The Damned is one of the best and most important band to come out of the first wave of Punk Rock. Not only were their early albums essential in helping define the Punk sound, their later run of records in the 80’s were also also massively influential on the formation of the Gothic Rock sound that was to come. We, here, at The Thanks List, are massive fans of every era of their music, so it was a great pleasure to have a conversation with guitarist and original member Captain Sensible. We were listening to The Damned regularly when we were young, we listen to The Damned regularly now, and they’re the kind of band we’ll probably keep going back to for the rest of our lives. Make sure to check out The Damned’s new EP, The Rockfield Files, available now on Spinefarm Records.
What have you been listening to lately?
Oh, you know, I rarely ever listen to anything outside of a small collection of music that I bought album by album, since I was old enough to go down to a record shop, clutching whatever money I earned, from delivering newspapers as a schoolboy in short trousers. I mean, records used to be quite expensive, and you had limited funds to splash out on this stuff, so every one of those records is so precious. Even though in my lifetime, I’ve been through many different formats for this music. I mean, vinyl alone, because I’m a bit of a slob I have to rebuy the same albums, before I have to listen to this crackly and horrible noise. I still go to record shops but I tend to buy the same records. I don’t update my collection, really.
I remember even, going back to before I could go to record shops, I used to send my mom to the record shop to buy records for me. I remember the records they were as well. The first record I ever bought, courtesy of my mom was I’m A Moody Guy by SHANE FENTON. It must have been about 1960 or ’61. He went on to become ALVIN STARDUST, he reinvented himself as a Glam rocker. But I loved I’m A Moody Guy. The second record, I asked my mom, “Can you get me Telstar by THE TORNADOS?” That was on my record player for six months, I just became totally obsessed with the sound. I didn’t know who Joe Meek was, but now I tend to collect anything that he projects. You know Joe Meek? He’s a fairly eccentric producer, and it all ended in tears and a shotgun was involved. Quite often, studio geniuses are of the temperamental persuasion! I believe Phil Spector was of a similar persuasion.
Can you tell me about five albums that have been really important to you? What makes them so special?
I’d have to say, top of the list would be ROLLING STONES, This Satanic Majesties’ Request, which has been for quite a long time now a template for The Damned in the studio. We refer to the album extensively. All the time. I generally make the engineer listen to it a few times before the session, because we will say, “like the guitar tone Brian Jones got on In Another Land” or something like that. Or the psychedelic echo on the vocals, or the improvised jam section drifts off into a kind of space or whatever. I tend to go back to the album all the time, because it’s a work of genius, but flawed genius. I mean, it’s not painstakingly put together. It’s just everything that was chosen in the album.
Doesn’t it make it better that it’s flawed genius?
Yes, it does. I would tend to say that any young bands around nowadays should keep the flaws in what they do because it’s too easy to make things perfect now, with all the autotune and autocorrect and maximization, all these fancy plugins. Keep it real!
Another album, I would say Thank Christ For The Bomb by THE GROUNDHOGS. They’re, kind of a Proggy, Blues, Psych trio, from around ’69-’70. The golden period for British music, when everything was getting heavier, more Bluesy, but before it turned into kind of Rock sludge. Everything’s experimental and exciting, a little bit like the dawn of Punk, you know. Certainly in Britain, in ’76, where all the bands sounded different from each other and everything’s exciting and new, and everyone had their own take on it. The Groundhogs had their own take on Psychedelic Blues. There were a lot of other bands around, just starting up at the same time, DEEP PURPLE, LED ZEPPELIN, FREE, all these other great bands. But The Groundhogs, I used to go and see them play, and I used to stand in front of the guitar player, watching his fingers. He didn’t play standard chords, he had his own thing going on. Lots of interesting things he used to do. He probably used to think I was this asshole! *Haha* I introduce myself, much later on, at a gig. I still went to see them, years and years later, and he very kindly let me buy him the odd pints of beer. Tony McPhee, his name is, an absolutely lovely guy. I admitted I’ve stolen a few of his ideas. He said, “Yeah, don’t worry. You’re not the first.”*Haha*
Then, I would say The BEE GEES 1st. Their first album, they sounded like a Merseybeat band. Merseybeat was huge in the early to mid-60’s. Everyone wanted to sound like the Beatles and they were accused of being one of those bands, but they really had their own take on it. It’s a well respected album in…Sunshine Pop circles! People who are interested in Psychedelic Pop. This album really got a lot of interesting psychedelia going on. It’s very accessible, as you would expect from the Bee Gees and the tunes on that album are exceptional. It was obviously before they did some of the more mainstream stuff. I think it’s quite out there. It’s a great record. I sent a copy of it to sign, because I knew somebody who knew Robin Gibb, and the poor guy kicked the bucket. The record was still in his possession, so someone’s still got it, I don’t know, but I never got the album signed by Robin Gibb. It’s a record I played possibly more than any other. It’s a phenomenal record.
Then, I would say Piper At The Gates Of Dawn by PINK FLOYD, when it was Syd Barrett’s Pink Floyd. Not the later incarnation, with David Gilmore. Exceptional player, but what Syd wrote…what can you say about the album? Nobody was writing songs like those, it was all boy meets girl songs before Syd Barrett came along and started writing songs about gnomes and all the crazy psychedelic stuff! *Haha* He took you into a fantasy world. The same as Marc Bolan did later. I mean, I didn’t know what psychedelia was. I didn’t realize there was a link between psychedelia and drugs, I was just a schoolboy at the time. I was just listening to this stuff on the radio, and it just tickled my ears. I just find that music without a tinge of psychedelia is just boring, even now. It’s still my go-to music. Otherwise, I get bored. That’s why I’ve never been much of a Country fan, because you know exactly where it’s going. “My dog just died…” *Haha*
They’re all oldies because, like I said, I still love the albums that I bought back in the day. I would say Happy Trails by QUICKSILVER MESSENGER SERVICE. It’s a San Francisco band. Once again, a Psychedelic album, and one side of it is recorded live. It takes the whole live experience. It’s very difficult to imagine what it must have been like in the audience when you listen to a live album sometimes. But this one, the improv section in the middle, it takes you on a mind trip. I sometimes walk around with headphones on, listening to that 18-minutes piece. Walking down the road or something mundane in your eyes, but in your ears, this immense slab of psychedelic brings you to a completely different planet than the world you’re mingling with. It’s a really strange, great experience.
Do you tend to go towards the live records, or are you more of a studio recording person?
I’m actually a fan of live albums. I think it’s because I’ve lived in this kind of live music bubble for the last 40 years. It’s been my whole existence really. It’s been doing the soundcheck, catching a quick bite to eat and a couple of beers, doing a gig, and then winding down afterwards, and the next day, doing the whole thing all over again. I just feel very comfortable in that world, so you can imagine what it’s been like for the past few months!*Haha*
So, yeah, I’m a big, big fan of live albums. The top of the list for me would be GRAND FUNK Live Album. It’s the most exciting live record I’ve ever heard. Everything about that band was just whipping the audience into a frenzy. They do it by repeating. They have great grooves, the drummer and the bass guy, they create these fantastic grooves, which they repeat, repeat, repeat. If you repeat a great groove, it becomes hypnotic, and that’s what they do. They hypnotize and they conjure the audience into this Rock and Roll hysteria, which is part of the whole experience of live music, you know? It should be anyway, for me. I love stuff like that. That’s great a great album.
Another live album, FREE Live! Early 70’s band, that’s pretty good. You have the great Andy Fraser playing this bass solo in a song called Mr. Big. One of the best bass solos I’ve ever heard. Bass solos is not something that you get often. We did the gig, Riot Fest I think it was, in Denver, and amongst all the Punk groups, the guest artist was BOOTSY COLLINS. He played a bass solo that was so drenched and fast, so incredibly loud. I mean, every member of every other band, all these Punk artists, there were so many standing on the side of the stage. It was a big open air festival and you saw everyone paying homage to the great Bootsy Collins playing this incredible bass solo. Blisteringly loud as well, it was just insane. How do you follow that? In between songs, he got away with what could be perceived as incredibly sexist, but that’s his shtick. He’s as old school as it comes. Just one of the greatest gigs I’ve ever seen.
Talking about live music, can you think of some of the most memorable concerts that you’ve ever seen?
I’ll never forget seeing QUEEN play Lewisham Odeon, in South London, probably about 1979. It was a cinema they were playing. It was my girlfriend’s favorite band, and she invited me along. I was just really godsmacked at how they recreated their sound live, because those records are incredibly crafted. There’s a lot of beautiful harmony guitar parts that Brian May creates, and obviously, Freddie as well. Their studio techniques were insane, and yet live, there was no tapes being used or cheating or anything like that. I mean, live, they sounded phenomenal! Just absolutely brilliant. So I was just very impressed at how they recreated those records. Live should be different from records anyway. The thing that most impressed me about that that gig was the way that Freddie was all over the stage, and he’s playing the piano one minute, the next minute he’s on the other side. That stick mic, his famous trademark stick mic, I kept wondering, where’s he getting that from? Every time he gets up from the piano, or he’s performing on the floor, he’s dancing down the stage and the next minute, the stick mic’s in his hand. It’s so beautifully choreographed, there was one roadie, whose job it was to make sure that he had the stick mic at that particular time when he needed it, at the right place, at the right time! *Haha*
What a job to have!
Yeah, they choreographed it, and I spent the second half of that show just watching the roadie, who was also juuust out of the spotlight. So it was choreographed with the person doing the light, so you never actually saw this guy. It was just brilliantly done. So yeah, that was a most entertaining gig.
I must say, talking about Queen, we recorded this EP, called The Rockfield Files. We recorded that in a studio called Rockfield in the middle of Wales, on a farm, and it’s the same studio Queen did most of their best work at, back in the day. I said to the studio owner, Kingsley, “I really like this room, which is this?” He said, “Oh, all guitarists stick together. This is Brian May’s room.” I had no idea. So I said, “Which were the other rooms?” and the bass player was in Freddie’s room, the smallest of all the rooms. Why did Freddie, this amazing, kind of eccentric genius, who could have said, “I want this room”, why did he have the smallest room? He just felt the most comfortable in there. So it always gets me. It always excites me when I have no idea and we’re playing a stage where The BEATLES, or LED ZEPPELIN or JIMI HENDRIX played. That’s an extra buzz for me. When you got the guitar around your neck and you’re on stage in five minutes and you’re thinking to yourself, “Fuckin’ Hell! Jimi Hendrix played here. I better make sure I play well tonight!”*Haha* It adds an extra element for me. I love those five minutes before you hit the stage, the adrenaline kicks in and it’s really quite an experience. I do hope it happens again soon! Sitting and watching television is not quite the same. I mean, what have I been doing the last few months…I’ve been growing chilis, that’s a new thing for me. It’s quite fun. I’ve been kayaking. So I haven’t killed myself yet. In fact, funnily enough, the members of The Damned, the original lineup, we said to each other, after we did a photo shoot, “You look after yourself”, “No, you look after YOURself!” So if they see me kayaking out in the middle of the ocean, on this flimsy little boat, they’d be seeing their future earnings for the next few gigs sinking down into Davy Jones’s Locker.
I think that’s all the time we had, did you have any final thoughts?
Well, I did read a couple of your interviews, the one with the guy from The MELVINS.
Oh, really?
Yeah. And there was a couple of others, mainly because, you know, I only listen to old fart music, so I didn’t know who any of these people were but they read really good. You know, one of the most interesting things about going around someone else’s house is going through their record collection.
Of course! That’s the first thing I do, whenever I go to someone else’s house. That, and their books.
Yeah, yeah. So it’s really fun to read these interviews, to see where they got their influences from. I know I said I don’t listen to new music, but when you do hear new music, what I find is fun is guessing what’s in somebody’s record collection. I’ll say to whoever I’m with, “I bet they’ve got blah, blah, blah, album. They’ve got this.” You can hear it. Because everyone’s influenced by the music that they love, it’s unavoidable. Obviously, you don’t want to fucking steal it, but I mean, if I consciously know what the song is heavily influenced by, I try and hide it a bit. I still find it mortally embarrassing to know that you’ve stolen carte blanche from some great artists. But I don’t think that’s the way these newfangled modern bands think. I think, “My God, that’s fucking note for note, so and so’s song!” You go straight on the internet now, everything’s on bloody YouTube, and you can hear it. You say to them, “Look, it’s the same song!” Nobody cares anymore. I think to myself, should I contact this old artist, publisher who’s not doing their job if they’re letting this new band getting away with it? And I think, no, I shouldn’t do that. In case somebody does it to me…oups! *Haha*
No Comments