The Damned - the Chaos Years: An Unofficial Biography

By Barry Hutchinson

For the past 40 years original pioneers of punk The Damned have been thrilling fans across the world with their awesome, yet often unpredictable live performances and genre defining music. In 2017 The Damned are still going strong and along the way have influenced countless other bands that would follow in their footsteps such as Black Flag, Nirvana, Rancid, Bad Brains, Green Day, Offspring, TSOL and Guns n’ Roses to name but a few. This biography, written by longtime fan and author of a popular Damned website ‘Second Time Around’, Barry Hutchinson, celebrates the first 20 years – often referred to as the Chaos Years, and arguably the most prolific of the band’s history. It records their crazy antics both on and off stage, their often troublesome gigs and their memorable music. With exclusive interviews from all band members past and present, plus never before published photos, this book is a must read for all Damned fans wanting an insight to the band’s iconic history.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Jul 21, 2017
• ISBN: 9780244921552

Book preview

The Damned - the Chaos Years: An Unofficial Biography

The Damned - The Chaos Years

An Unofficial Biography

by Barry Hutchinson

Copyright © 2017 by Barry Hutchinson

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review or scholarly journal.

First Printing: April 2017

Second Edition: July 2017

ISBN: 978-0-244-92155-2

Publisher: Barry Hutchinson

http://secondtimearound-mge.000webhostapp.com

[Front cover image] The Damned 1979 - Copyright Ace Records Archive

Dedication

This book is dedicated to my dear wife, Joanne.

Thank you for your love and patience while I spent days, nights and weekends writing this book. Your support is everything to me.

Acknowledgements

Unless otherwise indicated in this book, all interviews with the various band members and associates were conducted by this author. The full unabridged interviews are available via my fan website ‘Second Time Around’ http://secondtimearound-mge.000webhostapp.com

Additional interview material with Dave, Rat and Captain included in this book was reproduced with the kind the permission of journalists/fanzine writers: David Martin, Mark Phillips, Jack Rabid, Henrik Poulson, Simon Rance and Bill Davies. Further interview material was sourced from a series of ‘Messageboard interviews’ – questions and answers provided to fans on the Official Damned website.

All band member quotes from live shows are as transcribed by the author, from his extensive collection of over 800 live recordings of The Damned over the years. Unless noted otherwise, all photographs used in this book were courtesy of the author’s private collection. We attempted, where possible, to contact copyright holders. If we have inadvertently published a photograph without credit, please contact the publishers so that the omission can be corrected in the next edition.

Sincere thanks then to The Damned, both past and present members, who so kindly agreed to assist the author during the research for this biography. Special thanks to both Captain and Rat who over the years in writing this book, helpfully answered any questions put to them.

In no particular order the author would also like to thank: Brian James, Paul Gray, Roman Jugg, Bryn Merrick, Jason Harris, Alan Lee Shaw, Henry Badowski, Pete Saunders, Raymond Burns, Chris Millar, Fran Wintein, Andrew Czezowski, Roger Armstrong, Andrew Le Vien, Randy MacDonald, Gareth Ashton, Andy Scott, Farah Hart, Lu Edmonds, Julian Isaacs, Alasdair Ward, Paul Henderson, Mark Gilham, Cursty Kistner, Ron Watts and finally Richard Smith whose gigography served as invaluable reference point.

Finally, a big thank you to everyone else who helped and assisted during the research for this book; space does not permit me to mention everyone here, but you all know who you are.

About The Author

Barry Hutchinson was born in 1969 and grew up in the naval town of Portsmouth on the south coast of England. It was as a teenager that his musical interests were first awakened to 1970s punk/new wave after being given a compilation cassette tape of punk anthems. One of the bands on that tape were The Damned – and it would be this band in particular with whom the author would develop a life-long interest. 

In the late 1980s, in typical punk DIY fashion, he put together the popular ‘Damned Fanzine’ Second Time Around. A passionate collector of all things ‘Damned’, over the years he has amassed possibly one of the largest collections of both audio and video recordings of The Damned live on stage. He runs the popular Facebook page ‘The Damned - Rare videos 1976 -> present’ which seeks to preserve and share video footage of the band and is also the author of the original Damned fan website (created early 1997), which inherited the name of his earlier fanzine: http://secondtimearound-mge.000webhostapp.com

Barry studied Computer Science at University of West of England as a mature student in the mid-1990s, achieving a BSc Hons. He currently works as an IT Specialist in the defence sector, and lives in Chichester with his wife Joanne. In August 2015 he published his first book After The Lights Go Out: A Biography of The Phantom Chords which is available from Lulu.com, Amazon and other online book sellers.

Barry Hutchinson April 2017

The author can be contact via email address: [e-mail]

Introduction

Under the direction of original guitarist, songwriter and visionary Brian James, The Damned released the groundbreaking and genre defining New Rose in October 1976. It was the first UK punk single to be released – beating rivals The Sex Pistols, The Clash and The Stranglers by several weeks and even months. Their classic punk albums Damned Damned Damned and Music For Pleasure soon followed and set the bar for many acts that followed. The Damned were the first UK punk band to build up a sizable following, the first to play a major venue, the first to tour outside of London and the first British group to take punk music to America! After the original line-up split, the band reformed without Brian in the summer of 1978. Captain switched from bass to lead guitar and together with Dave, Rat and Algy Ward they wrote and recorded the epic Machine Gun Etiquette album in 1979 which spawned hit singles Love Song, I Just Can’t Be Happy Today and Smash It Up. In 1980, with new bassist Paul Gray on board, they released the darker psychedelic influenced Black Album, which was followed by Friday 13th EP in 1981 and the breezy pop-punk of Strawberries in 1982.

By this time Captain had a huge solo hit on his hands with Happy Talk, and the band stagnated somewhat. Despite being one of the most popular live acts in Britain, selling out venues everywhere, no record label would touch them with a barge pole – their reputation being so formidable as an unmanageable group. When Captain left in 1984, this marked the end of the Scabies/Sensible partnership and with it went a lot of the lunacy and chaos that had previously surrounded the band. With Roman Jugg on guitar and Bryn Merrick on bass, they were then signed to major label MCA whereby they achieved their biggest commercial success with the ‘goth rock’ inspired Phantasmagoria album in 1985, which spawned hits Is It A Dream, Grimly Fiendish and Shadow of Love. In 1986 they had their biggest hit with Eloise which made number 2 in the UK charts and was soon followed by their second album on MCA Anything along with the singles Gigolo, Anything, In Dulce Decorum and Alone Again Or. When Dave, Roman and Bryn quit The Damned in early 1989 to form the rockabilly outfit ‘The Phantom Chords’, Rat set about putting together a series of reunion shows with original members. The reunion shows continued over the next few years, until the end of 1992 when Rat put together a new line-up of The Damned with Dave. Recruiting ex-Godfathers guitarist Kris Dollimore, ex-New Model Army bassist Moose and ex-Physicals Alan Lee Shaw they released the 1995 album I’m Alright Jack and The Beanstalk. After a fall out between Rat and Dave over song writing credits, Rat dissolved the band. This break up would then lead to Dave and ex-Damned guitarist Captain forming yet another line-up in 1996 – a line-up which is still going strong today, twenty years later in 2017! The current line-up of the band, consisting of original members Dave Vanian and Captain Sensible, is the longest running and, some would say, ‘happiest line-up’ of the band, with Stu West on bass, Andrew Pinching on drums and Monty on keyboards.

Despite their lack of commercial success in the early days, the band always had a huge following in the UK and other countries. Primarily this was down to their records, but also their unique live shows which were unlike other bands who usually sounded exactly like their records – The Damned didn’t! Usually high on drink and drugs, their live shows were loud, incredibly fast and full of energy. Fans were also drawn to the likeable and down to earth characters in the band and it was the band’s distinctly English style of ‘Carry-On’ humour up on stage, along with Captain’s mock-insults and abuse of the audience that endeared fans to the band. They went to great lengths to assure the audience that they weren’t rock stars, and that they were no different to them and fans loved them for this. Off stage members of the band would regularly mix and socialize with fans before and after shows, signing autographs and having a beer with fans at the local pub. 

Right from the start, the band consisted of four larger than life characters, each competing with each other for the limelight. Their stage show bordered on theatrical at times, with vocalist Dave Vanian looking the part of a vampire in Victorian clothing, Rat Scabies looking and playing the part of a typical ‘football hooligan’ and of course the zany Captain Sensible who one night could be wearing a nurses outfit, or a ballerinas outfit, or other times walk on stage in full cricket attire! Live shows were usually an assault on the senses – a pure adrenalin rush of energy and excitement.

It was of course The Damned’s self-destructive element that prevented them from obtaining the success of their peers in the early days. Fueled by cheap drugs and alcohol, The Damned quickly became punk’s most notorious hell raisers, bringing anarchy, chaos and destruction to venues and hotels up and down the country. During this period they frequently left a trail of damages everywhere they went – there were stories of Molotov cocktails being thrown out of hotel windows, curtains set alight, exploding televisions, fire extinguishers being let off and trashed rooms. In the early days, there were venues and even cities that banned The Damned from playing, such was their reputation. The unstoppable team of pranksters Captain and Rat were usually the ringleaders, and it was their self-destructive element that ultimately prevented the band from obtaining the respect and recognition in the early days. It was all in the name of fun and frivolity, but of course at the end of the day it was The Damned that paid for it all. By the time a venue deducted their bill for damages, the band would usually end up owing more than they made.

In this unofficial biography of The Damned, author and longtime fan Barry Hutchinson covers in detail the history of the band’s first twenty years – arguably their most active and prominent in their career. Drawing from exclusive interviews with both current and ex-members, the full story is told for the first time.  It covers the bands many ups and downs along the way, as well as examining the incredible music that they wrote. The title of the book – ‘The Damned – The Chaos Years’ is indicative of the band during this period, when they brought anarchy, chaos and destruction wherever they went.

1976: Genesis of The Damned

The month of June 1976 began with a heat wave which led to the hottest summer in the UK since records began. The country suffered a severe drought, and it was one of the driest, sunniest and warmest summers of the 20th century. This long hot summer also saw the birth of a new youth culture, soon to be known as ‘punk’ or ‘new wave’. The movement began in London with a group of likeminded young people who felt disillusioned due to mass unemployment, strikes, poverty, racism and other issues occurring in Britain at that time. Mainstream music was deemed ‘stagnant and boring’, most often with lyrics that were so far removed from daily life, that the young generation simply couldn’t relate. These kids wanted something new and exciting, they wanted a new genre of music and one which they could call their own.

The formation of what would become the punk movement actually started to come together as early as 1974/75 with bands such as The Stranglers, Slaughter and The Dogs, Sex Pistols and The 101ers appearing on the pub circuit. Some of these new groups, were inspired musically by US acts such as MC5, The Stooges, New York Dolls and The Ramones.

It would be in the short lived ‘London SS’ that guitarist Brian James was first introduced to drummer Chris Millar and where the story of The Damned then really begins; with Brian James – their founding member, original guitarist and song writer. A gifted musician who in 1976 was chiefly responsible for pioneering a new and exciting sound – a sound which would later be labelled as punk rock/new wave music.

Brian Robertson was born in Hammersmith, West London on 18th February 1955. At the age of eight his family relocated to Crawley in Sussex where he lived until his mid-teens. It was Christmas 1968 when his parents bought him his first guitar. I didn’t really know what I wanted, and just said ‘get me a guitar!’, but I didn’t really touch it for about six months. Then one day I went down to this local gig, and there was this band playing at the local hall. Basically their whole set was the first Rolling Stones album.

A fan of the Stones, Brian was impressed at what he was hearing and was further intrigued when he recognised one of the kids in the band from his neighbourhood. "I said ‘Hey Nigel, any chance you could show me a couple of chords?’ and he said sure, of course he would. He helped me tune my guitar and all this sort of stuff. The first thing he actually taught me wasn’t a Rolling Stones song but it was an old Howlin’ Wolf song called Smoked Stack Lightnin’, and once I managed to get that down, as well as I could do it, then he'd show me a couple more chords, and I'd be listening to early Rolling Stones and Pretty Things stuff on my record player, so I started learning stuff from that. It was however You Really Got Me, by The Kinks that was the one that really got me. It was the first song that I learnt all of the way through. Some good riffs there."

Brian was educated at Hazelwick School in Crawley – that was until he was unceremoniously kicked out. I didn't like to go too much, confesses James. I preferred to play guitar with my mates. The minute I reached 15 years of age, and with the Easter break coming up, the headmaster called me in and he said ‘Well. You don't want to be here - and we don't want you here so you might as well just go now’. I thought ‘Great!’ Which meant I could start playing my guitar.

After leaving school Brian worked in a number of factories, whilst devoting his spare time to playing guitar. He would perform in a few covers type bands over the next few years, before putting together his first band – a Stooges/MC5 influenced ‘high energy’ outfit named ‘Bastard’. The band was formed in August 1975 and was based in Sussex playing the Crawley/Brighton area. We were kind of like a punk band before the punk thing came along. We were drawing influences from the MC5 and the Stooges, and the Pretty Things. But due to the controversial choice of band name, it often proved difficult getting live gigs in England.

It was around this time that Brian came to be known as Brian James. "At the time there was another guitar player called Brian Robertson, and he was playing in Thin Lizzy, so I just did not want to get confused with him. James was the ideal thing as I grew up getting into the Raw Power album, and what with Iggy’s Christian name being James and also the guitar player being called James Williamson - my favourite guitar player at that particular point in time, it just had to be James"

In early 1975 they relocated to Belgium as nothing much was happening for the band back home and because singer Alan Ward had been offered a job as a recording engineer there at Morgan Studios - the first 24 track studio in Europe. The band in Brussels comprised of Brian James on guitar, Nobby Goff on drums, Yves Kengen on bass and Alan Ward on vocals. Over the next few months the band performed shows in and around Brussels and Antwerp. James remembers: It was great because everybody over there already knew about Lou Reed and Iggy Pop and all this sort of stuff, and our music really went down a storm. It all worked out really well.

Some demos were recorded, which included Comfort and Dr Gong. Brian had written the music whilst Alan provided the lyrics. It is worth noting here that Brian would later rework Comfort as Alone in The Damned. More interestingly, riffs and bits and pieces of Dr Gong would later be reused for New Rose. 

By the summer Brian decided to return home, with the band splitting up not long afterwards. James recalls, I came back to England, and answered an advert in Melody Maker for a couple of people who were into the Stooges and – as far as I knew, no one in England had ever fuckin heard of the Stooges!. Arriving for the audition at an address in Paddington, he met Mick Jones and Tony James who were forming a band called ‘London SS’. Tony James remembers, He said 'I'm a lead guitarist and I'm really into the Stooges’ - which fitted our plans perfectly! As soon as we saw him we said this is the guy because he had just the New York Doll image we wanted.

Brian would became one of the semi-permanent members of the band working with them on tracks such as Protex Blue (later by the Clash), Portobello Reds (later recorded by the Damned as Fish) and covers of Slow Death (Flamin’ Groovies) and Rambling Rose (MC5). The band spent many hours rehearsing in the basement of the Fountains Abbey pub and were forever auditioning for members as musicians came and went. Other musicians that either auditioned or rehearsed with London SS included Paul Simonon, Terry Chimes, Kelvin Blacklock and a drummer by the name of Chris Millar…

One afternoon Tony and Mick wandered down to a rehearsal room in Denmark Street, in order to meet up with Malcolm McLaren with a view to being managed. On arrival they would also meet members of the Sex Pistols, along with Malcolm and a friend of his Bernie Rhodes. It soon transpired that both Malcolm and Bernie were looking for other groups to manage, although they seemed more interested in image and creating a look. All of the Pistols had short, spikey hair cuts – unlike the guys in London SS, along with the majority of youngsters in England at this time who had long hair! Suitably inspired Mick Jones went and got his hair cut, soon followed by the other band members. By December Bernie Rhodes had begun to manage the band, just as they were looking for a drummer. Says James, I’d been in London SS for about 3 months and all we did was audition all these idiots who had no idea at all, and then Rat came along. Mick and Tony didn’t like him, but I did.

Scabies recalls, I answered an advertisement in the Melody Maker for the London SS. I rang up and had to speak to Bernie, and we got into a sort of argument on the phone, and he liked my attitude, so he said ‘Come down and play’. I went down and there was Mick Jones, Tony James and Brian James.

It was during one of the rehearsals with London SS that Chris Millar was given the nickname Rat Scabies. Mick Jones remembers, He had Scabies when he came down, and there was a rat in the rehearsal room sitting behind the drum stool. I remember Bernie putting newspapers down where Chris sat because he thought he was going to catch something. So we christened him Rat Scabies.

Rat would attend a few rehearsals with London SS, however in the end Mick and Tony decided he wasn’t suited for their band. James reminisces, As much as I enjoyed playing with Mick and Tony, I think they were more into the pose of rock ‘n’ roll. They were into the image thing. So when Rat came down it just showed the men from the boys. I don’t want to knock anyone, but when Rat came down and gave it his all we just sparked. I just looked at the other guys and they were going, ‘He doesn’t look right,’ and I was thinking, ‘I don’t give a fuck what he looks like, listen to him play!’ Brian liked Rat though, and there had been a real ‘spark’ between them when they played together. They agreed to stay in touch, although it would be a while before they would meet again. By the end of 1975, Brian himself would quit London SS.

London SS was a sort of prototype punk band – they never actually played a gig and only recorded a few demos. Despite this, London SS played a significant role in the formation of a number of punk bands, as members would eventually go on to form other bands such as The Clash, Chelsea, The Boys, Generation X and of course The Damned.

Rat Scabies – born Chris Millar on 30th July 1955, was brought up by his grandparents on a council estate in Kingston Upon Thames. He never knew his mother as she had left his father whilst still a baby. By the time he was five years old he had fallen in love with the drums. Scabies recalls, "I had a small record player with a few singles and a couple of albums. The records I remember the best are ‘My boy lollipop’, ‘Bits and pieces’ and ‘Drumming up a storm’. I also had a jazz compilation album called ‘The Golden age of dance bands’ that featured Sing sing sing, which I suppose is why I always had a lot of time for jazz, cos nearly every tune has a drum solo."

His Grandparents would allow him to stay up late to watch Eric Delaney play drums on the then popular UK television show ‘Sunday Night At the London Palladium’. He was mesmerised. From then onwards he nagged them constantly until they finally relented and bought him his first drum kit. Scabies fondly recalls, One Christmas (1963 I think) I finally got given a proper turquoise sparkly ‘John Grey Autocrat’ drum kit, with my name painted on the bass drum and everything.

A self-taught drummer, he grew up with the love of any music style that featured a lot of drums. Keith Moon (of The Who) was always high on the list but I used to listen to and was probably more influenced by Sandy Nelson, via Gene Krupa with the Dave Clark 5 thrown in, I also listened to a lot of Ginger Baker, Mitch Mitchell, and of course Kenny Clare & Ronnie Stephenson.

Educated at Elliot Comprehensive School in Putney, he left as soon as he was able to. After leaving school he flitted from job to job, unable to hold down any work for any length of time. Seemingly unsuited for employment he had tried his hand at many careers including an insurance salesman, warehouseman, painter and even as a bouncer at a night club!

By 1974 he was playing in a local band named ‘Tor’, who performed in and around the Croydon area. In addition to this he also worked for a pantomime company playing drums. Towards the end of the year he took on yet another new job – this time as a porter at Fairfield Halls in Croydon. Although Raymond Burns (aka Captain Sensible) also worked there, it would be several days before the two got to meet due to Captain’s appalling sense of time keeping. Captain worked there as a toilet cleaner and usherette. They hit it off immediately, and became best of friends, discovering they shared a common interest in anti-authority. Once their work was done for the day, they would idle away the rest of the working day clowning around and causing havoc. Sensible laughs, I had fourteen toilets to clean and usually had them all finished by about 10:30am, it was a council job so it paid quite well.

Captain Sensible – was born Raymond Burns in Balham, London on 24th April 1954. At six years of age, the Burns family upped sticks and moved to Croydon, where he grew up and where he was educated at Stanley Technical High. As young teenagers Ray and his younger brother Phil became interested in music, and in particular were fans of English progressive rock bands such as ‘Pink Floyd’, ‘Family’, ‘Traffic’ and ‘Soft Machine’. See Emily Play by Syd Barrett (Pink Floyd) was the first song that really made an impression on him. Sensible recalls, "I remember I was going to school with a little transistor radio and I was listening to See Emily Play on the breakfast programme. Tony Blackburn was the DJ and I just had to sit down and listen to it even though I was running late. It was just so mind blowing, this fucking song blew my brains out. And from that moment I was aware of the power of the emotion of music."

Around 1970 whilst still at school, the brothers formed their first band which they called ‘Black Witch Climax Blues band’. Two of Phil’s classmates Dave Batchelor (aka Berk) and Colin Mills (aka Fred Berk) also joined them. Over the next few years the band would mutate into ‘Genetic Breakdown’, before becoming an early version of the ‘Johnny Moped’ band with other members coming and going. Captain would struggle at school and despite showing a keen interest in music, was unable to find the encouragement he needed in music class. But despite being unable to read music, he still taught himself how to play guitar and keyboards. All I remember is getting caned every week and skipping off as much as I possibly could, Sensible recalls. I hated school because they were just teaching you to be a cog in a machine, though I didn’t realise it until afterwards. At the time I couldn’t understand why I hated it so much and kept getting caned. They stifled every bit of creativity we had. I wanted to learn the guitar but they said ‘violins only’. When I did go into the violin class they chucked me out because they said I was tone deaf! At the same time I was actually playing in bands and all they could say was, ‘That’s just pipe dreams, you’ll never make a living through music’ – which shows how much they knew!

After leaving school it was a similar story to Rat and Brian, with Captain also working his way through many jobs in a short period of time. Sensible says, When I left school I rethought all my ideas from marriage to religion, politics, the empire, the bomb – everything. I basically learnt a load of rubbish at school, they were still teaching us about The Empire and the red bits of the map and how Britain is a shining example of democracy.

His first job was as a carpet cleaner, which didn’t last long before he left to become a typewriter mechanic trainee. From there he went on to be a landscape gardener working in parks and big housing estates planting trees. It was in October 1974 that Captain started work at Croydon Fairfield hall as a porter and toilet cleaner. They put on a pop group every Sunday and T.Rex was one of them. I had to put this awful uniform on and stand there with a torch and show people to their seats and all of that stuff. The main job really was the heavy handed approach, sort of stop the punters running down to the stage to dance. I remember when Bolan played there I was quite pleased he was playing, and I’m afraid I ran down the front with the punters. I was in amongst this really sweaty, steamy quite vibrant, exciting bunch of young nubile females and I thought – this is where it’s at! I thought, he is up there on stage and he has obviously got a better job than I have got, you know, because tomorrow I’d be cleaning toilets and he’d be doing another gig somewhere with the same adulation and all that. I thought I’d like his job, but then I joined The Damned and it wasn’t quite the same because instead of the girls we got three thousand screaming geezers who were all throwing cans and spitting at us!

By January 1975 Rat had been sacked from Fairfield halls, with Captain also losing his job soon after. A few months later they found themselves working together again – this time for a building firm doing rendering. Once the foreman realised that neither of them knew what they were doing, they were reassigned to ‘demolition’ tasks. They both enjoyed this work so much, that they ended up working overtime for free one night not realising how late it was!

During the summer of 1975 Captain foolishly decided to move out of home and squatted in Brighton for a few months. I ended up in a hovel. I’m not very good at doing the washing and that. I would open a tin and shove it on the cooker. I didn’t like living like that, so I thought to hell with it, I’ll go back! And I liked my mum and dad as well so that was no problem. Back in Croydon he joined a local cabaret band called ‘Oasis’ which although wasn’t his ‘cup of tea’ musically speaking, it was a paid job and at least it allowed him to perform. Back in London he would stay in touch with Rat, often attending some of the great parties that he would throw at his London flat, where all and sundry would be invited.

It was sometime in early December – not long after his London SS audition, that Rat bumped into Sex Pistols manager Malcolm McClaren at a Pink Fairies gig. Malcolm knew he was a drummer and had heard good things about him through Bernie Rhodes. Before the end of the evening Malcom asked for his contact details. Scabies remembers, The next day he came round to my bedsit in Portobello road, with Chrissie Hynde and Nick Kent and asked if I wanted to be in a band with these two, which he was going to manage. I was interested because it was Malcolm – he was the man with the money. Nick was a journalist for the NME, along with Chrissie, his then girlfriend. However, the project did not get off the ground, as a week later Nick pulled out after splitting up with Chrissie.

Undeterred, Malcolm quickly followed up with yet another idea, this time bringing in a couple of singers. One was the dark haired and mysterious looking Dave Lett, and the other, Dave Zero aka White being the complete opposite with blonde hair and rather effeminate traits. Scabies recalls, Chrissie was going to play guitar but she wasn’t much of a guitarist and she wouldn’t sing, and Malcolm’s idea was to disguise her as a boy and she was the guitarist. Unable to find a bass player, Rat brought in his friend Captain, on loan from ‘Johnny Moped’, to help out. We were stuck for a bass player, and the only person I knew with a bass was Captain, adds Scabies.

This new venture was provisionally named ‘Masters of The Backside’. They would spend less than a week rehearsing in a small room, located underneath a fish and chip shop in Paddington before disbanding. During that short time they performed covers which included Spencer Davis Gimmie some Lovin and The Troggs I Can’t Control Myself along with some new material that they had begun working on. When Chrissie asked Dave Lett what he did for a living, she was somewhat taken aback to discover he was a grave digger! It was soon realised that Dave Zero was too shy to be a performer – singing in a rehearsal room was one thing, but he was reluctant to perform in front of an audience.

Captain "Malcolm came with his entourage to see us on the fourth day of rehearsal and he said ‘Work a set out’, you know, ‘Get as many songs together as you can’, and we did some of our own songs and we did some cover versions. I remember one we did was I can’t Control Myself and it goes ‘oh no, bam bam bam..’ and you imagine Dave all in black and this bloke dressed in white, a mirror image of each other, both singing and going ‘Bam bam bam..’. It was brilliant! But I remember McLaren and whoever it was that was watching the rehearsal, just sat there laughing their heads off and McLaren said: ‘Fuck off!’ He thought we were such rubbish, so that was the end of that one!" Needless to say, the project didn’t work out, and a few days later everyone would go off and do their own thing – this time without any involvement from Malcolm. Chrissie would eventually form her own band ‘The Pretenders’ and have huge commercial success.

At this time Rat, along with Brian James and other kindred spirits could often be found hanging around the Portobello Road area of London and in particular at the Lonsdale pub. It is interesting to note that many of these aspiring musicians and artists would soon form some of the early British punk/new wave bands. Another popular hangout was at the SEX boutique shop in Kings Road, Chelsea which was run by Malcolm McLaren and his then girlfriend the fashion designer Vivienne Westwood. Also on the Kings Road was ACME Attractions, owned by John Krevine which sold retro clothes. Thanks to its manager and DJ Don Letts who pumped out reggae and dub music, ACME also became a popular meeting place for both new wave and reggae music fans. There was a lot of things being tried out cos there was a sort of a scene developing, recalls James. People were trying out ideas and things like that. A lot of this was coming from Malcolm McLaren. Bernie Rhodes was working for Malcolm, although they were more focused on promoting this shop the ‘SEX’ shop to begin with. It was a very inspirational time. There was a retro 50s thing coming out like that through people like Andy Czezowski and John Krevine who had their own shops, then there was also the whole New York scene going on, with bands such as Ramones etc.

It was in January 1976 that Brian – who had recently quit London SS, decided to form a band of his own. In his mind there was only one drummer who would be right for his band. Scabies recalls, He said that he’d rather go off and form a band with me. So I said okay. It was this significant moment that would prove to be the early beginnings of ‘The Damned’. Now they needed a bassist. Rat remembered his friend Captain and thought he would be the ideal candidate, so went around to his home in Croydon to persuade him to join. This would be the first time they had seen each other in weeks, and Captain was shocked to see that Rat had cut off his long hair. Rat explained how he had met this really inspirational guitarist who had this vision of a new and exciting music scene, which he believed was starting to take shape in London. Brian was very clear about what he wanted to do, which was essentially to continue what he had been doing with his previous band Bastard, but he now needed the right musicians to take it onto a whole new level musically; and what he wanted were musicians with attitude and energy – Long hair and flares were also out! Brian had already written a whole bunch of original songs and once Captain had been introduced to Brian and had listened to his original material and ideas, he too found himself convinced by this visionary. Sensing the buzz and excitement of something completely new, he immediately agreed to join. Not long afterwards, Captain also cut off his long hair.

Brian had by now moved to a basement flat in Kilburn. Rat and Captain would stay over at his for a while whereby Brian would play them Stooges/MC5/Pretty Things records, over and over again. It was this style of music he would explain, that had the energy and attitude that he wanted to bring to The Damned.

The three of them began rehearsing at a small rehearsal studio in a disused church hall, which doubled-up as a gay club just off Lisson Grove in West London. It was Brian who came up with the name of the band – they would be called The Damned. James explains, "I had the name and had wanted to use it for a long time. It came from the 1969 Visconti film called The Damned staring Dirk Bogarde. I liked it because of the decadent thing, and also there was a couple of British films, Village of the Damned and Children of the Damned – about mothers who became pregnant with strange, threatening children."

Even at this early stage, Brian already had plenty of original material, both old and new. Some of the songs were made up of riffs that he had used in his previous band. About a third of them had something going for them before, but none of the songs were the same as what I had done in Bastard, offers James. New Rose, One of The 2 and Alone were the three main songs that had been reworked from the Bastard days and also now had completely new lyrics. New Rose was a riff that had been flying around for ages and I didn’t know what to do with it. I liked the riff so put it on the back burner, and it wasn’t until I started playing with Rat Scabies and everybody else in The Damned that the song just happened somehow! I was back in my flat, and the rest of the song just fell together like a dream you know. The whole thing was written in fifteen minutes, cos the riffs had all been hanging around for fuckin three or four years. The riff used to be a good work out riff for me and my drummer Nobby in Bastard. We used to jam on it for ages, but I didn’t know where to go with it.

This was the very early beginnings of The Damned. It was very much Brian’s band at this time, and it was him who tended to ‘call all the shots’; he was older, had lots of previous experience in playing in bands and also writing and recording. A few auditions were held for a singer in March, however nobody suitable was found until the following month.

It was on 23rd April at a Sex Pistols show at the Nashville Rooms that Brian and Rat would find their vocalist. Whilst they were standing at the bar having a drink, in walked Pistols fan John Beverley (later known as Sid Vicious), wearing a gold lamé jacket looking like a star. He looked impressive, however literally fifteen minutes later David Lett walked in, wearing a black leather jacket, shades and with his hair combed back ‘New York Dolls’ style. He looked as immaculate then as he always has done – whatever style of clothing he chooses, he has always been able to wear it with a unique style. Vanian says, I have always dressed like this. It’s linked to old movies from the 1930s and 1940s, really. I’ve always loved the medium of films. This was the first time Brian had set eyes on him. When Brian commented that David also looked like a singer, Rat replied that he already knew him.

After being introduced they invited Dave down to the Church hall, in Lisson Grove the following Saturday to audition for The Damned. Sid was also invited to audition, yet failed to turn up. I thought I’d get there early and see what the competition was like, recalls Vanian. But the other person didn’t turn up, so I got the job. It turned out the other guy was Sid Vicious, so if I hadn’t turned up and he had, Sid could have been the Damned’s singer.

Scabies remembers, Dave came in and he went berserk and started smashing things up. Everybody went ‘That’s our man!’ James adds, Dave was quite a wild little guy. It was like I had found my Iggy Pop, you know back then. But he is totally different now, he has really sort of evolved. There really is no one else like him. Which is great! It was down to Brian to show Dave how he wanted him to sing his songs. Brian would give me a sheet of lyrics scrawled out, and I’d say how does it go?, Vanian recalls. "He’d play the guitar, and go ‘yeah baby, it goes like this.. blah la la la’ in your ear – once and then I had to try and sing the damn thing! At the very beginning though it was a case of I’d never actually sang before so I had to learn quickly and it was also a case of I wasn’t writing the songs at the beginning so it was very much me having to interpret other peoples songs and they were pretty wild, you know, I wasn’t really singing. I was kind of screaming a lot and as much as that’s great fun and all, it wasn’t until later with things like Curtain Call and songs later on that I was able to actually sing."

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One of the first songs that Dave was asked to sing to was New Rose – which of course would soon prove to be the very first of the ‘new wave’ songs to be committed to vinyl. Rat’s monumental opening ‘thud-thud’ jungle drum beat sets the scene before Brian’s guitar starts up, delivering a huge powerhouse chord riff (Chords: D B E A) over the top. "Rat really inspired me at the beginning of New Rose, which is really obvious, offers James. I had wanted just a little bit of jungle drums or something like that at the beginning, and he fuckin just smashed his drum kit apart - you know what I mean?! And I was like wow! Do that again." The intro then gives way to a final ‘thud-thud’ on the drums, followed by a brief pause in which Dave hollers the immortal ‘Ugh!’ just as the guitar switches to the second riff – a sliding guitar riff (Chords: F#5 G#5 E5) which leads nicely into the verse (Chords: C D). Brian’s memorable lyrics are written in the first person and talk of a romantic angst, with the first line ‘I got a feeling inside of me. It’s kinda strange like a stormy sea..’ which Dave delivers in his own refreshingly inimitable style.

David Vanian was born David Lett on 12th October 1956 and was educated at Bourne Valley Secondary Modern school, Hemel Hempstead. An only child he is also half Latvian on his father’s side. His interest in music began when he was around seven. I was really quite young offers Vanian. The first music I was exposed to was big band, swing and German tango music and gradually to bands like ‘The Zombies’ and ‘The Animals’.

As a youngster he has fond memories of staying up late to listen in to the ‘Wolfman Jack show’ on his transistor radio, which was a feature on the radio station ‘American Forces Network Europe’. The DJ would play a lot of garage bands such as The Seeds and The Prunes – which were virtually unheard of in England at that time. When kids were listening to The Beatles and all that sort of stuff, I used to listen to this station, offers Vanian. It was only on at midnight, and it was a show for the kids that were out in the army that were conscripted in Germany. But you could hear it, and there was this guy that used to play all of this garage stuff. It was really good. It was great because no one had ever heard of Wolfman Jack in England. And no one knew who the Shadows Of Knight were or any of those people were in England at that time either. They were unheard of, they never had records in England. So I knew all of these bands and all this kind of psychedelic stuff.

It is probably no surprise to anyone who knows him, but Dave also developed an interest in old horror films from an early age too. Vanian explains, I was the kind of kid who would stay up and watch the midnight horror movie on TV while mother would run around the couch trying to hide my eyes! I could never understand why the other kids didn’t like these kinds of movies. That’s why I always liked America, as it seemed to me that all the kids there had huge Bela Lugosi posters up on their bedroom walls, and I was stuck in England with a bunch of kids more interested in playing football! That was the best time, when Hammer Films were doing really well and you could grow up reading Famous Monsters of Filmland!

An introvert, Dave was at school the quiet, creative type and therefore often found himself as the outsider. One day in class everyone had to recite some Greek mythology, and to give the occasion some atmosphere, Holst’s Planet Suite was used. The music impressed Dave more than the mythology. Vanian says, I always wanted something different, I went to secondary modern school and all they cared about was football. They didn’t class music or painting as a serious subject. I spent most of my early years getting beaten up or nearly expelled because I was always in the art room. He was a naturally talented artist and if he hadn’t chosen a career as a singer in The Damned, he’d have liked to have been a comic-book illustrator. I always fancied getting across to America and working as an inker on the Batman comics.

Seeing the New York Dolls in November 1973 and watching singer David Johansen strutting around the stage, he first sensed the energy and excitement that seemed to spread from the band to the audience and vice versa. It made such an unforgettable impression on this fifteen year old that he decided he would also like to perform on stage one day.

David worked as a grave digger for two and a half years at Heath Lane cemetery in Hemel Hempstead. Recalls Vanian, It was a job that I took on because I had tried a lot of other things, and I thought, ‘Hold on a minute, I’ve got to decide what I’m going to do.’ I used to pass this place every day, and I saw some guy out there digging a grave and I thought this might be an interesting job to do and have time to think. So I went down and they needed someone, but they weren’t sure if they wanted to take me on. So I went back a few times, and eventually they took me on.

It was a physically demanding job, but one he enjoyed as was able to make up his own hours – as soon as he had completed his work for the day, he was allowed to finish. Working by himself, it was usually a solitary job, that is apart from occasional conversations with visitors who were there to pay their respects. One day a rather strange event occurred. Vanian recalls, There was this guy who used to come all the time in tweeds, very dapper, this old gentleman, sort of very distinguished looking, the typical English gentleman. He used to come every week and put flowers on his mother’s grave. And he didn’t come up one weekend. He’d died. So we had a service for him. There was maybe three people there, it was very, very quiet. About two weeks went by, I was working under this tree at the time, and I saw this guy coming up with his flowers. And I realised it was the same guy! I watched him, he went over to the grave, and put the flowers down! So I went over there, and it was him, it was this guy. It was his identical twin brother! We had never seen him before! And he said ‘If you put your head to the grave, you can still hear my brother’s pocket watch ticking. ‘Cause he was buried with it.’ I couldn’t hear anything, but I guess maybe he did.

The job would last until September 1976 when The Damned became a fulltime occupation. The owners were sad to see him leave however. Vanian remembers, "When I left they offered me the chance of the house, the company