestures to a bruised left eye). I don't fucking care, I live my life the way I want to and that has nothing to do with me keeping my commitments. So yeah, I'm blasting, killing, rocking n rolling every second of the day, but to me rock n roll is working with a hangover and taking care of business, that's rock n roll too. I love my son more than I love anything in the whole wide world and I'll be damned if rock n roll is going to mean something that makes me a bad father! There's nothing cooler in the world. So I’m walking around like Mr Biker in hot Mum rock n roll town...Thank you my son - it's like, yes! I use him as bait too. You like dangle him on a hook and it works...

Absolutely - oh my God. Josh only heard the songs because he was worried about me, I wasn't answering my phone so he broke into my house on New Year's Eve. He thought I'd overdosed on drugs. He stumbled across a file called 'New Music.' He was like, 'What the fuck is this, dude? Where you been hiding this, Motherfucker!' I wrote the whole album in a week and boom! Here I am darling with you in London, isn't it amazing? I love it.

HERE WE ARE! WHAT'S YOUR POISION?
I don't often drink, but I would get a Coke and a separate shot of vodka - they mixed this one, so therefore I won't be drinking it.

WHAT DOES 'DIRTY DOG SHIT' INVOLVE?!
I like the nightlife, girl. I mean I am a night walking fool if ever there was one! I love red light districts and I love porno book stores at fucking four in the morning high on speed...

I WAS GOING TO ASK WHAT IS YOUR DRUG OF CHOICE...
Speed! It’s such a porno drug, especially when it's pure unadulterated biker meth-amphetamine from the low deserts of California. I mean you can stay up for days if you have the right constitution for it, which I do, cos I'm hyperactive and I've been on one form of speed either clinically or otherwise since I was 17...You feel like a cat, the world takes on an acid like glow without hallucinating, it’s wild.

RIDING YOUR BIKE IN THAT KIND OF STATE CAN’T BE SAFE...
Oh, certainly! I've spent a little time in a coma when I lived in San Francisco but you fall off the horse to get back on it! Otherwise you’ll be afraid of your own fucking shadow...

WHAT'S THE CRAZIEST ENCOUNTER YOU'VE EVER HAD WITH A GROUPIE?
There's this new bite right here do you see it? This girl kissed me at the Ladies only gig and then she bit the fuck out of me and I went, 'Oh my God!' Then she kissed me gently again, and she goes, 'You like it rough!' She socked me with her ring and I’m like, 'Woah!' I've woken up not knowing where I've been, penniless and utterly robbed! Police have been called out to find me; I mean I've had that shit happen to me because of groupies. But I actually try to avoid them! I genuinely think Eagles Of Death Metal discourages the typical groupie attitude - simply because someone wants to have sex, it doesn't make them attractive to me!

TELL ME ABOUT THE FREE PARTIES YOU USED TO SET UP?
It was the early days of rave; black street gangs like The Crypts and shit were running all the drugs in and out of it. And being that I have this inclination towards immediate ferocity, it was lucrative to me. It put me through college! In the desert and in Compton and warehouses in east LA. Bizarre tents, makeshift manufactured tents and WWII airplane hangars. There weren't many rock parties, it was mostly trance and fucking Josh Wink.

CAN YOU LEAVE YOUR CLOTHES ON BUT GIVE ME A TOUR OF YOUR TATTOOS?!
This skull (decorated with lightning bolts) is a biker gang affiliation tattoo, let’s just say. The star represents my son. Death From Above is the battle group that has protected us from the Soviet threat along the Alaskan skyline. It's a fucking bomber group, it's badass! The cock, my Mamma calls me a 'strutting rooster' when I'm on stage; Josh wants me to have 'Don't Mess' tattooed underneath it. The sailing ship with the red pirate flag of 'No Prisoners,' that’s for my Grandmother, Emily, cos she was the most uncompromising woman I've ever met in my life. She's like this dagger through the heart, should you fall in love with her, and when she died that's the way it felt. She's my biggest hero and probably my main influence. The green dragons are for England...I also have a 'Liberty Or Death' tattoo up here...

DID THE SAME GUY DO THEM ALL?
No, these were all over the world. Copenhagen, France, New York, Vacaville which is a prison - I visited a tattoo artist who was allowed to give me a tattoo, a very famous biker. These new tattoos are from an asshole on Christmas Eve. No hair will grow here right now. I’ve got like little scars.

AND ARE THERE ANY DODGY PIERCINGS WE SHOULD KNOW ABOUT?
No, darling. Nothing dodgy!

FRANZ FERDINAND'S MISSION IS THE SAME AS YOUR'S - TO MAKE GIRLS DANCE. WHO WINS?
Well, we do! They’re very tiny charming Scotsman really is what they are - I think their fucking brand of rock n roll is fantastic, it’s their own. Like Justin Timberlake can twist his whole fucking body around his shit, it moves him and you know it's real. You can see it in Franz Ferdinand, the way they jerk, it's happening!

DO YOU ANTICIPATE THAT MOST OF YOUR FANS ARE FEMALE?
I hope and pray! For smart reasons like...John F Kennedy won the election because women loved him. Women run the show, they really do. To be loved by women is it for me, I want to be fucking Tom Selleck!

WOULD A WOMAN EVER BE ABLE TO CONVINCE YOU TO GET RID OF YOUR SIGNATURE MOUSTACHE?
Anything's possible, but not everything is probable...

TEXT: LUCY WILSON

PHOTOGRAPHY: DAVID RYLE