As key a year 1982 was in the career of The Damned, when I looked through material that I have to hand, I found it difficult to locate any interviews of substance with the band. Hard times were not far off for the band with founding member Sensible soon to bugger of to pursue his solo career and record company disinterest ahead. rat tpuches on some of this in his interview with Mick Mercer. Thankfully, after a couple of bleak years, The Damned were able to rise phoenix-like from the ashes to the commercial and artistic high that was 'Phantasmagoria'.
A RAT AND A GNOME
The Damned’s current state being extremely busy it was only Rat Scabies, virtually unrecognizable in a suit, that turned up at the publicity office to shout responses to my questions. The grand entry in the baggy suit was swiftly followed by a neat watusi with a cup of tea that sent showers of hot liquid across the green staircase. Rat was in high spirits. In fact he stopped the interviewalmost immediately and insisted that I listened to the children’s record that he had recently recorded. ‘The Naughty Gnomes’ has yet to be placed with any label and the future remains unknown but Rat was as pleased as Punch with the twee but undeniably bouncy tune wreaking havoc with the office speakers. I recall the line “thre’s yellow teethy from Hampstead Heathy” but little more than that, apart from the fact that I wouldn’t buy it.
Why the suit? Have you been in court this morning?
“You’re the third person who’s asked me that! I just thought it was time for a change. Everyone knows what Rat Scabies looks like, old jeans, T-sirt, leather jacket… so I got a suit. Very nice.”
He removes the jacket and sits back in the reclining chair, at ease with the picturesque surroundings. Looks a bit odd.
Was it true that the bass player had been thrown out as the papers had reported?
“Yeah, he was but he’s back. I threw him out because I couldn’t be bothered playing with him, but he’s back. Let’s say the rules have been straightened out and the game’s easier to play now.”
A wry grin traverses the ratular features. Enscarpment Scabies rocks slightly with mirth.
About the children’s record… was the idea around before the good Captain made the Top Of The Pops studio his own?
“I’ve had the music for some time. I’ve got a mate who does comic work, Buster and that. Harold Hare. And he said ‘I’ve got this idea about a song about gnomes’, so I said ‘Oh, I’ve got a bit of gnome music’ (at gnome presumably) so I did it. The Damned can obviously appeal to a young audience.”
Would it go out as Rat Scabies?
“Oh no, it’d be The Lollipops. I don’t think you should be tied down to one thing, like the five hundred mile an hour thing, which The damned have done anyway.”
But you broke that with the ‘Black Album’.
“With the first album we had ‘Feel The Pain’, a lot of people forget that.”
A scowl breaks out when I mention their second album and Rat confesses to never listening to the thing.
“I don’t really listen a lot. Music to me is something to be shared with people. I played you that (‘Gnomes’) but if I was on me own I wouldn’t listen. I always play music when people are around but it’s quite rare for me to sit at home and play a record. Hendrix is my latest. Did you see that thing on television? What a bloke… phenomenal. It’s the whole new world, this whole new culture that I’d never thought about before. With The Damned for the last six years I cut all that out of my life and just listened to a lot of new bands. Then I heard him and thought ‘God, this geezer really knows what he’s doing’, and I became a Hendrix fanatic overnight, I’ve got this band called Foxes and rats and we do gigs now and again, which are basically tributes to Hendrix.”
It wasn’t very hip to like sixties bands when punk came along was it?
“Apart from The Kinks and The Small faces, you were allowed to like them. You weren’t meant to mention Jefferson Airplane, even though I still haven’t heard them. I don’t want to really. Well, I did once listen, that’s why we did ‘White Rabbit’, but it didn’t come out as good as it could have.
You’ve done production with other bands haven’t you?
“Yeah, but I’ve stopped it now. Really enjoyed doing it though. The reason I did it was to learn what a studio could do. You can virtually do anything if you’ve got the time and patience. It’s a bit like saying ‘here’s life, live it’. I knew there were some really cheap studios where you could get good results so I thought the best thing would be to go in with bands like The Satellites and Victim and say ‘I’m learning while you’re learning’ and I think at that point in time it was good. I’m still proud of what we did. I did all the production for Rewind Records and they’re about to release a compilation album, “Produced by Rat Scabies”!!
“We’ve produced the new album ourselves. We haven’t worked with anyone else because it’s a joke, If Martin Rushent produced… oh, y'know, The Nobodies from Ealing, the album would probably sell about 20,000 copies because of his name. That's one of the problems with having a producer. The record company says you have to have a name producer because they sell records but we think it should be the music that sells it. There's very few producers that we get on with . We did actually go through the list of producers available. There's a few people we would have liked to work with . .. like Eno, just for respect for him, because some of his ideas would probably work. But we couldn't find his phone number or something."
Try as hard as I might I couldn't get the Rat to reveal studios that he would recommend for young bands. It might mean they wouldn't then be able to get into the studios themselves for smug little bands living it up. Ah well, I did try. What then, moving onto the question of the Damned's nastiest dealings with record companies, what did the band look for when they go to Record Companies?
"Honesty. With us and with the public. Like the picture disc of 'Lovely Money' we put out, we stipulated that it mustn't be more than the price of an ordinary single. We look for people who make sure that the records are in the shops so a kid in Derby who wants that latest Damned single can get it and doesn't have to wait three weeks while the local shop orders it."
Well if you go in looking for honesty, what went wrong with Chiswick?
"No one else would sign us. Even though the single we had out then was the biggest single we'd ever had. It was a bit strange. No-one really wanted The Damned."
Did you ever end up in court with them (Chiswick)?
"No. I wanted to. I wanted to go to court because I think both legally and morally we were right. But we were in a rush to get a new deal. We had the material but if you're just sitting around at home getting bored it becomes very easy for a band to deteriorate. So we worked as hard as we could just by doing live stuff, which just about worked and we scraped through by the skin of our teeth . We've just been
through a year and a half of real misery."
Was it easy enough to organise gigs when you wanted?
"Oh yeah, but it wasn't really doing the band any good. It was keeping us alive so it was doing the band good in one respect, but publicly .. . we did the Lyceum seven times last year or something. Every gig was good. They all sold out. It's not hard to get gigs for The Damned."
Are there still some towns you can't play?
"Nahh, that's a real big myth about punk bands not being able to play towns. Like the Pistols could have played virtually anywhere that they wanted to. They were gonna do the Albert Hall, no ... they were gonna do Wembley. One show at Wembley. It was Malcolm McLaren getting the public at it. Cowboy. Real baddies ... "Nobody' lI let us play, isn't it a shame?" We were banned from a lot of halls."
Are you allowed to do them now?
"Well, now it just turns around and you get asked to do them. Like, after the riots Sheffield City Council decided they'd have a series of rock concerts."
To appease the people.
" Yeah and the unemployed were allowed in free. And they asked us to do a gig there which is a bit ironic as they wouldn't let us play there before. So we put the money up, and did it. Plus it's good. Most Damned fans are unemployed. Haven't really met any who aren't."
Rat is drawn by me into a discussion about the legal aspects of contracts and suchlike which isn't exactly the most enticing of subjects, it's just something that came up.
"None of us are really that interested in business that much anyway. When you get some-one saying 'Well basically we relate the advances to the . . . ' you go 'f- -k off I don't want to know that, wanna play me drums. You handle it' . because it is so complicated and my mind isn 't big enough to take in this vast amount of knowledge. You need a couple of bleeding micro-chips in each earhole to comprehend any of it ."
So we leave this desolate area of non comprehension and move on to the current Damned state of affairs. Did Rat think that with Captain having two hits that the radio would take more of an interest with The Damned's records when it hasn't previously been too interested in playing their records.
"There's got to be. I think it's great; it's a stepping stone for The Damned. Now the Radio One producers will listen to our records, whereas before they didn't care. We won't be so instantly dismissable."
I would think there's probably a few people who still don't know that Captain Sensible is in The Damned.
"No they don't. Which is odd! It's such a turn around."
Can't you see the people on the Radio saying 'Well it is separate so we can still ignore The Damned'?
" No they won't. I understand what you're saying but they won't . I've met some since. In fact the Captain's success has turned a lot more people onto The Damned. 'What's this geezer been doing before? The Damned? I've never really bothered to listen before, perhaps I ought to find out what they're like', and hopefully they'll be surprised ."
Apart from your gnome song are there any other things in the offing?
"Oh, yeah, I've got a few tricks up my sleeve. I'm not gonna let him get away with it that easy. We've all got little projects, always have had, but we were always told not to do them."
A young lady dashes up the stairs and requests that I wind up the interview as there's another bounder waiting to grab the Rat's attention and ask him all the same questions. So having been allowed five minutes more I stump Rat with the question I ask most people. What was the first gig he ever saw?
" Oh ... god .. '. the first I ever saw .. . Christ .. . er . . . (and so it went on) ... err. It was Ginger Baker's Airforce, just after Cream had split up. No it wasn't, I tell a lie, it was John Mayall's Blues Band with Dusty Bennett supporting. (Actually it's Duster - Ed .) You ever heard of these guys?"
John Mayall. But not the other one . .. Dusty ...
"Dusty Bennett. F--king phenomenal. Just had a bass drum, a hi-hat and a guitar. Absolutely blew John Mayall offstage."
And what's the best gig you've ever seen?
"It's very close actually between The Who at Wembley, about 10 years ago. I bunked in with a load of me mates. Kicked the doors in, legged it in and got chased by dogs and that. That was the most exciting
gig I've ever been to, but the best feel to a gig I've ever been at was, that I enjoyed the most, was the Ruts just after Malcolm had died and they supported us, and The Anti-Nowhere League at the Lyceum. I think I'm getting busy again ."
A handshake and we parted .
The Damned are still going strong. From Toad of Toad Hall to 'Strawberries’ the Ratular legacy lingers on.
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