Dan got the chance to speak with the legendary Keith Morris. In the interview Keith told us about the upcoming “Water Melon” album and OFF! The Sci-Fi documentary movie; about his years in Circle Jerks, the anniversary of Nervous Breakdown... He also gives his thoughts Punk Rock Bowling and the current state of punk music. Hope you enjoy it!
Punk Globe: This year “Nervous Breakdown” celebrates its' 41st anniversary. Could you please tell me, what do you remember about recording the album and what are your thoughts about it now ?
Keith: Well, you’re saying that we’re supposed to be celebrating the 41th anniversary – I don’t really pay attention to the stuff like that. We lucked out, and we had a handful of songs. We recorded them in the studio. It was a brand new experience for us. We knew nothing about going into the studio and setting up and doing what you normally do in a studio. Our situation was: We were the blind leading the blind. We recorded in a studio above the bar. There was a band playing below us and the noise from the band playing down in the bar below us came up through the floorboards. I’m surprised that we didn’t have any of that on tape when we recorded. But other than that, as I said, it was our first experience, the first time I’ve ever been in… Oh, actually no! Not the first time I’ve been in recording studio. Because I happened to be in Motown recording studio on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood… We just loaded up all the gear, set it up in a hallway, set it up in rooms. They set up mics…And we just played.
Punk Globe: You have been quoted saying that you haven’t got any book of punk rock rules. But I am sure that you know what is good or what is bad. What was the first punk-rock rule you discovered for yourself ?
Keith: At that time there were no punk-rock people saying: “You can’t dress the way that you dress! You can’t listen to…whatever you wanted to listen to! You can’t play whoever you want to play with! Or play wherever you want to play!” And now…Everybody’s a punk-rock expert. Everybody is fucking punk-rock expert. It’s like: “Ok! Where’s the book that tells us what we need to do, in order to be punk-rock ?”
Punk Globe: At the moment you and the other the members of OFF! are working on a documentary about the band. Could you tell me more about that?
Keith: We’ve actually been working on it for two years. We've filmed bits and pieces of intro to the movie. Dimitri, our guitar-player wrote a script. It’s science fiction movie. It’s gonna be completely ridiculous. People are gonna go: “What are we watching ? Why are these guys doing this ? What were they thinking about when they made this ?” And the idea which is more punk-rock than punk-rock if you wanna say that, is that we should be able to do whatever we want! We’ve been in a box! I’ve been playing punk-rock music since 1977. And punk-rock is basically a box. You can’t step out of the box! You're gonna stay in the box. You can only charge so much for your shows. There’s gonna be six bands – You're gonna charge three dollars. You gonna wear boots instead of tennis shoes. You can’t wear a t-shirt that says: “Captain Beefheart” or “Frank Zappa” or “The Beatles” or “The Rolling Stones”. You have to wear a t-shirt that says: “Sex Pistols” or “The Clash” or “Ramones”. Well, fuck all of that! We’ve been doing that long enough! We should be able to do whatever we want! And that’s what we do! And it’s a very cocky, arrogant way of saying: “Fuck you!” - without saying “Fuck you!”. If you like – great. If you don’t – that’s also great…There is so much music out there to listen to. There are so many punk-rock bands out there to listen to and pay attention to. If you don’t like what we’re doing – you can put your finger down on a “stop” or you can put your finger down on a “pause”. But you don’t have to watch it. You don’t have to listen to it. If you’re not into it – that’s all fine! Go play somewhere else!
Punk Globe: Why did you choose Sci-Fi as the genre for it?
Keith: Why not science fiction? What else we gonna choose? We're just gonna make a movie about our lives – It’s already done! You see these documentaries. There are thousands of documentaries. We wanna give you some conspiracy theories, flying saucers, the reptilian complex. Which all of us have. The royal family in England – they’re lizards. Don’t tell anybody, but they’re lizards! How punk-rock is that ? To call out The Royal English family of The United Kingdom…As lizards. We all have a part of our brain that is called “The R-Complex”. “R” is short for "Reptilian complex". What this does... It allows us our survival mechanism. Are you gonna stand and fight or you gonna run, come back and fight with a baseball bat or a bazooka ? Umh…That’s what the R-Complex is. The lizard brain… We all have it. It’s our survival mechanism.
Punk Globe: You formed Black Flag as a teenager.
Keith: Oh! Hold on! Hold on! I was NOT a teenager!
Punk Globe: How old you were you at that point ?
Keith: When, I started Black Flag…I gonna do some math…I was already in my early 20’s…Let’s see…I was 22 years old!
Punk Globe: All that stuff happened when you was in your 20’s – with Black Flag and Circle Jerks. So speaking about OFF! How did the band come about
Keith: TThe reason The Circle Jerks broke up was due to the fact that there was a battle of egos. That would be between Greg Hetson – the guitar-player who at that time was a full-time member of Bad Religion - and myself! What happened was – Greg Hetson would go out and play with all these fans on a Warped Tour. When he was in Bad Religion they were his main band…He was constantly doing a big tour. There aren’t a lot of punk-rock bands playing The Warped Tour. I mean, I’ve seen The Damned play a Warped Tour. I’ve seen Bad Religion, Social Distortion, and Pennywise. But a lot of the bands are just boybands with tattoos and dyed black spiky hair…who all look like Sid Vicious. They have clean vocals and all the right gear . Everything is radio-friendly and all of the sounds are politically correct. They can’t do anything that will offend anybody because their record label wants them to get played on mainstream radio. Which is very important to the labels. They sell tons of records. Going on that tour, the average of age of person attending it is probably 14-15 years old. Maybe 16-year olds. And you certainly don’t want to offend a bunch of kids. That would be the last thing you’d wanna do. Cause then kids would go back and complain to their parents: “We heard this band…The singer said said “fuck”! “Fuck this!” and “Fuck that!”, “Take a piss!”, “Go fuck yourself!” – the stuff that normally would offend your parents. So after you say all these things, these kids would go back, they say it, and they would say that to offend their parents….The whole idea was: I wasn’t going to be a part of any of that. We would go out and play in a Warped Tour because it was FUN. And we would get paid. We would be able to pay our rent and pay our car/van insurance, buy gas for car and be able to eat, have some clothes. Not have to walk around being a naked-punk-rock-guy. There was a clash of egos. I was not going to be a part of that. When it came to recording a Circle Jerks album…And there was a struggle, a power struggle. I got a call at 10.30 at night. One night I was laying in bed, getting ready to watch a movie and fall asleep. And maybe get about five or six hours of sleep. And then I get this call from Hetson…The conversation starts: “Keith! We all know that you’re going to quit the band, and we all decided that we’re not working with Dimitri Coats. He’s not gonna produce our record! He’s not gonna tell us what to do! He’s arrogant! He’s egotistical! He’s overdemanding!” I said: “You’re right! You’re correct! Go be in Bad Religion and tell the other guys that I’m gonna start another band!” And that would be OFF!
Punk Globe: What did you enjoy about being in The Circle Jerks?
Keith: I have a helicopter flying overhead right now! So I’m gonna excuse myself for second! I’ll be right back until helicopter lands! Be right back!
Keith: Ok, it’s passed. I live under the emergency fly path. The emergency helicopter fly path to children’s hospital. I’m looking at my front window and I see the children’s hospital. If I was a right-fielder for Los-Angeles Dodgers and I had a really good arm I could throw a baseball and…break out one of their windows. But that’s not gonna happen. But arms are not that strong. Umh…The Circle Jerks…Being what they were, who they were. We were just fortunate. We were just really lucky to come up at the time when it was much more wide-open. If you would start a band today - it would be a competition. Cause there are 800 million-gazillion-jillion-trillion of bands you’d have to compete with. And when we came up, where was only twelve-thirteen-sixteen bands…I’m being facetious. I’m trying to add some humor to this conversation…But it was easier to get booked at a club. It was easier to get on a bill with another band. It was easier to get a gig on Saturday night playing at somebody’s backyard. It was easier to get a gig playing in somebody’s living room. It was easier to get a gig at a kegger party. Nowadays there are too many bands! I was just in Las Vegas Punk Rock Bowling. I was at the airport with a couple of guys from Fucked Up band – from Toronto. And we started talking about NOFX and Pennywise and Rancid. And we started talking about: “Who’s your favorite of the three ?” I had to tell them: “I don’t have a favorite of the three because I’ve seen them all perform live. OFF! played with some of these bands. The Circle Jerks played with some of these bands. FLAG is played with some of these bands. But I don’t sit around listening to those bands”. Because my musical taste doesn’t allow me to. I hear these bands if I’m at a festival or a show they’re playing on. I do own some of their records and a couple of their CD’s. But I don’t sit around listening to them. Because I’m so busy with OFF!. I’ve got a learn lyrics for twenty five songs. I have to record vocals for fifty songs. We’ve written 25 songs and we’re recording two versions of each song. We’re recording versions with Dale Crover, who is the member of Redd Kross. And we’re recording versions with Mario Rubalcaba, who is our original drummer. Who is in bands called Earthless and Hot Snakes. I have to say – twenty five songs. But I have to sing them twice…And each time I sing these songs…Because we’re not a band that gets in a room and practices these songs, I don’t get to rehearse the songs. I have to go and do the best that I can. Which sometimes is four-five-six-seven run through each song. So take 25 songs and multiply that by eight times. That’s like 200 versions! I got to do 200 versions of these songs…I’m gonna fucking punch somebody in a face!
Punk Globe: I think you do an amazing job. After years of work you became one of the leading hardcore bands in the world.
Keith: I’m gonna interrupt you with this statement…Being “the leading hardcore band in the world” – it doesn’t pay the bills…So these bands like Fucked Up or Refused or somebody else can hold this position. I don’t really care about holding that position. I like playing, I like to be around all of the people. I was just at Punk Rock Bowling where I got to hang out with The Descendents, I got to hang out with Fucked Up. I got to hang out with some of the guys from Refused. I got to hang out…Oh, Jesus who else I hang out with? Guys from One Square Mile. Dave Markey and Jordan Schwartz. Dave's been in Sin 34 and Painted Willie. Just a whole bunch people…OFF! is not the number one hardcore band in the world. I’ll argue with you about that. Because, who wants to be the number one band ? What’s this like being “the number one band”? The number one hardcore-punk band... What would that be like? Strippers and cocaine. Umh…be able to drive to McDonalds and order whatever you want to order…Chocolate shakes…Here is that helicopter again! I can’t control this!
( Ten seconds after helicopter landed )
Keith: The garbage trackers are picking out the trash on the street. All of the indigenous gardeners firing up their leaf-blowers…
Punk Globe: You're a musician who's tried a lot of different genres – from aggressive hardcore-punk rock to avant-garde music... So at the very beginning of OFF! was it hard for you to find the balance?
Keith: The challenge for OFF! was that our guitar player does not come from punk-rock. He does not come from hardcore. He’s heard bits and pieces of Black Flag, he has heard The Bad Brains, he has heard a handful of bands. I can’t enumerate them all – I don’t remember all the names. But he worked in a record-store. In the record store he worked at, he used to listen to a lot of other music, like Captain Beefheart and Frank Zappa. And they listened to a lot of jazz. Like Miles Davis, Ornette Coleman and John Coltrane. They probably listened to Mahavishnu Orchestra and Weather Report. A lot of this stuff I’m rattling off would also be very influential on one of probably the greatest hardcore-punk band. And that would be The Bad Brains. So our challenge was the fact that our guitar-player does not come from the genre of music we’re playing. And he had to develop a downstroke. And he had to give it more humph…Give it more feeling. He was very-very familiar with Johnny Ramone. Who was a downstroke, all downstroke. Aim at the floor, punch the floor, punch the floor like you’re looking at something you don’t like and you want to punch them in the face. Their faces are a floor. So each time you just trying to punch that face on the floor. So our challenge was to not only listen to The Damned. And listen to The Sex Pistols and listen to Stiff Little Fingers. And listen to The Dead Boys. But to bring in other influences of some of the other music we’re listening to. Like I said: I don’t sit around listening to punk rock/hardcore bands. I’ve been playing this music, I’ve been a part of this genre since 1977. And to be quite honest – there are some really great new bands out there. And I don’t mind learning about them or listening to them. And, as I said before: I don’t need to sit around listening to NOFX, I don’t need to sit around listening to Pennywise. And I don’t need to be sitting around listening to Rancid. They are all really great guys! I love all of those guys! They’re like younger brothers. And the stuff they play is as good if not better than anybody else…But the challenge for me is to listen to Deep Purple or listen to Alice Cooper. Or listen to The Jesus Lizard or listen to Blue Oyster Cult. Or listen to Sonic Youth and try to bring bits and pieces of whatever information they are putting out. Just eating the stuff, digesting it and spitting it back.
Punk Globe: Tell us about your upcoming record?
Keith: We’re gonna try some different things. We’re gonna make some noise. We bought a bunch of gadgets that make a bunch of wild-crazy sounds. Our situation…and we talked about the box earlier - Punk-rock box... It’s really easy to stay inside the punk-rock box. We don’t wanna stay in the punk-rock box. We wanna keep one foot squarely planted in the punk-rock box. But the other foot is going to be completely out of it. Which is going to allow us to do some other things. I’ve rattled off all these bands that would be influential. Starting with Stiff Little Fingers and The Damned, The Dead Boys and Blue Oyster Cult and Alice Cooper. We have been listening and trying to find inspiration from music made by people like Einstürzende Neubauten, Throbbing Gristle, Hunting Lodge, Man Is The Bastard, Bastard Noise. We’ve listened to Can, we’ve listened to NEU! We’ve listened to Holger Czukay, we’ve listened to…We have one of our favorite noise-guitar-players who’d recommended the first record George Harrison put out on his record-label. Which basically was an orchestra he came across in India while he was searching for Ravi Shankar and looking for Maharishi – his spiritual guide. When you’re in India, you’re not gonna hear a lot of rock-n-roll. You’re not gonna hear a lot of noisy rock music. You gonna hear music that's indigenous to that part of the world. So we started listening to stuff like that. Just trying to find bits and pieces of information that we could digest and that we could use. That we could consume. That would influence us and lead us on another path musically. And some of that would show up in the music we’re recording from “Water Melon’ – that’s the name of the album. The album is going to be a soundtrack to a movie that we’re filming in February.
Punk Globe: As an artist you've gone through very different stages in your career: Black Flag, Circle Jerks, Midget Handjob, Of course FLAG. But seeing OFF! shows, there is a similarity with early recordings of Circle Jerks. I mean, the reaction of the people is not much different! What makes hardcore such an actual movement today?
Keith: I couldn’t tell you! There are so many forms of music. There are so many bands coming from different places. I don’t like being categorized. Just because it’s easy to hang a name-tag on somebody doesn't mean that's what they really are…I don’t look like I'm punk-rock. I don’t look like I’m hardcore. I have people yelling and screaming at me all time to get a haircut. And my response to them is to go back to fucking art-school. “Go back to your parents’ basement!” I can’t get hung up on stuff like that. Like: “Your label is this! So what does it mean to be like this ?” That goes back to a very beginning of what we we're doing in Black Flag. We were doing what we were doing because there was an amount of freedom. We should be able to be free to do whatever we want. As long as we’re not blowing shit up and killing people.
Punk Globe: Recently I spoke with CJ Ramone, who told me that his perception of himself changed over the years and now he’s a “better singer”. Can you say that after all these years that you've changed your opinion about the things that you’re doing ?
Keith: Like CJ Ramone, I guess I have become a better vocalist. I’m not a singer! I refuse to sing. I don’t look at sheet music and be able to hit all of the notes. I wouldn’t be able to tell you the notes on a fucking sheet of paper. We just jumped into this. We do it. We do it to the best of our ability. And we hope for the best!
Punk Globe: What do you think about the commercialization of punk-rock?
Keith: I can’t wrap myself around commercialization of punk-rock. Because all of that music is not music that I listen to. The commercialization of punk-rock would be what Greg Hetson wanted to happen for The Circle Jerks. And we’d not taken that route because I’m not going to be a part of that. I never have been – I never will be. If something happens, if we get lucky and the song gets played on a radio and people listen to it and they like it and they go and buy it... GREAT! They buy it for their dog and buy it for their parents. And they're gonna have it to put it in Christmas stockings for the kids to hunt for – that’s all great and fantastic. If that’s what happens – so be it! I’m not going out of my way to commercialize anything I’m a part of. This popularization – that works for some of these bands. They’re nice. They’re friendly. Are they punk-rock or do they look like punk rock or do they smell like punk rock? If they look like punk rock and kind of smell like punk rock – does that make them punk rock? I can’t answer this question ‘cause I don’t care. I refuse to be a part of that!
Punk Globe: And the last one. What’s the power of punk-rock ?
Keith: The power of punk-rock is the same thing with any kind of rock-. Any kind of music. If you like it and it makes you feel good, if it incites a response and it brings you excitement…We have this fucking flock because we’re sitting here talking on a goddamn-mother-fucking computer. But there are people that would sit at home, watch YouTube videos and not go and participate. And this music is based on people’s participation. That means you go, you bring some excitement. You bring some energy – don’t bring some negative bullshit! Don’t you think you’re gonna show up and get in the middle of a pit and start throwing blows? Fuck that shit! Stay home if you’re gonna do that! But there is a new wave of people I’m experiencing right now with the girl I’ve been dating. We went to see the Flipper gig at the Regent Theater – Downtown in Los Angeles. And Flipper singing: “Sex Bomb, baby! Whooo!” and then they’re singing: “Life is the only thing worth living for! Life!” and they’re singing: “Ha-ha-ha-ha! Ho-ho-ho-ho! He-he-he-he!” And she’s got herself hoisted up with the phone in the air. So she could show all of her friends that she was at the Flipper gig. And I wanted to grab it out of her hand and say: “No! Don’t do that when you’re with me!” But she’s millennial and that’s the way…We’re basically talking about the invasion of millennials and all these people staying home and watching their computers rather than going and participating. Rather than going and being in the crowd. Rather than going and jumping up and down. Rather than screaming and yelling between songs. Rather than shouting: “Go back to art-school! You faggots!” or whatever. There are too many people that watch the YouTube videos and see the people going ape shit in a pit and they show up thinking: “That’s the way I’m suppose to act! I’m gonna throw fists and elbows! And I’m gonna show everybody how tough of a guy I am! I lift weights! I have my Black Flag bars and my Misfits’ skull and my DK tattoos!” All that fun shit. Too many people stay at home! Too many people sometimes get misrepresented; get misread and fucking taking out of context. Just go and have fun! Everybody needs to have fun! We need more fucking and less fighting! And we need, for the people, to finally bust out the geek teens for the second round of fucking chopping people’s heads off! And I’m not gonna go down the list of all the heads that need to be chopped off. Because anybody with half of the heart with six brain cells would understand what that equates to!
Dan Volohov would love to thank Mr. Keith Morris for a wonderful informative interview. And Ginger Coyote for her inspiration and help.
