SUBHUMANS
from Skizoid zine, March, 1980
(W) wimpy roy, vocals
(M) mike graham, guitar
(G) gerry useless, bass
(J) jim imagawa, drums
Scott (Skitzoid): Have the Subhumans got an unfair amount of press in relation to DOA?
M: Well, we never quite got the critical admiration given the Pointed Sticks and DOA.
W: Yeah...that may sound weepy but it's true.
M: Well Harrison is a strong DOA fan and Vaughn Palmer melts at the sight of the Pointed Sticks.
G: Especially at the sight of Nick's gyrating groin!
W: About the only guy out here that likes us is Bob Mercer.
S: Did DOA get TOO much hype?
W: They don't get too much hype.
G: I don't know about now...see, I don't like hype of any kind...but they did get their fair share.
W: They get hype but they create hype. Like a snowball effect. Like they have an attitude, and it contributes...people pick up on that attitude, and it snowballs...
S: What musical event influenced you to get involved with music?
G: Tanya Tucker's gig in Dallas city I would say would be the first thing that changed my whole outlook on music. I realized then that country wasn't worth a fuck...Oh, I don't know...what do you mean...
S: Gig...band...trend...event...
G: Well obviously the Sex Pistols for me personally. That probably isn't too cool to say but it's true. Sure, the Sex Pistols. They were the first band to REALLY break out the musical mold. They had a "piss on it" attitude. Sorta "we're not rock stars". Mind you they didn't all stick to that ideal. The image they created, or actually illusion was something everybody could strive for. And we're striving for.
W: For me it was Frank Sinatra at Lake Tahoe.
M: The first Donnie & Marie Show.
J: Well, I don't wanna embarass you guys, but mine was the first punk gig I ever saw. I think it was the Subhumans.
S: Yeah, Ok! What are the first punk gigs you guys ever saw?
M: Well for me when the Ramones played here in august '77.
W: Emerson Lake & Palmer.
S: Ok, you guys. I drudge all the way down here from Richmond to do an interview with you guys because I was asked. Now I want some serious answers. I won't stand much more tom foolery! (actually I didn't say that but it makes me look like a tough journalist in print)
G: Ok Scott, I'm sorry. the first thing I saw The Skulls at a party. That was a fuckin'...that was one hell of a show. It was outdoors in a driveway. It was a really good gig. It was just a party thing but for some reason there was an incredble amount of energy. It was something I'd never seen anything of before. But i liked it. It was wild and unruly...and...(mumbles to himself)
W: I can't remember the first punk gig i went to.
G: Probably the Ramones...
W: Well that's an out of town gig...
G: Then the Furies...
W: I don't know if I ever saw the Furies.
G: I think you did.
W: I think I actually started playing Skulls gigs before I saw...well it was probably some fuck band that I first saw...
S: Where did you find Jim? Where did he come from?
J: I think I found them. I started talking to them at the Quadra Club.
G: You talked to us at the Quadra Club? Are you sure?
J: Yeah, yeah, it was the Quadra Club.
S: Wh-
J: No maybe it wasn't! It wasn't the Windmill.(various members add imput and suggestions to the mystery) Could it have been...I also talked to you at Rock Against Prisons.
G: Oh yeah! Where we had Chuck (Biscuits) on drums for us. I don't really re- (more recollections fill the room) I guess I did actually. Yeah, I was amazed you were japanese. You sounded so english.
W: Well, what's next?
S: Beats me. (shuffles through old fanzines for questions) So Jim, you weren't in any bands before the Subhumans?
J: Nawww...I jammed a lot...never in a serious band. I wonder if I am now...
G: We don't look too serious.
W: Semi-serious.
S: Well...how far did you lads get in school? (didn't say that either) Start with Gerry...
G: Ok, I won't drone on...i made it through grade 11. But I failed everything in 11. So I dropped out.
S: Mike, you went to college, Jim...
J: Highschool graduate (Gerry makes remarks like "whoa!" and various snotty remarks) with one year of Japanese language at UBC.
S: Mike how far did you get in college anyway?
M: Got through 2 years, started 3rd year twice, and both times I decided I'd rather do something else. First time I got bored and worked, second time I got into the Stiffs and punk rock, and that was that.
W: I'm a highschool drop out.
G: What grade did you drop out?
W: I dropped out in grade 12. (Wimpy and Mike ponder what they might've been if they had stuck to it. Wimpy sez he coulda been a success. Mike sez he coulda been an english teacher. The interviewer searches for questions)
W: Shit, you didn't come prepared! (A pillow sails through the air with deadly accuracy as it finds it target: the side of my face. The Wimp chortles to himself as he runs his fingers through his sparse spikes)
G: Wimpy's a dink! (Gerry says after bringing under control his spastic laugh)
S: Gee...what is your policy on violence?
G: Oh, we hate it!
S: Have any of you ever got the shit kicked outta you for being punks?
W: I've had some close calls but never really...
G: I got my jaw dislocated...that's about it...
S: Drugs. What are your favourite drugs?
W: Beer.
S: What are some good and bad points to drugs?
G: One of the main good points of drugs is that it relieves boredom. Boredom can become depressing. The bad point is that it turns you away from the true struggle.
W: Drugs I guess can make you more sociable.
G: That bullishit about acid expanding your mind...it's not really the acid that expands your mind, it's the state that when you've gained intelligence. Maybe the acid can help you along the way, or I suppose any drug can...(innaudible rambling) So anyways...dope relieves boredom, and boredom's a drag, so, great. Some drugs are bad for you. We're not a drug band. We don't all bang up before we go onstage.
M: However we do not get...blitzed out of our heads on booze. Quite frequently. But then who doesn't?
G: Jim doesn't drink AS much as the rest of us. Wimpy doesn't like dope at all...like weed. However beer is an essential part of his...
W: Beer is an essential part of my metabolism.
S: Have any of you had a personal brush with police that gave you your anti-pig sentiment? I'm assuming the idea that you have something against the officers of the "law".
W: Whatever gave you that idea?
G: Everyone in the band I'm sure has had enough brushes with the law to know that they(the cops) represent a class of mentality that we wanna avoid and don't wanna be like. And don't agree with, right?
W: I've never been thrown in jail. The only thing I've had is cops tread on my self-respect.
G: They deliberatley make you, try to make you feel like dirt when you haven't done anything. It makes me unbelievably angry. Right at the point I could fuckin' KILL. If it was possible to get away with it. I'd love to be a cop killer if I could get away with it. But, there are some cops that obviously don't deserve to, y'know, be killed. But there's so many...Ok, first of all, to join the police force or stay in it during training, you hafta take alotta shit. They shove alotta shit onta ya right? Like the macho man image is built up upon fear tactics and all that shit. And if you're willing to take that shit and learn to be a cop, despite all the stuff ya see being laid on ya, then obviously you're FAIRLY stupid. Then some cops take it one step further, and y'know, take great delight in having power. To be able to make people do whatever they want them to do. Because basically the laws of Canada can be switched or twisted somehow to apply to you. For instance, charging a guy with being drunk & disorderly when you've just finished beating the shit outta him with a billy club, for asking why was being thrown in the drunk tank. I mean, that's frequent, right? In Canada...
M: Police power is pretty violent. (inaudible deliberation again, sorry) generally speaking the RCMP can get away with murder.
G: They can get away with literal murder. Well, lookit how many people have been shot. The whole situation surrounding the case has been really really suspicious. The RCMP has, well, take Fred Quilt for example. (Long story about a native indian beaten to death in Lumby, B.C. by the RCMP) There's some basic reasons towards animosity towards the police. I personally have given considerably LESS abuse to the police force than I've GOTTEN from them. And it started with them. I didn't just fucking go out and "hate the cops". I started hating the cops 'cause I saw they were abusing my rights and other people's rights. They're aware of that too. They know damn well that people don't like them. They know why people call them PIGS. You see them on TV, "Oh they call me a pig and I'm a good cop" and stuff like that. That's a load of bullshit. They know exactly why they're called pigs. They know what happens. They turn their backs when people get the shit beat outta them by two cops...there's no way that can be totally kept secret. They know what their fellow partners are doin'. And they let them get away with it. And therefore they're just as fuckin' guilty as the rest of 'em. I have an animosity towards the whole police force. The term Peace Officer is total fuckin' hyprocisy. A joke. They're not Peace Officers at all, they'll provoke you...when they pull you over and ask you for ID, they provoke you.
S: Yeah. (well I gotta have SOME input)
G: Some people will go, "Yeah I know, they gotta be like that because there's so many wierdos & stuff out there." Well, granted there are some wierdos but if ya can't take the job get out of it. Get out of the kitchen. If cops act like the Gestapo Officers because there's weirdos, they shouldn't be cops. Not all cops act that way. It's no excuse. No excuse at all. That's part of the fuckin' job.
S: Uh, you guys played that ROCK AGAINST PRISONS thing a long time ago. (Ukranian hall) I assume you have some anti-prison sentiment.
G: Well, I don't totally agree with the organizer's views on Rock Against Prisons. Ii's almost like, they are willing, tommorow, if they were given the keys to BC Pen, they'd go in there and let everyone in there out. Without going through any kind of procedure to see if there's any people in there, which they're obviously is, that once you let them out, they'd put a fuckin' knife in your back. I don't agree with that. Prisons...eventually it would be good to abolish them...but I hear too many people talking in extremes. Like abolishing prisons right off, wiping out prisons just like that...(apparently this isn't entirely true of the RAP movement, but...)
M: I haven't really spoken with at any great length to anybody invovled as prison activists. I've just heard the basic statements, "abolish solitary confinement", "raze the prisons to the ground".
W: It wouldn't just be like that, right? Ya gotta change the whole circumstances that change people inta social criminals in the first place. But that's like jumpin' into a utopian state.
G: It's like, instead of sayin' "Ban the Bomb" or "No Nukes", it's like sayin' "Let's have peace & love across the face of the earth." It's an extreme statement...It just can't be abolished overnight. But I definetly agree that prisons ARE shit. There's no monitoring of bad conditions. The average person cannot get in there to see what's going on. Even when they DO get in there, everything is masked. Like when Jack Webster (old Vancouver journalist) walked in. It's a bloody joke. But like Webster...people could be getting their fuckin' heads smashed in and he'd still say that it was a beautiful place and he was served cake at 4. He's fuckin' right wing all the way. Solitary confinement. Any psychoanylist or anybody would agree that...it's not acheiving anything what it's meant to achieve at all. I mean, you can't lock somebody in a fuckin' six by six room for six years and expect them to come out and fit into society.
S: How true, Gerry. It's actually just an inhuman (subhuman) method of punishing somebody. (I didn't say this either, just makes me look right-on-the-ball)
M: Exactly Scott. This isn't really our area of expertise, uh, we really don't know that much about it. Maybe we should move on to soemthing else.
S: Ok, what about Rock Against Radiation?
M: Naw...
G: Well THAT. I'm sure we all have a little more insight into that, but I don't wanna get into it (To make a long story short, he goes into it anyway. They're against the abuse of nuclear power, OK?)
M: Like, we're not EXPERTS on any of, any left-wing radical probably feels the same way . Listen Scott. You promised not to misquote me and you're doing it now. I didn't say this. Stop it.
S: Ok, sorry Mike . The actual quote was ANY Fred Biff Nurdley on the street thought rationally about it would have the same basic sense.
G: We play 'cause generally we're behind the cause. We're not experts.
W: The Pointed Sticks played Rock Against Nukes. They don't really have any political ambition whatsoever in their music.
G: At least they did it. That I guess tells ya something. On CKVU they zoomed in on some guy and all he could say is, "Oh, isn't there some reactor down there? That isn't very nice."
S: You mean Tony Bardoch. (bass for the Sticks)
G: That was pretty...Tony saying that...well I guess he couldn't help it 'cause he's pretty ignorant to the fact...
M: He's just inarticulate.
G: No! He's totally ignorant of the facts. Otherwise he would've told exactly what was happening. But that wasn't his fault. It was the media's. Zooming in on Tony who didn't anything about the issues and asking him what he felt about it.
S: Wrapping up, who do you hate?
M: Another bad album and I'm gonna hate the Clash.
S: It would take you another bad album?!
M: I'm not answering that 'cause you didn't ask me that.
G: I agree. I feel sorry for the Clash though. I hate the Cars and the Knack. HATE THEM. If it was legal and they were standing right here and I had an M-16 they'd be missing their heads.
M: I'm not too fond of the Smarties.
G: Lene Lovitch...lots I dislike. (fave bands are Specials, Subhumans, UK Subs, Flying Lizards, Residents)
S: Last question. When will the Subhumans split up and what will be the circumstance warranting a split?
G: When the sun turns into a giant red fireball and then shrinks to a whitedwarf, The Subhumans will be no more.
W: It's hard to say. Each day brings new oppertunities. If Steve Jones & Paul Cook asked me to sing for 'em & paid air fare to England and gave me 50,000 quid, The Subhumans might break up tommorow.
S: Well, are you guys mellowing out or what?
M: I think we're getting a little better at what we're trying to do.
W: I don't wanna keep churning out the same old songs.
G: Yeh, I don't wanna be stuck in a rut musically. It gets boring.
W: It's following a trend to. Like saying, "well this the original punk sound" as an excuse.
G: That's stupidity saying every band should sound like the Pistols or Damned. There's lots of room for variation, and diversity.
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