Rat Scabies - There Is Nothing More Beatiful Than Torturing A Drum Kit!

AÑO: 5 | NÚMERO 47

THE 13th UN A R E V IS TA IM A GINA RIA

RAT SCABIES THERE IS NOTHING MORE BEATIFUL THAN TORTURING A DRUM KIT!

THERE IS NOTHING MORE BEATIFUL THAN TORTURING A DRUM KIT!

[ Talking with Rat Scabies by Pablo Müllner.

Photographs: Nelia Torres, Rob Wade and Tim Hart. ]

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All things good have something of a curse too. Last night I dreamt I was invited at this weird party in Siouxsie house, time and place, unknown, and she just grabs me as I ring the door, and tells me: “Rat Scabies is giving me a hard time… You got to go and tell him to stop! I go, OK, but what shall I say? And she goes: “I don`t know, just do your best!” And she laughs sadistically. I only think: “God, I am fucked!” Then I wake up. It is almost lunch time and I got the cramps, and probably my stomach crunches with nerves. I got to interview Rat Scabies, glorious Rat Scabies, from The Damned. It is just a Skype chat, but his figure is imposing as a punk rock hero, no question about that. I try to tell him that for me and surely much of our staff, The Damned is a larger than life kind of band. But short from that, he is an icon of his own, keeping in good activity in between his solo album PHD and records with The Mutants. Oh, and going after the Holy Grial in the spare times, not joking I swear, that`s what a hero does.

Hi, Rat Scabies! First of all, The Damned is one of the favourite bands of all time in the whole bunch of people in The 13th Magazine. A Top Five band I can tell. So I got a lot of questions, some mine, some from others, but trust me I am going to be straight to the point! He thanks, politely.

There is a lot to say about the early days of the band, in the distance, as a fan of The Damned, and even of the Punk Thing… From this side of the story, it quite looks like you all are the crazy kids from Trainspotting, running around the streets of London, after stealing something.

Is that a good picture?

Well, you got it right. That`s pretty much it. You know we came from a very working class kind of neighbourhood, and the common ground for all us teenage were: football, or music, or jail.

So we tried to make some music first.

Wow! Good choice, lucky for us too! Well, the cover of the band debut album Damned Damned Damned in my mind is the epitome of Punk Rock. I mean those blocks, that`s as punk as you can get. How did it happen? I mean, that shoot.

Thanks, well, yeah… The whole idea of the photographer was to capture the band in the least glamourous way, without any airbrush, so… that is sort of it.

I ask him about the cream, and he says that it was shaving cream actually, that they did cover themselves in it and even eat up some of it from one another. That it was a good fun taking that photos and he confirms my question: they were pretty hight too! And then he laughs remembering getting back home in a city bus all covered in shaving cream. I think in that moment

he is rolling one Ziggy himself, but I cannot smell and I won`t ask!

The Damned aesthetics were very much elaborated that the rest of the other punk bands… In a sense it reminds me strongly of what later was an act like The Cramps were the use of image and imagery was totally organic, even in the lyrics and the main target was Americana or American B-Culture… Instead I see The Damned was draught to a B Horror British aesthetic like Hammer Horror Films, for instance… How did it happen?

I think that we were influenced by films a lot, in the visual sense. Well, there was Capitan Sensible doing his crazy stuff that shocked and confused the audiences a lot, and we all like that sort of creepy thing, probably not

just horror, but bizarre films, like The Wickerman, you know that one, very psychedelic but scary too. And also creepy Fairgrounds, and yes, Hammer Horror Films too.

I mention that looking closely at Dave Vanian, he had that sort of thing to him, like an old movie vampire, very stylish, sinister but also very charismatic, full of sarcasm… I mention that the alter ego persona of Bono during his early nineties was called “Mac Phisto” borrows a lot from Dave Vanian. He agrees on that, and says that some of the things they did probably were lost because they were too fashion forward and probably some others took better advantage of that same idea years later. Totally agree on that too.

I always thought punks picked their stage names so wisely parodying the crazy hippie thing of renaming oneself after an acid trip something like: “Thunder Rainbow Lake” Is it accurate? Do you were taking the piss of it?

Well, in a way it was but also was very important to do this in a kind of anonymous way, so we had to protect our daytime identities in case this punk thing didn`t succeed so, it was a necessary thing too!

chose to call himself “Rat Scabies”, and he laughs well no, I didn`t pick it up, they gave it to me, my friends.

So I just liked it and keep it.

“Not of this Earth” it is the eight album from The Damned, and was released in 1995. That is your last one with them. How did it came down? And what do you think of further studio work and touring?

Well, it came to the point that I felt that the band didn’t had nothing to do with me. Creatively it wasn`t going good, and the audiences in the shows I ask him, If that`s it, why did he were as exciting as ever and I wasn`t

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having a very good time with Dave. So I thought that`s it, I got enough! I don`t really regret it now, actually I was a few years ago at one of their concerts and I think it is not the direction I would have wanted to take, I wouldn`t have been comfortable for me to take the stage doing that, but it`s OK. Well, enough of the past then! Tell me about you solo album, your first solo actually which is called “PHD” and it stands for “Prision-HospitalDebt”, that`s a hell of a name. Why did you call it that!

Firstly, because it is citing the degrees in college, you know, you got a PHD in any academic discipline.

But it was wordplay. It was a funny way of dealing with the idea of a very miserable time, like for a person that`s in a downward spirals all those things come naturally, a common thread: Prision-Hospital-Debt.

Yeah, it is really sharp! I joke, well at least it is not Prision-Hospital-DEATH, and he laughs and says that it`s right that it is a more optimistic take if it ends with “Debt” and we both laugh!

I like about the album that it is very very eclectic, almost insane eclectic, for instance it starts with some very hard rocking moments, that by the middle it cools down with jazzy moods and towards the end a pair of song sound almost eastern with this strange middle east vibe to it, and it`s very cool, cause finally all makes sense is crazy but it is very much cohesive, I love that!

He thanks, probably says something more sarcastic that I do not catch. But he sounds please and adds to the idea of the eclectic,

that he wanted to put down all those elements, nevermind how disconnected they may seem, and yes, finally bringing some cohesive elements in the production. So that is it! I comment that the whole vibe of the record is listening to one of those crazy, esoteric cool jazz bands jamming in clouds of pot and that`s is for me what makes it so cool. And he is pleased, thank god!

Talking about esoteric elements I wondered a lot about your concerns with Holy Grial. Rat Scabies is even the subject of a very fine book called Rat Scabies and The Holy Grial.

At first I thought that was a very slick English joke, but reading and reading I found out that is all truth, which makes even more amazing a story. Where did all start?

Well, it is very easy. I was bore into it. It`s something that came with my parents and they pass it on me. So, yes, my parents formed part of a group of people who actively research on the Holy Grial. So I followed their legacy in this case, and all I can tell it is not about mystifying life, it is not a mythical take on reality at all, but on the contrary it is all about life and looking closer to it.

I interrupt him on a very frank moment, cause I found a quote of himself on that: “Looking for the Grial, it is the Grial not actually finding it. It`s the things that you find while you`re looking!

Well, I found quite a treasure myself looking out in your catalogue: You recorded a cover of Dylan`s “This Wheel`s On Fire”, the singer in the single is your wife right?

Yeah, we signed that under “Rat and the Whale” and it was so much fun,

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we didn`t out of our own pleasure, you true. And I think it is a shame for that, know that`s a terrific song…. instead on focusing on the music that is what it makes us a band with quite I go: Yeah, I mean whatever it a reputation. But anyways, I am glad means! And goes: Yeah, those cause I was a working class kid just lyrics are so cool and enigmatic like ambitioning a musical career and then passing a code, I love it! So I ask getting a movie about our band it is again: Well, and you didn`t before really mind blowing! than the famous Siouxsie cover of it, and in a much more rough fashion. In 1985 the Damned released the Did your wife sing again? album “Phantasmagoria” and it Oh, no, not really, she did it for fun. was a really high point, surely a She appeared in some occasion commercial success and a send singing vocals live with The Gun Club. forward: you always have been But she never really sang as a main playing around with the idea of occupation. sinister, sometimes mockingly, sometimes more suggestively but Well, you are not into singing in in Phantasmagoria you used a more your own album right, cause most straightforward goth rock sound. of it are instrumentals and voices Probably that was a one of and then come from guests on the album. goodbye? Do you miss that phase?

He says he doesn`t feel too much Well, yes I do, in some ways. It was a of a singer and he prefers mostly turning point of a real low time, where instrumentals like in the record. Captain Sensible wasn`t really working And I ask if there was a initial plan for the band anymore, just keep on going of playing live for the album, he says and we decided to go sharper, make not, just a couple of press venues a very professional record and that`s to give some publicity to the album, what we did with Phantasmagoria. And but not plans for shows. The way it work very well, the audience respond he see it presenting this music live to it, we sort of revive our followers and would be too expensive and hard make some new people go interested to materialise like using littles and and I think it is what I really missed of that screens, that`s how he ambitions it phase. But anyways, we never did the and it is not possible to carry for a same record twice with The Damned, stream of live dates. if you listen our whole catalogue there I saw last night the documentary are very different. So we would do on The Damned “Don`t You Wish the same formula twice, but yes, nice that We Were Dead?” How do you memories! feel about it?

Oh, it is OK. It`s good as a film, Yeah, that`s very much truth. You but that is it. I mean, it just a film, a use to came with unexpected things fiction, and it was good really cause it like covering White Rabbit, which is was very profitable. But then, much of such a hippie anthem, what an irony stories that are told on it are not truth, but it makes completely sense cause just things that may be sold for fans it is still a risky song, lyrically and to hear, stuff like that, but they are not has some good marching drums!

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Oh, I love that song! I am very much akin to marching drums, can you tell?

And the lyrics are great! But it`s too difficult to play live, there´s one point where the voice goes so up, it is almost impossible and Dave had very hard times playing it live really!

Speaking of unexpected thing there is a video of you all playing “Looking at you”, and the performance is really mind blowing and in a sudden moment you set into fire you very own drum kit, literally on fire! Is it a Jimi Hendrix tribute or just letting lose the pyromaniac in you?

I tell you something: there is nothing more beautiful in the world that torturing a drum set, it is an ecstatic experience. And well, it was not staged just happened so the crowd went mad and yeah, the security may have gone mad too, in another way, you know. It was a lot of fun I cannot doubt it for a second! I need to ask this question cause there`s a lot of Lemmy fans in our redaction, well, most people loves Lemmy, but you got Lemmy like for a couple of years? How come?

Oh, he was great! A really great company, a good friend, he was much older than the rest of us, so he was a true hippie, ha, and he had the role of

a cool uncle with us. He was great, whenever he was around it was good time! But he could stay with us, know, when Motörhead took off he had to follow his own path, but I got the fondest of memories of Lemmy.

You were playing drums for other projects recently for Professor and the Madman last album, you were guest drummer. And you are a regular member in The Mutants, is it right?

Oh, yes. We are about to release some new stuff with The Mutants, it`s its fourth album. And it is a songs album, pretty much all over the place. And this time yes, it is going to be play live, actually we have the very first venue book on August the 10th. I am pretty existed about this one in particular.

Oh, that`s great! I love to hear it!

So I am looking forward to cover the album released and hopefully talking in a short time soon. It was a real pleasure and I got to tell you the truth I was a bit scared at the beginning. It must be that name, Rat Scabies! And then he goes: “It is because of this yeah: and he mocks a rat taking a bite, quite perfectly. It is funny and scary, but it is such a memory for me right now. God Save Rat Scabies!”

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The13th U NA R EVISTA IMA GINA RIA