INTERVIEW: NEON CHRIST
Photo: Chuck Gill
Formed in the fall of 1983, Atlanta Georgia’s Neon Christ helped establish Hardcore Punk in America’s south along with Corrosion of Conformity, No Labels, DDT, Ugly Americans, White Cross, and many others I’m sure you’ll remind me I forgot. For many, their ten-song seven-inch EP released in the summer of 1984 is one of the last blasts of autonomous rage to come from the American Hardcore scene before its innovators would move on musically and their disgruntled fans would hammer it into something of a traditionist sound and movement. Their guitarist William DuVall would go on to play in both Bl’ast! and Alice in Chains displaying the stealth-like way their influence crept up the Mason-Dixon and into both underground and mainstream culture.
For Records Store Day happening this Saturday, June 12th, the highly-estimable Southern Lord label will be releasing 1984, a twelve-inch consisting of their classic EP along with four songs recorded in the fall of that same year. A couple of mornings ago, I called up Neon Christ vocalist Randy DuTeau and interrupted his family vacation to ask him about the band and the Atlanta Hardcore Punk scene of the 80s. He didn’t seem to mind. If you’re one of the crazies who is gonna be out there in the RSD muck, be sure to grab up a copy of 1984 and when the hipster douche canoe at the counter asks you to pay for it, just scream “FUCK REALITY! THIS LIFE IS MINE!” and run out with the thing. Or just pay for it. Yeah…you should probably just pay for it. Either way, pick one up! On with the interview…
No Idols: How did the formation of Neon Christ happen? Did you all grow up together in Atlanta and find out about punk collectively?
Randy DuTeau: I was from Atlanta, but actually went to high school in Eden Prarie, Minnesota, and found out about The Clash and the Sex Pistols up there. There was a club called Goofy’s Upper Deck in Minneapolis that had all-ages shows. I saw a lot of shows there including Black Flag on the Damaged tour with the Minutemen and Husker Du which was life-changing. I sang in a band while we lived there called White Noise. We took our name from the Stiff Little Fingers song. We played a talent show and a family member of one of the guys we hung out with had a barn, so we cleaned it out and had what we called a Hardcore Hoedown. Some of the bigger Minneapolis bands played that day, but we weren’t great. We were pretty basic.
When I graduated high school in 1983, my dads’ work ended up transferring him back to Atlanta. One of my first days back, a friend and I were walking around downtown and saw two punks. I asked them what was going on in Atlanta and they told me D.R.I were playing at a place called The Metroplex that day and they were heading over. I couldn’t believe it! After going to that show, I got to know the people that would be in Neon Christ with me.
When I began going to shows in Atlanta, I was known as the guy who’d put his foot on the stage and sing along to all the bands; even if I didn’t know the words! The first time I saw the local Hardcore band A.V.O.C, I had never seen them before, but I picked up on some of the choruses and began jumping on stage and singing along with them. William Duvall (Neon Christ guitarist) was the guitarist in A.V.O.C so when they broke up and he was deciding on a vocalist for his new band with Jimmy Demer (Neon Christ drummer) and Danny Lankford (Neon Christ bassist) they were like, “Why don’t we get that dude who is always in the battle crouch and singing along at shows? That’s the guy we need!” For the last few months of 1983, I was on a six-week break from going to school at Young Harris College, so Danny called me one day at my parents’ house and asked if I would be interested in singing in a band and that was it. At the time, there were no Hardcore bands in Atlanta other than DDT and A.V.O.C. They were some Johnny Thunders-style punk bands, but nothing I would call American Hardcore. Neon Christ and DDT were the pioneers of Atlanta Hardcore.
It wasn’t until looking at the Neon Christ Facebook page last night that I realized how quickly Neon Christ came together. You formed at the end of 1983 and by the summer of 1984, you were on tour with a seven-inch EP.
It came together super quickly. I hung out with those guys during my six-week break from college and we practiced at the house of our drummer, Jimmy Demer. His parents were completely supportive of the band for our entire existence. Our drummer was 14, William was 15, and Danny and I were 18. We did our first performance on New Year’s Eve of 1983. Scream were playing at the Metroplex and in our minds, we should have been on the bill. So we went to the show and asked the guys from Scream if we could use their equipment to play a few songs and they said yeah. So we went up there and bashed out some songs and it was great. I had to get back to college, so my parents drove me back at the start of 1984, but I didn’t have a car to come down there and practice every weekend. William would send me cassettes with him playing acoustic guitar while Jimmy played drums on his Trapper Keeper. The tapes would come with lyric sheets and that’s how I learned the songs. I made friends with two guys in college who had a car and they would drive me to Jimmys’ parents’ house on a Friday and we’d spend the whole weekend practicing and be driven back to college on Sunday. In March 1984, we recorded the seven-inch, and then when the record came out at the beginning of June we went off on a mini-east coast tour. It all happened in a compressed amount of time, but we maximized it. We were committed to what we were doing and in it together to make it happen.
Photo: Chuck Gill
Did any A.V.O.C songs shift over to Neon Christ?
I believe “We Mean Business” is the only holdover from A.V.O.C. William was writing songs all the time. For a kid of fifteen, his experience and desire were far more mature than a typical 15-year-old. Neon Christ songs were fast as shit, but they were not your standard three-chord punk songs. They were pretty complex. We actually recorded 17 songs when we went in to record the EP, but we didn’t think they all cut the mustard.
I think the other thing that makes the Neon Christ seven-inch unique was the variety of songs on the record. Something like “It’s Mine” could almost be a song from a compilation of obscure 60s’ garage punk like Nuggets or Pebbles.
I appreciate you recognizing that because we were conscious of it. We immersed ourselves in thrash, but we wanted to put out something that was really cool. The song “After” came about one night out of a jam. We had called it a day and were hanging out in Jimmys’ room when William started with a riff and when we went into the studio a few days later, we decided to give it a try. When we were going through all the songs we recorded that day, we picked it out to put after the song “Doom”. When people heard it, they thought it was cool. They weren’t upset the record wasn’t a full-on thrash record. It was one of the things that made us stand out.
Besides D.R.I, what other national Hardcore acts were making their way to Atlanta.
There was a club called 688 that didn’t do all-ages shows, but that’s where the Dead Kennedys and Circle Jerks came through. 688 was just the alternative club in Atlanta where Iggy Pop had a residency for a week or a band like Alien Sex Fiend would play. This guy Paul Cornwell opened The Metroplex which was the good ole fashion warehouse punk club. It was all ages and if you drank, you brought your own beer. The Metroplex is where Hardcore bands like DRI, Scream, MDC, Crucifix, and Butthole Surfers would play.
What were some of Neon Christs’ first shows like?
We got on the bill opening for D.R.I at the Metroplex in March 1984, but my parents still did not know I was in a band So, we had to figure out how to play the show without my parents finding out. I was put on academic probation for two quarters at my college and my parents were coming to pick me up the same day as the show. When they came to pick me up, I told them I had a bachelor party to go to in Atlanta that night, but it turned out we weren’t going home. A friend of the family was having a gathering 90 minutes away from Atlanta and we were spending the night there. When we arrived, the son of the people we were staying with found a buddy with a car who agreed to drive me to Atlanta. We told our parents we were going to see a movie and drove to Atlanta instead. The band had already sound checked, so when we got there, I jumped out of the car and went right on stage. We made it happen and we fucken rocked it. After the show, we watched DRI and went back to Gainsville, Georgia and our parents were none the wiser. We also passed a demo off to the DRI guys while William copied all the tour contacts out of their notebook. When we began booking the tour, most of the people we got in contact with already knew about us from D.R.I talking us up. It still gives me a good feeling in my heart to think of how nice those D.R.I guys were to us.
How did the mini-tour of the east coast work out?
It was interesting. We ended up playing only six shows due to it falling apart as most punk rock tours do. The coolest experience we had was in Richmond, Virginia. It looked like the show was going to be canceled because there was no PA system. A girl was there and said she could get a PA system. In an hour, an unadvertised show became this big happening with four bands and a PA. But what made it better was at the end of the night when the pile of cash made from the show was on a table with all the bands around it. Pen Rollings from White Cross and Honor Role said, “You know, you guys are on tour, so take our part of the money”. Then, all the other local bands followed Pen and we ended up with the complete haul from the night. We got to get gas and a hotel room that night, so that was great!
Our drummer had relatives in Yonkers, so we stayed there for a while and went into New York City for a night to hang out with the Cause For Alarm guys. We went to the Rock Hotel and saw Kraut with Damage and B.G.K which was great. Kraut had just got back from tour and sounded great and when C.F.A came through Atlanta, we returned the favor and let them stay with us. The station wagon Jimmys’ parents let us borrow ended up dying on the New Jersey Turnpike and our last show was at the Court Tavern in New Jersey with Adrenalin OD and Bodies In Panic.
Neon Christ covers SSDs’ “Glue” on the final show of their summer 84 east coast tour at the Court Tavern in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Photo: John McCormick
What happened with Neon Christ after that tour?
When we got back from the tour, we recorded four songs. One of them, “Ashes to Ashes” ended up on the P.E.A.C.E compilation, which gained us attention internationally. In 1985, we added a second guitarist, Shawn Devine, which helped with the live sound and punch up what we were doing with the longer songs like, “The Knife That Cuts So Deep”. There was continued growth with both the band and the Atlanta scene. The growth of the scene to some extent was a good thing because you had a bigger group of people coming to shows. But one of the problems that came along with the growth is when white power skinheads started coming in. That’s when things went south and fights started at shows and sucked the good energy out of the scene. It became real fucking negative. By 1986, we had written some new songs and opened up for the Circle Jerks and that was a good show. But soon after that, William moved out to Santa Cruz to join Bl’ast! and things went to a standstill.
When did you find out about the renewed interest in the band that occurred in the early 2000s?
I think the myth of us grew just like other obscure Hardcore bands from that time frame. To find out people were paying $500 for that record was crazy. I was getting phone calls from out of nowhere asking if I had any more copies. Those people were upset to find out I had none I was willing to sell! The advent of social media helped rescue some bands from obscurity and get their music out there through YouTube and file sharing. When we played the Ratlanta Festival we had people who weren’t even born in 1984 singing along to our songs. It was amazing. But I also think it was simply that the record really resonated with people of all ages. You want to be appreciated for what you put out into the world and people just dug it, which is cool.
