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 After 25 years and several lineup changes, the Damned have returned with founding members Dave Vanian (vocals) and Captain Sensible (guitar) and relative new comers Patricia Morrison (bass), Pinch (drums), and Monty Oxy Moron (keys). This August, the band released Grave Disorder in the U.S. on Nitro Records, the California-based label helmed by Offspring's Dexter Holland. Dave and Captain took some time out from their tour to talk with NY Rock about what they've been up to for the past quarter of a century. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
NYROCK: |
It's been 14 years since the band's last album with Captain Sensible in the lineup…. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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CAPTAIN: | If someone said to me 25 years ago that I'd be doing this now, I'd have called them a lunatic. The Damned's career has been a roller coaster. One minute, the record is out and it looks like people might actually buy a few and the record company might actually pay you. And the next minute, the band is split up; you're bankrupt and you've got the police banging on your door. They want to re-possess your house. You never know what's going to happen with the Damned. It's exciting and scary at the same time. So this is one of those ups on the roller coaster. It's taken a while because the drummer and myself don't see eye to eye. He was caught with his fingers in the till. And you don't expect to get ripped off by your mates. But now that he's gone, the door was open for me to come back. Dave and I have revived a partnership. I always enjoyed writing tunes with him. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
NYROCK: |
What do you think of the music business? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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DAVE: | Unfortunately, you don't get artist development anymore. Record companies have become a huge corporate thing. It used to be you'd meet someone [in the business] and they'd have a little history of music. Some people in the companies now don't even like music. It's just a job. So I miss the days when someone would go out on a limb and pick a band that was different. I just don't see that anymore. It's the same with the film industry. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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CAPTAIN: | It's not for the faint hearted. You never know what is going to happen next. I get phone bills that I don't know how I'm going to pay them. In that respect, it's scary. In other respects, it's great because I don't have to get up at 8 in the morning. I come alive in the evening. You do your sound check, have dinner. Go back to the hotel, take a shower. Come back, goof around on stage for an hour and a half and your drinks are free and people tell you they like you. I can get used to that life style. I used to be a toilet cleaner. Nobody cares about you when you're a toilet cleaner. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
NYROCK: |
In 1977, you were the first band to bring British punk to the States. What was the experience like? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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CAPTAIN: | They knew where we were coming from in New York and Los Angeles, but in some of the other towns, it was weird. The same as it was in Britain. You'd walk down the road and people wanted to pick a fight with you because you were dressed in an unusual style. Nobody was wearing tight jeans and leather jackets in those days. It was pretty tough to be in a punk group in those days. It's easy to be in a punk group today. It's easy to get the sound. You don't have to fight your way out of the backstage door any more, like we had to. People were waiting for us with iron bars occasionally. They wanted to kill us. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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DAVE: | It went well in New York. We did shows with the Dead Boys at CBGB's. Some states didn't know what the hell we were about. We were trying to stir up a reaction. In Boston, they threw some ice cubes. That was about as much of a reaction as we could get. It was a difficult tour. When we got to the West Coast, we were supposed to support the band Television. They'd read the reviews and the press that was coming out and kicked us off their tour. So we had spent our money traveling in airfare to get to LA. We didn't have any money. No where to stay. We couldn't pay for a ticket to get home. It was kind of frightening. I never knew why Television bumped us off. They never mentioned it in all these years. It was better for us in the end though because we did these shows with the Dickies and other shows. And it created a hell of a stir. And we did some radio shows with Debbie Harry. It was unknown territory. Never been out of England before. All these romantic visions of America from movies. Checker cabs in New York. Funny enough, New York was a bit grittier and dirtier than it is now. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
NYROCK: |
One of the cuts on your new album, "Song.com," made me wonder what you thought of the internet and its impact on music? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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DAVE: | I like it. It's like this huge library. You can find things. There's an awful lot of crap on there, of course, just like anything. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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CAPTAIN: | I spend a lot of time on the internet. Looking up obscure bands. The Councils. Roky Erickson. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
NYROCK: |
How has it affected the band? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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DAVE: | Our website is very interactive with our fans. They can talk to each other. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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CAPTAIN: | The website has had an impact on our relationship with the audience. They write to us and I reply. When we were making the album, we put photographs up of each day's recording. Each night I would send them off to the web bloke. When I'm out on tour, I write a diary. So people know what we're like and feel part of it. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
NYROCK: |
Is there a difference between your fan base in Britain and the States? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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CAPTAIN: | We've got a lot of charming blokes in Britain, bald heads and clanking chains. God bless 'em, they like a few beers. But in America, we get prettier girls. In the States, the first three or four rows are female. In Britain, the first three or four rows are blokes shouting, "Sensible's a wanker!" So I know which one I prefer. No disrespect to the bald sods in Britain. In America, the girls come along because of Sisters of Mercy, because of Patricia [ex-member of Sister's of Mercy, Dave Vanian's wife and the Damned's current bass player]. Sisters of Mercy were big in America. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
NYROCK: |
Has Patricia changed the dynamic of the band in other ways? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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CAPTAIN: | Yes. She is the efficient one. She cracks her whip and gets things done. And that's important in a band. I don't think the outfit would have happened. She got the deals and the rehearsals together. Obviously, Dave's happy and we all like her. She's really good and she plays great bass. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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DAVE: | The rhythm section, Patricia and Pinch [the drummer] work so well together as a unit. It's very strong. It's probably the strongest it's ever been. And Captain loves it because Patricia gets loads of girls coming. She's looked on as kind of an icon for women because there are not that many women in the music business. She's a very strong figure. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
NYROCK: |
What kind of music do you listen to? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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CAPTAIN: | I listen to a lot of, what they call in Europe, "chill-out" music. Lots of lounge, Bossa Nova beats. Burt Bacharach. Rachmaninoff, romantic classical stuff. I bought the Weezer album. I don't know what possessed me. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
NYROCK: |
Do you like it? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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CAPTAIN: | Yes, I do. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
NYROCK: |
What's the future hold for the band? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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CAPTAIN: | Pretty big tour. Promoting Grave Disorder wherever it's released, basically. You're lucky to get so many chances at show biz – if you want to call it that, terrible expression – but we've been lucky enough to get another chance. If we fail, it won't be through lack of trying. Because I don't want to go back to cleaning toilets. But I'm looking forward to doing the next album. I'm already thinking about what sort of fun we could have with it and what experiments we could do. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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DAVE: | I'd like to do a video. We do have more songs, so it is possible we'll start working on a new album. October 2001 Send this page to a friend • Mailing list • Current stories • Classifieds
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