How did you first start playing bass?I had been messing around with guitar, but it just wasn't clicking. Then I picked up a friend's bass one day and knew right off that was what I was meant to hold.
Influences?There's lots, just tons. I started combing used record stores, pawn shops, yard sales, etc. as soon as I could ride a bike to the store. My first big influence was Elton John. I mean the early stuff. One day my mother told me I could never listen to a band called Black Sabbath, because they were evil. Later that day, I bought my first Sabbath album, Sabbath Bloody Sabbath. They made a huge impact. Rock Scene magazine wrote about the NY Dolls and I found Too Much Too Soon in a cutout bin. I saw this cartoon in Creem magazine about Raw Power (Iggy) and in the cartoon, these old burned out hippies listened to it and were rendered speechless and immobile. I finally tracked it down and listened to it all the time. I was on the search for anything that made me feel like Sabbath or the Dolls or the Stooges did, but I also listened to movie soundtracks, Martin Denny, Buddy Holly, Bob Wills, The Ventures, etc.
Any previous bands?The first time I played on stage, it was with Bobby, before Stick Men in a band called The Enemy. My first gig was opening up for Black Flag in Ft Worth, Tx in front of about 20 people. Dez was their singer, this was Dec 1980. A couple of Stick Men songs came from that band, Enemy Enemy and Two Fists.
How did you first discover punk rock?There wasn't an "aha" moment. I had been listening to The Stooges, and then the Ramones, etc. As new stuff was released, new bands came around, I just listened to their stuff.
How did you come about meeting the other members?Stick Men's first show, I was playing in a band called Hole (after The Enemy and before Stick Men, and well before Courtney Love) and we opened up for Stick Men at their first show. They had a fill in bass player at the time, and after the show, Bobby Soxx asked me to join Stick Men, so I did. Same club we had opened for Black Flag, Zero's. Hole was kind of a noise/industrial band. We ran everyone off before Stick Men played, and they were mad, hahaha.
What was the first time you met Bobby?It was at a bar called DJ's. I was 16 at the time, and the drinking age in Texas was 18. Things weren't like they are now though, we had fake ID's that worked, and many places were kinda lax about it. Bobby was in the Teenage Queers then. I told him that he reminded me of a singer in a band called Crass. If you listen to the Stick Men stuff, you won't hear it, but some of his Teenage Queers stuff sounded a lot like some of the first Crass album. Anyway, he told me he would kick my ass if he didn't agree, but I played it for him and he did, so ass was not kicked.
What was the Texas scene like back then?It was very small. This club, DJ's... it was a stretch to get 50 or 60 people in there, and rarely did that happen. We went to the club, and then partied afterward. There weren't a lot of us, so we all knew each other. By the time Stick Men started, DJ's was closed and the scene was slightly larger, but not much.
What was the history of the band exactly?Well, I talked about the early history. We played almost every weekend for 6 years. Dallas, Austin, Houston, and a few other places in Texas. We didn't rehearse much. If we went out of town, we would usually take 2 or 3 vehicles because we really didn't get along well and sometimes hated each other. Toward the end, Bobby was falling pretty far into his various addictions. He had always been dependable for band stuff. This guy who barely held it together for the most part, was always there for the band, so that really made it work. If he had been a flake, it would not have lasted. I mean, one time I went to pick him up for a Houston show, and he was asleep. He got up, and started getting stuff together for the trip. He put on some jeans, found some shoes, slung a shirt over his shoulder. Then he got a machete, a foot long sharpening stone, and a 2' ice pick with a leather sheath he had made for it. He looked up and said "OK, ready to go", and off we went.
Why did you break up?It was just... over. We had a show, opening for the Surfers, it was the last one. Soxx was too messed up to go on much longer. We decided to stop. Then a year later, we got back together for a couple of shows. After that, I moved to Seattle, Clarke moved to Florida, Scott moved to NYC, and Soxx went to prison.
What are you up to these days? Do you still play?I played in a band called Graceland after Stick Men broke up the first time, and until not long before I moved to Seattle. We have recently played a couple shows. We have another one coming up in July. I'm also working on an industrial project. When I say "industrial" people think of Ministry or NIN (or worse), but it's nothing like that at all. I don't think of dance music when I use the word "industrial".
We realized early-on that we would never go on a tour, we would never get a recording contract, etc. Bobby was fine once or twice a week, but the idea of all 4 of us spending any extended time together was not going to work. With that in mind, we were pretty free to amuse ourselves as we saw fit. I always looked at is as we were on stage playing to manipulate the audience as we watched them. We were not the entertainers, they were. We were the catalyst. The notion of doing something because the audience would like it wasn't a thought. Sometimes, doing things so the club would let us play again was, but that's about the extent of our "commercial" aspirations. We were too hard and too wild for Dallas, which mostly leaned more towards pop music. Austin was a good audience, but we were kicked out of Austin a lot by clubowners. Houston seemed a good fit, but it was farther away. You could get to Austin in 3 hours, but Houston was 4.5 or 5 hours. Big difference in getting off work and making it in time for the show, or driving back after we finish. Stick Men were never terribly popular. We have more fans now than we did when we were playing, by far. Mostly, people were scared of us, is what I've heard in years since.
What can you tell me about Bobby Calverly's upbringing? What was he like in high school? His family? Did he have any brothers or sisters?
I don't know a lot about his early years. I think he was pretty poor for a while, but then his dad started making money, and he had a middle class home, etc. for a while before he moved off. He didn't get on well with his family. There was one point he got a job in his father's print shop, and I picked him up from work there. It was a big place, they were printing newspapers and stuff, had some big, new machines. That didn't last long. Some years before I met him, he had held his grandparents hostage and had a standoff with the police. This landed him in the insane asylum for a while. The cover of the Bobby Soxx 45 is a self portrait, when he was in the hospital after having been stabbed in the lung. I don't remember why he said he had been stabbed. This was all before I knew him. Some of his relatives turned out for his wake. They were pretty tight lipped.
Any great stories your willing to come forth with, I would love (and everyone else who reads this i'm sure) to hear. Anything and everything. Fights with other bands, members of the audience... anything.There are so many of those. Everybody who knew Bobby Soxx has stories to tell. There was a lot of negative stuff for sure. There was also a lot of positive. He could be kind, loyal, he'd give you the shirt off his back, even if it was his last shirt. Bobby had a lot of friends, and that was because he was a good friend to many. Of course, he had his share of enemies as well. Bobby had the Ying/Yang thing down, and he was full tilt both ways. I will tell you some more stories in a while.
What jail time did he serve and what for?He went to prison, I'm not sure of the final charges he was convicted of, but it was in the range of attempted murder/assault. He beat his girlfriend nearly to death. Her name was Candy, and she's no longer alive either. I saw Candy at his wake. Candy was someone I had known for years, but she wasn't part of the punk rock scene at all. She and her husband at the time came to Stick Men shows a few times, mostly because she and her husband were friends with Clarke and I. After she and her husband split up, she turned up with Bobby Soxx. We all warned her that he beat women. Hell, he sang about it. Candy was very smart, and she knew what she was getting into with him. What Bobby did was inexcusable, but I feel like Candy had some need to punish herself and goaded him into it. Of course, there was a lot of alcohol and drugs involved. She told me at his wake that she knew. Soxx was out of control and they both got what they needed out of it, I think... as strange and fucked up as that sounds. Bobby and Candy were both working for a mobile catering (roach coach) business. I think the assault happened on a weekend. He beat her and then smashed her head in the toilet bowl until there was blood all over the place and she was unconscious. By Monday, both were at work and according to Candy, when he saw her, he said "I thought I killed you, I left you for dead." Her description of it was that it was said with hate, not remorse. I was in Seattle by then, and only heard about it secondhand at the time. I didn't talk to Candy until the wake. I should also mention, her death had nothing to do with Bobby Soxx.
Did you keep in contact with him after the band? What about up until the day he died? Other members as well?He called me once after he got out of prison. He was in for 5 years or so. When he came out, everything was "Holmes" this and "Holmes" that He said there were basically 3 groups in prison, the white Aryan guys, the Mexicans, and the Blacks. Bobby said he hung with the Mexicans. He said the white guys couldn't be trusted. In Seattle, I had a business, a wife, and a son. I didn't go looking for Soxx or make efforts to stay in touch, but then I was easier to find than he was and he knew how to get ahold of me. Nobody from the band was in touch with him. We heard he was homeless at one point, and Clarke started looking for him via the website. We were all as far removed, geographically, as you could get. Scott and Clarke haven't spoken in years. Scott refuses to talk to him. I've been in touch with both of them, off and on. Last Summer, Clarke and I played a reunion show for DJ's. Clarke was going to be in town for something unrelated, and at that point I had literally not picked up a bass in 15 years, or played live in over 20. Clarke brought some of Bobby's ashes and we had a big picture of him at the back of the stage. The drummer was Russell Fleming, who played with Clarke in Bag O Wire and had previously been the drummer for the Vomit Pigs and many others. Russell is now the drummer for Graceland. I made some copies of lyrics and passed them out, and anyone who wanted to sing was invited to get up and sing. We played 3 or 4 songs, and it was terrible, but it was fun. I started playing music again after that. Funny thing though, Scott called me out of the blue the week of that show, and I told him about it. He had no idea. In a way, he was there too.
What was the deal with the original Bobby Soxx 7inch? And who played on it. What was the response back then for it?I'm still a little fuzzy on who actually played on that. The Teenage Queers had a bunch of different members, but the core of it was Steve Dirkx from the Telefones (who wrote or co-wrote most of the Queers songs) and I know Steve was involved. I've heard that Neal Caldwell or Randy from NCM played on it, but not sure. Jerry Dirkx was probably in there. I never really asked, to tell the truth. Neal and I split the pressing costs, and each took 250 of the 500 we made. They were hard to sell. I put them on consignment in various stores around Texas. Inner Sanctum in Austin sold some and then changed owners. They wouldn't pay me for what had been sold already, but they did give the 10 or so they still had back. I sold those a while back, and still have one left. Teenage Queers were kind of a pop/punk band. Other members included Valerie Bowles and Kim Wolfe. Valerie is the sister of Clarke's wife, Vicky.
What jail time did he serve and what for?He went to prison, I'm not sure of the final charges he was convicted of, but it was in the range of attempted murder/assault. He beat his girlfriend nearly to death. Her name was Candy, and she's no longer alive either. I saw Candy at his wake. Candy was someone I had known for years, but she wasn't part of the punk rock scene at all. She and her husband at the time came to Stick Men shows a few times, mostly because she and her husband were friends with Clarke and I. After she and her husband split up, she turned up with Bobby Soxx. We all warned her that he beat women. Hell, he sang about it. Candy was very smart, and she knew what she was getting into with him. What Bobby did was inexcusable, but I feel like Candy had some need to punish herself and goaded him into it. Of course, there was a lot of alcohol and drugs involved. She told me at his wake that she knew. Soxx was out of control and they both got what they needed out of it, I think... as strange and fucked up as that sounds. Bobby and Candy were both working for a mobile catering (roach coach) business. I think the assault happened on a weekend. He beat her and then smashed her head in the toilet bowl until there was blood all over the place and she was unconscious. By Monday, both were at work and according to Candy, when he saw her, he said "I thought I killed you, I left you for dead." Her description of it was that it was said with hate, not remorse. I was in Seattle by then, and only heard about it secondhand at the time. I didn't talk to Candy until the wake. I should also mention, her death had nothing to do with Bobby Soxx.
Did you keep in contact with him after the band? What about up until the day he died? Other members as well?He called me once after he got out of prison. He was in for 5 years or so. When he came out, everything was "Holmes" this and "Holmes" that He said there were basically 3 groups in prison, the white Aryan guys, the Mexicans, and the Blacks. Bobby said he hung with the Mexicans. He said the white guys couldn't be trusted. In Seattle, I had a business, a wife, and a son. I didn't go looking for Soxx or make efforts to stay in touch, but then I was easier to find than he was and he knew how to get ahold of me. Nobody from the band was in touch with him. We heard he was homeless at one point, and Clarke started looking for him via the website. We were all as far removed, geographically, as you could get. Scott and Clarke haven't spoken in years. Scott refuses to talk to him. I've been in touch with both of them, off and on. Last Summer, Clarke and I played a reunion show for DJ's. Clarke was going to be in town for something unrelated, and at that point I had literally not picked up a bass in 15 years, or played live in over 20. Clarke brought some of Bobby's ashes and we had a big picture of him at the back of the stage. The drummer was Russell Fleming, who played with Clarke in Bag O Wire and had previously been the drummer for the Vomit Pigs and many others. Russell is now the drummer for Graceland. I made some copies of lyrics and passed them out, and anyone who wanted to sing was invited to get up and sing. We played 3 or 4 songs, and it was terrible, but it was fun. I started playing music again after that. Funny thing though, Scott called me out of the blue the week of that show, and I told him about it. He had no idea. In a way, he was there too.
What was the deal with the original Bobby Soxx 7inch? And who played on it. What was the response back then for it?I'm still a little fuzzy on who actually played on that. The Teenage Queers had a bunch of different members, but the core of it was Steve Dirkx from the Telefones (who wrote or co-wrote most of the Queers songs) and I know Steve was involved. I've heard that Neal Caldwell or Randy from NCM played on it, but not sure. Jerry Dirkx was probably in there. I never really asked, to tell the truth. Neal and I split the pressing costs, and each took 250 of the 500 we made. They were hard to sell. I put them on consignment in various stores around Texas. Inner Sanctum in Austin sold some and then changed owners. They wouldn't pay me for what had been sold already, but they did give the 10 or so they still had back. I sold those a while back, and still have one left. Teenage Queers were kind of a pop/punk band. Other members included Valerie Bowles and Kim Wolfe. Valerie is the sister of Clarke's wife, Vicky.
Tell me about any Texas Hardcore that you liked in general. What outside of Texas punk rock/hardcore bands did you enjoy?From Houston, there were Legionaire's Disease, Verbal Abuse, Really Red, Culturecide, The Mydolls, Pain Teens. Austin and San Antonio were the home of Butthole Surfers, The Dicks, The Offenders, Big Boys, Sharon Tate's Baby, The Huns, ReVersible Cords, Hickoids, Marching Plague, Bang Gang, Crust, Poison 13, The Norvells, Radio Fre Europe, Miracle Room, etc. Dallas/Ft Worth was the home of Vomit Pigs, Skuds, Superman's Girlfriend, Infants, Dot Vaeth Group, Nervebreakers, Mel Coolies, Peyote Cowboys, Loco Gringos, Hugh Beaumont Experience, Quad Pi, Lithium Xmas, Rev Horton Heat, Tex & the Saddle Tramps, Deprogrammer, NCM... I'm sure I'm forgetting some obvious ones too.
That's a very long list, but at the top I'd have to say Flipper, The Germs, Middle Class, Flesh Eaters, Sex Pistols, Dead Boys, pre-Rollins Black Flag, Circle Jerks, Dickies, Fear, The Fall, Fuck-Ups, Killdozer, Meatmen, Mentors, Misfits, NOTA, Poison Idea, Ramones, Television, Heartbreakers, X, X-Ray Spex, Adverts, Drones, The Subhumans (Canada, not UK), DOA, Pagans to name a few.
What was Bobby's musical influence. I read once that he loved to blast Flipper's SEX BOMB at a local club. (makes a whole lot of fuckin sense ha!)I went to SF to see the Throbbing Gristle/Flipper show not long before joining Stick Men, and saw Flipper a few other times when I was out there. I came back touting Flipper pretty hard, and Bobby liked them. He listened to everything from ZZ Top and Thin Lizzy to Skrewdriver and the UK Subs. We all loved the Stooges. Bobby's first time on a stage was for a Robert Gordon lookalike contest a local radio station held. He won.
What kind of jobs did the band work back then?Clarke did graphics, Scott ran a commercial drapery business that his father had left him (that's where we rehearsed) and I was an office manager. Besides Bobby, the rest of us had steady work and reasonably stable lives.
What did Bobby Soxx have tattooed?He had one old tattoo on his right arm/bicep. It was not well done and he had been stabbed in it, so it was hard to tell what it was. I think he had picked it off the wall at some old school tattoo shop at some point along the way. Tattoos weren't a big deal back then.
What is the deal with the news broadcast about the band?Bobby appeared in an issue of "D" Magazine, which usually deals with socialite parties and restaurant reviews. He was one of 4 "interesting people" they profiled in that issue, and he shared the cover with the others. Not sure exactly how that came about. The news story came in the wake of that. Over 6 minutes of airtime, that's almost inconceivable these days... I think our manager at the time, Curtis Hawkins, had a hand in that. Curtis is the singer for Bag O'Wire and now lives in Nashville and works for Joan Jett's Blackheart Records. At the time he had a used record store around the corner from the garage apartment where Bobby lived, called Stacks O'Tracks.
What about "COTTAGE CHEESE FROM THE LIPS OF DEATH"?That was something Gibby put together. He wanted us on it, and he was in San Antonio at the time, working with this guy who had a small studio called BOSS. We went down there to record for it. We stayed out on this old, inactive dude ranch that a friend of Clarke's owned. The night before we recorded it, Iggy Pop played at this huge gay bar around the corner from the Alamo, and we all went. Christian Rat Attack had been a Teenage Queers song, but the music was too "pop" for us. I started playing with it in the studio and Bobby put the Christian Rat Attack lyrics with it and the song was born about 10 minutes before we recorded it.
Tell me anything about BUTTHOLE SURFERS and your experience with the band.We played with those guys a lot. In the beginning, they opened for us, but that switched around pretty fast. The photo that turns up a lot of Bobby with the microphone up his ass and the audience reaction, with Gibby realizing he was going to have to sing through it in a bit... that came after we started opening for them. The most memorable shows I think were the first and the last. The first was at a dance studio in Austin called Studio 29. It was in a neighborhood and music had to end at midnight. The Surfers played, and then we were supposed to go on. The Stains (who later changed their name to MDC) wanted to play a few songs, and they talked to Gibby, who pleaded their case to us. We had to get our set done, but said the could play 2 songs. The 3rd song started up and we were starting to get annoyed. By the 5th song, Soxx was standing at the front of the stage screaming at David, who was taunting him. Bobby whipped his pecker out and started pissing on him. A melee broke out and we got onstage. I remember The Dicks, who were pretty close buds with The Stains (MDC) then, were fighting them to keep them off us. Earlier in the day, I found a roadkill cat and put it in a garbage bag behind my amp. The fight got out of control and I tossed the cat into the middle of it. About then the sound guy found out that Bobby had pissed on his monitor as well as on David Dicktor. The owner of the dance studio turned on the lights and threw everybody out. That was our last show at that club.
The last show was at Theater Gallery in Dallas. That club had vowed that we would never play there, before we ever had played there. The Surfers were going to play 2 nights and record a live album. The idea was that it would be a split, with Stick Men on one side and them on the other. The guy who recorded it screwed it all up. He didn't have enough tape to record Stick Men, and there was no way to get any by the time we knew. He ran a mix into a cassette, and some of that is on the CD. I saw Bobby earlier that day, but was worried about his state of mind, more than usual. He lived in this apartment over a garage. He rented it for a long time. He was seriously messed up on meth and alcohol by then. All scabbed up and out of his mind. He had an axe just inside the door that was stuck on a rotating Xmas tree stand that played Silent Night. He had Bible verses glued to it. He said some guy/drug dealer came over to mess him up, and he had chopped the guy's ear off with the axe. His whole living room was full of bladed and sharpened weapons stuck in the wall. He called it the "Chop Shop". Over in the corner, there was a neon tube inside a glass 5gal water bottle that was hooked up to a power pack from an electric fence. It pulsated and he called it the "Wayne Brain". Bobby had taken to calling himself "Bobby Wayne" around then. He thought it was a good serial killer name. That night, he showed up at the venue and his voice was blown out. It had been fine earlier. He could barely talk. The cuts off the CD where his voice sounds torn up were from that show. It's the only time he wasn't fully ready to go, but the band breaking up was something he wasn't happy about. He wasn't happy about much then, though. That was why we had to call it quits. That and the fact that the only places to play in Dallas at that time refused to book us. The thing is that most of our shows where things got way out of hand, were out of town gigs. The Dallas shows were usually pretty tame. The Surfers were in rare form that night. Many who were there list it as one of the most amazing shows they've ever seen. This was Jan, 1987. It was a contact trip, just walking in the place.
TO BE CONTINUED (more detail/stories... stay tuned!)
