Johnny
Legend and his Rockabilly Bastards, Lucky 13s, Asthma Hounds
Berbati's
Pan 231 SW
Ankeny St., 248-4579
10 pm Thursday,
Aug. 19
$6
If American culture is ruled by a sect of high priests, Johnny
Legend may be its chief, its cardinal, its ascended master.
How many people can name-drop pro-wrestling demi-god "Classy"
Freddie Blassie, epochally endowed porn icon John "Johnny
Wadd" Holmes, comic genius Andy Kaufman and film nerd par
excellence Quentin Tarantino in the same conversation? Legend
can--and he's not just some pomo hipster talking coffee-shop
smack. When Legend spiels at his rapid-fire hustler's pace,
he's reporting live from pop culture's shadow side.
In the early '70s, Johnny Legend directed Teenage Cruisers,
an X-rated rockabilly epic featuring Holmes. When Blassie
needed an anthem, Legend served up "Pencil Neck Geek." Legend
directed Kaufman's final movie, My Breakfast with Blassie.
Lately, the self-styled Rock 'n' Roll Rasputin hooked up
with Tarantino to reissue Legend's favorite exploitation
flicks and assembled the psychotronic grappling show Incredibly
Strange Wrestling.
On the eve of an appearance with his band the Rockabilly
Bastards, Johnny Legend breaks it down for WW from
his home base, deep in the heart of what he calls "the Hell-A
territories,"--in other words, Los Angeles.
Willamette Week: So, before we get into
movies, wrestling and so on, can you tell us what to expect
from your show?
Johnny Legend: Well, the show is pretty much a psychotic
rock revival--90 minutes of insanity. I wear some sequined
vests originally made for Freddie Blassie--this is original
Blassie wear we're talking about, not just some glittery
somethin' from someone who happens to make that stuff. I've
never had to deal with a tailor. I just get my stuff from
the source.
Last year I formed this band with some Portland guys, with
this guitarist named John Wallace and some of the guys in
the Flapjacks. I had to cover that territory up there, from
Portland up to Vancouver, and I figured the easiest way
to do it was to get a band together up there. I've got bands
all over the world--I've had a band in Germany for years.
With the Portland guys, people immediately thought we'd
been together for five years. I try to find musicians who
can act like they've been together forever. This isn't some
Chuck Berry pick-up band.
So we're talking about some serious rockabilly here,
then?
Well, my roots are mixed. I was playing the Sunset Strip
back in the glory days, and then in the early '70s I started
what was then the only performing rockabilly band in America
that we knew of, or the first one since the '50s, anyway:
the Rollin' Rock Rebels. We had Ray Campi on bass, Billy
Zoom was in there, and we had five or six singers. We were
pretty much a self-contained rockabilly time bomb. These
days, I'm mostly doing originals with a few great obscure
old songs, like "High School Caesar" from the old juvenile-delinquent
movie. I do a version of "Pretty Thing" because it's a good
excuse to get into this long, tribal, sex-charged freakout.
In there somewhere is something that appeals to the rockabilly
die-hards. I pretty much get along with all the different
factions--someone who's into more Cramps-like material might
not like traditional rockabilly, and a rockabilly purist
might not like the crazier stuff, but they all can get into
me. I use a wrestling mentality and just ride herd over
all of 'em.
Let's talk about wrestling. It seems like there are
a few different elements of American culture you're weaving
together.
Well, yeah. I grew up as a fan of different things--horror
movies, comic books, rock 'n' roll--and wrestling was part
of it. I came to wrestling in the era between the glory
days of the early '50s and the sort of Hulk Hogan stuff
that's made it totally ridiculous again. So I was following
wrestling when it was very regional, when it was in its
very pure form and the audiences were these strange people
who really believed.
Freddie Blassie came into town like this huge, Jerry Lee
Lewis-like presence and really just changed the lives of
all of us who got to see him. And Andy Kaufman, he started
doing his wrestling thing when it was completely taboo in
respectable show biz to have anything to do
with wrestling. Then, after he died, boom--everyone was
lining up to get into wrestling.
Yeah, the Cyndi Lauper era in the WWF came right after
that. Do you follow any of the mainstream pro wrestling,
the WWF or WCW?
Yeah, I keep up with it. I know people from the old days
who are involved in both the major organizations. It's funny,
because we'll do something with Incredibly Strange Wrestling
and six months later it'll show up on TV. I had a porn-star
wrestler, and then later the WWF brings out its Val Venus
character. Come to find out the writer who created Val Venus
was going to our shows before he got hired by them.
Talk to me about Incredibly Strange Wrestling.
Incredibly Strange Wrestling--that's hard to pull off,
because it's an elaborate thing. It's almost like a special
occasion. We basically have to corral an amount of action
that would ordinarily take up two or three nights into one.
We just did an event with nine bands in two rooms, squeezing
the matches in between the bands. I can fit so many wrestling
matches into the amount of time it takes a typical rock
band to set up its gear, you wouldn't believe it.
Did wrestling lead naturally to your film career, or
was that a separate thing?
I was making films when I was a kid, and later on in life
I got to do the musical scores for some skinflicks in the
pre-Deep Throat era, when the movies were really
a lot more elaborate. By the '70s I was co-starring in stuff
like Pot, Parents and Police, and in the '80s I was
in Star Slammer, which was the first women's-prison-in-outer-space
movie. I had a part in Children of
the Corn III that I was very proud of. Lately, I've
been working on DVD reissues of old Jack Hill movies, like
The Swinging Cheerleaders. That's pretty much the
archetypal '70s cheerleader movie. I'm putting some of my
own stuff, like Weird Cartoons and Rock and Roll
Wrestling, out on DVD too.
Good Lord, man, how do you fit it all in?
I always say I'm a full-time rock-'n'-roll beast. Everything
else just sort of works around the fringes. In the last
couple of years, I've really buckled down. I've got two
albums out in a year and a half. I feel like I'm in high
school, about 17 years old, and I've got a new band out
playing in clubs. This is not a revival show--there's something
real primal and fascinating going on with these shows. I
cross over into another personality. I'll ask people afterward
what happened during a set, and they think I'm crazy. But
that's something I've watched happen with wrestlers for
years. I warn people that I'm not going to be the same person
on stage that I am hanging out at the bar. Don't ask me
obscure questions, don't expect a normal response.
And, man, I'll tell you--there's been a weird thing happening
lately at the shows. I can't explain it. Women have been
getting crazy.
What on earth do you mean, "getting crazy"?
Well, women have been coming unglued during the sets. They've
been doing all kinds of physical things during the shows
that I don't think they do on a regular basis. We had this
show in Whittier--that's Richard Nixon's hometown--last
Friday, and I thought we were going to get arrested.
Why? Because of what the women were doing?
They were squatting in front of the stage and...I don't
know, it was wild. And I'll play harmonica solos anywhere--anywhere
I'm invited to go, let's just say. There have been times
I've been worried about physical violence from boyfriends
and husbands, but so far that hasn't happened. In fact,
this guy came up with his girlfriend the other night and
said, hey, man, you gonna do what you did the other night
again? And I just said, man, what are you gonna do when
she starts to like it?
So, uh, with all this going on, do you have an overall
mission?
No, man--I just say, throw away the Bible and let's get
tribal. Because I'll tell you what, there is this real primitive
explosion that happens. I don't know what exactly sets it
off, but I've obviously found the way to spark it, that's
for sure.
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Willamette Week | originally
published August 18,
1999
|
