Cliff Roman

by Bob Brown

I have it on unquestionable authority that George W. Bush is a rabid fan of the Weirdos. And like everything in our brave new world, GW approaches the Weirdos’ signature tune, “We Got the Neutron Bomb,” completely free of guile. Like pretzels, football and Al Qaeda, W takes the Weirdos at face value, sees the entire surface and nothing more, all without a trace of irony.

I also have it on authority that much like one of his idols, Tom Cruise in “Risky Business,” W likes to strip to his skivvies every now and again, and bump and grind to some fave tunage. And the song he returns to is the Weirdos’ “We Got the Neutron Bomb.” Picture W and Karl Rove and Rumsfeld and the rest of the Liquor Cabinet looped on Wild Turkey, caterwauling around the Oval Office:

We got the neutron bomb
We got the neutron bomb
Gonna drop it all over the place
Yer gonna get it on yer face

And just when you thought our fearless leaders couldn’t take it any higher, their chorus swells to anthem proportions in the only two lines W treasures even more than his beloved cocaine:

United Nations and NATO won’t do
It’s just the red, white and blue

The Weirdos wrote those prophetic lyrics more than a quarter of a century ago. And now, in 2004, they don’t merely hold up—they ring truer than ever. Same for the rest of the Weirdos’ all-too-slim but wonderful output. The latest evidence: We Got the Neutron Bomb: Weird World Volume Two 1977-1989 (Frontier), a second compilation (Volume 1 was released in 1991) of studio and live material dating back to the formative stages of these punk pioneers.

Bob Brown: Cliff? Bob Brown from Worldly Remains.

Cliff Roman: Bob, how are you doing?

Bob: Doing great. Are you working tonight?

Cliff: Rehearsing.

Bob: And then, two weeks from tonight, you start a new tour?

Cliff: That’s right.

Bob: Dates in Portland, Seattle…

Cliff: L.A., San Jose, San Francisco…

WR. And that’s just through the end of this year…

Cliff: Right. And then back east for shows in the spring of 2004.

Bob: You’re busy. That’s great! And did you ever think it—more than twenty-five years later.

Cliff: No. Who would have?

Bob: Well I’m enjoying the CD. And looking forward to seeing you right here in my backyard in L.A. at the El Rey.

Cliff: That’s going to be a great show.

Bob: I love the El Rey.

Cliff: I played the “Class of ‘77” show there. With Zander from the Circle Jerks. And I watched my friend Billy Bones from the Skulls, playing with this young guitarist, Kevin—they called him “The Kid”—and looking like he was having a lot of fun. I ended up playing a lot of shows with the Skulls… and when they opened for the Adicts.

Bob: That’s cool. It must feel great to still be doing it—just as well if not better—and in the process winning over a whole second generation of fans.

Cliff: It is cool.

Bob: And it’s not like you ever disappeared. The Weirdos played shows from time to time…

Cliff: Right…

Bob: And you had another band, Martini Ranch (which featured actor Bill Paxton--PG)…

Cliff: Yeah, and the shows with the Skulls…

Bob: Plus there have been books--We Got the Neutron Bomb…

Cliff: Good title…

Bob: That is a good title. Your peers—and the audiences—really saw you as true originators, as opposed to other stuff that was derivative or just plain bad. It must feel great to have that legacy and still be active.

Cliff: Thanks. It makes me feel like an original. And it’s cool to come out and play now. The audience is there out of interest. And they’re paying attention.

Bob: I’m looking forward to the shows…

Cliff: So am I. And the band sounds great. People, if they’re at all skeptical, will be surprised. And it will be a massive set—we just keep adding songs.

Bob: That’s a workout.

Cliff: It is. We’ll go as far as John can hold up (laughs). You know—we’re older and slower. Not the tempos though.

Bob: And you have a great lineup. Zander on bass…

Cliff: And Sean Antillon, the Skulls drummer.

Bob: And they’re the opener.

Cliff: Sean will have a full night.

Bob: Are you writing new material?

Cliff: I’ve got the music for the new Weirdos album, but the Weirdos…it’s a scattered thing. We’ll go into the studio when it makes sense to record an album.

Bob: And expand the tour?

Cliff: And expand the tour. In the summer, we may go to Europe. The Skulls just got back. They played Germany, Austria… played Vienna… they laid the groundwork. Plus the Weirdos sell albums in Spain, in Sweden, Greece, Germany…

Bob: How cool is that? Spend the summer playing for fans across Europe… travel, get paid for it…

Cliff: And we basically bypass the entire industry. We take it straight to the fans. No middlemen. It’s great.

Bob: And again, more than a quarter of a century after it all started. Who would have thought?

Cliff: A while back, we had a strategy…John and I laid out a plan. The Weird World Volume 1 CD, the website, merchandise, and some shows. Occasionally an opportunity would come up—hey, should we do a show?—but if didn’t make sense to do it, why just do a show? And then Paul DuGre [producer and engineer extraordinaire, who has worked with Dave Alvin, Bad Religion, Circle Jerks, X, Tracy Chapman, Leo Kottke, and many more] started going through our master tapes. It took him three months to get through them. I’d go over to his studio, and he was converting analog to digital. Doing great stuff. Then Dix and I would burn CDs and talk about it…

Bob: What about John?

Cliff: He was a new father. So it was mostly Dix and myself. And I’ll tell you—the stuff sounded totally different than what I’d been listening to for years… my cassettes from sessions back to ’79. The transferred stuff sounded great! Through Paul’s awesome speakers.

Bob: And you had that much old material to work with?

Cliff: We’ve got enough for Weird World Volume Three.

Bob: Bring it on! And going through those tapes, it must have been quite an experience remembering the moments as they were then, but also now from the perspective of 25-plus years later. What were some of the highlights and lowlights you remember from those days?

Cliff: A lot. Highlights had to be those first few shows where we were headlining the Whisky. “Bomb” had just been released on Dangerhouse. KROQ—which broadcast on both FM and AM in those days—was playing it. We booked Friday and Saturday at the Whisky. Sold out both nights. The band was still the original lineup. We’d written new songs—“Like a Drone,” “Happy People,” “Hitman” were all in our set. Those were our best shows.

Bob: Who opened for you?

Cliff: When we’d do a series of shows like that, we’d rotate from one night to the next. It was probably either the Dils or Bags… or the Zeros or Plugz. David Joan—do you know David?—is writing a book about all this. Called Destroy All Music…

Bob: Another good title.

Cliff: Another good title. He’s been working on it for a couple years now. Covers the Weirdos, Zeros, Dils, Screamers. Should be great.

Bob: We look forward to that. Is there much of the Weirdos from that period on film?

Cliff: There is. There’s some great footage. John’s working with it, mixing it together.

Bob: Good quality?

Clliff: Excellent. Some of it’s really visually sophisticated. Some great stuff from the Masque from a TV shoot called “At Night”…

Bob: That should be excellent quality.

Cliff: It is. It was a three-camera shoot. The only problem is, the guy hosting the show talks over the whole song while we’re playing. The show wasn’t about bands—it was about where to for a night on the town. But it’s still great. Lots of shots of the crowd. People shouting, “Fuck you! Fuck Van Halen!” And in the crowd you see all of our friends who went formed bands. Go-Gos, Germs, Wall of Voodoo, Dickies… And there’s footage from the summer of ’78. Target Video in San Francisco shot a lot of footage of us in ’78, ’79. Then in the mid-80s this guy Louis…by then they had VHS, I can’t remember if he had to plug his camera in…maybe it had a battery pack…he would film our shows, then just give us the tapes. And Flipside filmed us at a show, a first show in years for us, in ’86 at the Stardust Ballroom. That was with Youth Brigade and some other bands.

Bob: Are you filming any of the upcoming shows?

Cliff: We’re filming at the El Rey.

Bob: Are you a film fan in general?

Cliff: I’m a big film buff. I really dig film noir. “Darkness at Dawn” on TCM. And the great films from the late 60s, early 70s. Even in high school, I loved Bergman. Then Clockwork Orange—John and I saw it three or four times. At Cal Arts, I studied surrealism in film. Loved Polanski—Cul-de-sac and Repulsion. I dig old rock and roll films—old Elvis…and I remember seeing The Girl Can’t Help It at the L.A. County Museum of Art. I used to go see Warhol films—Frankenstein, Dracula—at the Fox in Venice. The Filmex Festivals—I still have the catalogs. Taxi Driver… I’m a big film buff.

Bob: Making it that much cooler that you have so much Weirdos on film to cull through.

Cliff: It is cool.

Bob: Can we look forward to Weirdos on DVD?

Cliff: I think we can.

Bob: The Weirdos legacy grows on. Very cool. Well, Cliff, I’ve already kept you longer than I said I would. I appreciate your taking the time to chat and bring us up to date on the Weirdos. We’re looking forward to hearing and seeing more of you soon.

Cliff: Thanks, Bob. I appreciate it. See you soon!

www.theweirdos.com / www.frontierrecords.com / All fliers courtesy of theweirdos.com