Punk’s snot dead!
the dead Boys, resurrected! “We loved chaos, we thought it was fun”
“Idon’t know if I ever want to hear ‘Sonic Reducer’ if I’m not playing it,” admits Cheetah Chrome, founding member of the dead Boys and co-writer of one of the great punk anthems. “I have a blast playing it, but I don’t want to hear my version and I don’t want to hear anybody else’s version. Maybe if it was on a Coca-Cola commercial. I was in London last year and I heard the Buzzcocks on a commercial. I thought that was cool – we’re finally mainstream.”
the dead Boys formed in Cleveland in 1976 from the ashes of Rocket From the tombs, and the band recorded two LPs – Young, Loud And Snotty and We Have Come For Your Children – before they split in 1979, leaving “Sonic Reducer” to carry their torch on countless compilations and cover versions. the band played hard, fast and loud, with volatile frontman Stiv Bators bringing an air of unpredictability with his Iggy Popinspired antics. Bators died in 1990, so when Chrome and drummer Johnny Blitz reformed the band in 2017, they recruited a new singer, Jake Hout from a dead Boys zombie tribute band. they will tour the UK in February.
the energy of Cleveland’s punk scene Chrome puts down to a rich radio culture and the fact detroit is nearby. “A band like the Sensational Alex Harvey Band were huge in Cleveland, detroit and nowhere else,” he says. “But what made the dead Boys special was our attitude more than anything. It’s hard to find more like-minded individuals than us, it was a street gang mentality. We had the same sense of humour, the same outlook on life. And we could all play really well.”
to accompany the band’s return, Chrome and Blitz decided to re-record the debut album as Still Snotty: Young, Loud And Snotty At 40, released on Plowboy. the original album was recorded in three days, and the band were under the impression it was a demo until Sire decided to release it. “We had no studio experience and shitty equipment, and it sounded oK, but it didn’t sound like us,” says Chrome. “then for the 40th anniversary we tried to get the masters back from Warners, but that got tied up indefinitely, so we decided to rerecord the first album. It was cool, we had more studio experience and I was able to use the amps I wanted to get the sound I wanted. And we did it in three days again.”
Chrome is excited about the coming tour, but agrees it’s unlikely to be quite like the band’s first UK tour. that was in 1977 supporting the damned. “It was a good tour, we did big places and the damned are like our brother band, but it was strange, the tV and radio went off at 11pm,” he says. “Finding something to eat was hard, we’d starve some days. You’d get to Hull and everything was closed. We’d played Glasgow, and the fans ripped out an entire row of theatre seats and threw them 15 feet into the air on the stage. We had a reputation for being chaotic and we loved chaos, we thought it was fun. It brightened up the day.” The Dead Boys’ UK tour begins on Jan 31 at Leeds Brudenell Social Club. Still Snotty: Young Loud & Snotty At 40 is out on Plowboy
“We had the same outlook on life. And we could all play really well” Cheetah Chrome