Fun with THE JONESES [1988]

Text by Julia Masi / FFanzeen, 1988

Introduction © Robert Barry Francos / FFanzeen, 2019

Live photo © Robert Barry Francos, 2019

Other image and videos from the Internet

This interview was originally published in FFanzeen 15, dated 1988, and written by Julia Masi.

What was especially wrong with the Joneses, in my opinion, is that they were pointed in the wrong direction to make it a success. While Julia somewhat correctly lines them up with the energy of the bands from the late ‘70s, their style was more hair metal with a pop flair, and that’s the wave they should have jumped on. Their locus in Hollywood was the center of that scene, so they could easily have been lumped in with Mötley Crüe or Guns N’ Roses, but I believe their marketing was looking backwards rather than forwards.

Are their songs sexist? Yeah, but there was a lot of that kind of stuff going on back then (note that I'm not excusing any of it). Even now, I get music from metal acts that put out material with lyrics that makes me cringe. Musically, their album Keeping Up with the Joneses is really a lot of fun, but I also understand their musical immaturity worked against them more than promoting them. Also thwarting their climb, they don’t sound like they take themselves too seriously, and that may be a factor why the members of the band kept changing, other than Jeff Drake. Of course, it also doesn’t help that some time after this interview, Jeff spent a few years incarcerated thanks to trying to rob a bank. Yep, you read that right. After he got out, the band reformed, as it were (i.e., Jeff and a new back-up), and took another stab at it. Considering how many of you reading this know of them shows their level of non-success.

I met Jeff and Steve at a taping of cable access show “Videowave” (as did Julia), and yeah, they were a bunch of smartasses. The trio of videos they talk about, as far as I can tell, never came to be. Listening to their music now (see links below), I still think they are a “fun” band, but even after all these years, it’s still hard to take them seriously. And there’s the rub. – RBF, 2019

 

Steve Olson and Jeff Drake on the set of "Videowave"
(photo by Robert Barry Francos)

The Joneses are just average, all-American boys who “rage for fun,” party in cemeteries, write double-entendre songs and aspire to become “The Geraldo Rivera of rock’n’roll.”

Occasionally, the boys are given to clichés, but not always in a negative way. For example, their album, Keeping Up with the Joneses, on Doctor Dream Records, is a rowdy, raunchy collection of material including “She’s So Filthy,” “Look So Bad, Feel So Good,” and “Ms. 714” that fails to find anything serious in the banality of the basic boy/girl relationship.

Fun is the band’s favorite pastime and the only adjective they use to describe their music. Fans agree, but sometimes the people they love most – women – attack them for their tongue-in-cheek lyrics.

Hiding their eyes under black, opaque aviator glasses and wrapped in tight, somewhat shredded jeans, the boys – Jeff Drake (vocals) and Steve (I don’t know his last name; he didn’t’ tell me his last name, but I didn’t’ tell him mine [Steve Olson, who was also a professional skateboarder at the time – RBF, 2019]) – try to look menacing. But smiles to supresses their laughter gives them away.

Jeff is the quiet one (as compared to Steve, that is). He’s a Lakers fan given to saying things like, “A drug-free America comes first in our book!” He could easily be mistaken for a Disney World prototype of a rock’n’roll robot if he didn’t declare, “Women are my favorite sex object” whenever he’s forced to say anything profound.

Steve emerged from the womb searching for the spotlight. He works at throwing female interviewers off-track by asking personal questions. Although you can ask him anything, all of his answers related back to the topic of sex. But so does their music.

“I wanted to put a liner sheet in there,” Jeff explains as a certain reporter throws the album cover as if it were a Frisbee. “But the record company wouldn’t do it. They thought that some of the lyrics might be offensive. I don’t think any of it is offensive. The songs are actually very upbeat, so if you use a little vernacular, it’s okay.”

It seems strange that feminists take their music seriously, or even listen to it in the first place. Of course, that might relate to the title of “Look So Bad, Feel So Good,” but it seems ridiculous that they actually write to the Joneses and give them a hard time. They wrongly accuse the boys of being sexists! (Female readers, please gasp.)

“It really doesn’t bother us,” Jeff continues. “Our songs are written pretty much in the language that we speak, so there’s words in there that might be taken out of context and thought of as that. But if you’re gonna take them apart… I write them I about five minutes and it would take them more than that to pick them apart.”

The bulk of their reviews are favorable. And it did take a considerable amount of digging through clippings to find that one obscure article that labeled them “moronically misogynist.” When asked to defend themselves, they confessed they had no idea what it meant. A quick explanation rendered them speechless and pale. It seemed like a good time to call in the paramedics, until Steve interjected, “I don’t know where they got this information. I am the opposite!” (Female readers: please sigh.)

We are about to take a turn for the worse as the Joneses try to convince me that in addition to sex and romance, Chekov is among their major influences. (Come on, boys! How dumb do I look? No wonder the feminists pick on you.)

“I think they just misinterpret us,” interjects Steve. “We’re just about having fun. Life is fun. Boy meets girl. Boy equals F. Girl equals F. Life is fun. It’s sexist fun.”

And for more sexist fun, the band can dabble in video. They have a trilogy written for “She’s So Filthy,” “Look So Bad, Feel So Good,’ and “Ms. 714” that they were trying to put together in New York at the time of (but not during) this interview.

“We’ve been doing some casting out here,” says Jeff, “getting some models up to the crib for auditions and tryouts. Since it’s “She’s So Filthy,” we want to get some really filthy girls to lend some honesty to the whole thing. It’s gonna be trashy.” And exactly how do the Joneses conduct their little star search? “We say, ‘Show us. Here’s the song. Act it out’,” explains Jeff.

“We want to make it real-to-life. Why cover it up?” asks Steve. They carry out a little repartee about making two versions, one for commercial consumption and the other a home version for limited release.

Trying to get them back to the subject of their music, at this point, is nearly impossible. And it takes the slightly drastic measure of kicking off a spiked-heel shoe in pseudo-feminist mock anger for the boys to get the point. (By the way boys, real feminists wear sensible shoes.)

Quickly changing the subject, Jeff describe the record as “a party album” and winces at comments (no matter how complementary) that it’s a throwback to the good old days of 1977-79, when live bands had raw energy. “If you can overlook the trap they got caught in, then I think they’re really great,” said Steve, referring to the chemical and financial problems that hovered like a black cloud over that scene.

“It comes from the roots of rock’n’roll,” Steve muses. His love of old rock’n’roll is so deep, he used to visit the grave of one of his heroes, Eddie Cochran so frequently that he has dozens of stories of partying on his grave.

When an analogy is made to the way Jeff sometimes mumbles his lyrics and the fact that other bands of their genre frequently condemn commercial success, Steve chides, “That’s because Jeff is afraid of success. He’s really a great singer and he tries to mix it down.” Steve, of course, is fearless in the face of fame. “When I was 17 or 16, I would go up to Hollywood and there was just a very small amount of people into this New Wave thing.

“People like X, and even people who are big now; these people were dressed up and having fun. And it was like everyone was in this little clique. There was one in San Francisco, there was one in L.A., and there was that London scene, with all the prima donnas from England that ripped off America anyway.

“I was having a great time. And I was a very successful kid at a young age. It’s ridiculous to be so narrow-minded.

“Success is what? Just being happy. It isn’t just how much money you have or – If you’re content with yourself, it depends on how you hold success in your eyes.”

As Jeff puts it, “We just want everyone to have a good time and we’ll be the conductors.”

Book Review: Sheriff McCoy: Outlaw Legend of Hanoi Rocks, by Andy McCoy

Text © Robert Barry Francos / FFanzeen, 2011
Book cover image and videos from the Internet



Sheriff McCoy: Outlaw Legend of Hanoi Rocks
By Andy McCoy
Bazillion Points Books (Brooklyn)
Original Finnish Printing, 2001; updated edition, 2009
English Translation (by Ike Vil); edited by Polly Watson
190 pages, hardcover; USD $22.95
ISBN: 978-0-9796163-0-3
bazillionpoints.com

Watching or reading biographical sources, be it book or DVD, is usually interesting to me, and I will tend go for it, even for artists or bands that I’m not exactly interested in because it’s still appealing to hear about the motivation of what makes an artist tick (though I just turned down a chance to review a career history of ELP; couldn’t care less). And then there’s all the dirt, some times involving musicians I do like.

This is especially true of autobiographies, and ones by the ‘80s hair metal bands seem to be full of excesses of sex, drug, and, of course, rock’n’roll. Well, a variation of r’n’r, anyway. I’ve read Slash’s (Guns ‘N Roses) and the oral history of Mötley Crüe, bands that never meant much to me, but the books were fun reads nonetheless, and had me going to search out the videos in curiosity. They didn’t change my opinions about the sound, but I feel like I know a bit more about the mentality that went behind it.

Another of the bands from this period that meant diddley to me was Hanoi Rocks. I bought the first LP at the time (unlike G’NR or Crüe) because I heard they were “glam” or “punk influenced,” but found instead that they didn’t reach my enjoyment button (though I kept the album). And yet, when the opportunity to read Sheriff McCoy, the autobio by Hanoi Rocks’ guitarist Andy McCoy, I welcomed the chance. The band’s drummer, Razzle, had been killed in a drunk driving incident where Crüe’s vocalist, Vince Neil, was behind the wheel, and I had read Crüe’s take on it, so now I wanted to hear it from a member of Razzle’s crew.

Antti Hulkko (aka Andy) grew up in Sweden and Finland, and had a stereotypical rock kid childhood of love of guitar-focused music, such as rock and blues, forming bands from a young age, at the expense of education. Sex and drugs becomes a staple, relationships suffer, insane band mates and girlfriends come and go, and then fame hits and money comes in the bucketsful, most spent on drugs, rehab, women, cars and toys, and travel. And yet, each story has its own fine points, and Andy makes his story sound intriguing.

His tale is semi-chronological, going though the main points in some order, jumping around a bit here and there, but never to the point of confusion. Some of the Scandi-hoovian names early on can get a bit intimidating and memory-busting, but not enough to make the reader lose interest. I mean, before reading this, I never heard of his first major band, Briard, though I since searched out some of their sounds.

Before I go further, I want to make it clear I enjoyed the book, even if I have any quibbles about it; please read with the sense of humor as I mean it.

The original printing came out in Finland in 2001, and this English translation (by Ike Vil) is from 2009, with updates and a new preface by McCoy. It is a small, quick read hardcover (with jacket), stacked with many black-and-white photos of different stages of McCoy’s life, even if they are not in any chronological order. Most are captioned, and a few are not. There is also a discography at the back, including is post-Hanoi bands like Cherry Bombz, the Suicide Twins (I have these two, too, amazingly enough; might even give them a second listen now), Shooting Gallery, and with Iggy Pop; also listed are comps, guest appearances, and the like. It opens, however, with a class essay he wrote about himself at age 15, and even then, you can see nascent Andy as we come to know him now.

Along with the main crux of the text, there are brief asides on the side of some pages that are more passing thoughts than connected to any one thing in his life story, such as thoughts on everything from spiritual beliefs to capital punishment and the “gift of life.” He also discusses how he sees music in various colors (also known as synesthesia; thank you Julia M for teaching me that factoid). These show a side of Andy that fills in some more foundation.

Having experienced another Scandinavian book translated recently (also on Bazillion Points), the syntax is a bit different and may sound a bit odd and stunted to the American ear; also, many musicians of this period were not proficient in school, so other than writing lyrics, there are some issues, such as the occasional use of double negatives, for example. Here is a paragraph about when Hanoi Rocks went to Asia, and were assaulted by the fervor of the fans there:

“It was just so sick, because they didn’t give two shits if they hurt somebody. They just wanted a piece of us and tried to tear away Mike’s and my hair as a souvenir. Well, they only managed to get one of my earrings; the other was ripped off elsewhere about a year later. I wonder if they sometimes forget that the artist is a human being, too, because these people didn’t seem to think about it at all. I’ve never had a problem giving an autograph if somebody wants it and asks for it, but hell, my body is my own property; it doesn’t belong to anybody else. I think it’s pretty offending when fans get so fanatic that they hurt you, or try to invade your private life however they can. There are a lot of these people around.” [66]

Just a couple of pages later, he goes to some length about the motivation that drove him as opposed to how he views the next musical age that followed (though you could have reprinted this about any generation and it would fit, as Aristotle’s famous quote about “the youth of today” proves:

“I wish that kids today wouldn’t be materialistic like my parents’ generation, like, you gotta have this kind of car, that kind of summer cottage, and blah blah blah. There are some of those idiots in my generation too, I’m sad to say. But at least in Hanoi Rocks we never did anything just for the money. There was so much more behind it. Mike [Monroe, lead singer of Hanoi Rocks] and I formed a band that we would’ve dug ourselves. Later we became rich, and that was something we never dreamed about in the beginning. Nowadays people ask me how much money we made. How much did we make? A fuckin’ lot, I tell you, but we were also very good at spending it, because the money wasn’t as important as it seems to be to some of these guys who save every penny they earn and wait for the interest to grow. What if Razzle had done that? What if he had saved all his money? What good would it do him now that he’s dead, I ask you?” [69]

There are a couple of things I feel I need to point out that stood out for me in a head-scratching way: first, in discussing how a friend was feeling suicidal, he states, “…she tried to crash her car off Mulholland Drive at a spot where there’s a 150-yard drop down a cliff. ... That’s where James Dean and a lot of other people were killed.” Any fact checker will tell you that Dean died on a highway between Los Angeles and San Francisco in San Luis Obispo County.

Another thing is his discussion on how Hanoi Rocks got their name. He states that when trying to come up with a band name with Mike Monroe, “Johnny Thunders’ LAMF, ‘Like a Mother Fucker,’ had just come out, and it had a song about heroin called ‘Chinese Rocks’.” Well, anyone who knows me is aware I’m a fan of Thunders, but it was not a “Johnny Thunders” album, but a Heartbreakers release, and Walter Lure, Billy Rath and Jerry Nolan deserve equal credit. And I could also go on about how “Chinese Rocks” was written by DeeDee Ramone…

There is an amusing, “blind” comment that is obviously about Guns ‘N Roses, where he mentions the unnamed singer “…went nuts because of the money.” Actually, from Slash’s book, it comes across as Axl having been suffering through mental problems for a long time, possibly onset by addictions as much as money, though it manifests itself mostly in control issues. After the looooong Chinese Democracy debacle, well, I’m siding with Slash on this one.

Phew, now that that’s out of my system, I will go on.

There’s actually some very nice props given to Thunders (and even the Dolls gets a nod, no pun intended); in fact, McCoy mentions that his wife of many years now, Angela McCoy-Nicoletti, is a cousin of Johnny Genzale Jr (better known as Johnny Thunders).

There are three constants that flow through the book, sometimes overlapping, sometimes in stand-alone projections, but they are the backbone of Andy’s tale.

1. Sheer debauchery. Lots of sex, drugs - including heroin addictions - and violence were part and parcel of Andy’s life throughout the Hanoi Rocks period, and he states this in both factual and bemused ways. It makes for some very entertaining stories.

2. Preachy. As with many who have gone through extended chemical highs, including alcohol, and have then come out the other side, Andy often goes on anti-drugs / booze rants. I’m not an imbiber in either, so I am not offended by any of this, and am not relating this in any kind of complaining way, just that it is present. Congrats on getting clean, Andy, and I mean that.

3. Spirituality. Andy posits that he believes in God, but it’s clear that not in Judeo-Christian formalized and dogmatized tracts. He often discusses the beauty and joy in life he finds now, and how that spirituality is the foundation of that experience.

There is one other major theme that flows throughout Sheriff McCoy, in some way almost as a second character, and that is Andy’s ego. He apparently is affirmed that Hanoi Rocks was one of the most important bands in the history of the 1980s, if not rock and roll entirely, and everyone either loves him or is jealous of him. Actually, there is no one I know that would list either him or Hanoi Rocks as being any kind of foundation of their taste, including a lot of musicians. I’m not saying they don’t have their place in rock history, especially with the hair band genre, but they have never matched either G’NR nor Crüe in popularity (though, again, none of them had any relevance in my life, or anyone I’m close to). For example, he states, “I’ve noticed so many times that wherever I go in the world, I’m recognized. I have no privacy.” You want to not be recognized? Take off the huge, round hat, the big bandana with the hair standing up above it, the mascara and eye shadow, and that ‘80s fashion that no one else wears anymore. As Christine Lavin may have said, he’s a prisoner of his style (just like the Ramones with the bowl cuts, black jackets over tee-shirts and ripped jeans).

As an aside, I did get a smile when Andy mentions the word “bazillion” at some point, indirectly naming the publishing company that put out this book.

On a further good note (as I said, I did like the book), Andy gives some good and helpful advice for bands starting out and about to sign to a major label, discussing percentages, publishing rights vs. recording deal, producing your own recordings, and the like. Good info that’s worth checking out.

In conclusion, despite my shrugs and shirks, this is a good read, and there are hints at the end that there may be a second volume, which I would be interested in reading. The most important thing Andy says, in my opinion, is in the preface, and its words to live by: “This book is only entertainment for entertainment’s sake, for lovers of rock’n’roll history and people who have a taste for the macabre. Anyway, I hope you have a good read and remember: this is my truth, you have your truth, and there is the universal truth. I try to balance between all of them.”
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