BATTALION of SAINTS
by Mercedes
One of the most infamous bands to have terrorized a stage in punk's formative years came out of Southern California's deceptive snakepit-disguised-as-an-old-age-home: San Diego in the late 70's. Battalion of Saints exemplify the worst (in the best possible sense) of the nihilistic stereotypes ascribed to the early to the early hardcore punks and were more likely than not behind a lot of the violent and abusive actions celebrated as 'true punk.' Short, intense, provocative outbursts carachterize the BATS song. Their lyrics are emotional hotspots dealing with politics, fucked up relationships (no love songs here), and the personal mayhem anthemnic to their lives which were mostly self-fulfilling prophecies; short-lived dramas resulting in the deaths of a majority of their members.
After a ten year hiatus the band has been resurrected as the Battalion of Saints A.D., fronted by the original singer George Anthony, and reinforced with his new partner guitarist Terry Bones (Ministry, Revolting Cocks, Broken Bones, Discharge, U.K. Subs, etc.). The two veterans decided to join forces and pick up where the BATS had left off years before.
Coincidentally, at the same time, Curtis of Taang! Records had begun an earnest search for any remaining band members, and discovered some previously unreleased masters collecting dust at a San Diego recording studio. Scanning a copy of the San Diego Reader, Curtis came across an ad for musicians whose influences were the BATS, and immediately phoned the number, reaching none other than George Anthony himself, who had been holed up in San Diego for years.
In the meanwhile, George and Terry had gotten together and already created some new material which was immediately recorded and released as a 7". These songs were then added to 'new' old recordings, resulting in the incredible full length, 'Death -R- Us.' Far from being the tired, dull disappointments which are the results of many band's efforts to reform or make a comeback, this offering exhibits the raw energy and insanity found in their earlier material.
With current plans to hook up with select old school groups and tour the country "'til no city is left unscathed" (they're approximating three years), the Battalion of Saints A.D. perform a live show undimished by time with the exception of the absense of drugs and a slight lessening of violence {probably due to wisdom, age, and natural survival instincts}. If your babysitter wouldn't take you to see the original BATS, experiencing them first hand this time out is a required course in punk education no matter what 'school' you are from.
Let's speak with George and begin class with a short course in history. Note - Hardened to the many deaths of friends, the BATS are more than a little irreverent on the topic. You won't find any touching eulogies here.
MRR: George, as the only surviving member, it's up to you to continue the Battalion of Saints legend. Tell us about the early BATS.
GA: Chris Smith and I started the Nutrons. He was the original guitar player. He and I did all the writing. We started in '78, but couldn't get a drummer for like a year or a year and a half. Nobody wanted to play with us because we were just a bunch of drunken buffoons and drug addicts. Chris and I continued on without another guitar player. We had trouble with bass players all the time. Chris just played guitar, and we worked with numerous bass players. Finally we got a guitar player named Donny Diaz, and started touring. Right before we started touring, we had a bass player named Barry Farwell, and he quit the band. Actually, he kind of got booted out because Chris didn't like him anymore because he was going out with his chick - actually his ex-chick...
MRR: Chris' ex?
GA: Yeah, so he was like "We got to get him out of here, blah blah blah..." So I said "Okay, fine." So we got James Cooper to do all of the tours with us.
MRR: Isn't Barry a member who died?
GA: Yeah, Barry Farwell. He's dead, too.
MRR: What happened to him?
GA: He died of a 'drug incident.' A streak of bad luck, really.
MRR: What does that mean?
GA: Well, he had some sort of weird blood clot thing in his leg, and at the time he was shooting up with all kinds of speed and stuff and it broke loose and killed him. Anyway, we found a drummer and another guitar player and a bass player - Eric Holt, Dave Astor, and Ted Olsen. They were in a band called the Standbys. They broke up, and then we all got together. We were doing lots of shows with the Dead Kennedys and those bands. It was working out really well, but Dave wanted to quit because the direction we were going was a little harder than he wanted to go. So we were looking for a change, and we decided to change our names. I found the name Battalion of Saints at the time.
MRR: You found it? What do you mean?
GA: Well, it was in a book. It was a true Mormon thing - the Battalion of Saints. It was the Mormon Battalion that was hired by President Johnson. He asked the Mormons if they would march down and woop the shit out of the Mexicans... It was the world's longest land march - from Missouri down to Mexico. They kicked the shit out of them. It's a really weird thing, because they got them and they brought them to San Diego and right up the street from where I lived was the place that they camped out. The name is just striking because a battalion is just a fucking lot of people. And saints we're not. It was just a laugh really, but it worked and we liked it, so we were the Battalion of Saints. We did a lot of shows. We had a little - well, I would never call it a drug 'problem' because it was so much goddamned fun. When it got to be a problem was when people started goddamned dying - that's a kind of problem, you know?
MRR: So all of this was going on in San Diego when the scene was totally hardcore and the town had a really bad reputation?
GA: Yeah. Nobody wanted to come down here. Henry Rollins, his first Black Flag show down here at the Wabash Ballroom or something like that, he gets up there singing and this friend of mine, Tony, just walked up to him and smacked him right in the face. Bloodied his nose.
MRR: Everybody got it back then from what I've heard.
GA: The same guy,Tony, shot Stiv Bators with a pellet gun. It got to be worse than that. At that point it was a lot of fun. We were all just a bunch of hooligans, really, having a good time. Then it got to be bad. People were beating the shit out of friends and shit. That's the point were it got to be ridiculous and you stop hanging out with them because it was going overboard. The violence, that is. I'm not saying to be peaceful, but you can have a lot more fun just smacking each other in the pit without causing a big fight and being a football hero. The biggest guys were always getting into the pit and smacking the little guys, and that sucks! That's not fun. All this shit is basically just music - punk rock, hardcore, psychobilly. It's all supposed to be fun.
MRR: So the beginning of the Battalion was...
GA: Very violent. Everyone was doing too much speed, too much heroin, not enough sleep, drinking too much, running around in cars as fast as we could. It was just - it was fun...
MRR: You were pushing the limits...
GA: Yeah, and it was good. But what happens is that people start throwing gears into the works and attitudes start going. I don't really give a fuck about that. I mean as long as we can play and have a good time and not be like "Well, I'll see ya.," ya know? You get to a point where you fuckin' look at the guy and go...
MRR: What guy?
GA: Anybody in the band. You're just like, "Well, I'll talk to you later" after a show that went really good - that really sucks.
MRR: Why does that happen?
GA: It happens. People get all stroppy and think that they're something. I could really care less about it.
MRR: What made you act that way towards each other?
GA: Chicks! Chicks bring that out in guys.
MRR: You're slaves to your dicks.
GA: Totally. You have all this grief and problems with girlfriends going "You know you're better than that! You should be... You should be...!" And the guys are like "Uhhhh. Yeah. Duh. Okay." It happens all the time. It happens to the best of bands. Fuckin' look at the Beatles.
MRR: Yeah, look what Yoko did!
GA: Yeah. The girl that I was going out with at the time was rich, and she was this doctor, but she was just a dumbass! Chris knew that, and he just fuckin' worked her. We were on the road and he would call her up and tell her that I was fucking all these chicks and doing all this crap - which was true, but still - you don't do that to your bandmates. It's the unspoken rule. Rule number one. You don't dime out your bandmate no matter what. He had it down to their fuckin' panty size. Then, I'd call her up and go, "Hi, how is it?" And she'd go, "You were with this bloody chick and blah blah blah... and she had this..." You're like "Jesus Christ! Oh my god! How does she know? She listened to that crap. You know, I was always so amazed that she was so brainy but so stupid. So I was like, " Well, that's fine." I got over it. I just said "Fuck all this shit!"
MRR: I would have kicked his ass!
GA: Well, you know... We got back aftert his tour and I told Scarlet (Captain Scarlet), "Look, I don't give a fuck about what he did, as long as we can get over that and play the music." We'd got an album's worth of music ready to go and a contract waiting, so I'm like, "I don't give a fuck about that. A chick's a chick, you know? They come and they go."
MRR: But it's about him betraying you.
GA: That's true. But I overlooked that. Fuck it! I can't be bothered. It's not like I lost a leg!
MRR: But you did lose her.
GA: Well, I was going to get rid of her anyways. But it was fucked and I knew that it was fucked. I go, "Mom, I don't know what the hell is going on here!" My mom knew that it was him. She goes, "I'll bet that it's that Chris!" And she's like, "Well, George. You know how you are. You're going to do what you want to do - which is what you normally do..." Then we were back from the road and we took a week off from each other. I hung out with Scarlet at my mom's house. We were going, "Okay, this is cool. We've got a contract waiting in our hands." Enigma was going to sign us.
MRR: Then what happened? (Something always happens.)
GA: Yeah, but then there was the problem with Chris. I said to Chris, "There's just one thing that I want to say before we get started..." And he goes, "I have to tell you guys - I have to quit." I'm going back to New Jersey and drive a roach coach wagon with my brother, marry my girlfriend, and live a normal life."
MRR: "And become an informant on the side!?!" What was he on, acid? "Oh, this sounds like the perfect life!"
GA: Yeah right, can you believe that? So I got up and I was about to start smacking him! You know? Here I was, just about to forgive him for all this shit, but that was just about the last line! Scarlet grabbed me by the seat of my pants and pulled me back. He goes, "George, we're in his fuckin' dad's house! Not cool man!" I was just going, "Alright! Alright!" We went downstairs and there were just cases and cases of mail that had come in and all of it had been opened and read and all this shit.
MRR: Chris opened it all?
GA: No, this chick I was going with. She was doing all the business of it, which was fine... But they took everything! They took my test pressings, they took my first...
MRR: Who's 'they?'
GA: My chick! And Chris! They ended up nobbin' for a while and then Chris took off for New York with some other chick and so we all disbanded. I went to D.C., Chris went to New York, Scarlet went back to England, and Joey went back to Florida.
MRR: That was the end?
GA: Temporarliy. Then Chris died.
MRR: How did he die?
GA: Chris?!? They sit there and say that he slipped and fell and cracked his head open and... Oh, this is what happened - okay, I was here at the Mentors show at the Spirit. I had just walked in and El Duce goes, "George, sorry about that!" And I'm like, "What?" He's all, "Chris is dead!" Yeah, Chris is dead when I fucking get a hold of him! I'll kill him. Then he says, "No, really. He's dead!" Not believing him, I go, "Really? He's dead? How did he die?" He says, "I don't know, I just heard he was dead." So I called up his number, and his girlfriend answered, and she's all, "Hi!" And so I ask, "Is Chris around?" And then she's all, "Oh, he's dead!" Just like that. I said, "So I heard, I just wanted to make sure."
MRR: Any pictures of the funeral?
GA: I ask, "So, what happened?" She goes, "Well, he slipped and fell and cracked his head open and drowned in the bathtub." Right! They had found him in the bathtub with all kinds of syringes laying around underneath it and everything. It was totally obvious! I guess they decided to go with that story out of respect for his family or something, I don't know.
MRR: What happened to Donny Diaz?
GA: Well, he moved up to San Francisco and later died of AIDS. After we finally broke up, I hadn't kept in touch with him.
MRR: And what became of Captain Scarlet?
GA: He's not doing too hot. He needs a liver transplant. I hope he can get it. He's been in the hospital for the whole last year.
MRR: And what happened, wasn't there one more?
GA: Dave Astor?
MRR: Yeah.
GA: His dodgy boiler wife and kids - she started cheating on him. I don't know how she started cheating on him - she looked like sin. And he blew his brains out. So it's like - we've had roadies who've gone on tour with us that have OD'ed and died, and others that turned into complete nutter mental cases. Hopefully no more will croak on us.
MRR: That's why you're now called the Battalion of Saints "After Death."
GA: Yeah, or as Terry says, "After drugs!" After that happened, I was in a relationshio which went horrendously awry, so I moved to England for a couple of years (with Scarlet), toured around with a couple of bands and worked with them. I just basically had a drunken time for two years. Then I came back here to San Diego and I was here for a few years, but nobody wanted to be in a band with me because they were afraid that they'd die or get hooked horrendously to drugs or something. Which is fine. At that time it was true. Finally, I met up with Terry. Terry called me and wanted to do the band again.
MRR: The two of you are partners now?
GA: Yeah, we're a partnership. We're both writing the music and all that. The new guys, when they get into it, I'm sure they'll be into the writing and all that. Right now, it's just Terry and I doing all the writing. Terry and I have been friends for... We met around '81 or '82. We'd been great friends, but we hadn't seen each other in about ten years. It's been working out. We have no real problems. Don't slag him or anything like that. He cracks me up when he does shit. He can't drive, though. Otherwise, he's an alright geezer. Anyway. at that time, he was doing the UK Subs, and so he did that then. He was here for one day on tour and so we recorded a single for Taang!.
MRR: The single was...
GA: 'Hell's around the next corner' and 'Thru with you.' When Terry went back on tour, I finished working on the CD (Death R Us), the cover and all that stuff, and then we put the single on it and released it. Now we're out here touring. So everyone, come to the shows, buy me a drink, and we'll talk about it! And if you shoot any videos of us, I want a copy or I'm just going to take the tape. We just did a tour with Total Chaos, which was quite interesting.
MRR: In what sense?
GA: Our van blew up twice. We got ripped off by the guy who originally repaired it.
MRR: What town was that?
GA: Norwalk, Ohio.
MRR: So if you're anywhere near Norwalk, Ohio...
GA: If you break down on the Ohio Turnpike, don't go to Norwalk. Anyways, we were supposed to meet up with the band in Lawrence, Kansas, and the van blew up again 400 miles out of Ohio!
MRR: What type of response did the BATS get on their first time out reincarnated?
GA: It was really good! What was really funny was that in certain cities where you didn't think it was going to be worth a damn we had really good shows. I always had a bad time in Connecticut, but we had a really, really good show. That was the day our drummer quit as well.
MRR: What?
GA: We had this drummer, he was the biggest dickhead from this ska band called the Invaders. He was the biggest pussy - couldn't fucking deal with the road! "My girlfriend! Where's she to fix me dinner?!?" and all that kind of crap. All of the sudden, he picked up his little drum case and walked down the middle of the street with it after we finished this gig in Connecticut.
MRR: How did he get home?
GA: I don't give a fuck! You know! He was going to say goodbye to me and I was going to start punching him, so I just went to the bar. I just sat there and got completely nine-eyed. The drummer for Total Chaos played with us for the rest of the tour. He was a real good drummer, but he didn't want to join our band. He just wanted to do their England tour and then settle down because he has a kid, which is cool. But we're going to be touring solid for the next three years.
MRR: Isn't your wife going to have a baby soon? Is this where a little bit of friction comes in?
GA: Yeah, and no. She's cool on it. She's going to come out and see us and stuff like that. That's just the way it goes. She wants me to do it. She sees me happy, and that's important to her to see me happy, so it's important to me to be happy. She says that if the band could do something with it, we should. That's a big load off my mind. We were going to do a bunch of recording this time out on our break, but we had to replace a bunch of people. Me and Terry... It's a real drag. I hate to do it, but it has to be done.
MRR: What's that?
GA: Replacing people.
MRR: What's the story with that?
GA: Well, the drummer quit - fine. We were all set to get Slayer Hippie from Poison Idea, but he was on probation in Seattle and he can't leave, so that blew that out of the water. He's a great guy and all, but we have to keep on going. We can't just stop and wait for him. So now we've got this kid named Mark Bender playing drums, and Ruben T. Ramos playing bass, and they're really, really, really good! We're really happy.
MRR: Until recently, Battalion of Saints hadn't been out for how long?
GA: Almost ten years to the month.
MRR: What's the biggest change you've noticed? Besides the violence, that is.
GA: Well, no, it's violent as fuck! There are certain places where they are all bent out of shape, which is fine. We're not going to stop playing if there is a big old ruck. Like Joe got beat once up by thirteen guys in Ft. Lauderdale.
MRR: While you were playing?
GA: Yeah, we were doing "Ace of Spades," and he was getting pummeled, which was really funny. Well, it wasn't for him, because he got really beat. Florida was not good for Total Chaos. They just got harrassed constantly. But it was a lot of fun. We got to see a lot of good things.
MRR: Like what?
GA: We saw some guy roll his truck, and then he died. We saw a train wreck.
MRR: All kinds of destruction and mayhem. That's always good to see.
GA: Oh yeah, we got lots of pictures of it! We were in New York in this club and fuckin' Courtney Love was there trying to score. We were all hollering at her and shit, and she goes "Sell out boys! It's the only way to make money!" So we were just yelling at her and calling her 'hole!'
MRR: She's already done that herself, so it's no big deal.
GA: It doesn't matter. She's ugly as fuck anyways. We were just sitting there and drinking these shots and the last thing I remembered was walking into a liquor store to get something, and then just walking out. About 7 o'clock the next morning, I woke up underneath this van on the other side of town. I had no idea where I was, but it was lot's of fun. Some peope told me that we're scary on stage. So I ask why, and they say "You guys are kinda big, and you get right up against the front of the stage so no one can really get on there." When we were in Tijuana, we were smacking people right off because they got up there and were like camping. So we just grabbed them by the seat of their pants and threw their asses off. "Get the fuck off my stage!"
MRR: What else do we need to know?
GA: We're going to do another album as soon as we get the chance. We're trying to get to Europe, and we're trying to hit to Japan before the end of next year. Then we plan to record another album and do it agian.
MRR: So back up a bit - Terry found you, and then Curtis found the both of you? What happened when Curtis called you?
GA: He goes, "Is this George Anthony?" I'm all "Duh, yeah." And he says, "George Anthony from the Battalion of Saints?!?!?!?!" I answer yes, and ask why. Then he says, "I've been looking for you for two years!"
MRR: What now, "Do I owe you money?"
GA: Exactly, but he says "I'd like to remaster your stuff and put it out." So we met a day later and went over all the paperwork.
MRR: Back to the band history. Obviously that wasn't your first release.
GA: No, there was the "Second Coming" lp on Nutrons Records which was distributed by Enigma. Nutrons - it was our label. Before that there was the 12 inch "Fighting Boys" ep - that was the original. There's no 7 inch - the 7 inch is a bootleg! I've seen them all over the fuckin' place!
Also, we did some compilations, and that's it. So if anybody tells you - Doug Moody... That's all crap! That's all ripped off! It's fucked! It's bullshit! Thank you.
MRR: What was the story behind that?
GA: There's some stuff on there that didn't get released anywhere else, but it is total bullshit to me! They're just fuckin' bootlegs to me! He sold thousands and thousands of copies and I didn't even get a penny! I mean, if he would have given me a penny, or even given me a copy... I'd heard from some guy that it was the most records he's sold out of all the stuff in his catalog.
MRR: Didn't you have publishing rights?
GA: Yeah, but so what? You couldn't touch the guy. He's so elusive. He's such a worm. He's got his house in his mom's name, his phone in his sister's name, all that kind of crap.
MRR: But he's got a record label in his name.
GA: Yeah, his name's on it, but it isn't owned by him.
MRR: Ohhh, okay.
GA: So many people ask for all our stuff that he put out on his label, like "Sweaty Little Girls."
MRR: Can't you get the records that he has now?
GA: Yeah, but we can't find him to sue him. We know that he lives in San Marcos.
MRR: Find him through the distributors. Who pays him? Who buys his stuff?
GA: He stopped doing anything. I heard from one guy who was distributing for him that he had this half million dollar catalog of his stuff that he would gladly sell. He has NoFX, us, Government Issue, and some other bands. All we did in his studios in Hollywood was record. He took the tapes and pressed all these singles. He's going aroud saying "They're great! They're monsters! They're selling! Yeah! Yeah!" And we never even got a copy or a fucking cent out of it.
MRR: Sorting things out with Curtis also helped you sort out a similar studio rip off, didn't it?
GA: Yes, Hit Single Studios. Randy Fuelle and Ted Olsen, those bastards! They were already trying to make a deal with Curtis without me because they couldn't find me.
MRR: Randy was saying that you owed him for studio time, wasn't it?
GA: Yeah, it was a bunch of shit. He's start saying "Oh, I never recieved any money!" I was just like "Fuck you!" They were going, "Okay, we need this much money..." I was like "Fuck you! You ain't gettin' shit! Fuck you! You get nothing! You quit the band! You signed off that you were not responsible for debt or money that the band made." Ted quit the band when we were about to start touring and stuff. We wrote up a contract that said that he was not going to be held responsible for the Battalion of Saints, or going to recieve any of the money, or have anything to do with the Battalion of Saints or Nutrons Records at the time. So he signed it. I paid him $200 for this tape that we had. He said I owed him, so I paid him. Now all of the sudden, he's trying to say "You guys never gave me any money. I never signed anything." All this shit. I could never get a hold of the contract because our old manager had it. He wanted all this stuff, and I just kept telling him "You suck! You get this, and you get this... If you don't like it, it's too fucking bad. Otherwise, I'm not going to release it!"
Randy kept nagging, "Oh, I want this much... I never got any of this money." He's the biggest fucking rip-off. He's ripped off so many bands like that. Randy! You scumbag! I have nothing good to say about him. Really.
MRR: I got that impression.
GA: We got the contract signed, so they'll be getting money and I'll never have to see them again. I'd have to punch them. After this record, it's all over with. I don't have to deal with any of them after this.
MRR: And there's Terry Bones to consider.
GA: If he fucks up - oh, everybody fucks up! Terry, me, whomever. But if it becomes a habit, it has to be dealt with. Terry handles the music and makes sure everyone's doing their part. I handle the business. It's kind of a drag, but until we can afford to get management of some sort... As of right now, I don't trust anybody to touch it! Right now, there's no money in it. There's some, but nothing to write home about. And if you shoot any videos of us, I want a copy. If we find anyone selling the stuff, we're going to come after you and break your legs!
MRR: That's not an idle threat.
GA: No, it's the facts. I'm serious about getting the videos and stuff. We'll mace you, break your legs, and take the camera.
MRR: And duct tape you to...
GA: To the railroad tracks! Other than that, we're friendly kind of guys. Come to the shows. Come see us.
MRR: "Punch us in the face."
GA: No problem. Remember, it's all about having a good time, damnit!
