Badtown
Boys
This article originally appeared in NFH #21 in
the winter of 1991.
If you fall for high
energy melodic punk rock as practiced by bands like the Creamers, you ought to be
listening to the Badtown Boys, too. From Los Angeles, the Badtown Boys play a lot
of the same clubs as bands like the Creamers or Lazy Cowgirls; places like Raji's,
Al's Bar, the Shamrock, Coconut Teaser, or the Gaslight. Until this year, there's
only been a couple of 7" records from them, but this winter they put out their
first lp and toured Europe, and this fall there'll be another lp, an ep and another
tour. So there's plenty to hear from them and I suspect their reputation is
going to grow pretty quickly, because the records are damn great. The sound is an
unusual blend of high speed three chord punk with vocals that have a fifties feel
to them; lots of "woah-oh" backings and an emphasis on melody and
harmony, but with no sacrifice of energy. Guitars are tough, drums are hard and
fast, and the songs are catchy as hell. Bass player Chris agreed with my
description of them as Ramones mixed with Elvis Presley, although he would have
chosen the Dickies as a comparison point, too.
"We took a lot
of influence from good early punk stuff and also some 50s influence", says
drummer Tim. "We take the 50s influence for a little bit of a melodic role,
and a little more timekeeping. We speed it up a little bit, but it works good for
us."
"We work really
good together, like a unit", says Chris. "We don't have exactly the same
ideas, but we have a good idea how we want the music to sound. We try to stay away
from the one star of the band type thing. We don't believe in that."
"A lot of us
like the old stuff from the 50s", says Tim. "There was a period where we
got into a little bit of a rockabilly thing.
Chris: We
didn't mean for it to be a big deal...we did a couple of covers of 50s songs.
Tim: Yeah,
like "Runaround Sue" or "Speedo" by the Cadillacs. We would do them
our style, but it was fun because it was straightforward and that's pretty much how
we've always been. But we pulled away from the rockabilly scene not to get too
limited or categorized to that.
Chris: Yeah, I
think it was because of our appearance; the short hair, the leather jackets. I've
heard people say we had the "Happy Days" look. So since we did covers of
50s songs even though they were twice as fast and twice as rough people would say,
well you guys are just a fast rockabilly band.
The band started in
1985 with guitar player Tom Komisar and singer Greg Keith. They had a couple of
different drummers and bass players who didn't last too long. Finally they talked
Greg's brother Chris into trying bass, which he learned quickly with help from Tom.
They met Tim Cunningham at a party; he had recently moved out from Ohio and was a
friend of Tom's brother, and he became their drummer. This lineup finally
solidified in 1987, and they started playing gigs and trying to build a following.
They also recorded their first record; a self released 4 track single called "The
Blue EP" with "Radio Don't Rock", "My Baby Loves Me", "We're
Through" and one other track, all of which were re-recorded for their first
lp.
This ep was a limited
issue thing, but it got them the attention of Dionysis Records boss Lee Joseph, who
came to see a couple of their shows and liked them enough to do another single, the
great "Borrowed Time" record, which has 3 killer songs. "Borrowed
Time" didn't seem to attract the attention it deserved in the US, but European
fanzines raved over it, and within 3 or 4 weeks of its release they got an overseas
phone call from Mario Weltmann, head of Germany's Gift Of Life Records, wanting
them to record a full length lp for him. He hooked them up with Brett Gurewitz as
a producer and they went to Westbeach Recorders in North Hollywood where they
pounded out 14 songs in little time.
There was one slight
hitch in this, though. Right after the "Borrowed Time" single came out,
Tim was involved in a head-on car crash which netted him nine months of inaction
while he waited for his injuries to mend: two broken ribs, broken leg, broken
ankle, busted jaw wired shut and a long hospital stay. To keep the band going
various friends were called upon to fill in at drummer. The one who stuck the
longest was Johnny Esposito, who played on the first lp and toured Europe with the
band. But Tim's back now and he'll be on the new lp and the next tour.
The tour was
something of a dream for the band...they had been thinking in terms of how to build
up a following in the US enough to allow them to start doing small US tours and
then out of the blue they sign to a European label, do a record for them, and then
get signed for a European tour. They went to Germany, Switzerland, Austria and
Yugoslavia, playing about 25 shows in a month.
Tom describes the
tour: "We landed in Berlin, and the first part of the tour was mostly in
Germany. The reception was really good. It was kind of strange. We'd been playing
LA clubs a lot to a fairly decent following, but when we got to our first show we
had 500 people and it was pretty mindblowing. We were sitting there in a little
apartment above the club and we looked out the window and there was a line down the
block of people who had heard about the record and when we started playing they all
knew the lyrics and they were singing the songs. It was pretty different because
we didn't know how many records we'd sold over there. We knew they were doing OK,
but a lot of people had heard of us. Most of the shows we had between 300 and 400
people. When we got into Yugoslavia we went to Belgrade and they said that they
hadn't had a band there since the UK Subs in 1982. And all these kids came running
up to the van and as fast as we could stick the albums in the jackets they were
buying them. They hadn't had music there in a while and the people were really
cool. We had a good time there and they fed us real well."
"Switzerland was
pretty good too, but when we got back around in Germany we played another show at
the Ecstasy in Berlin and we had 700 people and they had people waiting outside who
couldn't get in. For the first tour we were pretty satisfied with the result. We
really weren't sure what we were stepping into. We wanted to do it, but we didn't
know that the album had been that wide spread over there and was doing quite
well."
"It's incredible
how good the response has been over there", says Chris. "We were shocked. It was
weird...we're not used to being treated like we're good. The response was really
incredibly good."
"They don't even
speak the same language yet they know the words to the songs and they're singing
them. And we're just going "Jesus! That's weird!" The funniest was we
played East Germany for our last show. That is a screwed up place. The roads are
beat, the buildings look like projects, windows busted out of all them. The place
we played was scary looking; down this alley. We got there, and it wasn't a huge
show but it was pretty cool. And after the show they wanted everything we had.
They'd ask: "Can I have your leather jacket?" And I'd go "No".
And they'd go "Can I have your guitar?". "Can I have your hat?"
And I'd go "No, you can't have anything!"."
Having been that
successful the first time over, the Badtown Boys are spoiling for a second shot at
Europe. That'll probably happen in March. The European fans will have to adjust to a few
changes though. First, Tim's back so they'll get to see the original drummer for
the band. Second, Greg has stepped down as singer...he couldn't find the time for touring
so he decided it would be best to step aside and let the band find someone else who
could do it. After some auditions, they've found Kevin Halley through a friend.
Kevin moved to LA from the Washington, DC area where he had played in some local
bands and was strongly influenced by the Dischord scene...bands like Minor Threat.
According to Tom, Kevin fit right in, but as far as his vocal style he's quite a
bit of a change. He also plays guitar, which should add to an already beefy attack.
The new lp is going
to be called Date With Death. It's already been recorded with Greg singing
so Kevin is going to be breaking all the new songs from it for their next tour. To
have a piece of vinyl with Kevin on it the band plans to record a new 4 song ep,
possibly on a ten inch record, this fall. As with the first lp, the new one will be
on Gift Of Life in Germany and licensed back to the US through New Red Archives.
Tom says that although they like the first lp, the new one will be a lot more powerful
and more focused. I'm looking forward to it.
