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We caught
up with the wonderful Bobby Steele from The Undead shortly before his
gig on Thursday 7th June 2001 @ Trillians Rock Bar, Newcastle upon Tyne.
MM - Introduce the band members to us, who will we see on stage tonight?
BS - The bass players name is Bryce Bernuis, The Drummer name is Joey
Image, he was kind of in The Misfits with me also, and I'm Bobby Steele
the lead singer.
MM - The band will
have been together for 20 years this year, is that correct?
BS - Yes that's right, in various forms, this line-up has only been
together for 2 weeks. Joey just stepped in recently. The band's very
first gig was January 30th 1981, so yeh I guess it's been 20 years then.
MM That's actually quite a landmark
isn't it?
BS - I was actually planning on releasing some of our early demos
recordings that we did about 2 weeks after our first gig. We'd
gone to some small studio and recorded some stuff and I was planning on
releasing that, and trying to get together the original line-up to do
like a record release party at CBJB's. But the drummer died in January.
They found him dead on the beach on one of those Caribbean Islands; his
head was all crushed and stuff.
MM - Did they ever find out what
happened to him?
BS - Well because it is like one of those big tourist places, they just
said he must have slipped and hit his head on the rocks. But there's a
pretty good chance he was mugged.
He was really tall and sickly and stuff and it was a real bummer. I
actually found out after doing some dates in Florida and we stopped off
at a friends and I checked my email and there was a message from a
tattoo artist called Paul? He's like the most famous tattoo artist and
is famous for his incredibly gory stuff, and he just sent it to me via
email.
Someone had called into his shop and told him and he didn't know how to
get in touch with me, and so they gave this number to ask about a
memorial thing. I called and it was his ex-wife and she told me that
they had just found out.
He died on January 2nd and his family didn't tell anybody. They always
kind of looked down on the fact that he was a punk and doing stuff you
know? They didn't tell his friends until about March 30th, so we all had
a big memorial service at CBGB's. It was fun, we saw a lot of cool
people and stuff and it was cool.
MM - It's a shame you couldn't say goodbye when it had actually
happened.
BS - Exactly and you know it would have been great to have that great
big blow out gig and shit for him. It would have been really nice you
know. I'm going to try and dedicate the new record to him though.
MM - You started
out as a bass player originally?
BS - No, I started out as
a guitar player actually, although I did play bass in another band
called Times Square. I don't know if you ever heard of a band called The
Devil Dogs? My whole sound was taken from listening to Devil Dogs
albums. They influenced a lot of people but I don't think they ever
played over here in the UK.
They played all over Europe and Japan but they never played here for
some strange reason. I think it was because when they were together the
shows weren't really doing that well.
It's like when I came over in 1993, most of my shows were like to 40
people and I thought we were doing really badly. I was really bummed
because I knew The Buzzcocks were playing in the next town, when we were
playing in South Hampton, they were playing in Portsmouth.
I was like oh man they have really fucking took our audience, but the
following night we were playing in Brighton and some people who were at
The Buzzcocks show were at our show and they told me that that night
when we had only had 50 people in, they had only had about 40 in, so we
outdrew The Buzzcocks man!
You know that's another one of those bands that I would have loved to
have seen. One of the DJ's from MTV came over to me back in like
1983, and he had been hanging out with Pete Shelley, and he told me that
Pete Shelley is really into The Undead! So I would love to meet him. You
know it is so hard to try and track some of these people down.
I'm really looking forward to playing at the Holidays In The Sun
Festival because 999 are on the door with us. I've got their first two
45's, I can't remember the name of one of them but I think one of their
brothers prepped it up or something for them. But I got their Nasty
Nasty 45 and to this day it still has to be the loudest 45 that was ever
pressed.
I don't know how they did that, but it's like you put that record on and
every other record plays at this level (holds hand down) and then you
put that one and it just jumps out at you man.
I've only caught them once in New York city and it was when they were
opening for The Buzzcocks and it was a really bad night. The sound
system sounded like it was coming out of a transistor radio. It really
sucked, The Buzzcocks sounded really horrible.
999 actually played the same venue a few weeks later and it sounded so
much better, the gear was good and it was like … oh yeh! (claps). They
are kind of my favourite band. So I'm really excited about it all.
A friend of mine is coming up from Buena's Aires in Argentina, and he's
friends with the bass player and he's going to introduce us and stuff.
He said that they actually wanted to book us a show in Liverpool, but
that day we play London and we had already booked a flight to go back
home.
The bass player is also due to get married the three days after he gets
home after this tour so we can't change anything last minute. As it was
I had to postpone his wedding to do this tour.
MM - Will you be playing at the wedding or not?
BS - Well that all depends if I can make enough money for when we get
back as he lives down in Florida. I'm very confident that we are going
to do really well on this tour though. I've heard for the past decade
that we have been really popular over here in Europe and I know that a
lot of our stuff is being bootlegged.
We licensed Under Ground Records to do a 12" EP, and they had a
license to print up 1,500 copies. About a year ago compact disc copies
started to appear on the internet. I traced it and it's apparently him
doing it. So to counter the Under Ground thing we are working on a 4
song 12".
I'm taking those songs and our new art work, and some of the other 45's
that we have put out but wanted to put onto CD, I'm going to put them
all together and try to sell them at the same price so people will buy
these instead.
I'm going to put a notice on our website telling people not to buy the
bootleg as we are going to be putting out a lot more songs for the same
price.
So then he's going to start sitting in his house wondering why he's got
2,000 bootlegs of this thing that he can't move. He was heavily
involved in The Misfits stuff.
There's a lot of American bands who want to come over here to play.
Someone actually said to me tonight that he would probably be showing up
at the gig, but I doubt it. He knows how pissed I am, I always thought
John was such a nice guy, he got me over here, and now he's doing stuff
like that behind my back.
Again he put out a 7" and it was supposed to be a limited edition
and I ordered 200 copies and then when I got home I needed more copies,
so I asked if he could ship me some more copies. Then when the shipment
arrives on the outside of the box it has the title and the date it was
pressed and this second shipment that I got had a pressing date on them
that was 2 months after the original pressing date. So he's been
bootlegging that shit too!
This stuff is all over and now the drummer who played on that record
called me up and he wants to sue me for all these records that are all
over the place.
So yeh John's causing a lot of grief for me. I really hope he does show
up here tonight. The thing is that once I have the concrete proof that
it is him doing this, I am taking him to court.
I have a letter from John that I am going to produce about what he
thinks of bootleggers and what he thinks should be done to them and it's
not very nice. I'm going to say that this man knows that bootlegging is
wrong and here it is in his own handwriting and this is what I think
should be done to him. I'm sure copyright is just as big over here as it
is in the US and I want my money and I want to see him put in jail. I
think he actually says that bootleggers should get the death penalty or
something like that.
MM - Out of all the bands you've
played in over the years, is there one gig or event that really sticks
in your mind out as opposed to all the others?
BS - Well for The Undead there are two that stand out right away. We
once played a 4th of July show in the great mall in Washington DC and
they always have this big tourist festival in the mall every year.
There was somewhere around 20,000 people there looking at the stage and
we had this bass player who had a similar presence just like Bryce had
and at one point he had these 20,000 people shouting out … Undead!
Undead! … He could really take command of the audience. Someone
actually recorded it and traded it all around the world and stuff and it
was really amazing having these 20,000 people shouting at you.
The other was when we played this town when we were doing a short tour
in Canada and we had just done a gig in Quebec, We had had to drive from
Montreal to Quebec which was something like a 2 hour drive or something
and we were out driving out North and there was nothing but forests up
there.
I was driving along and all the way along there were these moose
crossing signs and I turned around and said to my friend … do you
think I might see a moose? … and he said Bobby I have been driving
this road for 20 years and I've only seen a moose once. So just joking I
slowed down and let the car behind me overtake and I said … hey if
there's a moose up there let him hit it first!
We drove on for about another 10 minutes and then the car in front of me
stopped, yes the car in front of me had hit a moose! There was this huge
moose lying there in front on me in the middle of the road. I ran out
and was like Wow! Look at it man! My friend just couldn't believe it.
Anyway we drove into this forest for like hours and finally we got to
the place we were going. The next day we walked into the show and there
was like only the size of a local baseball park but they had erected
this huge stage up there for us. There were probably about 12,000 kids
there, and I tell you there were about 800 of them that were the most
beautiful girls I had ever seen in my entire life! It was so unreal. It
was like being in The Beatles, we walked up onstage and they had cops
everywhere.
The stage was about 10 feet high and then in front of that a little way
forward was a chain link fence that was 10 feet high.
When we started to play the chain link fence came crashing down and the
started climbing up on the stage and grabbing at us and the cops
couldn't keep them off us!
It really was like being in The Beatles, these kids were fucking rabid!
So they are probably the two most memorable gigs.
MM - What do you
love/hate the most about being on tour?
BS - I hate the traveling, I hate the no sleep thing, and actually I
hate everything except the short time when I am actually onstage. I find
it all so stressful and aggravating being around all the cigarette
smoke. It really does destroy me.
For the 30, 40 minutes that I am onstage, I can forget about all my
problems. Then when I come off all I want to do is find something to eat
and then go to sleep.
I like to smoke some weed or hash as it helps me with my spinal damage
and stuff and then I like to just go to sleep.
MM -So are you
glad to get home at the end of it all?
BS - Oh yeh, very much so. This is the longest tour that we have ever
done. Usually our tours are maybe 2 weeks. Last year we did a longer one
than originally planned as we were having problems with the steering.
One day when I was checking under the bonnet and checking stuff out the
bonnet fell down and hit my thumb and just ripped off everything. I
staggered around for about 5 minutes screaming at the top of my lungs
and then I knew I had to do something as the bone was still attached.
The flesh was all completely off, so I pushed everything back on and we
drove around and found a hospital and I was in surgery for 8 hours.
They told me to go see a specialist in 3 days, so we had 2 days off and
then I went back to see the specialist and he asked when had it
happened. I told him and he said that was impossible. He said I still
had to keep it bandaged but it had almost healed.
So on one gig we had Bryce play guitar and I just sang. My drummer's old
bass player was still around and he knew all the songs so he filled in
on bass for us. So after another 2 days I figured I could probably place
with something taped onto the bandage and we went ahead and did the rest
of the tour!
Then Bryce came down with scarlet fever when we did the last show! We
are very disaster prone!
MM - Who writes the songs that you
perform? Is it one person or more of a group thing?
BS - For the most part it has been me. I've pretty much been the only
one who's been in the band long enough. But Bryce is coming up with some
stuff. That was one of the things we needed, he really had to prove
himself as he lives like 1,000 miles away and so the one thing I really
wanted to hear was how he could write.
He came up with a few different chord changes and I said all right let
see what you can do.
MM -Who was the first band you ever saw live in concert?
BS - Well I didn't actually see it but The Beatles played at Chase
Stadium and my parents wanted to take us to the worlds fair. So while we
were on the way home from the fair we wound down the windows and could
hear The Beatles. So I almost saw The Beatles live.
My best friends father was the tour manager for the Dave Clarke Five so
instead of staying in New York they stayed in my friend's house! It was
just the band and their tour managers and stuff and it was great.
The very first concert would probably have been one of these oldie shows
with Martha & The Vandellas and people like that. Frankie Valley and
The Four Seasons. There were about 7 acts on that day. That was the very
first one I saw.
The first show other than that that I saw would have been Alice Cooper
on his Schools Out tour, or Slade. I saw Slade every time they came to
the state. I must have seen them about 3 or 4 times, they were great.
When I came here in 1979 with The Misfits, the day after we were leaving
they were playing at The Music Machine and I was so fucked. Those guys
are really one of the best fucking bands of all time.
MM -What is your most treasured
possession?
BS - Wow that's a hard one, I'm trying to think of what I have. Actually
I'm going through my whole record collection and I'm going to sell off
everything. I don't collect records for the records; I collect
records for the music.
There's a few things that I have autographed that I am going to keep.
First off I'm going to put them all onto compact discs before I auction
them off. I'm trying to simplify my life.
I'm really not into material things any more. I only have my laptop
because it makes things so much easier for me when we are out on the
road and stuff. I would love to just get rid of it all and find
somewhere remote to go live.
I'm not a very sociable person. I would like to find somewhere with a
nice moderate climate and just get away from it all. It's something for
when I retire.
MM - What song would you choose as
the sound track to your life?
BS - It would probably have to be the song Misfit and Never Say Die,
because they really sum up the way I think. Misfit I wrote because
it was about when I was about 15 years old and I used to wear a brace on
my leg and whenever I walked around people would stare at me. So that
song was growing in my head that far back.
I would be walking abut and people would stare at me and I would say …
What's the matter haven't you seen a cripple before? … and I was just
this little kid!
So punk rock was just a natural thing for me to get into. Never Say Die
is much the same way about how I feel.
MM - If you
woke up one day and found you'd turned into a woman over night, what
would you do that day? (thinking it may only last one day in total)?
BS - Oh Boy, what would I do! That's a good question. I'd probably go
and get my hair done.
MM - You've
never wondered what it would be like to be a woman?
BS - No! I guess I would walk around all day and say … does my bum
look big in this?
MM - A natural
woman!
MM - Tell us one thing about yourself that not many people know.
BS - I tell you I have always been so upfront that I literally have no
secrets. I've told everybody what my weaknesses are. A lot
of people try to hide their weaknesses because they think it is going to
make them vulnerable, but I tell people mine and that kind of throws
them.
It shows them I have great courage and it keeps people from trying to
move in on that one. I am totally upfront with people, you've seen it on
my website, I tell people I smoke Marijuana because of my spinal damage.
I tell people I have problems with them smoking and I ask that they be
more considerate with my lungs.
MM - By nature are you a
pessimist or an optimist?
BS - Optimist. I very rarely
get very pessimistic any more; I'm normally very optimistic. But there
again I just told my life's track would be Never Say Die so I kind of
painted myself in a corner there. Generally I am very optimistic,
everything goes wrong in my life but I keep on going.
MM - Well you have been through a lot
and yet you are still here to tell the tale.
BS - Yeh, there's been a couple of times when I have been this close to
death so now I try to make the most of every day of my life. It's just
so precious, I love living. I really want to do the most with it.
Right now my younger brother is fighting a brain tumour. He's been fine
for a few years now but then he was rushed into hospital last week just
before I left and they had to do surgery on his brain again and after
seeing all that it really makes you appreciate life.
I feel really lucky because I've lost a lot of friends this year.
We don't believe in religions. In fact one of my best friends used to be
a Jesuit priest and he actually used to live at the Vatican. He knows
all the innings and what goes on inside the church and I'm friends with
someone else who is a Catholic priest and also he is one of those
radical priests and there's this church in New York city where they have
an ongoing prayer chain.
There's always somebody in the church with Frank my father. The
Jesuit is originally from Buena's Aires also and he got in contact with
someone down there and they have a prayer chain going on down there
also. So suddenly we have almost half the world praying for my brother.
It's still ongoing at the moment and we won't know the results of the
surgery straight away. You have to try and keep that stuff off your mind
when you are on tour though.
Every couple of days my father emails me to update me on what's
happening and everything. So far there has been progress from the
original setback before we left. The swelling has started to go down and
it's looking good.
MM - Is your
brother an optimist as well? Is he quite a positive person?
BS - No he's not. He's had a very rough time since he was about 15 or
16. He's about 39 now.
He's had a really rough time, when he was in high school he was very
good looking and all the girls would like him and some guy was jealous
of him and mixed 20 hits of LSD in his coke.
He didn't know what hit him and thought he was going insane and so he
wound up being put in a mental institution for a few years. It was all
straight jackets and padded cells.
He had only really just started to recover from that in the last 10
years. He had got a job and had been holding it down for about 3 years
then he blacked out in a supermarket.
They rushed him to the hospital ran tests and they found he had a brain
tumour. It took up half his head. Then for a while he was really
doing great then he started to slide back about a month ago. My parents
are very old and like me to have to see him deteriate like that was
terrible.
MM - What's the
most bizarre thing that a fan has ever given you?
BS - Someone once sent me
a cats skull once. Sometimes you get some strange fans though.
The worst is when you people who are sending you emails all the time and
you know they are total mental cases.
There's this girl who writes to me and she wants me to be in her movie,
it's going to be called Purple Rain, basically it's the Prince movie. I
thought it best not to respond to her and I sent a copy of her email to
her friend and told her to stop it. But this girl emailed me again and
it really gave me the creeps.
They are the ones that phone the police in the middle of the night and
say that you raped them. Those kinds of kids really scare me.
MM - How do you like to chill
out when you are at home?
BS - Well to relax I sleep. Sleep is a vital commodity that I always try
to get my hands on. I just relish every second that I can get of it.
MM - Lastly, is there anything
you would like to say to all your fans out there?
BS - Yes thanks for all your support and they can write to me at my
email address (undead@juno.com) , I am always glad to correspond with
fans and stuff.
Watch out for the counterfeits, we have a website selling our stuff and
I manufacture and distribute the stuff so until we find a reputable
label who is willing to lay out some cash for us we are not going to
sign.
I think that by doing it DIY and having the fans support me we can pull
it off. I think that I can sell maybe 150,000 copies of whatever we
release without a record deal.
They are choosey when they sign rock bands; they only sign them when the
band doesn't need them anymore.
Look at bands like Green Day; they were selling like 100,000 copies
before Geffen picked them up.
They were probably making as much money selling 100,000 copies, as they
are getting selling 3 million copies with Geffen. I don't see why they
would want to sign a deal like that.
These major labels just don't have a clue with what's going on out
there. They know what they want you to want to listen to.
We would like to thank Bobby for taking the time out to talk to us and
wish him and his band the very best of luck with their tour. Our prayers
go out to Bobby's younger brother and his family and hope that
everything turns out for the best.
Anyone wishing to contact Bobby can do so via email at undead@juno.com
or via the website at http://undead.postmortemrecords.com
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