D.O.A.

D.O.A.: Avengers from the North Celebrate 30 Years of Hardcore
Some words with punk legend Joey Shithead
interview by Jason Walsh

The late 70s was an era when popular culture was immersed in the phenomenon created by "Saturday Night Fever" and the decadence of Studio 54. From the streets of Vancouver, a band emerged to challenge the ills of society and plights of the proletariat, and with their first 1978 EP, "Disco Sucks," they began this unrelenting, frontal assault that would amazingly last three decades.

With the release of their second LP, "Hardcore '81," Joey Shithead and the guys from D.O.A. brought a new term into the vernacular of the thriving underground music scene. "Hardcore" was now synonymous with the faster, more aggressive incarnation of punk rock and the newly appointed moniker spread throughout North America and the world. Their mantra of "talk minus action equals zero" coupled with blazing guitar riffs, reactionary lyrics, and deviant stage antics brought Dead on Arrival to the forefront of the hardcore scene and pioneers of the genre.

Fast-forward to 2009. Joey Shithead has continued to fly the flag for the underground movement, never wavering from the cause. D.O.A. just released their newest offering, "Northern Avenger," and will be touring the world in support. I had a chance to catch up with Joey following a brutal snowfall in the Northwest that blanketed British Columbia. We had a chance to talk about recording the new album with notable Metallica producer Bob Rock, his independent label," Sudden Death Records," the upcoming D.O.A. tour, and what drives him, thirty years later, to continue taking the stage.

JW: So what happened yesterday? You guys had a big blizzard up there?

JOEY: Yeah, we had like a foot of snow, which is like, hey we live in Canada but this is the one part of Canada where it's not very snowy. We usually get one or two big snowfalls a year; some years we don't get any snow.

JW: Do you still live in Vancouver?

JOEY: Yeah, in Vancouver, right. Like Vancouver, Victoria. The only two towns that really are not covered with snow like the rest of Canada for three or four months a year, right? So, yeah, this blizzard sucks and completely screwed up everything especially with Christmas and all that kind of stuff. What town are you in?

JW: I'm in Virginia but I spent the last week up in Michigan and we had snow every day, chilling with my kids and sledding every day, so for us it was perfect.

JOEY: Yeah, yeah (laughing)

JW: So you had a 30th anniversary mark. What's that like for you, having done this for three decades now?

JOEY: Well, that's a pretty general question. It's good, it's fine. We've just done a few special shows and stuff like that, and there's more coming up in the New Year, like this whole stretch out to the end of '09, 'cause there's a new album out and such, right. At some point in the future, you know it might be the 30th-and-a-half or burning up 31 (laughs) or that kind of thing, right. It doesn't really feel any different. I mean, obviously change is a gradual thing as it goes along as opposed to a sudden thing. I didn't just sit there and think, "god, we've been playing fucking punk rock for thirty years, right?" (laughs...) Although somebody else might have said that, "oh my god, they've been...hahaha."

JW: I mean, to you it's really just a number. It doesn't really change what you're doing?

JOEY: Put it this way. Sure, yeah, it's got special significance that we've been going thirty years, pretty well continuously. The only time we weren't playing was for about twenty months, between '90 and '91, in that period, right? So, I would suppose in a continuous sense, we'd be pretty close to being the longest running punk rock band in the world, now that the Ramones aren't around anymore. The only other ones I could think of that would be kind of close would maybe be the Dickies, but I don't think they stuck together the whole time, but they've been pretty active for most the time if you ask me, right? There might be somebody else but most of them, there was a ten or fifteen year hiatus where they didn't do anything, right, so. To me, D.O.A.'s kept going and keeps drawing people. You know, actually we're getting the younger crowds all the time, too, and I think that's because people see D.O.A. as being a progressive band as opposed to being a nostalgia act, right?

JW: Right.

JOEY: Because we come up with new ideas and new albums, and it's the same sound granted, because, hey, that's our style. Why change it? If you want to go for a different style, become a different band I always say, right? Don't change your style so drastically that you're unrecognizable, y'know. 'Cause that's always been the kiss of death when people go, "OK, this is just pure nostalgia." Then you're verging into that corny, vaudeville review, right, in a modern sense.

JW: What has kept you continuing to do this for all this time? Like you said, there hasn't been a big, long hiatus. You've been the centerline of this band. What keeps you motivated to keep doing this?

JOEY: Y'know when I started out, there was kind of three basic motivations when we got together. One, to have a lot of fun, cause a lot of trouble, and to go out and try and change the world. Those kind of motivations haven't changed. I mean, obviously I'm not twenty years old anymore, right? I'm over 50, I'm 52, right? To me, D.O.A. has always been a perfect soapbox for me, to say what I think about the world through actions and song and whatnot. That's, to me, what's really kept me going. You know, it feels good to get people excited, it's fun to play, and you get to say what you think. That's what keeps it going. That, and an awful lot of gaff tape. (and we both laugh...) The key ingredient besides beer. Beer and gaff tape: two things that are never very far away from D.O.A., right?

JW: That should be the next album?

JOEY: Hahaha, Beer and Gaff Tape. Yeah, it gets it pretty close, right?

JW: So, is it still fun for you?

JOEY: Oh yeah, no, I actually really enjoy it. We played a couple of big shows in the fall (2008) in Chicago at the Riotfest and the Fun Fun Fun Fest in Austin, also in the fall. Those things were like a total riot. We're going to China, leaving in about two weeks, we're going there for a week. So to me, that will be a total eye-opener. If you can go and do things that are different or at least a little bit momentous or doing something for a cause, like a benefit type show that's got some meaning to it, then that's fun. I love doing that. To go now, on the other hand, and go on a trip where it would be six months of playing every single town between here there and everywhere, and passing by every strip mall, or club in a strip mall kind of thing, I wouldn't think that would be that fun. That's what bands should do when they're young and that's what D.O.A. did. We've done over 3000 shows accumulated over the thirty years, right? You know, we had road trips when we were young where the trip would be eight months long and you'd be home for four days out of the eight months. You know, we'd think nothing of going somewhere for three months, right, so that's how you do it, that's how you build up a reputation. That's a good thing to do for a band, right?

JW: This tour that you're heading over to China to do, is this supporting the new album or is this just something you want to do?

JOEY: No, I think when D.O.A. goes somewhere, yeah of course we like to promote the new album, I think it's a good album and stuff like that, but D.O.A. is really based on reputation, right? And that's why you get kids coming out that have never seen the band and that's why we can go to a place that we've never been to and draw a crowd, right, because it's the reputation of the band for like wild, unbridled mayhem coupled with blatant sloganeering and also coupled with obnoxious guitar riffs.

JW: Now talking about going and doing shows, you got people coming out who saw you back in the day and now they're bringing out their kids and maybe even in some cases, bringing out their grandkids to see you guys.

JOEY: Well I haven't seen the grandkids thing. The one thing I have noticed sometimes, we have a really well-known truck called "Reek Fleming" that we take on some of the trips. It's about twenty years old, people recognize it, and amazingly it still runs. Sometimes there will be a knock on the door and they'll go like, "hey, yeah I went to see you guys at the Smiling Buddha thirty years ago and I'm just dropping my kids off at the show." (laughs...) You know, that kind of thing. We used to get people saying, "yeah, I heard about you guys from my older brother and sister." Definitely, you're getting a bit of the kid thing from the parents, right? It's interesting, you know 'cause everybody, as they go through life, they have to change and usually people become somewhat responsible or in a lot of times they have families, whether they're responsible or not, right? I goes along, they don't go to shows like they used to. But sometimes they'll show up, and yeah, sometimes we'll get people that will come up and stay at the show, them and their kids. Usually the kid won't think it's too cool if the parents hang around. I mean that kind of fucks it up for them. They'd be smart enough to say, "OK, you go experience D.O.A. I'll pick you up in four hours.Try not to get arrested in the meantime."

JW: "I got knocked out by my Dad in the pit." That's just not something you want to talk about at the dinner table.

JOEY: Hahaha, yeah that would suck. That would be just a little too odd.

JW: Let's talk about the new record a little bit. First of all, produced by Bob Rock, and when I think of that, that's like the fifth member of Metallica. What was it like working with him?

JOEY: Bob's an old friend of mine, so it was pretty easy, like we didn't have to get to know him. He's a funny guy and pretty easy-going, which I guess you would have to be to work with something like Metallica, not to say Metallica are bad guys, but you know what I mean, it sounds like it was pretty intense at times. With us in the studio, it was a laugh. We'd do a track and from the studio over the talkback, I'd say to him, "so, how was that?" and then he'd quip back, "wow not bad, but when are you going to start trying?" Then I'd shoot back, "as soon as you start producing." Stuff like that. It was actually pretty much a howl, right? You know, funny guy and yeah, some people go, "wow, that's really cool you got Bob Rock" and other people get totally kind of weirded out by it almost, right? But I think, if a good producer is capable of getting like a great sound, which obviously Bob is. Like what a good producer would do in any case, he'll try to see what the strengths of the band is and work on those strengths, you know what I mean? That's what he did with D.O.A. on this album so that's why we came up with what I think is a real good album, right?

JW: And the album is called "Northern Avenger." I really dug it and I read on there what Bob was calling your guitar, or was that the name you had for it?

JOEY: No, actually that just sort of fell in at the same time. I came up with the album title last fall before we started recording. I had the title and I said "hey, by the way guys the title of the album is 'Northern Avenger,' right" and that totally suited D.O.A. because D.O.A.'s always been about trying to, uh, not avenge the score as in like, "I'm going to get ya next friday night, fucker!" Not that kind of thing, right? There's things that are wrong in this world, so you try and set them right, and we're from the North obviously, so hence "Northern Avenger." But I said, "OK. Hey guys," and I said that to Bob and Jamey (Koch) the co-producer, the name of the album is "Northern Avenger" and Bob looked at my guitar which he'd known and seen thirty years previously on one of our first singles which he helped on, "The Prisoner" single, our second single. Anyways, he went, "No, no, no. Your guitar is Northern Avenger, right?" It ended up that that's the nickname he gave my old guitar that I've had since 1976 or '74. Something like that.

JW: And that's what, an old Gibson SG?

JOEY: An old SG that the body's like half gone and it's been rebuilt and it's got a metal plate on the front. It's got gouge marks bigger than the ones on Willie Nelson's guitar. (laughs) It's pretty...it's pretty classic. It's easy to play, it sounds great, and yeah, it's been stolen three times and I've gotten it back every time, right?

JW: How'd you get it back every time?

JOEY: Well, the first time a guy stole it at a show and everybody ran around the hall and they guy had stashed it out in these bushes. They finally get the guitar and I got the guitar and these girls that were hanging out with the band, they went and beat the guy up, right, and chased him off. The second time, Zippy Pinhead, who's an old buddy of ours, caught a guy stealing it in an elevator at a show in Portland. The third time, our roadie was just packing up the van, we were in like in the north of Spain. This was the worst time easily. He turned around and someone had seen him packing the stuff and got it and ran off with it and so the guy had it for like six or eight months. Eventually, I got a letter in Spanish and I could read just enough of it to realize he was talking about my guitar and he wanted to give it back and he did. You know, it cost about $400 to get it back. The funniest thing was about five years later, we went back and played in the same area in Spain and the promoter came up and said he had the guy who stole the guitar but he couldn't speak English, so he had to translate his saying he was sorry to me and he had to translate my English back to the guy who stole the guitar. So, I had two choices, I could hop across the table and beat the living fuck out of him (laughs) or I could, uh, it was almost like a priest at a confessional, so I chose the priest at the confessional routine. I got the guitar back and I wished the guy good health and all that, right, so what the hell. So I guess at the time, he said, "wow, I've got a hell of a souvenir, look what I scored," but I'm sure his friends called him an asshole, right, because that's the way it goes.

JW: Right. So what do you got going on in the New Year? After you guys are over there in Asia, are you coming back and doing the States and Canada? What's the plan?

JOEY: Yeah, we got China in January, there's California, and the Northwest like in late January then California in February. You know, California, Arizona, Nevada type thing. Then, we're off to Europe in April for the whole month of April and after that we'll do some more American shows. Probably some in the summertime but more in the fall of '09, that we'd get out your way, the East Coast and the Midwest and all that kind of thing.

JW: You taking anybody with you of note on the road?

JOEY: We were just talking about that the other day. We haven't figured it out yet and it's a ways away, so no, not yet, but yes, we will.

JW: Talk about Sudden Death Records. What made you decide to do that and now it's kind of like a full-time thing for you?

JOEY: It was really just a way to get D.O.A. records out in the first place. Like we did about four or five singles back in the last 70s, early 80s. We kind of sat down one day and says," well, everybody hates us, nobody will ever sign us, and we'll never get a record out." So, we just took the DIY route and put out the Disco Sucks 7-inch EP and that kind of started Sudden Death. But I really didn't take it seriously and we got offered another record deal, Alternative Tentacles amongst others, did that and about ten years ago I started up Sudden death, in earnest. We have about 82 different releases now. Something like that, between EPs, singles, albums, imports that we get from Europe and stuff like that that we distribute. It's been going well. The main idea was, here's my philosophy, be your own boss, think for yourself, and try to affect some sort of causes and change in this world. I thought the record label was the perfect way to put my money where my mouth is and it's been pretty good. I mean things aren't great for little labels right now, but we're hanging in there and doing OK. You can't go crazy spending on records because they're hard to sell these days.

JW: The record industry is definitely one that is suffering these days.

JOEY: Yeah, it's gone for a complete shit, right? But you know what, there has to be always some sort of conveyance to get this different type of music out. Now, whatever form it's going to be, whether it's in a CD or we're still making LPs or whether you're going to get it on the internet, you're going to download it. For sure they'll be some other applications or forms it will take as it goes on. You just have to be able to adapt, and if you don't then it's like anything else you'll just become extinct, right?