The Tim “Napalm” Stegall Substack Interview: Captain Sensible of The Damned (Part One)
Continuing Free Week: Our hero talks up his band’s new garage-psych-meets-chamber-pop LP Darkadelic, Tony Visconti, and last year’s O.G. Damned reunion.
The good Captain displays his rare condition: Hand elephantiasis!
Ray Burns of Croydon, South London, UK was a self-described “hippie with teeth,” enamored with prog rock and T. Rex, cleaning toilets at Fairfield Halls and playing guitar with a local group of no-chancers called Johnny Moped. A drummer pal of his, Chris Millar, had just joined this band being started by a guitarist he’d met when auditioning for a batch of New York Dolls worshippers called London SS. How’d he like to try out for bass?
Burns didn’t know about this. For one thing, he was a guitar player. For another. Millar now sported really short hair and raved about this “new way of playing rock” this guy, Brian James, was teaching him.
Mind you, we all know Burns loved this pounding, rhythmic noise James introduced him to by obscure groups like MC5 and the Dolls. We all know now that Burns got that haircut and became the bassist and later guitarist for James’ band, The Damned, eventually assuming the nom du punk Captain Sensible. And yes, Millar is now better known as Rat Scabies. And yes, the singer is Dave Vanian.
The Damned obviously outlived Brian James’ tenure, bowing along the way to their interests in prog and psychedelia, and even helping invent goth. Now they have a fun new album the good Captain will explain momentarily, called Darkadelic. There will be a review in this space forthwith. The Damned are also on American soil with Sensible in tow, for the first time since last year, a situation that will be explained in Part Two.
Between 1996 and 2023, I’ve interviewed the Captain six times. This occasion, conducted via ZOOM before he had to attend soundcheck in some English burgh, marks the seventh. It’s always a pleasure.
CAPTAIN: Not doin’ too bad. Just glad to be back out on the road, after the last two years of enforced sitting around the home, doing fuck-all. It’s great to be makin’ that noise again!
TIM: And you got to make the noise again with the original crew for a few shows last year! (NOTE: The original James/Vanian/Scabies/Sensible Damned lineup played five UK dates last year.)
CAPTAIN: Yeah, and the stupid thing we did was we didn’t realize that we’d get on and make up and become friends again. So we only agreed to do five (gigs), because we thought there’d be so many fights backstage, which never happened! We should have done more, really. The last thing we said to each other was, “Keep yourself alive.” Because we’re definitely doing it again.
TIM: That’s good to know. I’m Facebook friends with Rat, and I teased him, “Are you and Captain gonna stand to be in the same room together?” [laughs] He said, “Probably not!” I’m glad it all worked out.
CAPTAIN: I don’t know if it’s a great punk rock story that we’re all mates again. [laughs]
TIM: It is.
CAPTAIN: You’d want to think it was fisticuffs and stuff like that. But that's not what happened. It was just a heartwarming story, really. Rat was a revelation. His drumming is still incredible. He’s a really interesting, fun bloke to be in a room with, because he tells great stories. And Brian James, without whom God knows what I would be doing with my life.
TIM: He is the reason there is a Damned.
CAPTAIN: Yeah. He saved me from a life of drudgery, working for a living! [laughs]
TIM: You might still be cleaning toilets.
CAPTAIN: Yeah! I was actually quite good at it. But no, I didn’t want to do it for the rest of me life, I must say. It’s a lot more interesting, standing on a stage with a loud guitar and a noisy amplifier and lots of free beer. It’s the greatest job in the world!
TIM: Absolutely. The one thing I have to say is that Brian looked a little feeble. Now did I hear correctly, that he had some sort of surgery a couple of weeks before those shows?
CAPTAIN: Yeah. I know he doesn’t like to talk about his various health issues and stuff. We all have ‘em, at our age. But the thing was he should have been allowed more time to recuperate. I mean, he’s better now. But he did the gigs kinda early after the hospital treatment. But no, he’s fine now. He was a bit frail at the time, and he made a great noise with that guitar. But it was a little early, yeah.
TIM: That’s the thing: You put that SG around Brian’s shoulders, and he’s gonna deliver.
CAPTAIN: Yeah! [laughs] It’s that Blitzkrieg Trademark Brian James Wall Of Sound, innit?
TIM: Absolutely. And you’ve got a new Damned album coming out, Darkadelic.
CAPTAIN: [after a long pause] Yes. Should I waffle on a bit about that? [laughs] Dave had this idea. Me, him and Paul (Gray, Damned bassist 1980-1983, back since 2017) and Monty (Oxymoron, Damned keyboardist), we all like garage psych from the late ‘60s, early ‘70s. It still sounds fresh to my ears: The Seeds, The Electric Prunes, The Strawberry Alarm Clock, The Chocolate Watchband, It’s pretty magical, and it’s not stodgy, with the Farfisas and the fuzz boxes. It’s just a magical sound. We thought we’d go down that route a little bit. Hence the album title, revisiting the same kinda scene we were doing with Strawberries.
Another band that we liked was The Left Banke, one of the rare harpsichord garage bands.
TIM: Wonderful chamber pop music, that band! Things like “Walk Away Renee” are teenage symphonies.
CAPTAIN: Yeah, absolutely! And you see, that’s the thing: The Damned did a cover of “Eloise.” (NOTE: A cover of a late ‘60s English hit by a native pop star named Barry Ryan, it became a huge hit for The Damned in their goth pop era.) I wasn’t actually in the band at the time, but it’s this epic, two-and-a-half minute, symphonic pop thing. That’s always appealed to us, as well. And in some ways, that’s The Left Banke, as well.
TIM: In some ways, it’s a Naz Nomad And The Nightmares record under your real names! [laughs]
CAPTAIN: Yes! There is a bit of that in there! There’s more instrumentation in there. We made an album with Tony Visconti (2018’s Evil Spirits) which was a surprise. Well, it was a surprise that he fancied working with us, in the first place! He was fun to work with. He tells a great Marc Bolan story – we toured with Marc, and he produced him. And in the end, you listen back and think, “You know, there’s not nearly enough guitar on here!” And a lot of the fans said that, as well. So we decided to go the opposite way this time and realiy crank the guitars up. So there’s a lot more of that. Where Monty’s performance was all over the previous album with Tony Visconti, this one’s more my end of things.
TIM: Well, that’s what we want! We want to hear the Captain roaring!
CAPTAIN: “Turn yer charisma up, Sensible! Darkadelic!” [laughs]
TIM: There’s a track on here that’s one of the rare political statements from The Damned, “Beware Of The Clown.”
CAPTAIN: [chuckles] Well, you could call it a protest song or whatever. But I look at politics and think it’s a joke. I mean, look at some of the politicians you’ve had in your country and we’ve had in our country. What’s going on with democracy if these absolute clowns get into power? So that’s what that was about, really. And unfortunately, Boris Johnson resigned just before the single came out! That song’s lost its raison d’etre, now! So, we were booked in to do a video for it, and I had a Boris Johnson wig all ready to go! Y’know, his kind of disheveled appearance. So, I didn’t wear the wig, of course.
But what the song says is there’s always another clown waiting in the wings. So we had Liz Truss, and we have this other bozo taking Britain off the cliff and down into oblivion. It seems worldwide. Leaders all over the world are doing the most stupid stuff.
Tune in next week, as the Captain lashes out at more clowns, and speaks of what actually kept him from touring the US with The Damned last year. Tomorrow: Paul Simonon (with Galen Ayers, of Galen and Paul).
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