Well, I’ll Be Damned!

“35 years? We thought we’d last about 35 weeks. One of the great rock ‘n’ mysteries is how nobody in this band hasn’t died or lost a limb.”

Captain Sensible is reflecting on how The Damned have somehow managed to avoid punk’s built-in obsolescence, and are as popular now as they were in 1976 when they beat the Pistols, Clash et al by releasing the first punk single, ‘New Rose’. Subsequently covered by everyone from Guns N’ Roses and Dave Gahan to Blondie and Eagles Of Death Metal, the song will be getting an airing on May 25 when the Captain & Co. crash land in the Dublin Academy.

“We’re concentrating on Damned Damned Damned and The Black Album – the ones that helped kickstart punk and Goth,” he tells us from his Croydon layer. “We were never yer’ Sisters Of Mercy-type Goths, but we did gloomy pretty well there for a while!”

The man born Raymond Burns in April 1954 has fond memories of the band’s first Irish foray in 1977.

“We played this place in Belfast called The Pound Bar, which was literally falling down. The dressing-room was where they kept the kegs, so by the time we went on we were completely arseholed. We haven’t been that drunk before or since, so Ireland occupies a very special place in our hearts.”
Aw, shucks! The Captain sounds a tad weary having just returned with The Damned from a mad sprint around South America. The numerous highlights included popping their Argentine gig cherry in Buenos Aires.
“It was particularly interesting as an Englishman going to a country, which not that long ago was at war with us,” he reflects. “The whole Malvinas/Falklands thing had just blown up again when we were there, so I was continually being asked what I thought. I told them I’m a pacifist who doesn’t believe in war in any shape or form. I went down and paid my respects to the fallen troops at the Buenos Aires memorial. Most of them were conscripts who were forced to fight, so the Falklands War was a tragedy on every level. I put a little picture of the memorial up on my Twitter and didn’t get one single comment from Britain. People are obviously following the general vibe as purveyed by the tabloids over here.”
A devout Crystal Palace fan – “Through thin and thin, mate!” – The Captain was delighted to catch a local footie game.
“The promoter took us to see Independiente v Racing, which is the equivalent of Arsenal/Tottenham. Honestly, I’ve never seen anything like it – it was insane! When all the fireworks went off before the match you couldn’t see the green of the pitch. Then they did this jumpy-uppy thing in unison, which I really thought was going to collapse the stand with me in it. It was a long way from Selhurst Park, which seems a bit tame after that!”
The following day’s gig in the Groove Club wasn’t any less crazed.
“It was just outrageous as you can see from the bits up on YouTube. Whatever song it was, they knew all the words and riffs and screamed ‘em back at you. The only pisser is that Wes Orshoski wasn’t there to capture it all.”
Wes Orshoski being the New York filmmaker who having made Lemmy The Movie is now turning his camera on The Damned.
“Lemmy’s been reduced to something of a cartoon by the press, but Wes managed to capture all the different sides of his personality. Lemmy’s very funny; has an answer for everything and loves to hold court in his dressing-room with a constant procession of people coming in and out. He gives them a bit of his rapier wit and they go off happy. He’s a certain age these days but he still indulges, drinking slowly through the day and having a little bit of what he fancies before and after the show. It’s quite a lifestyle, really.”
How did he first cross paths with Mr. Kilmister?
“When everyone was putting their bands together we’d congregate down the pubs in Portabello Road,” the Captain recalls. “Lemmy would often be found playing the fruit-machines in these less than salubrious establishments. He lived round the corner and would let you doss on his floor if you couldn’t get back down to Croydon. We just knew him because he was part of that Portabello/Ladbroke Grove scene, which had started a few years beforehand with Hawkwind who to all intents and purposes were a punk band themselves, only with long hair and flares.”
One of the many things the Captain and Lemmy have in common is (trying) to teach Sid Vicious the bass.
“Sid was desperate to learn, so me and Sue Catwoman shoved him up against The Damned’s set and got him to play the first Ramones album. He’d do that for two or three hours a day until eventually he got it. Sort of. Sid was never really cut out to be a musician, bless him.”
At age 58, does the Captain still retain his penchant for taking his clothes off on stage or is that the act of a younger, more headstrong man?
“That was a mixture of me having these furry outfits which were insanely fucking hot under the lights – see, I’m coming out with an excuse here! – and imbibing/ingesting far too much. I don’t really take my clothes off on stage any more, although I reserve the right to! I’m a bit of a hippy-dippy in that I don’t think there’s anything wrong with nakedness.”
Another punk personage currently getting the documentary treatment is Captain Sensible’s old South London mucker Johnny Moped.
“Funnily enough, my son, Fred, is doing it,” he says oozing parental pride. “He’d just come out of film school and asked me, ‘What should I do as my first project?’ I showed him some Moped stuff and he said, ‘Wow, this bloke’s a genuine eccentric!’ I really think the world needs to know the joys of Johnny Moped because he’s such a strange character. He’s like Lemmy – he’s got an answer for everything, and the first person you’d want on your team if you were doing a pub quiz.”
A regular down the Roxy, Moped built up a devoted following with songs like ‘Incendiary Device’, ‘VD Boiler’ and ‘Darling Let’s Have Another Baby’, which can still be found loitering with intent on iTunes. What’s he up to these days?
“Wheeling his missus to the pub in her wheelchair mainly. Mrs. Moped’s 15 years older than he is, so he’s a full-time carer. If you’d seen him in the street, you’d have thought ‘wow, what a loser nobody’ but put him on stage and he transformed into this rock god. The aim of the film is to turn Moped into the international megastar he should’ve been. I’m telling you, this time next year he’ll be on the red carpet at Cannes.”
That, as a Johnny Moped devotee myself, I’d love to see. Having had both a successful band and solo career – his 1982 cover of Roger & Hammerstein’s ‘Happy Talk’ topped the charts in Blighty – is there anything the Captain feels he’s yet to achieve?
“Yeah, appearing on Desert Island Discs. I’ve actually asked them, but I think they’re into artier people than me. You get all these actors and actresses who play the same bloomin’ records. I’d go on there and glam it up with ‘Ride A White Swan’ and that sort of thing!”