The Return Of The Damned With A Leeds Gig And New Album

After 40 years since The Damned first exploded on to the music scene and 10 years since they last released an album, the band are returning with a new album, Evil Spirits and a tour that visits Leeds 02 Academy on 30 January.

Recorded in New York with famed record producer, Tony Visconti (David Bowie, T Rex, U2, Morrissey, Thin Lizzy) the new album sees the band back at their best. Returning to the group is bassist Paul Gray who has also been in UFO and Eddie and the Hot Rods.

I posed some questions to Captain Sensible from the band:

The tour is coming to Leeds, do you have any good stories or memories of gigs you played in the city?

According to this comprehensive gig list (http://www.whiterabbitskgs.co.uk/live.htm), The Damned played Leeds Poly on Dec 5th 1976.. we just clicked with the audience and have returned over 30 times since.

I can only imagine what some of those early shows were like because a Damned show was pretty much as rock and roll as it gets back then. Thankfully there was no YouTube in those days, so no clips to remind us of our past indiscretions, lol !!

Todays Damned play really well... without the wild fluctuations in quality of performance, which you could probably put down to the bevvy.

How did Tony Visconti get involved with the new album?

There’s something wonderful about the 70s sound.. those glam, rock and punk records - they sound so great. And compare so favourably when up against all the maxed-out ultra-compressed auto-tuned guff that you hear on the radio these days.

Tony specialises in well-crafted, old school production.. He did a spectacular job on Bowie’s posthumous album.. but how could we ever afford him? Then someone mentioned this new-fangled PledgeMusic thing and.. there you go.

The recordings were done 70s style... Tony had us all playing live, bashing it out in the same room with a focus on getting the initial band version of each song as close as possible to the finished thing.

He chose a studio with a heap of wonderful sounding antique valve gear and mics.. which often had to be cajoled into action with a few taps. The new album sounds old school of course, and there’s still a fair bit of punk in there, but it also has the singalong vibe of early Bowie and T-Rex.

Getting to sleep back at the hotel during recording sessions was sometimes a problem with the album’s many themes and melodies buzzing around your head.

“Standing At The Edge Of Tomorrow” has a neat 50s spy theme flavour to it.. apparently it’s Dave’s first single in 40 years in the band. Long overdue - it’s a cracker. The backing vocals are sung in Russian male choir style.. that’ll be fun onstage.

There’s a lot to be said for a thrashing drum kit and a cranked up guitar.. add that to a bit of melody and some rabble-rousing lyrics and you’ve got a winning formula. I love a bit of 70s rock myself, but it can get a little stodgy and samey occasionally.. punk seems to retain a freshness, even if the band are a bit past their sell-by date.

It’s fun to see mixed age audiences - when my kids came to some shows and were cavorting about in the mosh pit I thought, “Blimey, you’d never get me anywhere near anything like that”. I’d be at the back in the posh seats, making sure no one spills my pint.

Does any of today's music excite you?

While there’s always good new bands out there they should be careful of some of today’s modern recording trends… the auto-tuned vocals, maxed-out loudness, quantised drums... everything perfected until there’s no soul left. And sadly it possible now to take some gorgeous model with zero talent and with the wonders of studio trickery transform a lacklustre performance into a saleable product. Give the project some personality with a posh video and… kerching. The cash comes rolling in.

Where the next Hendrix or Lennon is going to come from is anyone’s guess. Anyone who has their own ideas would probably not get through the first round of The X Factor.

For us, the silver lining that comes with all that plastic nonsense is that live music is thriving as a result… People know there’s no choreography, auto-tune, or mix cheating in a Damned show… it’s all genuine, with a fair smattering of spontaneity.

I can recall the banter with the Academy audience… it would’ve been a few years ago now, before that massive scandal became public - where we had 2,000 people doing the Savile yodel. Unbelievable really!!!

In the early 80's you worked with producer Tony Mansfield on Happy Talk and Wot - that was quite a change of direction for you. Did you get a lot of flak from the Damned fans?

Yes, quite rightly too.. as you can expect I made the most of my time as Britain’s most unlikely pop star.. Incredibly, “Wot!” was No1 in France for 7 weeks - the label sent me over to do some promo and I was mobbed - which made a change from the punk life I was used to… “Oi Sensible, what happened to you ya fat pillock?”… “Get your round in your tight b****d”, etc.

I do the occasional 80s show where I meet old chums like Nick Heyward, Leee John (Imagination), Go West, Howard Jones and the rest of them. Along with myself they all seem to have cleaned up their act as far as the bevvy is concerned, all sitting round enjoying a herbal tea, or whatever these days.

Is it hard choosing the set list for the tour>

The band is at least two bands in one as we were really at the front of 2 distinct music revolutions… punk and goth. So pleasing both sets of fans in never going to be easy. In the past we’ve even resorted to handing out sheets of A4 to the queues outside asking them to write the set list. A lot easier.

I’m looking forward to playing onstage with Paul Gray again.. he’s a spectacular bassist, and once told us that if he got paid by the notes he crams into a gig he’d be a multi-millionaire.

On the album sessions Paul and Pinch really clicked as a rhythm section.. which allows Monty and myself to venture into the realms of psychedelia on occasion. Dave will be prowling the stage as ever, while I’ve had a new-fangled bridge installed on my guitar.. called an Evertune, cos like it says you never get any bum notes. Apart from the ones I let slip occasionally.
Anyway, this thing cost £500 so it'd better work.

The set list will cover all the bands ‘golden’ periods - when with the Pistols and Clash we created punk, there’ll be some 80s garage psych.. and of course the goth years. Writing the setlist is never easy.. what do you leave out?

The Damned, o2 Academy, Leeds Tuesday 30 January 2018, supported by Slim Jim Phantom

www.ticketmaster.co.uk