INTERVIEW: CHRISTOPHER JONES PART I
Christopher Jones. Photo: Ken Salerno
Assembled in 1983, Rhode Island’s Verbal Assault went on to be one of the most popular bands in American Hardcore during the second half of that decade. Although the attention they gained and the legacy they left could simply be credited to their musical ingenuity and proficiency, there was obviously more to the band than simply rockin’ tunes to thrash by. In a music scene that was becoming riddled with subgenres and cliques, Verbal Assault was one of the few bands that could move among all these rapidly assembled camps with ease. They could play with either Agnostic Front or Fugazi without skipping a step or compromising their ideals or sound. For the timeframe, it was a unique trait to hit upon organically.
In the past few years, the Atomic Action label has been doing a valiant job of getting Verbal Assault’s back catalog out to the masses once again. 2018 saw the label re-releasing their debut album Trial from 1987 and in September, they will be reissuing the bands’ two final releases: On from 1989 and Exit from 1992. If that isn’t enough for you, there will be two Verbal Assault reunion shows that will happen in Rhode Island and Boston that same exact month; barring anything that might occur with the Delta variant.
Below is the first part of a long interview I conducted with Verbal Assault vocalist Christopher Jones this past weekend. Along with installments from my lengthy interview with Chris, there will be an interview with the bands’ guitarist Pete Chramiac here on the Substack soon, plus maybe a few special surprise Verbal Assault-linked guests.
In this first installment, Chris talks about the origins of the band, the release of their debut twelve-inch Learn on Kevin Seconds’ Positive Force label, and how their subsequent American tour with 7 Seconds made them into a ‘real’ band.
Tony Rettman: How did you find out about punk and eventually the Hardcore underground building in the 80s?
Christopher Jones: I got into it with the usual suspects of the Ramones, Sex Pistols, and The Clash. Local college radio stations like WRIU and WBRU would play stuff that was local and that gave me a sense that something was going on in America. I started going to shows around here and ended up meeting other kids in town who had bands. A lot of cassette tapes were exchanged, too. We found out about a lot of different bands from those tapes.
How did you find out about a Hardcore scene happening in Rhode Island?
In Newport, there was a great early Hardcore band called Vicious Circle. Doug Ernest, who was Verbal Assaults’ drummer, played in Vicious Circle. Pete and I would go over and watch them practice and they’d let us bash on their equipment when they were done. Then you’d meet people from other parts of the state and find out there was this band from Barrington called Idle Rich and another band from the area, The Proletariat. It made you realize there was a lot going on around here.
How did you initially meet Doug and the rest of Vicious Circle?
Pete Surgeson, the guitarist of Vicious Circle, worked at Straight Arrow Surf Shop. It was a place to hang out and listen to tunes. We met Doug Ernest in high school even though he was a few years older than us. So, we met through high school, surfing, skating, and that kind of stuff.
How did a Hardcore Punk scene develop in Rhode Island?
Rhode Island benefited throughout the 80s by having a lot of really, really great venues. It wasn’t until we got on the road that we started to appreciate how well we had it in Rhode Island. You’d play some show in a gym in Texas and these kids were so heroic for putting these things on. The P.A. would be a Peavey amp on a folding chair and all that kind of stuff. They’d be so excited, “I can’t believe y’all made it down here. We haven’t had a band down here since Black Flag”. It was always Black Flag! It made us glad we could see Husker Du, Bad Brains, or The Replacements at Lupo’s or The Living Room; both clubs with awesome P.A. systems. The legendary venues in Rhode Island were the original Living Room when it was on Promenade Street, Lupo’s Heartbreak Hotel, AS220, The Rocket, and down here in Newport there was a great club called The Blue Pelican. Another thing is Rhode Island really benefited from where we are on the east coast. If you’re on tour, you’re playing New York and Boston and Rhode Island is right along the way on Interstate 95. We had great weekday shows because the weekend dates were saved for the bigger cities. That was a key factor.
Was Boston being so close and having one of the first Hardcore Punk scenes in America an influence on the early Rhode Island scene?
They were a definite influence. Boston was only an hour and a half away from Newport and an hour away from Providence. We would cruise up there to see shows at The Rat and The Channel. We learned a lot of the songs off of those first SSD and DYS records.
How did Verbal Assault form?
Pete Chramiec and I went to nursery school together, so we knew each other for quite a long time. With the support and encouragement of others who established their bands like Vicious Circle, we started to do our thing. Our first drummer was a friend from high school named Nick Barbato and we had Tom Gorman on bass, who was in a later line-up of the band and went on to form the band Belly. Tom was our bass player very briefly and then Dylan Roy joined on bass. That lineup of me, Pete Dylan, and Nick were when the band began to gel. We did this brief, half-assed tour with that lineup and more importantly, recorded our first demo and the Learn EP with it.
What was the timeframe of finally getting out and playing shows?
We were screwing around in the basement in 1983 and our first show was with the Circle Jerks at the Living Room in November of that year and then we recorded Learn in 1985. So it was within those years that things started to pick up for us.
Flyer courtesy of the Radio Raheem Archives
How did you gain the attention of Kevin Seconds and have him release Learn on his label, Positive Force?
That was thanks to Petes’ van, actually. 7 Seconds hired Pete to drive them around the east coast and it was through that connection that we began working with Positive Force.
And how did Ian MacKaye end up producing the record?
That was through Kevin and Pete. I believe Pete did a lot of begging and haranguing and Kevin put in a good word as well. By that point, we had our demo The Masses out there and Ian thought it was good, so that’s how that happened.
Was the first time you toured the country with 7 Seconds in the fall of 1986?
We went out on a tour a year before that, but that was more like an extended road trip with a couple of shows interspersed within it. That 7 Seconds tour was huge to us for two reasons. One is that it put us in front of these big enthusiastic audiences every night who wouldn’t have been there if we went out on our own. The other one is it taught us how to be a band. Being on tour and bashing those songs out every night made it more than a few guys getting together after school. By that point, we had all the songs written for our album Trial and we were playing them every night. So, when it came around to recording those songs, we blasted them out in a hurry and they sounded good. The exposure and learning how to play those songs on tour were the two things that brought Verbal Assault into their own.
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