FROM THE RETTMAN ARCHIVES: Cheetah Chrome On Peter Laughner
This interview with Rocket From The Tombs and Dead Boys guitarist Cheetah Chrome was conducted in June of 2019 for an article I wrote about Peter Laughner for The Wire. Portions of the interview were used in the article, but this is the full, unedited interview. If you wish to purchase the issue of The Wire the article appears in, here you go.
Tony Rettman: When did you meet Peter Laughner?
Cheetah Chrome: Towards the end of 1973, Peter placed an ad in the plain dealer advertising for a guitarist and a drummer into the Stooges and Velvet Underground. So me and Blitz answered the ad and we met downtown in a bar and we talked and had a jam and it worked out good. Me and Blitz were only 18 when we answered the ad. Peter and David were 21 when we answered the ad, they were the old guys.
Were you aware of Peter or David through their local music writing by that point?
Not really, but I knew they did stuff around town. All we knew was we wanted to do original material. I want to say we met around November and we started writing songs right away practicing four or five nights a week because we were enjoying ourselves. You’d showed up at seven pm every night and stayed until eleven and worked over all the songs.
Did Dave and Peter already have material?
David had some lyrics and I had some music. Peter had some music, too. It was all a big hodgepodge and in two or three weeks we had a full set.
What kind of reaction did Rocket From The Tombs get at those first gigs?
We couldn’t tell. There’d be dead silence and then they’d start clapping. Personally, I think we scared the shit out of them. My girlfriend at the time was like, “They liked it, they just didn’t know how to react” and I was like, “They don’t know how to react? If you like something, you clap!” (Laughs) We were a pretty spooky band. We were a bunch of weird people.
Why do you think Cleveland was so hip when it came to rock music in the 70s?
We got all the good concerts. Everyone from Mott The Hoople to The Sensational Alex Harvey Band played Cleveland. All the bands that didn’t play other places played Cleveland. But the bar scene was just bands playing 70s hits by Bachman Turner Overdrive and crap like that and we were completely against that.
I think it had a lot to do with the radio Cleveland had back then. We had two of the top progressive stations in the country at the time, WNCR and WMMS. Bowie's 2nd show was in Cleveland and I saw that. It was because his fan club was in Cleveland. Try to figure that one out! (Laughs) This guy had the International David Bowie Society in Cleveland.
Why did Rocket From The Tombs end so quickly?
Mostly frustration musically. We were getting good gigs warming up for Iron Butterfly and doing ok but weren’t really getting anywhere. It never occurred to us to jump in the van and go to New York like we did with the Dead Boys. Stiv was right on top of us doing that. I often wonder what would have happened if Rocket From The Tombs went to New York before the Dead Boys. I probably wouldn’t have had as much fun because I would have had adult supervision. (Laughs)
Was there any beef between Pere Ubu or The Dead Boys?
There was a battle over songs. When the band broke up, we had songs like “Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo'' where I wrote the music, David wrote the lyrics and Peter's contribution was the part that sounds like a fucking Doors song. I guess we never discussed that I wanted to keep that one.
Do you have any insight into Peter’s audition for Televsion?
We got conflicting reports when he got home. Richard Lloyd was obviously out of the band for a month, so Peter went and tried out. Then, Richard Lloyd was all of a sudden back in the band pretty soon after.
Do you remember the last time you saw Peter?
One of the last times I saw Peter was in New York when he tried to get on stage to jam with Patti Smith and got booted off. He came back to the club later on and banged on the door and I was still in there hanging out with the sound guys. Me and him got some beer and hung out in my apartment listening to records and shooting the shit like the old days.
Were you aware of him abusing hard drugs?
We weren’t around each other all the time. If we were together and if it was around, we’d take it. I didn’t see any needles or anything. I was hearing conflicting reports about Peter back home running around with guns and shit and drinking a lot. When I saw him in New York he seemed like he was fine.
Do you remember how you heard about Peter passing away?
We just arrived in Cleveland and went down to the Agora to see the Raspberries and our roadie was down there and said, “Did you hear? Peter died”. Luckily, we were going to be around to go to the wake. So at least we were there to see him off, but it shook us up pretty good.
Poor Peter wanted to be Lou Reed so bad. But he was so talented on his own that he didn’t have to try to be him. But I can say the same thing about the Dead Boys. If we weren’t trying to be the Stooges or Alice Cooper, we would have had healthier lives too. I don’t know who to blame for any of this crap. Childhood exuberance or something like that I guess. (Laughs)
But Peter was really talented. It wasn’t until we were listening to the box set in the van last week that I was struck by how talented he was. I didn’t realize the scope of what he was into back then. He really was ahead of his time being into Robert Johnson and things like that. That was the beauty of Peter. He could write about The Stooges, Robert Johnson, Richard Thompson, and Lou Reed all in the same paragraph and know what he was talking about with all of them.
The box set hit it home. Frank really did a nice job. Peter finally got his due.
The Peter Laughner boxset is still available for purchase.