FROM THE NYHC BOOK ARCHIVES: Davey Gunner (Kraut)
Inbetween my musings on music, I will be throwing up the uncut interviews I conducted over the years for my three books. This interview with Kraut vocalist Davey Gunner was conducted on October 3rd, 2013 for my second book, NYHC: New York Hardcore 1980 - 1990.
What was your entry into Punk Rock?
Davey Gunner: When I saw The Clash in Manhattan when I was 16 years old, they changed my life. Then I saw Elvis Costello who I really liked too. Those were the first two shows I ever went to. Then soon after that, I was in Kraut. That’s when I started to go to other shows.
So you were not going to CBGB’s or Max’s Kansas City in the late ’70s?
Before Kraut, I wasn’t conscious of The Mudd Club or Max’s Kansas City. I wasn’t really part of the whole Dead Boys thing and I wasn’t even aware of Blondie or the Talking Heads or any of that. I was thirteen at the time that was going on. When I got into The Clash, that’s what really got me to go out and see live shows. But when I became the lead singer of Kraut, then I started going crazy shows.
Who were some of the bands Kraut was sharing bills with in the early days?
Early on, we played with The Undead, Even Worse, The Nihilistics and bands from Jersey like Adrenalin O.D.
Everyone cites The Bad Brains as the band that really gave New York a shot in the arm to start the Hardcore scene.
Bad Brains changed the whole game and set the bar with their skills. You’d go to a show and they’d play the reggae to bring you back down again and then hit you over the head again with something huge.
What are your memories of the A7 club?
Most of my memories are standing out on 7th Street with that whole crew of guys on a hot summer night and doing those shows. That was the pinnacle; that place was the hub. CBGB’s kicked in a little bit later but I think the A7 Club that was the hub of everything. Doug Holland (Kraut guitarist) bartended there and he was affiliated with that place. He booked some shows there for us.
When did the formation of Kraut happen?
The formation of Kraut happened in early ’81. We were probably the most popular band coming out of Astoria at the time. We didn’t know it, but we were the start of something that was going to be big. It was really innocent. Doug was playing at another band at the time called Apprehended, but then he ended up starting up his own band called Kraut. It’s Doug’s band. He started it. Doug knew Donny through some affiliation and got him to play bass. Johnny Feedback he met through Jimmy Drescher from Murphy’s Law. Jimmy and Johnny went to school together. Doug and Jimmy grew up in the same area in the south area of Astoria. I and Johnny had been good friends since we were five years old. We grew up on the same block together, so we were into punk rock together. Jimmy and Johnny were in school together and Jimmy told Doug ‘I’m friends with this kid who calls himself Johnny Feedback, he’s a drummer, he’s really good’. So Jimmy brought him down to the studio and Johnny and Doug started playing together.
I’ve heard folklore before that Jimmy G was supposed to be the original singer of Kraut.
Jimmy didn’t want to be the singer of Kraut, he wasn’t interested. So one time I drove Johnny down to the rehearsal. Johnny introduced me to Doug and said ‘This is my friend Davey, he sings’. I was singing for another band in Astoria. We didn’t even have a name. It was just covers of Cream and Led Zeppelin songs. Doug gave me a copy of the lyrics and asked me if I wanted to try to sing one of his songs. I said ‘Sure’ and that was it. It was like magic. We used to play at a place called Oz Studios on Steinway Street. That’s where the band started to grab hold.
Unbeknownst to us, we’re playing this angry, fast-paced music backed up by these lyrics. Ronald Reagan was the president. We’re feeling angst. Unbeknownst to us, while we’re playing in that studio, there’s a scene just starting to happen. It’s all about timing. You can’t chase the sound. You have to be there when it happens. It was just like they say in real estate: Timing, timing, timing. Location, location, location.
We played and before you knew it, there was this scene going on simultaneously in places like Chicago and California and D.C. and Boston. We started playing the A7 Club and we became the cream of the crop because we were so tight and good. Not bragging, that’s just the truth. People didn’t really their shit together, but we did.
Before you knew it, we got the biggest break in our life. The Clash show got sold out and somebody duplicated the tickets. I still have my original ticket, five dollars! Instead of saying ‘We can’t honor those bootlegged tickets’ they did fourteen nights and honored all the tickets. Now, they needed bands to open up for them and we got our break opening up for The Clash. After that, it just took off.
How did you end up landing the gig with The Clash?
Our bass player knew a friend of Don Letts. We gave them some singles and some photos and they just dug us. They liked the idea of this young punk band with an attitude from Queens. You look at these photos and we look so innocent. Johnny had this bowl haircut that looked like a Ramones haircut.
I was too young. Johnny and I were in high school at the time. But Doug and Donny are a few years older and out watching The Clash play. They were peppering the stage with these paper airplanes they were making of our posters. There’s a Clash live tape from one of those shows where Joe Strummer is in between songs, picks up one of these fliers and goes ‘This next song goes out to Johnny Feedback’ and dedicates a song to him because I guess the name Johnny Feedback on the flier stuck out to him.
Mick Jones recognized Donny and Doug in the audience. They were right there in the front. Mick knew we were going to play with them and he goes to the front of the stage and he goes ‘You guys are playing tomorrow night!’ They were like ‘Holy shit!’ We played with The Clash on June 11th, 1981. I can’t forget that date. We had the first single ‘Kill For Cash’ right before that.
It seemed you guys had it nailed down as a band with putting out your own singles and networking for gigs.
Looking back at it now, everything happened so fast. Doug is very precise about what he does, so he had his shit together. The songs were written and for me to come in, it fit like a glove at the first rehearsal, there was no hesitation. Donny worked in a recording studio, so we were able to record and mix them right away and get them out. When you’re the first one to put records out, people find it amazing.
How did you guys get to make the video for your song, “All Twisted”?
Donny was friends with someone who had a five thousand dollar budget to make a video and we were lucky enough to get it done. If you look at the video today, it still holds water. It doesn’t really look aged. It still looks really good. We ended up getting on that show IRS had on MTV called ‘The Cutting Edge’. We never got on heavy rotation, but we got on medium rotation. So you’d see that video a good half a dozen times a day. Now we had a video, we had records out. We were playing with The Clash. Boom! It took off like wildfire.
Do you think other bands had jealousy towards Kraut for getting The Clash gig and getting records out so quickly?
I think that the whole thing doesn’t have to do with the music; that has to do with people. I listen to Howard Stern a lot. In the earlier days, he would always say to Robin, ‘Oh Robin, I don’t want those people to do well’. He was always rooting against his competitors. It’s just natural. That’s just people being jealous. The new word for that is ‘haters’. If you’re in a band and you’re doing better than me, I’m going to be jealous of you. I knew it wasn’t personal. We had all these things going for us. It helped bands more than it hurt them. It gave them more drive. It made them work harder. It made them want to achieve and be like us. We set the trend.
Do you consider Kraut a NYHC band?
I always thought we were a punk band because of the attitude, but we were a part of the NYHC scene. I think we considered ourselves a punk band. I don’t think we ever considered ourselves a Hardcore band, especially if you knew what we listened to before this. I was into Zeppelin before I got into the Clash. If you listen to the song ‘Onward’, we say ‘Rock ‘N’ Roll is what we’re talking about’. We were just a Rock ‘N’ Roll band. I don’t think we were a Hardcore band. If you listen to our stuff, it’s much more than Hardcore. I have no problem with the NYHC thing. I’m glad we were affiliated with it.
How did Kraut end up befriending Steve Jones of The Sex Pistols?
1981 was a huge year for us and ’82 was even better. We put out the LP An Adjustment to Society and toured with Steve Jones. We used to play in Boston a lot and we got this awesome gig up there to play with The Professionals at The Channel. We met Steve Jones at the show and had a great show. Steve Jones didn’t want to go back to England. This was the end of The Professionals. He got friendly with Doug and he lived with Doug and Jack Rabid for a little while in their apartment on Eldridge Street. Doug ended up getting his own place and Steve went along with him. He agreed to go on the road with us since Doug put him up. He hopped in the van with us and played all these dates with us.
He recorded two songs with us. If you listen to ‘An Adjustment to Society’, he plays the beginning lead on ‘Kill for Cash’ he calls it the piss-take. He also played on ‘Onward’ and ‘Sellout’. He did it as a favor, he liked us.
We put out another record in ’83 called Whetting the Scythe. We just got back in California and got a gig with The Ramones at L’Amours East, the one on Queens Blvd. That was a great show because there were two thousand people in the place. After we played, one thousand people left. The Ramones took it personally. They thought we sabotaged the show. They accused of all this nonsense. It was just that they didn’t have Dee Dee with him and they were going through changes. They went through a weird stretch, but they regained it when they were on the soundtrack to Pet Cemetery, but if you remember, there was a waining point for them. We were just more popular and we were new and fresh. We blew them off the fucking stage. We played with them a few times, but that was the last time they let us play with them.
What did Kraut break-up and what happened with Doug leaving the band to join The Cro-Mags?
Chris Williamson was infatuated with Doug’s guitar playing and wanted him to join the Cro-Mags. He was promising things like guitars, amps and going on the road and playing big shows. He received these things. Doug quit Kraut after a show we did with the Dead Kennedys at City Gardens. He was being pulled in different directions. It was a sad moment since he started the band. We got Chris Smith from Battalion of Saints in on guitar. He was looking for a change and wanted to leave L.A so he came here. He was great and the band didn’t miss a beat until he tragically died. That was ’86.
We could have got another guitar player. What the band needed was Doug to come back and play, but it didn’t happen. He gave us his blessings. When Chris passed away, that was the end of it for me. I joined another band called Gutterboy with Dito Montiel and Johnny Feedback.
Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if Chris didn’t pass away and we stayed together and stuck around to ’87 or ’88. I think if we stuck around to when Nirvana and the whole Seattle scene hit, it would have come around again for us. But since we weren’t together, we didn’t receive those prizes. If Kraut would have been together, I believe we would have got swept up with that whole thing. When those bands were coming to New York who was going to play with them? Kraut was going to play with them. By three or four years, we missed that whole wave when Nirvana reset the bar and put punk back on again.