Damned If They Do ...

Punk legends The Damned are still drawing new blood -- on both both sides of the stage.

Page 1, 2, 3, 4 " A few people would say to me, "Oh, you've got big shoes to fill there, boy." Which is fair enough. I knew I had - I was influenced by Rat Scabies as well. " Not a bad run. Yeah. It was a good experience, but I sort of split it up round about '86 or something like that because, at that time in England, the football hooliganism was spilling over into gigs. You were getting skinheads, basically, that were coming to gigs purely to smash them up. And because we had the name "English Dogs," they thought we were a right wing band or something. And they completely got it 'round their necks, and when they got there and found that we weren't a right wing band, they just took it out on our fans. Every single gig there was trouble. And I thought, "Well, I don't want this." So I got out of it for a while and joined some other bands. I ended up in a band called Janus Stark with the guitarist from The Prodigy. And the week before I joined The Damned, I fell out with him big style. I mean, we'd been friends for fifteen years and he basically, because he was touring with The Prodigy all around the world - you know, a real 5-star lifestyle, with everybody kissing his ass all the time and telling how great he is - he literally lost all his friends within a six month period. Which is disgusting, really. Because, like I said, we'd known each other for fifteen years. We'd been playing together in loads of bands … And where's The Prodigy now? I asked this as sarcastically as I could muster. The Prodigy are exactly nowhere at the moment. Well he isn't even in The Prodigy anymore. They did the world tour to support the last album, The Fat of the Land, and he was in them for the whole of that. And that's it. And he completely changed? And now he's out on his ear. He's playing gigs to 30 or 40 people a night now in another band. Some would call that justice." But I've gained a valuable lesson out of knowing the way that he went - that is not how to behave when you're in a band. If you're going to be in the privileged position of going around the world for free and meeting a lot of people and generally broadening your horizons in every way possible, then do not, under any circumstances, become the big I Am. Because at the end of the day, you're only as good as your last gig. You're only as rich as your last record sales - or as poor as your last record sales. It's just taught me to be a very humble person. I mean, I was anyway. But it's absolutely reinforced the point to me. And I think it's a good lesson for people, really, if you can see somebody like that. It's probably like a film star who just goes, "Hey - I've got everything!" and goes into a downward spiral of cocaine and prostitutes and comes out the end of it with absolutely nothing, particularly no self respect. So, how did this experience lead you to getting hooked up with the guys from The Damned? It was due to my friend in Peterborough, which is where I come from in England. This guy called Spikey T. Smith, who is now the drummer for Morrissey - basically I got the gig thanks to him. He was the drummer in The Damned for a very, very short period of time - like, about five gigs - and he got seen by Captain Sensible [The Damned's guitarist] at a gig that his band supported The Damned at. And The Damned had this drummer after [founding drummer and punk legend] Rat Scabies who was absolutely awful. I mean, his name was Gary Dreadful. That pretty much sums it up. He used to say, "I'm doing things the Dreadful way," and boy, did he. He was terrible. So Captain decided that the guy was his friend, but he was doing the band more harm than good. He knew he had to get a new drummer, and he saw my mate Spikey playing for this band, and said, "Well what are you doing next year?" And Spikey said, "Yeah, I'll join The Damned. Sure! Of course." But at that same gig, Alain White, the guitarist for Morrissey, saw him and thought, "Hmmm. We need a new drummer for this world tour we're going to do." So he was poached by both bands. And even though Spike loves The Damned, he was looking at a world tour with Morrissey, possible future recordings - you know, it's a bigger level than The Damned. He just looked at the financial security and thought, "Well, I've got to go for it if the opportunity is there." Which pretty much left the door open for me. When Spike said to The Damned, "Look, I've been offered this job and I'm going to take it - but I've got you a replacement," they were all like, "Oh my god. We've got a tour in a week's time! How is this possibly going to work?" But I've been a fan of The Damned for as long as I can remember. Their music is ingrained into me. I hadn't played any of The Damned's stuff ever before, though, so when I first sat down behind the drum kit -- well, I got the call from Patricia [Morrison, The Damned's bass player and Vanian's wife] on a Friday, and she asked me to go down and audition on the following Monday. And when I asked her what stuff she wanted me to learn, she said, "Oh, just learn the live set." And I'm like, "What? All 20 songs? Including the new breakdowns, and the different beginning and different endings?" And she said, "Yeah. Just learn that." So that was a busy weekend for me then. And you know, I got it together. When I first put the tape in of what their live set was - there was a lot to learn there to get it right in two days. You know - good enough for an audition. But I just sat there for 12, 13 hours a day behind the drum kit with the headphones on and I did it. I think part of my character is that I'm a determined son of a bitch. If I think I can do something, then I will do it, because I don't want to let not only myself down, but I don't want to let anybody else down. I didn't want to let the band down. So I went to rehearsal, did the first song - "Wait for the Blackout" - played it perfect. And they're all looking at each other like, "Hmmm. Maybe that was a fluke. All right, he knows that one. Let's go through three songs back-to-back." So we just went through them - perfect. And we were all just looking at each other, laughing. Like, "Oh, great! This tour's gonna happen!" A week later, we came over to the States and I did my first gig in the States: The Ventura Theatre, with 1500 people. I was absolutely shitting my pants. It really was akin to the feeling of waiting to go in the ring as a boxer for the first ten gigs. I've done probably 500 gigs in my life, and I've never, ever felt nervous before going on stage. But for these ten gigs, because it was my heroes, The Damned, and it was at such a level where they've got fans that know every part of every song, I really couldn't just be getting up there and blagging it. I had to know the stuff well. So for the first ten shows, I felt absolutely physically sick. But after that, one I'd got to know the set well enough, it was great. I was just like, "This is it! The dream!" Previous | Next