"Fetish people are always perceived as being the types who live in suburban houses hiding behind net curtains, dressing up in rubber and doing their little secret thing. We've always tried to be anti that suburban fetish couple cliche, we specifically started Torture Garden NOT to be for those kinds of people."

Sitting in his artfully furnished warehouse space in deepest inner city zone Hoxton, David TG is anything but suburban, and like his Torture Garden cofounder Allen (sitting alongside) embodies what TG stands for.

"What we're about is people from alternative culture, whether that's from an industrial background, or people into body art- techno, electro, art school, weirdoes, that kind of bizarre mix of people. Plus trannies (transgender types- fetish Ed) and sexual freaks; all the different diversities of sexual life- anything but quiet suburban couples."

13 years after they started, both guys have transformed Torture Garden into THE superclub brand of the fetish scene, hosting parties across the globe while selling clothing, mix CDs and videos. As promoters of Britain's best known sex club, they've had their fair share of experiences and run-ins with the establishment, though as Allen points out, while anything might go consensually, their scene has always been safe.

"We've never had a rape, not even an alleged one," he says.

"There are a few weirdoes on the scene, there was that guy in the papers recently who cut up that woman in Camden and he'd been to a couple of fetish clubs," he admits.

"He had nothing to do with the fetish scene itself, he'd just been there" (alleged serial killer Anthony John Hardy is accused of dismembering the body of 31 year old prostitute Paula Fields, and throwing them into Regent's Canal last December).

"The people that do tend to murder and rape people are the ones who are fucked up about their sexuality, not the ones who are open," David agrees.

"Fetish clubs are therapeutic and educational and can calm people down".

Sex issues aside, though, TG has always distinguished itself from other fetish clubs by its music; "The original idea was to create a new kind of fetish club with interesting music, to create a new kind of alternative scene," David continues.

"We started off by playing Gothic/ industrial then Nu Beat/ Industrial, then it went to techno/ industrial then techno. Now the club's about techno, breakbeats, drum & bass and electro. We've pissed some people off over the years when we've changed things but tough, we do what we want to do," he adds.

Skrufff (Jonty): How much in common is there between the Torture Garden of today and when you started?

Torture Garden (David): "The basic club structure is the same, initially we wanted to have two or three different rooms with different sounds and we had lots of visuals and performances and we even had market stalls as well. It was never about just one room playing one kind of music. Though the crowd that comes today and the mix of fashions is totally different now,t certain ideas have stayed constant throughout."

Torture Garden (Allen): "The basic ethos, the original conversation we had when we created the club, still exists to this day. The concept was to replace what was missing from the club scene in 1990; dressing up had basically stopped, the Goth scene was starting to get all jeans and leather jackets with the guys no longer wearing make-up. We'd both been bored of clubs for a couple of years and we wanted to do a club with shows and performances that was monthly, so it was seen as an event. Most clubs were weekly at that point. We wanted to surprise people and give them something to talk about when they left. It was about creating the kind of club that you see in movies. That was the theatrical side which remains to this day."

Skrufff: When you started were you friends with lots of fetish types?

Torture Garden (David): "We were hanging out in that scene so we knew a few people but we wrote to people like Miss Sebastian and others and invited them down saying 'we'd like you to be part of the club' and they took us up on the offer and came along. We had all the major faces of that time, having stalls, hanging around, meeting their mates, it was a place for them to go out. We gave them a location where they could hang out and meet like minded people as well."

Skrufff: What was the fetish scene like in London before Torture Garden came along?

Torture Garden (Alan): "It was reasonably tame. I remember going to a Skin 2 party at the Garage, which was the first fetish party I went to, and I remember being shocked that I wasn't shocked. The best bit about it was that it was full of really interesting people. It felt like moving to London for the first time and not knowing anyone and suddenly finding all these wonderful people in a club. I'd been in London for two years and knew quite a lot of people already then suddenly I walked into a club and found all these other people that were dressed up and had created outfits just for that event. They weren't really 'player' types (player- sexually active types- fetish ed). They're was a bit of playing going on but really it was more of a rubber disco."

Torture Garden (David): "There was a time when just going out wearing rubber felt dangerous on its own, I remember the first time I went to a fetish club in full rubber gear getting on the train and it seemed quite an exciting thing back then. It was quite new and shocking to people. I remember my first Skin 2 party in 1984 seeing a guy in full rubber and I was shocked but also intrigued and I liked it, it wasn't a problem. There were people having sex and S&M was going on but it wasn't as extreme as many clubs we've done since then. I also used to go to places like the Kit Kat in 84 and I was already wearing rubber at those clubs. There seemed a natural connection between the alternative scene and the fetish clubs."

Skrufff: Puritanism is presently sweeping America, how do you see the 'moral' climate in the UK right now?

Torture Garden (Allen): "The fetish scene emerged when it became quite liberal over here. From my experiences, the laws were harder 12 years ago, now it's very easy for us to do a fetish club, we do have a liberal vibe at the moment. I've got a feeling that might change but I don't think so for a while."

Torture Garden (David): "In a way we're between Europe and America and Britain has become more European in the last ten years about sexuality, if you look at TV at the moment, you can't move for sex on television. That's been great for British sexuality since people have been free to open up and explore their sexuality, in a more European way. There is a danger that some American attitudes will be pushed over here but hopefully not."

Skrufff: You also stage Torture Garden events in places like Amsterdam, how different is the vibe there compared to London?

Torture Garden (David): "England, in fetish club terms, is as tolerant as anywhere we've ever been, maybe in Amsterdam you can be more open but not much. We haven't been affected since the early 90s when just running a fetish club was considered dangerous and we got in the tabloids. We lost a few venues back then. What the law says and what you can actually do in a club has always been quite different and quite ambiguous."

Skrufff: Did you get turned over personally by the tabloids?

Torture Garden (David): "It's always been the club more than us. When we started, Torture Garden was in a shopping centre in Shepherds' Bush and there was some kind of headline like Kinky Sex in the Shopping Centre."

Torture Garden (Allen): "I happened to be reading the Sunday papers on day and turned the page and it mentioned my club so I phoned my Mum and said 'Mum, buy the News Of The World, I'm in it'. It was hilarious. We'd packed out the club and the crowds had overflowed into the arcade. The police basically phoned us up and said we've had a few complaints, if you do it again we'll have to revoke your licence. This was a venue that did hardcore gay S&M nights every Monday and Friday, about which they were fine, but because we got in the media they had to do something. The media today is very supportive of the fetish scene. David and I never did normal jobs so there was nothing to expose us on, but the media does expose individuals sometimes if they're teachers, for example."

Torture Garden (David): "The press nowadays are more positive and even the tabloids defend fetish clubs these days. That shows how much the public's minds have changed. Nowadays everyone knows someone who goes to a fetish club and no-one seems to care in the UK anymore."

Skrufff: David, I saw you (David) on TV recently talking about satanic rituals and vampirism. .

Torture Garden (David): "It's quite weird, everybody seems to have seen that programme, though I didn't really want to do the interview because Torture Garden isn't really anything to do with satanism. There was a connection in that the people who had killed someone in a satanic ritual had been to Torture Garden, when we were at the Paradise Club. We're not really connected with that stuff, satanic is a bit, . . .. crap (said witheringly)."

Skrufff: I saw a quote in Skin Two from you Allen saying 'it's not about the drugs, it's not about the music, it's about who you are', how important is the music?

Torture Garden (Allen): "It's been important for David and I in the sense that it's always been a club where we've wanted to play the music that we like. The music is a part of the night, it's the soundtrack for the rest of the cast, characters and plot and not all the crowd come for the music. The great thing about the fetish scene is that we can change the music while still keeping the core elements of what the club is about, which we have done several times. Everything is important, and we need to keep it all fresh, exciting and forward thinking, even for ourselves, to keep ourselves interested."

Skrufff: One of the clich_©s of the sex industry is that it's recession proof, is it?

Torture Garden (David): "Almost, because when people are worried or there's a war on they still want to explore sex and have fantasies but having said that the recession in clubland has affected us recently, numbers have dropped in the last year. If money's short people don't want to spend it and fetish clubs are expensive. But if they've got money, they'll still it on sex first."

Torture Garden (Allen): "I don't think anything is recession proof, but we can't really go out of fashion and it's never really been in fashion."

Torture Garden (David): "If sex goes out of fashion, that'll be a worry".

Torture Garden (Alan): "You never know, there might come a time when a puritan streak kicks in and fetish clubs fall out of fashion. I don't think it's going to happen in the foreseeable future."

Skrufff: You're doing mail order clothes and videos, how significant is that side of the business?

Torture Garden (Alan): "The website is very worthwhile, it's opened us up to a global market and given us a bigger profile. Hannah knew about TG years before she started working for us, for example. Videos, CDs and books are things we do when the opportunity arises."

Skrufff: Doing books was always a logical progression, the second book was about artist and performers for example. The books are an extension of what TG is about as a club. The fetish scene in London has led the world for the last ten years and that's helped us put ourselves out there globally. We've been lucky enough to travel around the world doing TG as guest slots, and we've recently been to places like Japan and Moscow, which is fantastic."

Torture Garden (Allen): "It was very exciting at the beginning because we started the club just as the body art scene and cyber culture took off so for the first five years it felt like we were part of those movements. So doing the book and the video was a great way of recording those scenes. Then around 1996, things started to change and in 1997 we started to run the club more as a business- we had to run it as a business because more opportunities were arising for us. But in that way we progressed to the next stage. The most radical thing we've done recently is to introduce humour into the club, to concentrate on making it fun."

Skrufff: I'd imagine your social life being like Freddie Mercury's, full of orgies, wild parties, sex dwarves etc etc, is it?

Torture Garden (David): "We do have a wild bizarre social life but the weird thing for us is that it's all become so normalised. Now we're choosing to work Monday to Fridays in an office, doing things we never wanted to do when we started. We still do party a lot but you don't really appreciate it after 12 years of doing it all the time. The last few years, doing something like watching football has become a bizarre kinky thing to do."

Torture Garden (Allen): "At the beginning of the 90s life was a 24 hour party, it was all about partying and we took the attitude that we had to go out partying to promote our night. Then you find yourself coming into work on Monday mornings, and having to look after the staff, to make sure they get paid, for example. We do have wild parties when we go abroad, that's when we tend to still let our hair down and get into messes, without it being reported back to our families and friends."

Torture Garden (David): "We've always socialised outside the fetish scene, in a sense, we've tended to frequent clubs on the fringes of the scene rather than other fetish clubs because doing TG is enough fetish for us for one month. We've always gone to goth clubs, techno clubs, gay cabaret nights, wherever, and that's where more of our friends hang out."

Torture Garden (Allen): "We think we do the best fetish club so why go to any others. We don't enjoy other fetish clubs."