The Tim “Napalm” Stegall Substack Interview: Pearl Harbour, Part One

To commence Rockabilly Week here (complete with a subscription special -19.55% off!), The ‘Stack presents an interview with the singer who corralled most of The Clash into making a rockabilly album.

Photo courtesy the collection of Pearl E. Gates.

“Rockabilly Week?” some of you are likely headscratching out there. Well, it’s either that, or write about CBS Television cutting Ol’ Bug Eyes off in the middle of “Piano Man.” What do you think would be more fun?!

Before you cause yourself a bad case of dandruff, I think any regular reader of The ‘Stack likely knows my love of what transpired in Sam Phillips’ echo chamber at 706 Union Ave. in Memphis through the length and breadth of the 1950s. You probably own a good amount of rockabilly sides, yourself. Plus, it’s accepted gospel truth that all that manic, slapback-drenched noise is buried deep in punk’s DNA. After all, wasn’t punk also an opportunity to “git reeeeal, reeeeal GONE, for a change”?

Plus a pair of fine reissues triggered this week’s theme. Later this week, we’ll look at a new Sun Records Elvis Presley collection. Today, we commence a multi-part conversation with Pearl Harbour, who as Pearl E. Gates was a teenage member of The Tubes’ onstage auxiliary troop in their ultra-theatrical “White Punks On Dope” days. Then fellow Tubes dancer Jane Dorknacker asked her to join her band Leila and the Snakes, where she and bandmates John and Hillary Stench opted to spin off into their take on new wave, Pearl Harbor and the Explosions. She encountered the members of The Clash along the way, and ended up in England in the early ‘80s, married to Paul Simonon and making a rockabilly album with 34/ths of The Clash and other new breed UK rockers, such as the incredible Wilko Johnson. Entitled Don’t Follow Me, I’m Lost Too, it was just reissued by killer reissue house Liberation Hall. 

Pearl was interviewed by telephone March 19th. In this first part, we discuss what was great about The Clash, her early history, and her discovery of rockabilly.

TIM:  You're somebody I used to read about all the time when I was a teenage boy getting into punk rock. I never got to hear your stuff back then, but I was aware you were associated with The Clash, and you'd done this rockabilly record with them.

PEARL:  It was a good time to be in London in 1980, when I made that record. I guess you're quite a bit younger, but yeah — we were all young back then! [laughs] So it was a lot of fun.

TIM: Well, I would have been 15 about the time that you were making that album.

PEARL: Oh, me too! Me too! [laughs]

TIM: I had seen The Clash the year before at the Armadillo World Headquarters in Austin. That was the tour they did just after they finished recording London Calling, and it was being mixed while they were over here. As I always say, that was the night my life changed. I walked out of the Armadillo a punk rocker, a punk rock musician, a punk rock journalist, everything. The Clash had absolutely transformed me. I was looking up at Mick Jones jumping around in rockabilly clothes with a 1956 Elvis Presley haircut and a black Les Paul Custom around his neck, and I thought, “I want to be you when I grow up.”

PEARL: I'm glad that you saw The Clash, because I've done a lot of interviews where people are your age or younger, and they didn't get a chance to see them, and that was my youth. I was with Paul from 1980 ‘til the end of the ‘80s. I saw so many Clash shows, and I went and saw all of them because I'm not going to not see The Clash! I mean I could have seen them every night and I would have loved it, because they were such a great band. So I'm really happy that you got to see them.

TIM: Well, they're the only band I can ever think of where it was more than just a rock ‘n’ roll show. It was like your four really cool cousins from London had just walked in and said, “Here's how you walk, here's how you talk, here's how you comb your hair. Why don't you try wearing your belt buckle over your hip, the way Paul is? There's this really cool music that's in your parents’ record collection called rockabilly. Yeah, that's those Elvis Presley records your parents listen to — check it out! Oh, there's this other stuff from Jamaica called reggae. You should check that out too. That's the weird, calypso-sounding stuff that we're doing. By the way, your leaders are not doing a good job, and here's why. And here's a few books you should probably read.”

PEARL: Yeah, it's true. It was a whole experience. That's what The Clash were after, was to not just be another rock band, and they wanted to to mean something to people such as yourself. It obviously worked, and that's why I really liked them, too. After any Clash show, everybody had a backstage pass. The Clash didn't care about that stuff. They would let everybody come backstage, and they gave everyone a beer and really had a good time with their fans. I think that that was really nice and important too, because most musicians weren’t like that at that time. Even today, most people aren't like that: So sincere about wanting to impress young people with some really good information and stuff to look up to and look forward to. 

TIM: Absolutely. Buzzcocks are as open with their fans as The Clash were.

PEARL: Yeah, I love them too.

TIM: And you see old school country artists like Willie Nelson who will stand there and shake every hand and sign every autograph until everyone is happy.

PEARL: He's a good guy, yeah. I bet he would have been friends with Joe if they would have ever met. I'm glad that Johnny Cash and Joe were friends. That was sweet. 

TIM: Absolutely. And you know, I wished I'd known back then that you could go and say hi to The Clash backstage. That would have blown my mind that night. Anyway, you hooked up with them and were doing this rockabilly album at a very, very interesting time. Rockabilly was starting to become a punk influence or tributary about that time. The Cramps had a lot to do with it. The Clash certainly did. X as well.

PEARL: But it was before The Stray Cats. I think they came to London when they were first starting, and that was 1981. And I remember I was there at their first concert, because they opened up for my guitar player's rockabilly band, Whirlwind. It was at this little pub, and they were fantastic, especially Brian Setzer. Of course, he's a really great showman, great singer, great guitar player. So yeah, I was really blown away by them. 

But you're right, this was before the big rockabilly revival. I just love Wanda Jackson. That's kind of, that's kind of it for me. When I first heard her in the ‘70s, I said, “Ah, there's no one better than that.” But that being said, of course I love everybody from Aretha Franklin to Beyonce, all kinds of really great vocalists! But Wanda Jackson kind of was it for me.

TIM:  You had a history before this. You were part of The Tubes’ stage troupe in 1976. 

PEARL: Yes! And that was at a time when The Tubes put on very spectacular stage shows. Too bad you didn't get to see those — I know you were too young to see that. Those shows were incredible, and obviously they didn't have anything to do with what we're talking about, punk rock and all that rockabilly. But they were just a great rock band with the best show ever. And I really appreciate the fact that they put on such a great show, because so many bands don't put on a show at all. They just stand there and play their instruments, which is fine because that's what a lot of people like to do. But The Tubes, their show was absolutely amazing. It was a circus, it truly was. So I was really lucky to be involved with that, because I learned a lot about performing because of those guys.

TIM:  And Leila and the Snakes, wasn't that sort of a spin-off from The Tubes?

PEARL:  Yes. Jane Dornacker was not an official member of The Tubes, but she wrote some of their songs, including my favorite song, which was “Don't Touch Me There.” She was in The Tubes and performed with them all the time, but she also had her own band, Leila and the Snakes. When I first started working with The Tubes, she asked me if I wanted to be in Leila and the Snakes, and I said yes. At that time it was an all-girl band, but pretty soon after that people came and went, and pretty soon she had to start hiring boys because there weren't enough girl drummers to go around.

TIM: Right. And that's where you first encountered the Stench brothers.

PEARL: Yeah, John and Hillary. She hired them to play bass and drums. Then after a while, John and Hillary and I decided that, although we were having really a fun time with Leila and the Snakes, we wanted to write our own music and do our own show, instead of being in somebody else's show. That was no insult to Jane. It was more like three young people wanting to move on and try something different.

TIM: Right. Hence, Pearl E. Gates becomes Pearl Harbor, and the brothers become The Explosions. You were pretty much right at the forefront of the new wave.

PEARL: Yeah, that's right. We were lucky enough that we recorded “Drivin’” as an independent single. We put it out with friends at 415 Records and then a really great DJ Beverly Wilshire, she snuck it on the airwaves in San Francisco and then it became like a local hit which was just because of her and then we got signed to Warner Brothers because we had all sorts of exposure and popularity because of the independent single.

End Part One. Tomorrow: Tim’s 2015 Elvis story from The Austin Chronicle!

Rockabilly Week Subscription Special – 19.55% Off!

That’s right, cats and kittens! In honor of all this boppin’ and greasy kid stuff, all new subscribers can take 19.55% off (Get it?! Get it?! Huh?! Huh?!) from now until the end of April! And that will be your subscription rate for life, whether you choose a monthly sub (normally $5) or an annual one (normally $50). Just don’t ask me to do the math and tell you what your savings are – math ain’t my strong suit! So whaddaya waitin’ for? Hop on this special now, daddy-os and dolls! Let’s rock!

#TimNapalmStegall #TimNapalmStegallSubstack #PunkJournalism #RockabillyWeek #PearlHarbour #Rockabilly #TheClash #NewWave #PunkInfluence #MusicHistory #Interview #MusicLegends #SupportIndependentMedia #NapalmNation #Subscribe #RockabillyWeekSpecial #19.55percentoff #Monthly #Annually #ForLife #UpgradeYourFreeSubscription #BestWayToSupport