...and if you got here from a different site by clicking a link, click here for the framed version of my site and here for the non-framed version.
2) How many things changed moving from Cleveland to New York ?
JM: The New York audience was far more responsive to our brand
of noise than in Cleveland. People dug it. At that time, in Cleveland,
the young people were content to support the same seven shitty bands and
nothing else. Getting outta that town was inevitable.
3) What impressed so much Steve to make you decide to move to N.Y.?
JM: Nobody would hire us in the town where we lived! You hadda
play godawful cover songs and wear satin jumpsuits with big flares at the
ankles. I'm telling you that all the local Cleveland bands sucked
in those days, and New York offered a more promising music scene.
There were places to play. Most of the New York bands, however, couldn't
find their own dick in the dark. There were really no high energy
bands, and their idea of aggressive music was pale compared to ours.
4) Can you tell me more about your relationship with Joey Ramone?
JM: He got the Dead Boys first gig at CBGB's on a Monday audition
night. He's a decent guy, I don'tknow what you want me to say. The first three Ramones albums
were brilliant and they were great live.
5) Did you join the Dead Boys from the beginning ? We have read the
Bad Trip's interview and we haven't understood very well the facts...
JM: The Frankenstein band consisted of Cheetah, Bators, Zero,
Blitz, and me. Frankenstein broke up. Bators moved the four of them
to New York and they played as the Dead Boys with no bass. They tried to
find a bass player in New York, but all were pitiful. After they
got signed to Sire, Cheetah called me at my dopey record store job in Ohio
and asked me to rejoin them. I said yes. Capice?
6) How was playing together with the Ramones and the Damned?
How was your and the audience's spirit those days?
JM: The CBGB crowd were the best. Lotsa energy. We were
like the house band because our manager, Hilly Kristal, ran the joint.
7) Where did you meet Seymour Stein from Sire and why did you decide to sign for them?
JM: At that time, when every major record label was scarfing
up any piece of shit punk band, that guy was signing bands he liked!
He certainly wasn't thinking big profits when he signed the Dead Boys.
8) I have read that they haven't never payed you any royalties...
JM: That would be, how you say, none of your stinking business.
9) How was over the years the relations with labels as Sire, Bomp, Baccus?
JM: Well I got nothing good to say about that hump Greg Shaw.
His label blows. Talk to him about royalties.The Sire months were
a scream, because every time we got called up to the office we'd come waltzing
in with the beers and the workers would scatter like roaches when the kitchen
light goes on.
10) Have you heard the Guns and Roses version of "Ain't it fun" ? What
do you think about it and about them?
JM:
Well what did you think of it? The fact that those morons achieved any
sort of success is disturbing. I hope they saved their money.
I would have preferred that Black Oak Arkansas covered the tune.
At least their singer plays the washboard.
11) How was the scene those days and why did you thought the motto:
"Fuck art, let's rock"?
JM: I could be tied to a chair and you could be pistol whipping me
senseless, and I would have no answer to that question.
12) What did the people think about your position ? In those years
there were many pretentious band that played rock weren't they?
JM: What the hell do you mean? Like how the Eagles/Fleetwood
Mac were pretentious, or how the
Patti Smith Group was pretentious?? There was a lot of shitty
music going on in those years. You lost me.
13) What do you thought about what was happening in England those years,
you know, punk, Sex Pistols...?
JM: Those Sex Pistols 45’s were the biggest sounding records
I’d ever heard in my life. I remember when “God Save the Queen” came
out, Johnny Blitz bought a copy and we took it back to our Ninth Street
apartment in New York. It was hot as hell out and he had this crappy
little stereo and we listened to that goddamn thing about a hundred times.
Both sides. Over and over. We heard that huge roar and all
agreed that we should be making records that sound like this. Too
bad it didn’t happen. By the time we got Felix for the second album,
he was sorta spent.
14) I read that your live act was violent and extreme. Why do you think
was meaning the press telling this? And if this is correct, do you was
aware of this? And finally what brought you to act that way ?
JM: It was “punk", baby! I always thought our live act
was all about having a good time. Violent and extreme? Christ, we
weren’t driving around shooting each other like these idiot rap singers.
We’d play the tunes, everybody got loaded, had some yuks and went the hell
home. And what the fuck did the stupid press know? There were
really very few writers that knew anything about the subject, and they
know who they are.
15) How did you release "Young loud and snotty"? What do you think
about "Young, loud and snottier"? JM: Not much. Nobody
loved those songs on the first album more than me. We played a bunch
of ‘em with Frankenstein in ‘75, and before that I would go see Rocket
From The Tombs play these same tunes.
Unfortunately, I make music so I know how good it can sound, and both
of those mixes suck. And that producer, that awful producer.
That rotten bitch got on her broom, flew around the studio, lifted up the
back of her dress and shit all over everything.
16) How come out that mix version of the album ? What version
do you like most?
JM: I prefer the version that rattles around in my head, like
so many nickels and dimes in your pocket.
17) Why did you decide to play Syndicate Of Sound's Hey Little
Girl on that album ? Have you ever played other covers ? Did you
usually listen to 60's bands ?
JM: Bators picked it. It’s a great song. We just
put the crunch in it. We played lotsa cover songs with Frankenstein
like Mott the Hoople, Dictators, Kiss, Stooges.
18) Was you happy about that LP ?
JM: I’m never happy.
19) At the end of '77, you played in England. How was that experience
?
JM: Well we did this tour with the Damned, opening for them.
England, Scotland, and Wales. Our first album wasn’t even released
in England yet, so nobody knew who the hell we were. The European
punk audience were into this whole “gobbing” thing. If they liked
you, they would spit all over you. Attractive, eh? We got spit
on alot, for dummy Americans.
20) How was playing with Damned ? Were you friends ?
JM: They were okay. The Damned had made some mighty records early
on, but I thought we blew ‘em off the mutha humpin’ stage night after night.
21) What do you thought about England ?
JM: I’ll go back there again when Satan is seen wearing ice skates and eating a Dilly bar.
22) How was working with Pappalardi from Mountain ? Who decided him
as a producer for your second LP ?
JM: Whilst in London, Seymour Stein flew over to see how our
tour was going, and he took us all out dinner one night to some damn wine
bar. We got faced and, after a while, he stood up and announced
to us all that Felix Pappalardi was gonna produce the next Dead Boys album.
The five of us looked at each other and our heads turned into jackass heads.
I’m sure Felix meant well, but the end result was not very good.
23) Why "We come for your children" hasn't been reissued ?
JM: Because nobody knows where the master tapes are, and
you are the first person to ask that question in ten years.
24) After that album you toured into the USA, I read that it was the
beginning of your "end", can you explain us better that period ?
JM: Our little group was not designed to last. Towards
the end everybody hated each other. We had fights and stupid band
meetings about kicking this guy out or that guy out. Like somehow
that was gonna make everything all right.
25) Can you explain the story between "Night of the Living Dead Boys"?
Why was released by Bomp instead than Sire ?
JM: Our manager sold the live tapes to Bomp for something like
three hundred dollars. Sire didn’t give a rat’s ass about putting
that record out.
26) How Johnny Blitz was stabbed and why Sire decided in the same period to fire you off?
JM: I don’t know. I wasn’t there when it happened.
As for Sire, the contract was for two albums and two 45’s, and the obligation was met. Look, they’d had enough of our act and said get lost. We weren’t selling records.
27) Why did you decide to split ?
JM: It was time.
28) Can you talk about the various reunion ?
JM: They we all pretty much half baked. We never rehearsed enough.
I think that most reunions are sorta pathetic. It’s usually just an excuse
to overcharge people, and they get to see how lousy the band looks and
hear how crummy they sound.
29) Why do you decided to release various live albums? Can you tell
me more about that records ?
JM: Well, that live Bomp album is absolute rubbish. It
wasn’t a particularly good performance by us. Those tapes sat around
for almost a year collecting dust, and then Bators went back and overdubbed
his vocals and the whole stupid thing sounded lame and fucked up.
The “Twistin’ On the Devil’s Fork” CD is totally live and has real versions
of the tunes. Low-Fi rules!
30) Have you ever played with other bands in all these years
?
JM: Yeah, but you never heard of them.
31) Are you still in contact with the other band members ?
JM: That would be a resounding “no”.
32) Do you liked the other Steve's bands as Lords Of The New Church,etc?
JM: I loved that guy, and was sad on the day he died, but everything
he did outside of the Dead Boys was for HIS pleasure, not mine.
33) Do you still listen to punk bands ?
JM: Most of the punk bands today just aren’t very good and, worse
than that, boring. How can you possibly have any sort of attitude
when the record company is pissing you out like a campfire. I guess
they learned some things.
34) What bands do you like most ?
JM: This band Flathead got a new LP comin’ out called “Bring
Us the Album”. Go buy it at once! They’ve got that damn Blue Cheer
rumble in their heads. A New York band called L.E.S. Stitches are
good. I like the Fur CD.
35) What do you think about nowadays punk?
JM: It’s all worthless and weak! All these damn bands are so
nice and do what they’re told. An average day in our band had fighting,
yelling, shoplifting, leaving somebody behind, pot smoking, VD, beer runs,
quitting. On a forty mile drive to a gig, we would break up about
six times. I miss those days...