INTERVIEW: PETE CHRAMIEC PART II

Image courtesy of the Radio Raheem Archives

No Idols: When did you record The Masses demo? I have a flyer here for the night you recorded it that says January 20th. Is that 1984 or 1985? 
Pete Chramiac: I’m thinking it’s January ‘85, because Learn was November ‘85. That feels about right. We had a shit load of songs and played a lot of shows by then. There was this really cool deejay at WRUI and he had us on and we turned that into our demo tape because it sounded pretty good. We were a band that practiced a lot so there weren’t that many fuck ups and it was lively sounding. Chris’ artwork for it was weirdly perfect. With limited graphic skills, Chris always pulled off some cool stuff. Chris was a maniacal letter writer so we sent those tapes out far and wide. A lot of what happened with Verbal Assault seemed lucky, but it was this thing of hard work making our luck. We were plugged into the network pretty quickly and sending demos out everywhere and setting up shows for other bands. 

The lyric sheet for Verbal Assaults’ The Masses demo tape. Image courtesy of the Radio Raheem Archives

Who were some of the people you began corresponding with after sending the demo tape out? 
The main ones were Al Quint and Mike Gitter in Boston. Al was super encouraging and genuinely stoked to see all these young bands coming up. I think they both liked the Rhode Island scene since it was more easygoing than the Boston one. They’d both come to all the Providence shows. As far as fanzines go, they were the heavy hitters. 

How did you gain the attention of Kevin Seconds to release your debut 12” Learn on his label Positive Force and how did Ian MacKaye end up producing the record? 
I think we crossed paths twice with 7 Seconds before the show in ‘85 when they asked us to be on Positive Force. We would put them up in Newport at our friend Boofish’s house. We were their Rhode Island pals by that point. There was a show in early 1985 with 7 Seconds and maybe Youth of Today played too. After the show, Kevin might have asked both Verbal Assault and Youth Of Today if we wanted to be on Positive Force and none of us had to think about it too long. It was a total dream. 7 Seconds had just recorded New Wind at Inner Ear Studios and Kevin was really encouraging us to go there to record.  Kevin had talked to Ian about producing the record. I had already met Ian by that point because my grandmother lived a block and a half away from him. I started visiting grandma a lot just so I could skateboard over and bother Ian at Dischord. 

I remember so clearly the afternoon that I called Ian about recording us. I remember the New England weather and how I went up to my mom’s room to call because it was more private. It was like the first time you called a girl in that I would pick up the phone and start dialing then stop. I finally did it and Ian was very to the point and gave me a couple of dates we could record. I saw Ian when I was back in Rhode Island a month ago when we were both visiting. The Learn recording session came up and he sent me a bunch of his journal entries. It was pretty mind-blowing. I started to remember what everyone was eating when we went with him to Wendy’s and the vegetarian conversation he had with Chris. I think my consciousness was heightened when I was around Ian because the littlest detail sparked three hours of memories coming to the surface. 

Do you have any memories from the actual Learn recording sessions? 
I couldn’t believe how tiny Inner Ear Studios was. It was such a big studio in my mind, but it was still in Don Zientras’ house at this point. We had to load amplifiers down these steep stairs into the basement and there were all these little children's toys everywhere. My main memory was that I had this miniature Marshall stack that they only made for a year. It had a solid-state head, but instead of four twelve-inch speakers, it had four ten-inch speakers. I was really proud of it and I remember Ian looking at it and in an instance, I knew it wasn’t that cool by the look on his face. I remember Ian being right in front of the window to the control booth and he said something to Chris like, ‘See this fuckin’ plexiglass? I want to see spit all over it by the end of the first song’. Then we went to Wendy’s and Ian and Chris got into a stand-off. Ian was just eating a salad and Chris asked, “You’re just eating a salad?” Ian told him he was going vegetarian to which Chris said if he went vegetarian he wouldn’t get protein and Ian put him in his place. I remember looking down at my sandwich knowing it would be my last bacon and grilled cheese. 

Actually, the funniest story is from the night we got there. Brendan Canty, Guy Picciotto, and Mike Hampton came over and sat around in the dining room. Brendan had a little glass bottle of peppermint oil from the health food store and they kept putting more and more drops from it in their month. They would try to talk and end up drooling. I just remember thinking, “These guys don’t need beer! They’re acting more ridiculous than my drunk friends back in Rhode Island!” D.C was nothing like I thought it was. I thought they would be very serious and bookish, which they were to an extent, but they were so fucking funny. It definitely lifted the veil for me.