Ella and the Blacks were a hot band in Los Angeles punk scene. They never released any album but they recorded some really cool songs and have played with bands like 45 Grave and Redd Kross.

Dez Cadena co-founded "Ella and The Blacks". What was the best thing about working with him?

He had a garage we could rehearse in for free! Just kidding, that was an added bonus, and he had the greatest parents, Ozzie and Gloria. They are and were both so nice and supportive – I say 'were' because Ozzie sadly passed away recently.

Dez was a good friend since we went to school together and is very easy-going, agreeable and fun. I can't even remember having an argument about anything, ever! In more recent years he has become flakey, but it's not so much a personal trait as he is a victim of circumstance; he doesn't drive so he gets stranded sometimes and you just have to catch him at the right time.

But in E and the Bs he was very enthusiastic and in our first year he kept returning to the band whenever his other band commitments would let him. He is a great dissonant and funky guitar player with a great sense of humor.

How many shows did Ella and The Blacks play?

I really have no idea! Less than a hundred, but there were a lot. They were all in Los Angeles County, but all over the place; we used to say we were on a tour of LA County. We did have a show in Orange County once, but it got cancelled. And we never ventured out of town. It was hard enough getting everyone together at home! Our first show was at the King's Palace on Halloween with Redd Kross, the Mau Maus and about fifteen other bands. We played just about every venue at least once, but our main haunts were Al's Bar and the Cathay de Grande. During our heyday we would sell out both those venues, and once the Cathay had to list us under a fake name in order to limit the people who tried to come in; it was very silly – The Ebony Pachyderms. Our biggest gig was supporting Was Not Was at Perkin's Palace in Pasadena. That was a good show, but my favourite venues were The Roxy and the Whisky-a-go-go.

Is it true that you were friend with Darby Crash? What can you remember about Darby?

I met Darby when he was called himself Bobby Pyn and he would go see the Runaways and the Quick and other local bands, and would wait in back of the Santa Monica Civic for Bowie's autograph. At first I thought he was a geek – although I was a big fan of certain musicians he was an uber-fan; once he criticised me for not getting all excited when I got somebody's autograph – then after the Germs got together I didn't like him much as he was so arrogant and trendy, and a trend-setter. I didn't like his dictator ways.

Also, I hung out with The Mau-Maus and there was big rivalry between them and The Germs. One trend that Darby started that I did like was to wear your hair in a tail, to have one bit a lot longer than the rest. Mine was different as it wasn't on the back of my head like all the Darby followers, and it was dyed hot pink with a black tip, like a flamingo. But Rick Wilder, the singer of the Mau-Maus, didn't like it, and once when I was sleeping at the Mau-Mau Manor, he came in and tried to cut it off! Luckily he was using thinning scissors so he only got a few bits.

But back to Darby, it wasn't until we moved into a house together, the Oxford House, that I started to like him and saw that he was intelligent and actually a very nice person when he wasn't too fucked up. He and I were downstairs and the other five housemates lived upstairs, and he would use the phone in my room, or my stereo, as my room was just a partition off the living room. When he died the Bowie album he had put on was still there. The night he and Casey, one of my other housemates, did a suicide pact, I almost died when Mike Livingston (he had just agreed to return to Ella and the Black) flipped my car down an embankment. We stayed up all night, happy to be alive, and talked about death, and then I came home and found out about Darby. I was so angry with him; what a waste!

After Ella and the Blacks disbanded did you play in another band ?

Well, I sang, as 'Special Guest Star' in Billy Wisdom and the HeeShees at the same time as the Blacks were still going. This was a very theatrical glam band, a la Ziggy Stardust era Bowie, but with a sense of humor. It was sort of a spin-off of the Blacks because it was fronted by Craig, and Keith Mitchell was the original drummer, and Juan Gomez played guitar. I carried on doing the occasional HeeShees gig whenever one happened and I was in LA, and there's a chance we might do one next summer.

I moved to Leeds and sang back-up briefly in this band called Bazooka Joe, and in Red Lorry Yellow Lorry, for whom I also worked. I recorded a couple songs and played a few gigs with a bunch of borrowed musicians, including Wolfie from the above-mentioned Lorries. This was pretty much a glam or rock and roll cover band, but not a standard covers band; we had unusual arrangements and costumes. We were called The Midnight Mess, and always played at midnight. I was also in a band with some of the cast and crew of 'Cinderella', called The Cinderella Complex. My friend Paul and I from that outfit, started to work on a band together and had just started writing some songs when he was invited to join Chumbawamba. So that was that.

I recorded a song for the Shonen Knife tribute album, billed as Ella Ohne die Schwarzen. It was just myself and Steve Macdonald. I also played keyboards on the track by The Three O'Clock. I had a couple of band projects in LA in recent years, but we didn't do more than rehearse; one was with Mike Livingston. I do the occasional song with friends' bands, and I was rehearsing with a band here in London recently (again, no shows) but that didn't work out. I'm always looking, but I don't have much spare time. Still, I'm sure that's not the last of me!

As for the others, some have retired or expired; others have played in or formed bands as wide-ranging as Lock-Up, The Homebillies, Green on Red, Mazzy Star, The Red Hot Chilli Peppers, The Romans, Lethal Weapon, and The Misfits.

"Dead or alive" or "Otis" are a true masterpieces of underground music. Do you have any plan to edit a record of Ella and the Blacks with all the songs that you recorded?

You make me blush! Well yes, I have been intending to release something for a long time and one of these days it will happen. There is one song not on MySpace for copyright reasons, a cover of 'Respect'. But I also have various rehearsal tapes and an interview we did on an LA radio station, which I am in the process of getting digitized.

I sure hope you do and thanks so much for answering my questions Ella!