skibadamned_2017

Alkaline Trio/Blink-182's Matt Skiba interviews the Damned's Dave Vanian

[Photo credit: Willie Toledo (Matt Skiba), Dod Morrison (Dave Vanian)]
Alkaline Trio founder/Blink-182 guitarist Matt Skiba has one sticker on his car, a logo of original groundbreaking British punk band the Damned. He also has the phrase “Love Song,” the title of a crucial track from said band’s essential third album, Machine Gun Etiquette, tattooed on his hands. So who better to chat up Dave Vanian, the cool AF frontman (and only constant) in the British punk institution as they begin an extensive American tour celebrating the reissue of their 1977 debut album, Damned Damned Damned?


[Photo credit: Kat Von D]

In the classic 1977 British punk scene, the Sex Pistols got the glory and the Clash acquired the accolades. But history has been very good to the Damned, as their scope of influence has been felt by bands as diverse as Japanese thrashers Melt-Banana, My Chemical Romance (who covered “Neat Neat Neat” on their Danger Days tour) and Alkaline Trio, who have covered the band’s track “Wait For The Blackout” for years. Mixing furious ’70s American garage rock (cf. the Stooges, the MC5) with a great amphetamine sensibility and then spending the next three decades branching off into directions as varied as psychedelic amp-worship and stately pop, unintentionally becoming gothic-rock initiators and having a brief flirtation with the British record charts in the late ’80s, the Damned are important by virtue of their sheer bloody-mindedness and dizzying diversity. If you’re just getting on the ground floor, start with the recently reissued Damned Damned Damned and then run headfirst into their wide-ranging discography to discover new intersections of punk, goth, psychedelia, pop and anything else that was ricocheting in their minds.

In between breaks on the set of the next Blink video, Skiba called Vanian while he was relaxing in his Vancouver hotel room hours before taking the stage. And although Canadian cell reception made this AP editor cringe more than a dozen times (thanks for repeating your responses, Dave!), both the A3 frontman-cum-lifer and the punk avatar had a good time.

MATT SKIBA: Thanks for doing this, Dave. What are you doing? Do you have a day off? Are you playing tonight?

DAVE VANIAN: I’m in a hotel room in Vancouver. We’re playing tonight at the Commodore Ballroom, so we just walk over to the gig from here.

AP asked me if I wanted the opportunity to interview you and asked if I was a fan. I told them I had “Love Song” tattooed on my knuckles, and that my band have been covering “Wait For The Blackout” for as long as I can remember.

Ohhhh. So that’s where all of our money’s coming from, is it? [Laughs.]

[Laughs.] Maybe. Happy 40th anniversary to Damned, Damned, Damned. The Damned were the first U.K. punk band to put out a single, then an album and the first to tour the U.S. What was that first U.S. tour like? What sticks out in your mind about it?

It varied from the East Coast to the West Coast. People on the East Coast were trying to check us out in a real “cool” way. It went well, though. California was just the opposite: They went crazy. People were eating pizza while we were doing our stuff. So we put a table onstage and ate pizza in front of the audience. They didn’t like it, so they threw ice cubes at us. [Laughs.] But generally it was really good. In most respects, the gigs we did in the major cities were attended by a lot of bands just forming, similar to what happened when the Ramones came [to London]: The first three rows were all members of potential groups—Adam And The Ants, Billy Idol, all those people. The Ramones worked as a catalyst over there and we worked as a catalyst over here and it became a big pile of great noise.

What is your earliest memory of being in the Damned? When the band started, when you came up with the name, anything…

The earliest memory was probably going to the audition. There was another singer considered for the job, so I turned up half an hour earlier to see who it was and check him out. There was another guy who didn’t turn up—that was Sid Vicious. There was also a rumor that [original Damned guitarist] Brian James had the name, but [Sex Pistols manager] Malcolm McLaren wanted it. Brian had it first though, so the Sex Pistols might have been called the Damned—which is quite weird.

Wow! That’s interesting.

Yeah. I don’t know how true that is, but that’s what I’ve heard.

We’ll make it true. That’s amazing. Over the years, which Damned record are you the most proud of and why?

I really couldn’t pick one. You enjoy records for different reasons. What we did on The Black Album led the way to what we did on later albums. When we released Grave Disorder, I felt it was an obvious follow-through with what we were doing on Machine Gun Etiquette and The Black Album. For us, it’s not a case of what got more successful, but the level of experimentation. Today, I might like one album; tomorrow, a completely different one. I think I like the ones that don’t get played a lot, the ones that are a bit more obscure.

As a Damned fan, if someone were to ask me my favorite, I couldn’t tell ya. I love them all for different reasons.

They all reflect different things. That probably has helped our longevity because we haven’t stayed the same. Because the band is so multifaceted, and the people who are in it, everybody brings something to a session and [songs] grow into whatever way they grow into. We’re working on a new album now, which I’m very excited about, probably more than anything because when we finish this American tour, we go straight into production to put it together. We’re looking to explore our psychedelic/garage roots more on this one, and push a few envelopes here and there, you know?

What was the first album you ever bought?

Let me think… I think the first two records I ever bought… One was a single by a group called Blue Mink. Thing is, I had a fair amount of records in the house already, so I started buying things a little later than I would’ve done normally.

Were your parents musical?

No, not at all. My father had a whole pile of 78s that he brought back when he was stationed in Germany with the RAF. They were a mix of ’50s rock ’n’ roll, German tango music, ’40s swing bands, orchestral music… A whole pile of interesting stuff—which I still have. That was my very first musical education with this varied bunch of things. That’s probably why I’m so eclectic now.

That’s wild. What was the first show you attended?

Technically—although I didn’t pay to get in [Laughs.]—I was at the Isle Of Wight Festival. Jim Morrison and the Doors played, as did Jimi Hendrix. It was a huge festival, much like their answer to Woodstock. I suppose that was the first thing I ever saw.

I was born in 1976, and if I’m not mistaken that was the year the Damned formed, correct?

We had gotten together earlier but our first shows were in ’76, yeah.


[Photo credit: Dod Morrison]

Was the term “punk rock” being used yet?

That didn’t exist at all at the time. In fact, one of the first interviews I ever did—it was for the fanzine Sniffin’ Glue—they asked me “What kind of music do you make?” And I said, “Well, I’m not really sure. We rehearse in an old railway tunnel, the closest things we sound like are the MC5, the Stooges and the ’60s garage bands. So I think we’re a garage band.” It seemed that several months later, the term “punk rock” was coined by some press guy describing what it was. At the beginning, it was a bunch of people just doing stuff: artists, musicians, writers, all wanting to push out and do something on their own, something different. It wasn’t a movement that was organized: It was just an explosion of creativity all at the same time. That was so amazing about it.

But Brian [James, original guitarist] especially, when he formed the Damned, he just saw it as a continuation from bands prior to that. We had the tail end of the ’60s, and glam rock, and then we came along as a band and our similarities were pre-glam. But we never thought of ourselves as a brand new movement as such—we were just a band. I guess the way we did what we did was new. Because we did it with no compromises. Because at the time, it wasn’t quite like that! [Laughs.] We shook up the convention a little bit.

So how does it feel to see the Damned’s influence in so many bands? Early on, you had Peter Murphy and Bauhaus and the goth scene, which you had certainly influenced over the decade. What was that like?

Sometimes it’s great, sometimes it’s odd. Sometimes I hear from bands that I can’t believe how we could possibly have influenced them at all, and they say, “You were a big influence on me.” There are some bands who say they are influenced by us that are incredibly successful. We’ve always been the outsiders. I’ve always been happy to turn people onto different kinds of music, so that’s always a cool thing—providing that it’s good. And there’s good stuff everywhere. It’s flattering.

When the Anarchy In The U.K. Tour happened, the Clash and the Sex Pistols and a few others had all these major record deals and stuff. We went with the homegrown DIY punk label. [Laughs.] We never had the success [those bands did], but we were living the real lifestyle we were talking about, which was funny. On that tour, we were billed above the Sex Pistols because the Pistols couldn’t sell tickets. They weren’t known that much. They’d draw 30 people in a rented cinema or something, but we had already been on the road and we were building up a following of people who had already liked the band. So McLaren wanted us on the bill, but soon as the Pistols did their Bill Grundy show [The infamous interview on the British TV show Today, where Pistols guitarist Steve Jones called host Grundy “a fucking rotter,” thereby enraging the nation. —punx on TV ed.], he decided “we don’t need the Damned anymore.” But everything broke down because none of the venues wanted to book bands anymore. The funny thing is, if the Bill Grundy show hadn’t happened—and let’s face it, what did they say on there? Hardly anything compared to today’s television—what would history have been like? It would’ve totally changed.


[Photo credit: Dod Morrison]

I’ve seen the Damned so many times: Alkaline Trio and the Damned played Warped Tour together, which was the first time I met you and Captain [Sensible, guitarist/original member]. Seeing the Damned in broad daylight was interesting.

Imagine playing in broad daylight! [Laughs.] I’m not exactly at home that way, I must admit!

Neither am I. But you’re still great. The Damned still put on one of the best-sounding, energetic shows to this day, and you all look young and healthy and going full-speed the entire time. [Pauses.] What do you…

[Laughs.] There is no secret. I don’t know! We’re still angry and hungry for success. This band is one of those bands who have only stayed alive because of the people who come and see us and know it’s a good show. They’re the ones who stood behind us. What’s changed now is that we have a lot more recognition and a lot more organization behind us properly.

This next album we make, a lot of people might not like it. And that’s the point, really. We’re not going to make an album and think everyone’s going to love it. What’s important to us is that the music sounds good. If it’s not accessible to everybody, that’s not what it’s about. Usually, we take chances and everybody loves it. But you never know: This could be the one everybody hates! [Laughs.]

I highly doubt it. Do you have any advice for the readers?

Don’t get blinkered by people telling you what to listen to. Go find your own stuff and really give things a chance. A broad outlook in music is always better than just [listening to] the same thing. There’s so much out there: I’m still finding music for the past.

Sounds good. Thanks for being patient with the phone lines.

No problem. That’s Canada for you! [Laughs.] alt

As you read this, the Damned are touring America. Go see them.