The following is a transcribed interview with
Poison Idea front-man and founding member Jerry A., conducted just before
the band's tour stop at New Orleans' Dixie Taverne in late July 2005. Formed in
the early 1980s hardcore punk scene in Portland, Oregon, Poison Idea has
released numerous albums and 7 inch pressings, and have broken up and reformed
more times than anyone can possibly count. After nearly 25 years of touring,
recording, and generally raising hell, Poison Idea finally made their way to New
Orleans for the first time in 2005. N.O. Punks was fortunate enough to have
acquired this original interview.
Poisoned
Ideas
August 02. 2005.
By Vince Knuckles
Monday July 25th, 2005 I had the pleasure of interviewing Jerry from Poison Idea outside the Dixie Taverne in New Orleans. It was hot out, damn hot. But over a cold beer and some full blast A/C in my truck, we talked about what most of the kids today don’t even think about: the scene in 1982, the bootlegs, the backstabbing, the drugs, the politics and The Germs. Take what you want from this, but I think it reveals a lot of truths about many things… and fair share of inflammatory shit-talk as well.
Ok, to start off, I know you released demos in ’82, how long have you actually been around.
Jerry:
(snoring)
Boring question?
Huh, huh? No man, I’m just so relaxed in here. This feels
so great. Man its so nice, so nice being here… what was the question? If we’ve
been around since 82?
Well, from your releases, the earliest I have seen is '82. When
did you guys actually start playing music?
Um…Um… I think we played our first show actually on New
Years Eve between 1980 and 81. We played a year, or two years before we put
something out, like a recording.
That was the demo that became the “Darby Crash Rides Again” 7 inch?
Well we did that and then we just didn’t think that was
good enough, and then we did Pick Your King… So we released Pick Your
King, and then we did a couple more records: Record Collectors Are
Pretentious Assholes, Kings of Punk and then we thought the old stuff
was funny enough to release, to re-release.
It’s definitely a way different feel between that and the later records.
Its just funny cause that’s when you're 17 or whatever,
those 30 second songs… That’s all you have time for; at that time that’s all.
You don’t have time to do much. Get to the point, and do it fast. And that’s
what we did. Doing two minute songs was unheard of… like an opus, and fucking
solos, forget about it.
Did you guys actually know Darby Crash personally or were you influenced by
him or was that a joke?
You mean about the Darby Crash record and putting
everyone’s names as Crash?
Yeah
Well, people in our band The Stand who I played with before went down there and hung out with Darby and knew Darby. So the thing was by the time we recorded that stuff he was still alive.
(Editor's note: Darby Crash died in December of 1980. It is possibly Jerry mixed up some dates here.)
We weren’t really flogging a dead horse or nothin’, it was just basically that I was a big fan of his lyrics. I loved his lyrics because at that time as far as punk rock lyrics went, people seemed to revel in ignorance, they weren’t too down with fucking poetry. Darby’s kinda smart as far as his lyrics went. They’re kinda smart. You had to know how to read for one thing. Now it’s gone in a complete [180 degree] angle. Like that cock sucker in Limp Bizkit. He’s actually gone on tape; I’ve seen him on television saying that he has never read a book in his life. That’s more harmful than saying any kind of sexist or racist or any type of thing I can think of. So fucking use your goddamn mind. That’s all you got man. Your tongue is your sharpest weapon, your mind is your biggest fucking muscle, well you know besides your heart… It’s unbelievable that ignorance is trendy. To be stupid is cool. That’s fucked man. To get back to the question, way around the way, the Germs were a very smart band and Poison Idea always tried to inject a little bit of knowledge into their lyrics. Which at the same time, we’re still a bunch of thugs and I did not graduate high school. I was a street kid, or whatever.
You know about the movie they’re making about the Germs?
Yes
How do you feel about it?
Well there are actually two movies from what I heard.
What We Do Is Secret is the one being filming in LA as we speak.
Right, Right….how do I feel about it? I don’t really feel
about it, but I just think it’s bad. I think it’s gonna be spotlighting the
wrong things.
Like
the homosexuality and the heroin use?
That’s not the wrong things. Those are the right things. Homosexuality and heroin use are right. Everyone should be a queer and everyone should be a junkie and shoot heroin. That’s right.
So on that note, how you feel about Portland being number one in homeless
street kids, a majority or which use heroin? How does that affect Portland and
how does that affect you?
Man, I told them not to tell anybody. I get them all in my garage every night and tell them “look, eventually we will take over the world, but for now we gotta keep it under wraps.” Every night I get at least 200 kids in my garage and we have this big meeting. We all shoot heroin and suck each others dicks. And I tell them “Just be quiet about it. Eventually we’ll rule the world.” Some of them might have jobs at the Post Offices, Police Stations, Fed Ex. We’re trying to get people to work within the government, and that’s a way we can take it over from within. But to get serious for a moment, it’s just the economy; it’s just the way it moves. They say that about Portland? They say New Orleans right now is the murder capital of the world, before that it was Detroit was the Murder capital of the world. The media tries to put these labels on things to distract you from the real problem of what’s going on. The real problem is that the president is a fucking mongoloid. And he’s over there declaring war on these people. 9-11 happened? These people didn’t have anything to do with 9-11. You know if you want oil lets take it. We shoulda done it….. Lets take over Mexico. We should take over China. If we wanna be war mongers, lets do it. Lets fucking do it. Don’t put excuses on it, and say it’s because of this or that, lets goddamn do it. Like Genghis Khan, man, lets fucking do it. Let’s take over the world and do it. That might be the best way to do it. They have to lie and say “oh we have to bomb this shit.” Because they’re all patsies just like the guy who shot Kennedy “I didn’t do it, I’m a patsy.”
Interviewer's note: At this point I had no idea where my question about street kids went and I was about to ask him who really shot JFK. But he trailed off and I asked my next question.
In 1996 Epitaph Records re-released Feel the Darkness. How did that come about and how do you feel about that?
Well our drummer who we threw out for being a fucking drug addict, had the
master tapes at his house and he sent the master tapes to Epitaph behind our
back without consulting us. He had Epitaph [release] it and they signed a
contract. So Epitaph did it through him, our old drummer Slayer Hippy. We had
nothing to do with it. I’ve seen him twice since then, once at the Damned and I
punched him in the face and blackened his fucking eyes. We had no money. We had
to get a lawyer to call them up and say: you know what? We haven’t seen any
royalty statements. I see this record in Tower Records and shit. I know you’re
selling some records, can we get a [royalty] statement. They said “we sent these
statements to Slayer Hippy.” Well he’s not in the band. And they said fuck you
basically. So they’re businessmen now. Mr. Brett from Bad Religion and all those
fuckers there are businessmen. They won’t deal with us because we have no power.
They are the things they talked about being against in the old days, Mr.
Corporation and all that bullshit. Now they are that. And I hope that eventually
in the long run when they’re fucking old and stuff that it will come around and
sting them in the ass, which it should. I can see as far as getting the stuff
out to people, for the kids that wanna get it, who are buying the re-issue shit
for fifty bucks… That’s fine. But work with the goddamn bands. We’re the band,
fucking Brett Epitaph. I’ve never even talked to you in my goddamned life. And
here you are selling my fucking record which I have no control over what so
ever. So as far as I’m concerned, that’s a bootleg.
I had a feeling that’s how it was, that’s why I asked.
Definitely it is. They’re pirates.
Where did the lyrics from “Just to Get Away” come from?
There’s this band in Astoria, NY called Big Stick. They weren’t a punk band but they were a really good band. They had this song called…. What the fuck was it called? I forgot what it was called but they said something about Poison Idea in their song. And the whole lyric to the song was something like [starts singing in a really emo voice] “I’m leaving in the morning, just to get away-hey.” It was kinda like Ministry. Ministry type shit. And they said “why don’t you write a rock n roll song about being a high school kid and having a car and whiskey, and just go?” So we were on tour and I went to my hotel room that night and I wrote that song: "Just to Get Away", for these guys, my friends.
So you wrote the music as well as the lyrics?
I wrote all the music to all of the songs.
Slayer Hippy played drums on that record right?
Yeah
All personal bullshit aside. How do you feel about the fact that a lot of people
consider him to be one of the best punk rock drummers of that era?
Slayer Hippy….. Yeah he was really good. This one time I’ll say this, this one fucking time. After this I hate him and I’ll stab him if I ever see him. But, yeah, I used to stand in front of him at sound checks and he would do these rolls and hit his double bass and it would remind me or riding a motorcycle. I would be this fucking surge over and over. It was physical and it was really good. But you know what? Chris the drummer we got now, sometimes he’ll do that in the middle of the set. I’ll turn around and I’ll throw the mic down and stare at him. I don’t wanna be an existentialist and say it’s an out of body experience, but it sounds great. To me that’s fun. I love it. I love it. It’s great.
How do you feel about people saying that “Just to Get Away” is the best Poison Idea song?
I’ve never heard that before. Just to Get Away? We’re not
gonna play that tonight now.
Interviewer's note: At this point Jerry and I talked a few minutes
about touring, records, and just life in general, most of which is not
news-worthy, but at one point Epitaph records came up again and he responded as
follows:
I’d like to put another quote. To all these fucking corporate punks, these Rancid guys, Brett, Bad Religion guys, Offspring guys, Epitaph guys, fucking Good Charlotte guys….. You are not punk rock. You have never been punk rock. You’re a bunch of traitors. You’re fucking traitors. Punk rockers should rise up and hang you. They should fucking kill you. You guys are piranhas, you’re fucking cancer. You’re fucking business men. You’re fucking ripping people off. You’re pushing shit products down peoples’ throats. You’re no fucking salvation; you’re just a finger in a dike. You’re nothing, you’re fucking bullshit. Fuck you guys. Yeah I admit Rancid has some good songs. Bad Religion HAD some good songs. Some of these bands HAD some good songs. Besides that, they’re business men. Clothing lines, photography, movies…. What next? Are you gonna start putting out pinball machines? You’re fucking capitalist fucks. Fuck you. You’re a bunch of fucking assholes.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Following this interview, we headed back inside to a sweltering 120 degree sauna
and I witnessed the only set Poison Idea has ever played in New Orleans in
they’re nearly 25 years of existence.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -