The Avengers were one of the first California Punk bands, having formed the year punk exploded, in 1977, and having famously opened for The Sex Pistols’ last show. They were also one of the best West Coast bands of the era, combining furious punk riffage with immensely catchy hooks. Their sound was massively unfluential, leading the way for the prolific LA Hardcore scene that would come a couple of years later. Vocalist Penelope Houston is also a succesful folk singer-songwriter, having released high quality albums since since 1988. Since 2004, The Avengers have been a touring band and if you are lucky enough to catch them live, you know they still give a great, high energy performance. We spoke with Penelope before their set last summer at 77 Montreal to discuss music.
What have you been listening to the most lately?
Oh, gosh. Here’s a confession. I don’t listen to very much music. I sort of feel like I need a lot of space in my head so that I can write music. I generally don’t listen to music unless I’m driving and then, it’s often mixtapes. But let me think. Well, I have a friend named PAT JOHNSON. He’s based in Nashville and he’s put out some records in the past and we’ve worked together. A lot of the people that I listened to are friends of mine who are in bands. CHUCK PROPHET. MARK EITZEL. In the Avengers days, bands we used to play with and used to listen to were The MUTANTS, PINK SECTION, the DILS. I just saw the Dils a couple days ago, they reformed very briefly for some shows. Another female fronted band, NO MERCY. Those are all bands that were around San Francisco in 77-78-79. Since then, I really got into more acoustic or singer songwriter kind of music. I think what led me into that was LEONARD COHEN. And the VIOLENT FEMMES were a jump from Punk to Folk, I guess.
Maybe we can go through your evolution through music? Starting from the very beginning, do you remember the first time music had an impact on you?
Well, I grew up in a musical household. I was handed a violin at a very young age and I was really, really terrible. My brother was also playing violin, my sister played cello. My mom got her doctorate in music from Stanford University so she is a consummate musician. She wanted her kids to also be musicians but I’m the only one who followed in her footsteps, maybe not what she would have predicted! *Haha* Although she is a fan of my solo writing and my solo music. So we had Classical music when I was growing up. I don’t really remember having a favorite or anything, I just remember I was really terrible at playing the violin. In fact, I was so terrible, I was in some youth orchestra in the very end, one of the last people in the second violins. When they needed extra people to play percussion, they would pull them from the very end of the second violins and so every now and then, I got to play percussion, which was just a lot of counting and then occasionally “ding”, you know, the triangle or something.
When I was a teenager, I was influenced by friends and their older siblings were listening to like, BONZO DOG BAND and CAPTAIN BEEFHEART and some really out there stuff. I remember falling in love with INCREDIBLE STRING BAND, PENTANGLE and some really Folky stuff. MOSE ALLISON was one of the first records that I bought. A lot of vocals. I wasn’t one of those people who’s said, Rock and Roll saved my life or anything. People say that to me all the time, “your music saved my life when I was a teenager.” That’s great, but not what I experienced. The first more Rock kind of things that I listened to were LOU REED, BRYAN FERRY, the mid-70’s PATTI SMITH was a big influence on me. That kind of led into Punk, the DAMNED and the SEX PISTOLS, their first albums.
How did you encounter that world? Was it through friends?
Friends, I would say, yeah. I moved away from home when I was 16 to go to college, I went to college very early and started to listen to some different things. Then, when I moved to San Francisco to go to the Art Institute, that’s when I started meeting the other members of the Avengers and they were looking for a vocalist. I think they were just doing covers, like Lou Reed, Patti Smith, and maybe a STONES song, a KINKS song. You know, classic rock…in my opinion! That’s when the Damned first came through town, in very early ’77. I think the RAMONES had already played San Francisco at that point.
From that point on, once we started the Avengers, which was the beginning part of ’77, we listened to a lot of Reggae. SLY AND ROBBIE and BURNING SPEAR. Also Iggy, of course, and some Rock stuff. A lot of our friends were in bands that were great from that period, L.A. bands and San Francisco bands and Vancouver bands, some Seattle bands. Because we all played together, we stayed at each other’s places. We shared two different apartments with the DILS. CRIME, THE NUNS, THE MUTANTS and all the very early ’77 San Francisco bands and then in L.A., X were good friends of ours. We played with them a lot. The GO-GO’S. I think Linda Go-Go started an Avengers fan club before she got too busy with go Go-Go’s. D.O.A. were friends of ours from Vancouver. The SCREAMERS originally came from Seattle, I knew them when I lived in Seattle, and they moved to L.A..
And I assume all the while keeping an interest on plenty of music outside of the Punk world, right?
Yeah, we were still listening to a little Country, like Hank, and Reggae. And early Punk. By the time Hardcore started, I became much less interested in it. I moved to L.A. and most of my friends were in kind of Art Punk bands like HUMAN HANDS and the B-PEOPLE and 45 GRAVE and MONITOR, more on the arty side. At the very same time, this is about 1980, all the Hardcore started coming up and it just was not interesting to me because I’m interested in lyrics and melodies. There’s also this voice, that Hardcore voice, I don’t want to hear that. In fact, when people do covers of Avengers songs, if it’s a male singer, I’m always like, argh.
After the Avengers broke up, I ended up moving to England and there was a band called THREE MISSED OFF OF THREE. They had a record but I doubt anyone could find it. They were friends and I was also friends with Howard Devoto from the BUZZCOCKS and MAGAZINE and I sang on his first solo record.
What’s the album you’d say you’ve listened to the most in your life?
In my life? It would probably be Patti Smith’s Horses but I haven’t actually listened to it in a long time. I made friends with Lenny Kaye back in the day. The Avengers original bass player Jimmy Wilsey -he had been a guitar player for Chris Isaak-, he died this past Christmas Eve and Patti Smith was on tour and Lenny Kaye did a cover of The American in me as a tribute to Jimmy, as part of their set, which was kind of awesome. Yeah, she was a big influence for me. It’s funny because you say album, but it’s like, does anyone have time to listen to a whole album anymore?
Do you listen to singles mostly and mixtapes, as you were saying? What vibe are you looking for in these mixtapes?
Yeah, people send me mixtapes sometimes. Sadly, the person that sent me the most mixtapes is someone who I had this long distance affair with, over a decade ago, but I still have the mixtapes because he had really good taste. But the songs are generally fucking heartbreaking songs. And the solo songs I write tend to lean in that direction anyway, but sometimes it’s just too much. So it all depends, I can listen to really sad stuff even. The other time, besides driving, when I generally try to listen to music is when I’m doing house work. If I just have to clean the floor -it almost never happens!- I will put music on. The DECEMBERISTS is a band that I like to listen to. Their stuff can be a little heart wrenching.
So you mainly like sad music?
That’s what it sounds like? Yeah. I would say that I don’t generally listen to upbeat, happy music. I mean, there’s different music for different things. If you’re having a barbecue, you have people over, you want to play some kind of upbeat African music that just lifts the vibe up. But if I’m doing something solo, like driving the car, whatever, I can listen to some really sad shit.
Then of course, the Avengers, which I’m doing, is very anthemic, kind of uplifting and angry. That’s really cathartic. I really love doing these performances. It’s very freeing. But also, I do solo shows and my songs can be really dark, or they can be sad. Not that much happy light music about being in love or anything but a couple songs maybe.
In your own music, do you have some go-to’s for inspiration? Or it’s mainly just life?
Yeah, it’s mainly life but sometimes I can read an article about a person’s life, and then be inspired by that. The last song I wrote was written about some victims of the wildfires that have been happening in California. This couple, an older couple who had adult children and grandchildren, they were all meeting in Santa Rosa to celebrate an anniversary. They come from Cuba. This story was in the New York Times, but it’s sort of local to where I live. The wildfires swept through in the middle of the night so everyone woke up and they got into three cars. They were all staying in one rented house with a pool and they got in the cars and drove down the hill and when they got to the bottom, they realized the two parents, the oldest couple, had not made it out. A tree had fallen on the road and they couldn’t get out so they went back up to the house and they got into the pool and they stayed in the pool all night, trying to be under the water. The husband lived and the wife died. I wrote this tragic song about that called Blackwater. So I can be inspired by outside stuff but dark and romantic outside stuff because my life is probably not as traumatic as it’s been in younger days. I have a steady, level life.
Since we’re talking about sad music, what would you say are some of the saddest songs that you listen to and enjoy?
I think MARK EITZEL might write some of the saddest songs. Then some DECEMBERISTS songs are really quite sad. On my personal playlist, there would be songs from both of them. There would probably be a CHUCK PROPHET song. LUCINDA WILLIAMS, she can write some heartbreakers, she’s really wonderful. My friend PAT JOHNSON, I mentioned earlier, has some great songs too.
What are some of your favorite lyrics? Either a line or a song or just the work of a lyricist in general.
LEONARD COHEN wrote some really great lines. I think Mark Eitzel is a great lyricist. I’m partial to my own lyrics. I like people whose lyrics kind of paint a picture. Also people who aren’t afraid of using words that are not in everyday conversation, without sounding self conscious. PATTI SMITH is a poetic lyricist. There’s probably some favorite of mine that I’m forgetting right now. Yeah, lyrics are really one of the important things for me. I like SUFJAN STEVENS. He’s really good. Complicated.
If there’s music that has a beautiful melody, but the lyrics are kind of bad. Is that something that would be hard for you to ignore?
Yeah. If they were singing in French, that’d be fine because I wouldn’t understand it! But yeah, if the lyrics are bad, I can’t listen. I know so many people that listen to something and they’re like, “what do you think of that bassline?” I’m like, “I didn’t even hear the bassline. Am I supposed to hear the bassline?” I thought that was like, under. Sometimes I ask people “what did you think of those lyrics?” And they’re like, “oh, I didn’t notice that”. You’re too busy listening to the bassline! *Haha*
But that’s the beauty of music. There’s something for everyone. Room for people to pick up on something different.
Yeah. I think that’s the thing about having a good band. Like with the Avengers, I’m going to provide lyrics, something to think about and also singing and some jumping around. But my rhythm section, they’re really rock solid and they add so much energy. Some people in the audience will concentrate on them. Then the guitar player, he has a great sound and great simple solos and there’s people who just stand in front of him. You have to be able to satisfy different people’s needs, what they need to listen to. But yeah, I guess for me it’s lyrics on the sad side with some really great melodies, harmonies and stuff going on.
What are some of the most memorable shows that you’ve seen in your life?
I saw a JOHN PRINE show once. The opening band was this popular band with this girl singer and a guitar player, I don’t think they had drums…I can’t remember their name…but they were great. It was very spacey sounding. Then John Prine came out with just his guitar and as soon as he opened his mouth to sing and play his guitar, it’s like this giant sheet of glass or ice that just raised up and he just cut right through. That kind of blurry sound was part of their sound but he was reaching every single one of the 800 people in the audience. I just remember that moment.
I saw PATTI SMITH play in a bookstore, at a reading for one of her poetry books. It was just Lenny Kaye playing guitar and her singing. It took me right back to the first time I heard Patti Smith when I was a teenager. It was the sound of her voice, I was kind of transported back in time. People tell me that all the time “Oh, I listened to your record when I was young. I never thought I’d get to see you play live, blah, blah, blah.” Now I know how they felt.
Then there was tons of shows. We played with the SEX PISTOLS when they played their so-called last show at Winterland in 1978. That was kind of a hard show for us but we kind of got through it, and somewhat triumphantly. Then they started and I went out into the audience to see what it was like and it was just so packed with people that you could lift your feet off the floor, and everyone was completely soaked in sweat. We’re getting squeezed out and stuff. All the Punk shows that had happened in San Francisco had been a lot smaller than that. Clubs with 400 or 500 people and this was five or six thousand so it was different than anything I’ve ever been at. And it was not a friendly crowd really. It was intense. That’s something I’ll never forget, although it wasn’t my favorite show. It’s the one everybody asks about, in every single interview, so now you guys don’t have to ask! *Haha*
Is there any band that you’ve toured with, that impressed you to the point where you had to watch them, night after night?
These friends of mine, the MOORE BROTHERS from the Bay Area, just one guitar and two brothers singing and they pass the guitar back and forth, depending on who wrote the song. They have these amazing voices that just harmonize together so beautifully. They were on tour with my solo band when we were touring Europe, a three or four week tour, and I probably watched most of their sets. There’s something mesmerizing about them.
We’re actually going on tour with STIFF LITTLE FINGERS throughout the whole U.S. for five and a half weeks or something in October. God knows what’s gonna happen with my voice but we’ll see. They asked for us and then they said our opening band has to play the whole tour. But I’m not that familiar with their music. I think that they’re good and respectable. It’s not gonna be like, every single night, we’re off the stage and going back to the hotel, I’m gonna watch some. I don’t know if I’m gonna watch for five weeks straight though.
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