Punk Rock Musician interview-Merle Allin

all right Merle welcome back thank you you I think more than any person I've ever interviewed you got more requests for a follow-up interview than I think it's so great to be loved [ __ ] you your brother your brother kind of made you notorious you guys were both yeah very very well known well loved in uh in the punk rock Community well loved and well hated believe me yeah yeah so which is fine you know what as long as people are talking that's all that [ __ ] matters that's what your brother would have loved right yep tell me a little bit about your brother so for okay viewers that don't know my brother was the most notorious the most outrageous the most dangerous rock and roll performer of all time bar none his live shows are legendary they consisted of nudity self-mutilation defecation masturbation lots of blood lots of blood lots of violence confrontations with audiences yeah lots of fighting um oral sex on stage with men and women people leaving shows with broken bones or on stretchers I'm not [ __ ] this all happened this was the 80s right this was the early 80s 80s and 90s the 90s because in the 90s was the time period that the murder Junkies we're touring with my brother yeah even though like the sex pistols and some of the bands that were so notorious early on in the punk scene um you and your brother became you almost represented that community that better than anyone well in terms of that I mean I mean you know we obviously were influenced by you know the early Punk stuff The Ramones The Sex Pistols The Dead Boys all that stuff and as they kind of folded off or I think my brother was disillusioned by all of it by the fact that he felt that a lot of those bands sold out started to sell out and he stayed true to his guns uh throughout his whole career whether people liked it or not I mean the critics hated it I mean there was not ever one good [ __ ] write-up about anything GG Allen ever did you know if if he had been more like soft and [ __ ] [ __ ] punk and and all that [ __ ] you know like sugar-coated [ __ ] punk rock that there is today people would have loved him but you know when you write songs about murder and rape and torture and killing and you know all that [ __ ] he stuck to his guns people don't take you serious or they they just they don't want to hear that yeah unlike a lot of the other Punk you know before him yeah he didn't he'd never really mellowed out no not at all I mean he took it to extreme levels you know I mean there was nobody doing anything like he was doing yeah where's that come from you know growing up we had a really tell me about your family growing up thank you tell me about your family growing up okay well my mom met my dad 1953 54. uh she was 17 [ __ ] years old my dad was like 30 Something New Hampshire in New Hampshire the rural New Hampshire in a small town of Lancaster New Hampshire and she got pregnant right away so they got married 1955 April 1955 I came along and a year a little over a year later my brother came along and uh we were both born and weeks Memorial Hospital in Lancaster New Hampshire population 3 000 something like that we grew up in a three-room log cabin on an rfd2 Road between Lancaster and Groveton in a town called northumborn we lived in a three-room Log Cabin with no running water uh you have electricity electricity we had but we had no running water we had to go to Wells and bring big jugs of water to we had no shower no bathtub we had a small kitchen you walk into the to the to the cabin there's a small kitchen off the kitchen there's a one small room with a toilet no you know bathtub no shower no sink no nothing a toilet that's it the next room is the living room which also was my mom and dad's bedroom and the third room which was so small we had to we had to sleep literally in bunk beds so that was the first 10 years of our life we lived with a domineering father it was very strict I mean he named me after him so I'm Merle Jr but he named my brother Jesus Christ Allen so Gigi's real name is Jesus Christ his real name was Jesus Christ Allen up until up until he went into the first grade and my mom I don't know how she how she ended up getting him to change it but she changed it to Kevin Michael Allen so so that that begs the question what what was going on with your dad that he named your brother Jesus Christ well my dad you know was a [ __ ] nut job I mean he was like he was a religious fanatic who did not follow what he preached he did not practice what he preached he would send us off to [ __ ] church every Sunday and he would stay home just because he wanted to get rid of us for the day you know so um yeah so that was basically we were pretty isolated as kids we didn't have neighbors with kids to play with um so we basically you know entertained ourselves by playing outside and you know we we were able to hear music my dad had records like Merle Haggard he had some Johnny Horton uh some Willie Nelson Hank Williams stuff like that so that's that was our first introduction to music you know you and Gigi were close oh yeah yeah me and Gigi were very close yeah I mean we had nobody else you had no one else you know so and we were close to our whole life you know uh so yeah so basically we really didn't have uh anything we were a dirt [ __ ] poor you know what was your dad doing for work my dad worked in a paper mill in Groveton and my mom worked like odd jobs as a waitress you know at little restaurants and stuff like that you know uh but we had no we had no [ __ ] money you know and uh we had you know we really had to Bear Necessities you know we a big day for us would be going into Lancaster which is the little town and there was a little store there Sammy evans's and they had a candy counter right under a big glass saying this is like you know the 50s early 60s right and uh they had Penny Candy and we were like if we had five or ten cents to buy candy we were like you know that was a great day for us you know what were you guys like as like high schools years teenage years teenage years well I'm getting up to that um you know we my mom left my dad my dad raped my mom like we went to school one day we came home my mom the next day she took us out of the house and we left we were gone this was 1965. and my apparently my dad had raped my mom like continuously the whole day before and that was the last straw she was like [ __ ] this I'm done were there drugs involved in your dad Tesla drugs no no just very my dad was very anti-social he didn't want people around so we were sheltered for the first 10 years of Our Lives we like I said we didn't play with kids we had hardly ever had company the only company we ever had was a doctor because the doctors made house calls back then so we were sick all the time because my dad like when it snowed in the winter he would let the snow accumulate and cover up the cabin because he didn't want people like seeing or coming to our house or whatever you know and so we were always sick in the winter my brother had asthma when he was young so yeah we uh we had a rough start you know and then after my mom finally left my dad we went to live with my grandmother who my grandmother was the main reason that my mother married my father to begin with because she wanted to get away from a domineering mother so she marries my father who's almost as dominating as her mother was but so we ended up living with my grandmother for a few years in her house and then she had a house that was next to her house and we went we had one of the units in her other house so we were living right next to my grandmother where was this this was in Lancaster yep and uh at that time I mean uh as I said in the last interview we had seen the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show and that kind of uh cemented what we wanted to do with our life you know as it did for many people but you know when you're as isolated as we were you know it was like wow what is this that's going on out here you know and and once my mom left my dad we were able to have a little bit more freedom especially with my mom working and stuff so it gave us more time to you know raise hell and do [ __ ] and find experiment and stuff but we had a friend that uh my mom had a friend who had a daughter that was a few years older than us and she was into all the British Invasion music like Herman's Hermes I'm see Dave Clark Five uh all that stuff so we started listening to stuff like that and then eventually we left New Hampshire and moved to Lunenburg Vermont we were basically on the border of Vermont New Hampshire where we lived so we moved to Lunenburg Vermont and at this time we're you know starting to be in our early teens and uh it's like you know we heard we were hearing bands like Led Zeppelin their first album early 70s Aerosmith was like Gods to us you know early Aerosmith I mean we saw Aerosmith play at Plymouth State College when dream on was just breaking you know and uh I mean we saw we would hitchhike to concerts all the time we would we saw the original Alice Cooper Band in 72. we saw the Ziggy Stardust tour um Grand Funk Railroad Led Zeppelin kiss every [ __ ] fan you know any chance we had to see a band we would hitchhike like Maine we hit psyched up to Montreal a lot to see shows uh you know and we were just [ __ ] teenagers you know I mean I wouldn't I don't think I would do that today but but back in the 70s it was you know it was a lot more innocent times and you could do [ __ ] like that and get away with it you know but uh so yeah we were going to a lot of shows and we were collecting records I mean music we basically were living music 24 7. everything involved in our life was about music we would go to department stores and steal records we would break into cars we'd break into like summer houses to get whatever we could do to sell stuff to buy music that's what we did all the time you know my mom even called the cops on us once yeah she found a stash of stolen goods in in the closet and she called the [ __ ] game warden up on us and the [ __ ] came down and confiscated all of our [ __ ] but I mean it was it was more like a something to do you know I mean we were bored kids in a small town with nothing going on and did your brother always have that defiant anti-establishment well you know it's funny because growing up we were I mean being we were the kids in our town that everybody talked about you know there's always that there's always one or two weirdos in your town that like oh that guy stay away from him you know um we were those guys you know I mean my brother we got picked on a lot because you know we grew up with a lot of rednecks and farmers and [ __ ] ugly [ __ ] fat chicks and you know so we never got laid and we didn't really care we were all just about music you know uh but yeah so we got picked on a lot because we were different you know I mean my brother would go into like department stores and buy clothing in the women's Department you know he had like these really cool like [ __ ] green pants with big white [ __ ] dots off and then he had these like yellow [ __ ] bright yellows like like jeans and stuff and you know nobody was nobody dressed like that where we were from you know people were wearing [ __ ] coveralls and [ __ ] straw hats and and you know flannel shirts and [ __ ] you know uh and at that point you know we were we were into the Glam you you know we were obviously into Alice Cooper and and uh you know T-Rex and and the New York Dolls this was 1973 you know and uh and all that kind of stuff so we you know playing music back then we wanted to dress the part you know and like all the people that we were influenced and idolized you know and uh and we went to concerts all the time so we saw like just all these great costumes and outfits and leather and silk pants and you know uh weird clothes and that's the kind of [ __ ] we wanted to wear you know and uh so this is you know at this point we're we're starting to play music we it took us a while to to be able to play music because we didn't have the funds to go out and buy equipment you know um so around 1975 we formed our first band together it was a band called little sister's date and we played from like 1975 to early 1976 I would say we played well we played to Bicentennial so it would have been I guess mid 1976. um we didn't play a lot of shows we played some outdoor shows and stuff like that but we weren't really ready to uh play clubs and stuff yet you know we were just we were still learning how to play we were playing like you know the kind of songs we were playing where like anything that was three or four chords that we could actually play over and over the same thing you know because we weren't good enough to play any I mean my brother was a very good drummer you know but in 1976 the punk scene was just beginning yeah yeah so um so we were playing and and the thing is you know we were a band from New Hampshire and all the other bands from that era that lived in New Hampshire they were all playing like your top 40 music so you you know you you go to a uh you go to a dance you go to a show and listen to a band You're Going to Hear The Doobie Brothers You're Going to Hear China Grove you're going to hear everything that's popular at that time every band was playing except us now we were playing like Aerosmith kiss some some Iggy Pop uh some MC5 uh just off the wall [ __ ] Black Sabbath you know the kind of stuff that nobody was playing at clubs at that time for sure you know it was all about making money and top 40 was the way to go nobody was playing anything original you know so um but that van didn't last very long um and I was actually still playing guitar at that point and uh we couldn't keep it going so that van folded pretty quickly and the next band that we got together would have been the same year was a band called malpractice now malpractice formed me and my brother and a guitar player from Gorham New Hampshire his name was Jeff and he was really a good guitar player real good guitar player and at that point we had all gotten better at our instruments so we were actually sounded like a real band you know and uh so we started playing shows and we actually but but we were playing the same kind of song Still I mean at that point you know 1976 1977 we were even throwing in Ramon's songs because the first Ramones album we'd heard and once we heard the first Ramones album that was like the end right there you know no more no more of this [ __ ] Arena Rock [ __ ] we were all gung-ho for three chord punk rock you know simple stripped down say what you got to say and end this [ __ ] song You Know so we were traveling around we were doing like Maine New Hampshire Vermont circuit um playing a lot of the same songs I mean we you know we threw in like a you know Peter Frampton song or Steve Miller song you know you have to throw in something here and there that people are going to want to hear but uh but back in those days you know you would go and you were all by yourself you know it's not like today there's four or five bands on a bill right we had to travel with our own equipment we had to bring a sound system with us um we were traveling in like this big [ __ ] like Howard Johnson's red truck right with no [ __ ] heat right so where and then you know in the winters and [ __ ] New Hampshire Maine New Hampshire Vermont are [ __ ] cold you know so we would travel to shows and we'd be wearing like ski skidoos snowmobile outfits in the in the van in the right truck because it was so [ __ ] cold you know and uh you go to a show and you'd like play three or four sets every night you'd probably make like a hundred two hundred dollars for the whole thing you feel the whole bed yeah you know but once again we didn't give a [ __ ] we didn't care about the money nobody cared about the money back then it's all about [ __ ] we're playing [ __ ] music we're [ __ ] living our [ __ ] dream here we're in a van we're traveling to shows we're playing clubs and people are showing up to see us play that was like magic for us I don't give a [ __ ] about the money we could have lost money and it still would have been fine you know and uh that that went pretty well for a while and uh like everything else it kind of burned itself out you know we we recorded a record we did do it a single it was the very first record that me and my brother had ever done together so you know we thought we were pretty [ __ ] special man we thought we were [ __ ] big time you know we did we did a single called um Devil's Triangle and love tunnel and uh you know we had these we you know we were young right we had this image of oh we recorded a record man now what's next now we gotta get signed to a big label and and hit the big time right you know I mean that was that was like our Dream but of course that didn't happen we were we were just another band you know and and uh at that point like I said we had already seen the Ramones and at that point um heard the Ramones and at that point the whole Punk thing started to uh come along and Gigi basically was tired of playing drums he wanted to be the he wanted to be the guy he wanted to be the guy out front so he stopped playing drums and reverted back to the name that I gave him when he was born Jesus Christ Allen because when I was just you know this High I couldn't say Jesus so I would say Gigi so the nickname for Jesus was Gigi and so he picked that name back up after he decided he wanted to be a front man and around 1978 [Music] malpractice had folded um we were looking you know we had we had played in Boston with malpractice we'd played in New York City with malpractice so what happened the first time you guys went to New York City must have opened it was a culture shock you know I tell people today I'm like you know that movie Taxi Driver that's what New York City was like in 1977. 42nd Street pimps hookers pawn shops XXX everywhere you know it was amazing I mean we were bumpkins from New Hampshire but we were we've like fell in love with the filth and the dirt and the grime and just the grittiness of like what was going on there you know and I mean that was just a I guess that was kind of just a part of us because that's kind of how our music was was starting to form and everything so um yeah but it was quite a culture shock for sure you know but but we loved it you know and uh so that year my brother and I had put an ad in the Boston Phoenix which is you know the weekly entertainment paper and there was a section in the back for uh gigs people looking for gigs and stuff like that so we had put an ad in the Boston Phoenix and we got a reply from um a guy named Johnny Angel was in a band called thrills and they had been together maybe a year or two they'd already played with the stranglers they were already like established in the scene in New York in Boston and Johnny calls up and says hey you guys want to audition and we were like [ __ ] yeah so Johnny Angel drove from Boston up to Vermont to audition us well we passed the audition but my brother decided he didn't want to move to Boston and he didn't want to be a drummer he wanted to be a front man he wanted to do his own thing and I jumped at the opportunity so and then in the meantime we were both working like shitty jobs you know shoe factory he was working at a shoe factory I was working uh bottling Maple Syrup and Honey in somebody's basement you know so basically what and plus Gigi had uh was waiting for his high school sweetheart yeah I hate to say it but Gigi was [ __ ] whipped at that time I know you're not going to believe that but it's true so Gigi was kind of [ __ ] whipped and he was waiting for Sandy to graduate high school and he basically just wanted to do his own thing me I wanted to move I wanted to get the [ __ ] out I wanted to move to Boston I wanted to play with this man's Thrills so I would work all week I'd Rent A Car on the weekend I would drive down to Boston I would rehearse with the band I would drive back home go back to work and I did that for about a month and then I was ready I moved to Boston when I was like 22 years old and never went back well I went back to visit but I went back for my brother's wedding which was the same year 1978 he got married Sandy graduated high school and they got married in October I went to the wedding actually malpractice got up and played a couple of songs you know so and and also we had already recorded me and my brother had already recorded the first jabber single which was Gigi's first real band was with him fronting was GiGi Allen and the jabbers but we had already recorded the single before there was even a band before I moved this would have been 1977 or so that we recorded the single and then I moved to Boston started playing with Thrills and Gigi got married moved to Manchester New Hampshire which is about an hour from Boston and he formed the jabbers and so I was playing shows with Thrills he was playing shows with the jabbers and uh a couple of times he actually his band actually opened for tyrells you know we were we were popular we were like throws was like one of those bands that was a weekend headliner so we also got to open for big bands that would come to town we opened for the Ramones we opened for the cars we opened for you two I mean we opened for a lot of big bands you know and my brother was doing his thing in Manchester uh and becoming notorious he was like they called him the madman of Manchester New Hampshire because um the the jabbers the poor jabbers they were so frustrated with my brother because they would rehearse for hours and hours and and they were a really good band they were [ __ ] tight solid had great songs my brother was a master songwriter yeah they had really great songs but they would go out to shows and my brother would start doing [ __ ] and get thrown out you know I mean I mean it was a gradual progression he wasn't like [ __ ] on stage in 1978 you know uh but you know he would go out and and flip people's tables or you know take somebody's drink and pour it on their head or pour it in their face or [ __ ] like that or you know hang from [ __ ] water pipes from the stage and and just you know doing little [ __ ] like that but still stuff like that got you thrown out of Club what was your brother's personality like on stage was he a different person than who he was in real life oh absolutely absolutely yeah because I mean and and like I say that gradually got more and more violent I mean you know in the early late 70s early 80s it was more innocent kind of like craziness you know but as things progressed and I just I feel that my poor brother got trapped in his own Insanity maybe or he just he because he always seemed to have to push the envelope a little bit more you know Batman Persona became yeah and once you you have that kind of persona and and yeah people expect things of you then you have to take it to another level and then you've got to take it to a Next Level and that's kind of how it worked out um of course as he got a little older and the more alcohol consumption that didn't help matters at all you know and the drug thing I mean you know my brother was not a junkie by any means he really didn't do heroin hardly at all you know I mean he'd do whatever you gave him if you gave him drugs he'd take them he wouldn't even ask you what they were he just take them but he wasn't a junkie and he wasn't you know drugs was not his problem alcohol was yeah so as he as he progressed you know I mean jabra's first album was came out in 1980 great record he would come down to Boston and play I would go to his shows [ __ ] the jabbers were amazing band they were [ __ ] really great but in the Boston scene nobody cared they weren't cool in Boston at all you know so they were not a headliner at all they would come down on a Tuesday or Wednesday night and play for maybe 30 people or something you know there was no uh but I mean like I said none of us cared at that point even even at that stage and I just gave a [ __ ] about money we're just happy to be playing you know I mean think of this in 1977 I'm working a shitty job in New Hampshire I'm going to work every day with homemade cassette tapes of the Ramones The Dead Boys The Sex Pistols all that [ __ ] a year later I'm living in Boston and my band is opening for the Ramones and The Dead Boys and all of these [ __ ] bands so you don't think I was in my [ __ ] Heaven I mean that was that was like that period of my life probably one of the best periods of my whole life because rock and roll was still new the punk scene was still new bands were experimenting and man sounded different not every band sounded the same because everybody was trying to make their own way you know and it wasn't like oh this man's really popular let's let's get on the bandwagon so we can sound like them so we can you know be popular it wasn't like that everybody had a different sound and it was unique and it was new and fresh and and a lot of it was really great I still listened to a lot of the old bands from the late 70s early 80s that I used to go see in Boston all the time I still listen to that stuff today because it's held out through the test of time the 70s I think for music we're both the best and the worst decade absolutely well I would say the 80s would be considered that too because the 70s I mean yeah there was you're right there's a lot of great stuff in the 70s a lot of traffic but but like radio in the 70s was awful yeah a lot of things are awful about oh yeah popular music but we didn't care about the radio we were we never you know we never wrote a song or made music or did anything to get on the radio or even to be popular we didn't care we did what we liked to do and if people liked it that was great and if they didn't like it [ __ ] you I don't give a [ __ ] you know so yeah as as Gigi progressed um through the 80s it was he was playing with different well you know the jabbers had broken up and then reformed into a three different you know uh deals but uh they just got frustrated with him because they would rehearse and rehearse and and go to a show and the show would last like 10 minutes and you'd get thrown out and that'd be the end of that so so that's when he started uh kind of doing different things with different bands you know um did stuff with a band called the scum Fox did stuff with uh this 1985 1985. that was the beginning right there that was the first time that Gigi defecated on stage in a VFW Club in Peoria Illinois a guy named bloody mess who was a fan and also had his own band lived in Peoria invited Gigi out for a show and that was the first time that he had defecated on stage and we were just like my my poor mom and my stepdad they just couldn't believe it you know and and I was even like trying to you know be like what are you doing man I mean you're [ __ ] really talented you know I mean my brother if my brother had decided to clean up his act and actually play the game he could have been some he could have been someone not I'm not saying that he isn't someone because he definitely is he's a [ __ ] Legend but he could have been commercially successful because he really was a master songwriter if he chose to go more mainstream if he had chose to go more mainstream he could have done good things you know I mean that first jobber's record is power pop uh rock and roll it's it's [ __ ] really great record you know and it's it's really not that foul I mean there's a song called ass face and you know [ __ ] like that but but for the most part it wasn't that bad but the progression just got you know I mean he's writing songs like you know I want to [ __ ] myself and you know needle up my [ __ ] and and you know scum [ __ ] tradition and [ __ ] [ __ ] sucking Cannibal and was it just for shock value that he did a lot of that stuff you know he just he just wrote songs about the real reality of life you know and in the rock and roll business they like love songs and songs that the mainstream can connect with and you know people aren't connected with hey girl girl girls give me give me give me some head you know I mean mainstream people don't want to hear you know you got VD and you had a needle up your [ __ ] nobody wants to hear that you know I mean not everybody wants to hear that anyway I mean so Gigi became more of like a cult thing you know and uh boy who's hated though he was hated by so many people oh my God reviews every time he did a record the reviews would just be like the worst thing you could ever imagine but but who cared [ __ ] cared man you're doing what you like to do and he was a master at promoting himself he would do interviews for a Zine of 20 people saw it you know he was always doing scenes and interviews he'd do whatever the hell it took to get his name out there and over the course of time he built up a following and uh he uh yeah so so basically I did the Thrills thing he did that my band ended up breaking up [Music] 82-83 somewhere around there maybe and I was back to uh live in a shitty [ __ ] life I got married to a [ __ ] alcoholic that was the worst three [ __ ] years of my life I was working in a [ __ ] laundromat doing people's [ __ ] laundry and being [ __ ] miserable Meanwhile my brother was out there [ __ ] raising hell and doing this and that and I was like [ __ ] man I got to get back into this [ __ ] you know so around 87 88 we decided we were going to um try to put a band back together again because at that point he had been playing shows and stuff but some some of the times he would just pick up bands in different cities sometimes he would just show up to a gig with a Boombox and and do a spoken word and just do his performance [ __ ] and all that and he hadn't had a real serious solid band in in some time you know um we consider Gigi to be like the Chuck Berry of punk rock because he could have a band in every in any given City in any given time and he would show up and sometimes they'd be okay sometimes they would suck sometimes they wouldn't know his songs and it wouldn't even matter because he'd Go on stage and just improvise anyway and do whatever he had to do he was doing a lot of drinking so he was really out of control uh and uh we we had started hanging out more again and I had gotten divorced at that point and was single so we decided that we would start a band called the AIDS Brigade so this would have been 19 88 um we it was me and my brother uh Chris brokoff and another kid from New Hampshire that was living in Boston at the time and we were rehearsing and Gigi was writing a few songs um but this is Boston and Boston at that time was very conservative and we ended up only playing one show and the one show that we did play we had to dress in Drag to get into the show because Gigi had been banned from the venue that we were booked at so when we booked the show we told the venue that oh this is just a benefit from my brother he won't be involved you know and uh but of course we all dressed in Drag and we went and played the show and that was uh it was 1989. in the meantime in 1988 we had recorded the homestead records single that my brother had signed with homestead records in the later 80s so he did a record called You Give Love a Bad Name with the holy man he did a record with a band called bulge which was actually a band called psycho from Boston and that was an album called freaks [ __ ] drunks and Junkies so but by 1988 we had recorded the uh single which was Gypsy [ __ ] hanging out with Jim and expose yourself to kids so that was the single but like I said at that time Boston was very conservative and uh even just finding good people to play with you know anybody that could play really well didn't want to play with us they thought we were a joke you know and uh and the people that sucked wanted to play with us and we didn't want somebody that sucked we'd already been through that stage you know we've sucked enough in our life we wanted to be good for a change right well all everything derailed the show we did with the AIDS Brigade in August of 89. by September of 89 Gigi had been arrested and was about to start a three-year prison sentence for intent to make intent to commit bodily harm less than murder there was an incident in Michigan when Gigi was playing with a band called disappointments and a girl had invited them to her apartment for a gang bang well you know Gigi's gang bang and you somebody else's gang bang are going to be completely different so I don't really believe she knew what she was getting herself into but she got she got tied up and cuffed up and abused and beaten and uh carved up all kinds of [ __ ] like that and uh she ended up in the hospital of course in the very beginning she didn't blame Gigi she took the easy way out like a lot of people do oh a bunch of black guys attacked me and but then when uh when she wanted Gigi to marry her after that happened and he refused and she decided it was time to go to the cops and so my brother got arrested and started serving time at Jackson State Prison in Michigan and at that point I had remarried and decided it was time to get out of Boston because there was nothing going on there anymore and we moved to New York City and the plan was while Gigi was in prison because the whole time Gigi was in prison he was writing he was you know doing interviews he was doing everything he could do to keep his name relevant and keep it out there so people knew he was still around and that he hadn't you know buckled to the [ __ ] system and whatever um So the plan was I was going to move to New York I was going to find a band and when Gigi got out of prison we would start touring now neither one of us had ever really properly toward you know I mean my bands that were all basically local bands you know we would play in New York once in a while we'd play here and there but touring never and the same thing with Gigi you know I mean a tour for Gigi back in the days would be getting on a Greyhound bus and like I said picking up a band here and playing a show there and maybe you know uh being on the road for two or three weeks and playing two or three shows you know that was kind of the extent of any kind of real Touring that was going on I mean I'd say more so the disappointments he toured with Zen than with anyone else but not really you know so the plan was you know he'd get out of prison which he did in 1991 and uh at that time I had met a guitar player who had introduced me to dino sex who is our naked drummer and has been in this band since 1991 and he's still with me today 30 [ __ ] years later he's had a stroke he's had throat cancer he's beat him both and he's still playing so uh so that was the beginning of the murder jockeys um Gigi got out of prison August 91. we played a few local shows and then we went on the road for the first time now GG was booking shows I was booking shows like I said we had never properly toured in our life so you can imagine what kind of a fiasco the first tour was I mean we would play a show in Texas we'd drive three days to get to California to play another show we drive like two or three days to cut across somewhere else to play another show it was really stupidity and Insanity all at the same time you know and you know I mean back then nobody wanted to book it was hard hard enough to get a show for my brother as it was you know but but he was booking shows and I was booking shows and the first time we went out together it was it was I mean it was exciting it was it was boy it was pretty [ __ ] scary too you know there were a lot of scary times on tour with my brother I'm not afraid to admit that but uh but it was great what kind of fears well you know when you got bottles wisen by your [ __ ] head you know and you're not that's why we started wearing helmets in 1993 because he would get the crowd so rowdy you know a GGO in the audience was your best friend before the show and your worst nightmare after the show because it wouldn't matter how many beers you had with somebody before the show and how great everything was when Gigi hit that [ __ ] stage he became a psycho he became another [ __ ] animal and you could be cheering him on with a beer one minute and have a [ __ ] fist in your [ __ ] head the next minute so dude you made a lot of enemies during shows and there were many times where we would get in the van and get chased out of town our tires would get slashed our [ __ ] Windows would get broken I mean which which you know after a week in the same van with my brother after defecating on stage over and over we were pretty happy to get a new van let me tell you that and then normally and that happened like usually two or three times on a tour you know I think Hertz finally decided to stop renting to us you know it was it was really that bad you know but um yeah the first tour was kind of an experiment and uh once we realized we could all do this and we were all really enjoying it we fired our guitar player because we [ __ ] hated him and at that time we had put an ad in the Village Voice we were looking for a guitar player so a young fellow named William Weber answered the ad he was a hot shot guitar player from Cincinnati but also interesting enough Dede Ramon answered the ad so I nearly shook my pants when when my phone rang and it was Dede Ramon asking if he could audition for the murder Junkies I got off the phone I called my brother up and we just [ __ ] laughed our asses off we were like what the [ __ ] is going on here you know I mean we couldn't believe it we were like is this a joke but it wasn't I mean I had and I had seen Didi Didi was like a fixture on the Lower East Side you know back in those days uh like all those guys were you know and uh so we set up an audition and Bill Weber and d and Dede Ramon came in and after the audition we and my brother were like well Weber's great we got to get him in the band and we got to get Dede because he's deedy right I gotta say no to DD Ramone you want to play with the murder junkies you're in baby so we spent a little bit of time hanging out with DeDe and he would rehearse with us and he would come and hang out with us and stuff uh at that time also [Music] a young NYU filmmaker named Todd Phillips entered the scene now I met Todd Phillips at a place called Kim's video on Saint Mark's in the East Village it was like the alternative um video store had all the like old school horror the European horror the you know all the cool stuff you couldn't find at Blockbuster and places like that right so Todd Phillips was actually working the counter at Kim's video and I would go in there every day because I was a bootlegger at the time so I would go in there and rent like all these obscure movies right I take them home put the little tape over the tab and make copies of them and then I was making you know I was selling them to people in bum [ __ ] nowhere they couldn't see that [ __ ] so got to be friends befriend Todd and uh found out he was an NYU student and he wanted to do a film about my brother and us so we were like cool yeah great wonderful so he was filming us and doing stuff and uh this is around the same time deity was uh jamming with us a little bit and uh we had a show set up where Todd was going to come down and film it was at a place called the bank on the Lower East Side and uh we're all hanging out in my apartment and this is Dave's show people are down at the club we're waiting for you know the film crew is all down there DD's down there waiting for us it would have been our first gig with Dede right and the club owner calls me and goes wow you know you know you're not going to be able to do this and you're not going to be able to do that and blah blah blah so the coborn is yelling at me in one ear right Gigi's yelling at me and the other guy [ __ ] that guy I'm not doing any I'll do whatever the [ __ ] I want right and the car motor is yelling Gigi's yelling and I'm in the middle and all of a sudden the show's canceled so I think at that point and we were we were getting ready to go on tour with Didi there were already flyers for shows that had Didi Ramon's name on it and stuff and uh I don't know I think DD got disillusioned by the whole thing and you know uh he his thing was like well I wanted to leave the Ramones because I didn't want any pressure you know and then [ __ ] like that and we're like do you we didn't really think he understood what he was getting himself into I think as it got closer to tour time and seeing that show get canceled at the bank made him realize that he wasn't going to be able to hang with us you know and he left the band no explanation no nothing left his amp left everything you know so that was the end of Didi so Dede left the band and we did another tour in 91 and this time I did the booking so things went a little bit smoother uh but it was full of chaos and violence and just the same craziness that we had gotten used to you know and uh we really love I mean we really loved it everybody loved what we were doing I mean we did anyway I'm sure some of the fans didn't love it but uh we would you know some shows got shut down some shows went over really well there was fights at some shows and stuff like that and uh so we came back in 92 we started another tour and this time didn't start out so well we had a show in Dalton Georgia and a lot of underage kids came to the show a lot of underage drinking I think about 30 people got arrested and Gigi got arrested with Dino and I think it was it must have been like one of the first shows of the tour very beginning of the tour because we had no money and all we had was enough money to bail my brother out obviously we had to bail my brother out because without a singer we're not going anywhere right so we had to leave Dino in jail and we had to travel from Dalton Georgia we went to Atlanta now my brother had people there because he knew people everywhere you know so we picked up a drummer for the night I forget his name but uh we picked up a drama for the night played the show got paid drove all the way back to Dalton Georgia bail Dino out and then had to drive all the way to I think like New Orleans or some [ __ ] some Far distant place where we were playing that night or whatever so that was the beginning of the tour then a half a dozen shows into the tour now you got to remember Gigi's on parole right but he doesn't care I'm going on [ __ ] tour I don't give a [ __ ] I'm not supposed to leave the state [ __ ] you he doesn't give a [ __ ] right so you know you're on parole you're parading around the [ __ ] country [Music] you know all this violent [ __ ] going on around you you're getting arrested here and there finally in Austin Texas Gigi gets nabbed the extra died in back to Michigan the tour is over we're like six days or a week or something like that into the tour tour is over Gigi's going back to prison he's going to finish out his three-year sentence and that was the end of that back home we go so okay it's a little put a little derailing in our plans but uh so the next plan was okay Gigi's gonna get out of prison in April 93. so we spend that whole year writing music so we could record a new record when Gigi got out of prison we were ready to record a brand new album we hadn't done anything with him at that point you know and uh so we're writing and rehearsing and writing and rehearsing going through the year of [ __ ] all that [ __ ] Gigi gets out of prison he's like send me the [ __ ] songs I sent him a copy of the songs and literally three [ __ ] days later he's like book the studio time I got the record all done and I'm like what just sent you the [ __ ] tape light three days ago that's my brother so okay so we book time in a studio in New York Don Fury's studio now Don Fury at the time was a very well-known very well respected engineer producer he was doing a lot of the major hardcore bands I I'm sorry I can't tell you the names but he was he was doing a lot of big hardcore bands he was actually doing major label bands you know and uh somebody was willing to put money up to front the record so we were able to go there and record now poor Don he's thinking to himself I don't know if I want these [ __ ] people in my studio you know I mean he gave us a chance I got to give him credit you know and uh my brother was well behaved he was on a mission he had a plan and when my brother had [ __ ] to do you know the drugs and the alcohol went out the door when there was something really important that he needed to do he could he could let all that [ __ ] go and get it done because that's his first love you know so he came in pretty sober pretty straight we recorded the [ __ ] record called brutality and bloodshed for all and that was in April then we hit the road in May for what would be known as the terror in America 1993 tour it was billed as the most violent the most you know outrageous uh tour in music history at the time you know and it lived up to its name it was just you know when my brother got out of prison well before he went to prison there was a lot more self-mutilating on stage when he got out of prison there was a lot more violence directed to the [ __ ] crowd he was pissed my brother got out of prison he was pissed he was he wasn't the same he was more violent towards everybody I mean my brother was anti-social personality disorder he was narcissistic he didn't give a [ __ ] what he did to whoever he did it to he had no conscience he'd [ __ ] put a cigarette out in your face and [ __ ] laugh at you you know no [ __ ] morals at all I mean literally he was out of control you know but but he was more out of control towards other people and not abusing himself as much you know so we uh we did a whole tour of the whole country lasted about a month month and a half something like that came back home the tour was over but we wanted to play the last show in New York City before we kind of took a break you know so we booked a show at a place called the gas station now the gas station was just this building with some sculptures outside it was like on the Lower East Side on First Street or Second Street or Avenue between around Avenue B it was in a really shitty neighborhood in New York and uh that would turn out to be the final show um that day we all got together we went over to a friend's house we were hanging out GG was doing lots of coke he was totally [ __ ] wired like I mean my brother was wired anyway like just naturally wired he had no patience for anything so cocaine and alcohol had already been introduced that day we get to the show everything just went to [ __ ] sound system sucked there were no might the microphones ended up getting busted the first couple we ended up playing three [ __ ] songs show got shut down Laurie's side turned out into a [ __ ] riot area I mean there were kids in the [ __ ] Street my brother was [ __ ] wandering the street [ __ ] naked [ __ ] cop cars [ __ ] all over the place they didn't [ __ ] give a [ __ ] they weren't gonna touch him you know I mean if they had arrested him he probably would have still been alive the next day but anyway between the cocaine and the alcohol and just the whole show getting shut down my brother frustrated wandering around the streets on the Lower East Side with a bunch of junkies you know trying to figure out what they were going to do with the rest of their day Gigi ended up at this [ __ ] kid's house and they started doing heroin now my brother was not used to doing heroin he wasn't a junkie contrary to a lot of people's beliefs because he OD'd everybody thinks my brother was a junkie not true so you know between the cocaine and the drugs and the alcohol and the heroin he passed away and during the night woke up the negative everybody woke up the next morning my brother's dead I get called had to go identify the [ __ ] body all that [ __ ] I was just like wow what the [ __ ] going on here so that was probably one of the worst days of my life you know and uh yeah it was over and uh had to deal with all that [ __ ] then I had to deal with you know everything else that came along after that and uh you know I've been doing that for the last 30 [ __ ] years now you know fortunately for myself the brutality and bloodshed for all record didn't get released until the fall of that year so we really had no intentions or no thoughts of keeping the band together I mean our singer's dead you know or he's gone I mean that's that's the end of the [ __ ] dream right well when the record came out we started getting really good reviews from it you know and people were like you know you should keep the band going you should do this you should do that and uh you know I was kind of leery about it but I mean the record was really great and everybody loved it and uh and I wanted to keep playing you know I wanted to keep doing what we were doing I mean so foolish me at the time decided to give it a go let's let's go out and talk because we hadn't even played those songs I think we played a few of them on the tour that we because we'd written them before the tour so we played a couple of them but I don't think any of us were we were familiar with them because we'd been playing them Gigi wasn't as familiar with the vocals because so we didn't play that many of them on the 93 tour so in 1994 we decided to go out and do a brutality and blood set for all tour we uh recruited Jeff Clayton from a band called anti-scene who was good friends with us who had done a record with Gigi in the past and had done projects with my brother and we were already friends so he stepped in and sang with us on that tour and it went over okay you know people in the beginning after Gigi died it was very difficult hard to replace very well yeah I mean there's no replacing we were trying to replace Gigi the Gigi that he was we were trying to replace Gigi with someone that had the same ideas but wasn't going to be Gigi we weren't looking for a clone that was definitely out so that was a problem because we were getting all kinds of people oh I could come in I can sit on stage I can do this like yeah but you suck so [ __ ] you you know I mean you can't sing you're you [ __ ] [ __ ] you you know so we dealt with a lot of that foreign we did find a thing we had Mike Hudson from the Pagan sang with us for a short period of time he sucked so we had to fire him and then Mike denied came along another [ __ ] junkie so I'm now I got a junkie in my [ __ ] band uh he died a few years ago but uh we did do a record with him and we did do a tour or two with him uh it was really difficult because you know you stop at a [ __ ] rest area to take a piss and get something to drink and 10 minutes later you got to go [ __ ] kick in the [ __ ] stall in the bathroom because your [ __ ] singer sitting there with a needle in his arm sitting on the toilet seat passed out so that's the kind of [ __ ] we had to deal with in the mid to later 90s and then eventually it just got to be too much and in the early part of 1999 we decided to call it a day so uh super interesting story well yeah thank you what uh what would you say is the most important thing you've learned from that whole journey with your family with Gigi uh you know I I I say you have to do what makes you happy and if other people don't like it then you you can't worry about what other people think and and I've gotten over that long ago because believe me the hundreds of great things that people say about me there's always going to be some [ __ ] out there that says oh you're living off your brother's name you're doing this you're doing that [ __ ] you I don't even care I don't care I don't even look I don't even look at the good reviews or the bad reviews anymore because I don't even give a [ __ ] what anybody says you know I know what I'm doing and as long as I enjoy what I'm doing I'm going to continue to do it like it or not you know all right Merle thank you so much for sharing your story yeah fascinating thank you I mean there is more you know maybe another time

Channel: Soft White Underbelly

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Length: 76min 23sec (4583 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 13 2023