The
Junk Monkeys
This article originally appeared in NFH #16 in
the spring of 1989
"As generic as
it sounds I'd rather just see us as like a rock and roll band. I mean, that term is not
really even valid any more because there are so many different genres in rock and
roll it's kind of hard to peg us."
Dave Bierman is 23,
but he's a guy with a firm grip on what rock and roll means...although most people his age
only know of the rise of punk rock in the late 70s from hearing stories from their older
brothers or sisters, at thirteen he had the taste to be buying future collector's items
like the Mutants "So American". The lessons from the records that came out
then...that you can play pop that powers, sweats, crashes, and sometimes even thrashes,
are applied with the masterstrokes of seasoned craftsmen by the Junk Monkeys, a proud
addition to Michigan's legacy of rock bands.
The band consists of
Bierman on vocals and guitar, Dan Allen on drums and backing vocals, Kevin Perri on bass,
and Dave Boutette on guitar. The four of them launched their first band, the Mystery Girls
(not the only band to ever use this name), about 5 years ago when they got out of high
school. The Mystery Girls were a glam rock band complete with makeup, spandex pants and
the whole New York Dolls type of trip. But after releasing an ep the band tired of the
whole schtick and when they ran into a problem with a management contract, they decided to
start over, so in 1986 they dropped out for a few months, changed the name and the entire
set, and came back as a stripped down rock and roll band.
As the Junk Monkeys
they've released two lps on their own Happy Face label; Firehouse (reviewed this
issue) and Kick Out The Jelly, both of which are super pieces of turbo charged
power pop. They've just signed with the Metal Blade label, which will release a
compilation of the best songs from the two Happy Face records plus some new tracks. Don't
let the label name put you off; the Junk Monkeys have little to do with metal. Says
Bierman: "I never liked metal. I don't like metal at all, as a matter of fact. Metal
Blade signed us. Somebody at Capitol really liked the band and came up and saw us a few
times, but we were too much something or not enough something for Capitol and they didn't
want us. But they kind of wanted to keep us nearby, so they told Metal Blade about us.
Metal Blade gave us a decent offer and we said 'Yeah, let's go for it', so here we
are."
But he sounds a
little apprehensive about taking the big step and signing with a label as he talks about
the forthcoming lp: "It's gonna be called Soul Cakes. Unless something strange
goes wrong that'll probably be the title. We're just working on getting all the tapes
together for that, but we've already signed it and everything, so we're there whether we
like it or not. Hopefully it'll be cool, I don't know. I haven't even heard much of Metal
Blade before we did this. I mean I don't have any metal records at all, but it might be
cool.
"It's easy to be
like a hotshot in Dearborn and Detroit here, but it doesn't matter how many people we can
squeeze into a club in Detroit anymore. Now it's like on a whole other level I guess.
Hopefully it'll all work out; I've got high hopes for it. I'll be happy if we can eek out
a meager semi successful independent existence for you know ten years, and I'll be happy.
I've never aspired to much more than that."
On their own turf,
the band seem confident and happy. They've played all over the midwest...eastward to
Cleveland, south to Nashville, north to Minneapolis and west to Chicago, plus all the
college towns around Michigan. Their infectious, accessible tunes and reportedly energetic
live sets have gotten them lots of good reviews. I'd compare them to the Real Kids, the
Reducers, and at times Generation X...have they listened to any of these? "The first
two, no...give me the names again? Generation X, I have the very first album with
"Ready Steady Go" and all those songs. That I thought was like a masterpiece. I
loved that album, but they quickly slid downhill. I still listen to that. Everybody in the
band listens to a bunch of different stuff. One guy all he listens to all day long is
probably the Stooges and the MC5. Another guy listens to Joan Jett and whatever happens to
cross his path. Actually out of everybody in the band I'm probably the only guy who even
goes out and actually buys records anymore. Everybody else I'll go over to their house and
they'll have like six or seven tapes that they have left laying around, but I'm the only
one who has like 500 albums and that's all I do is listen to records. I'll have to check
out and see if I can find some stuff by the Real Kids or the Reducers.
"I'm a real big
pop fan. I like anything that's got balls...I've never gotten into like avante garde stuff
or anything. I like just really poppy stuff. Like the Replacements at times can be a
brilliant band if they put it all together. I think they mix that all together well. The
same with Cheap Trick...(laughs as though he should be embarrassed)...I think Cheap
Trick's a great band. If they had more balls...I aspire to be like Cheap Trick with balls.
I think that'd be great. I'll go listen to Heaven Tonight, and it's a great record.
I saw them last time they came and they're still great. They're a good band. A lot of
people don't like to hear that kind of stuff, I dunno."
When you read about
Detroit these days it seems that everybody says, "Well they had the Stooges and they
had the MC5 and now they have nothing". But listening to the Folk Songs From The
Twilight Zone compilation on Tremor you get the idea that there's a lot more good
stuff happening than credit is given for. Dave agrees: "Yeah, for the most part I
think those are all really good bands. For the most part I think there's a really good
thing happening around here. I'm sick of a lot of the bands around here, but I appreciate
them more if I play out of town and get a chance to see the bands that we play with at an
out of town club. Nine out of ten times they're pretty crummy compared with the bands we
see in Detroit. It's a pretty good scene. It's kind of hard for any band to keep going for
any time here because there's like absolutely no...like nobody helps you out at all.
There's no real press and there's no real radio. We've got one like half-way decent
fanzine here that concentrates only on the Detroit scene, but it really leans a lot
towards metal and hardcore. Like as far as they're concerned we don't even exist in the
city. But it's something; it's better than what we had a couple years ago, which was a
total wasteland. 'Cos on the radio...they don't play anything cool on the radio out here
at all."
NFH: That's
getting to be the case everywhere...even most of the college stations that used to be more
independent minded are playing a lot of the British synthesized type music and that sort
of stuff.
Dave: I know;
and I can't stand that kind of stuff. It makes me sick. Probably my favorite band of all
time is the Clash. Or maybe the Ramones. One of those two. In the late 70s I got into
them. But for some reason I skipped right over hardcore. I was right at the perfect age to
get into hardcore heavy duty in the early 80s. But I don't know what happened; I just
skipped out totally.
One senses that Dave
is really proud of the Detroit rock and roll heritage. He recalls with pleasure opening
for the Celibate Rifles: "They were really cool; they were really nice guys. When we
played with them they were more in awe of just being in Ann Arbor...we played with them in
Ann Arbor and I guess they're like really huge MC5 and Stooges fans. I mean, they just
thought it was the coolest thing that they were in Ann Arbor. Yeah, they were a
real good band."
And then of course
there's the Mutant's "So American" cover...a great single that got buried
because it wasn't by a band from New York or LA. "Well I'm really good friends with
the guy that wrote it. His mom owns a big bar around here. A big new music, live music
place. I bought "So American" when I was like 13 or so, and then I got to know
Art, who wrote it, and then I got to be pretty good friends with him, and it seemed like
the natural thing to do. We just started doing it live and since it was so easy we said
well let's do it on the record."
But the Junk Monkeys
aren't to be mistaken for rock historians; they’ve got their own entry in the Detroit
rock hall of fame with "Lost My Faith", the opening salvo on Firehouse.
Dave seems almost oblivious to how great a song they have on their hands there; asked
about how it was written he replies: "Oh, geez, I don't even know. I didn't write the
music for that one; that I think was mostly Dave and Kevin. In fact, I think it might have
been Kevin's only riff that he ever wrote. That might be the one. I like the song;
last summer Detroit radio deemed that worthy of play and it got played a lot, so it seems
weird that we actually got played on regular FM radio. I like the song a lot, though. We
still play it live, and it's a cool song. I didn't think it was...yeah, everybody does
seem to pick it out, but I didn't think it was the best song on the album, or anything. I
don't even know how to play that riff. I couldn't even play it if I had to. I only play
guitar on bits and pieces of that song. The way Dave structured the whole song is kind of
strange. It's going to be the lead song on the new album. In fact I'm almost positive
Metal Blade wants us to call the album Lost My Faith, but I think we're going to
just pass that one right by. I'm glad you like it...it's definitely a cool song. Hopefully
other people will think so when they get the record."
So if that's not the
best, which song is? "Well, actually, it probably was the best, but the song I was
happiest with on the record was "Anywhere With You". I just liked the way it
came off. I don't know, probably just because I was surprised that it came off halfway
decent, because before we made the record we never really did that song very often.
"Lost My Faith" I knew it would be kind of easy to do in the studio; we'd been
playing it live for a couple of months. But "Anywhere With You" was kind of a
last minute thing. I definitely like "Lost My Faith"; I like the way they are on
the album right next to each other...I think those are the two best ones. A couple of the
songs on that first record are left over from the Mystery Girls days..."Fever
Riot", "Lookin' For Fun" and "Front Row Park" are all from our
Dolls days. We still do "Lookin' For Fun", but the other ones we don't do
anymore."
All the band members
play their instruments with a lot of energy as well as ability, but one of the keys for me
to the Junk Monkeys is Dan's chaotic drumming, filled with all kinds of stutter beats and
the sort of crashing breaks that would've made Keith Moon happy to hear. And apparently
there's a certain sort of weirdness needed to produce that style, as Dave relates:
"Yeah, well Danny's either on a much higher plane than anybody or a much lower plane,
I dunno. Danny's just a very strange person...he's just very, very strange. There's
nothing more you can say about Danny. Like today...he lives out in Ypsilanti which is like
20 miles away going to eastern Michigan and our guitar player called me today and
said...well...Dan doesn't have a phone so we can hardly ever get a hold of him. Like he'll
just appear one day so we can practice and stuff, so we'll let him know what's going on.
Anyway, I guess somebody was walking by his house and noticed his house was on fire, and
they walked around up to the front of the house and there's Danny sitting with his
girlfriend on the porch, and his house was burning inside. And the guy said "Dan your
house is on fire". And Danny said "That's cool". That's Danny. This
happened last night. The whole house didn't burn down, but like a corner of the room
burned down. Like he had a candle set on a bunch of drums and it burned the drums and
burned up some curtains and stuff. But that's Danny; that's a perfect little story about
Danny.
"We definitely
couldn't do without Danny. Him and Kevin practice a lot between themselves to try to lock
in together. Dave and I have no idea, you know? I've jammed with people at bars and stuff
and I can't even play guitar if Dan and Kevin aren't the rhythm section because it doesn't
even feel right. Those guys are real good players. Sometimes I don't think of them as
being any good, because we're the only band any of us have ever been in. We all learned
how to play together and that's the only way we've ever learned, so if somebody quit we'd
probably all break up and go back to our jobs and you'd never hear from us again."
Firehouse
indeed!
