Rock'n'roll Hellion!  The General talks to Bam of Bubble & The Dogs D'Amour... (Part One) _________________________________________________________________________________________________

DOGS D'AMOUR were one of the best rock bands of all time, up there with the N.Y. Dolls, Hanoi Rocks, The Faces, and Guns N Roses. While many of us have also loved most of the last bandit, Tyla's, spotty solo albums, as he remains our favorite, and much-exhalted, bullet-proof poet; we still, sometimes, long for the anarchic energy of the brilliant Dogs D'Amour in their heyday. Much of that fiery, larger-than-life, chaotic spirit of fun came courtesy of iconic rock drummer, BAM- one of the most charismatic, and enthusiastic, real rock'n'roll characters of all time. Him and his ace-partner, Share, (who, post-Vixen, has steadily evolved into one of today's most under-rated rawk vocalists, period; as well as and one of the coolest and grittiest women rockers, EVER...) went on to form the contagiously spirited BUBBLE.   Bubble are just polishing off a brand new album entitled "ROCK'N'ROLL HELL", doing the final mixes, and putting on the finishing touches, as I type this. Both Share and Bam are amazingly talented, authentic rock'n'rollers, and the bits we've heard over the phone from the new album sound like a promising avalanche of  mischievous, rockin' good fun. It's gonna be ten songs in 23 minutes, Bam sez, there's one mid-tempo ballad, but the rest of the songs are all "scary, blow yer fuckin' head off" pure, sweaty, rock! The General recently had the occasion to catch up with BAM, discussing everything from the Dogs D'Amour's ill-fated reunion and Jesse Camp, to having children who bring home stray dogs, and wrestling with sobriety ...all the perils of livin' in...rock'n'roll hell...Fe-Fi-Fo-Fun....   THE GENERAL: What's the latest news from Planet Bubble? BAM: We've been intensely in the studio just making a new record, just mixing it this week actually. THE GENERAL: Who's in the band now? BAM: Luke Bosendorf is the new guitar player, or has been, for about six months, eight months. We were a three-piece for a long time, and then, we just like, got fed-up with it really. (Laughs) Wanted to be louder, y'know? THE GENERAL: So you'll be putting it out on your own label? BAM: Um, well, sort of, unfortunately, yes (laughs)... No, it's great, in one way, y'know, cos you've got complete control over it, y'know? The down side is, well, we just don't have enough money to do a distribution deal really. You basically need dough to do a distribution deal. Um, I dunno, we're gonna be shoppin' it a little bit this time, a bit more than we have in the past. When you're doin' it all yourself for so long, you sort of end up doing every single aspect of it, from writing the songs, to managing the band, to building the website, to makin' a videoes, da da da da da, and it's kinda like, a bit exhausting, y'know? (Laughs) Ya know wot I mean? It's like, "SOMEBODY, c'mon! Fuckin' 'elp us out!" I dunno, this record's kind of special, I think, y'know, it's very focused, very hard, very kinda fast, aggressive songs and fuckin' as well, ya know wot I mean, we're gettin' old, and we should be playin' country and western, really, but we've gone completely the other fuckin' way! It's the liveliest album we've done! It's really intense! THE GENERAL: Everytime another bland, soulless, corporate band is thrust upon us, the mainstream media uses "rock is back" as their hook, even if it's only like, goofs in sweaters. Somebody recycles something with guitars in it, and every ten minutes, "rock is back!" BAM: I know! It never fuckin' went anywhere, really! (Laughs.) (HERE, THE GENERAL HIPS BAM TO THE LATEST DISH ON THE REEMERGENCE OF HANOI ROCKS. THEN, IT'S ONTO THE DOGS!) THE GENERAL: So what happened to the Dogs? Everybody loved "Happy Ever After"- even those of us who couldn't afford the Dogs Dinner and all the boss Tyla art and memorabilia. I still listen to those songs, man. Do you think you might ever work with TYLA again? BAM: (pauses) I doubt it. It's kinda hard, it's like, it's a thousand things, really, all rolled in...y'know, it's hard to really explain to anyone, really. Especially-especially the fans, but I think, for myself, it's like, I've become a songwriter in my own right. Y'know, I play guitar and write the BUBBLE songs, y'know, um, but, it's hard to sort of go back. Ya know wot I mean? THE GENERAL: Yep! BAM: I mean, Tyla, for twenty years, Tyla's been goin' "It's MY BAND! It's my band! It's my band!", and finally, I've kinda gone, ok, fine, fuck it (laughs, sort of wearily) I'll go write my own shit y'know? So I have. So, it's kinda like, goin' back, and shaggin' an old girlfriend, it doesn't work!   THE GENERAL: It's still a shame to those of us who really loved all those tunes you did together, man. Even stuff off that last album-"Singing" was brilliant. "Flying V Girl", "Little Boy You", "Angelina", "Even Angels Have Bad Days", I loved all those songs. BAM: I LOVE IT! I think it's one of the best records we fucking did! I think, that one, and "Dynamite" are my favorite two albums. THE GENERAL: I'm still partial to "THE STATE WE'RE IN" and the really vintage stuff ,when Dave Kusworth was in the band. "Unconcious Boy" and the original "Heroin" were unbelievable. "Graveyard Of Empty Bottles"...but I think "Happy Ever After's" definitely up there, though. BAM: Yeah, I think that album came out really well, yeah, I think... Tyla doesn't think that. THE GENERAL: Yeah, I read him actually expressing some regret over it, and I didn't understand that at all. BAM: Neither did I. THE GENERAL: Well, it had to be personal, cos musically, you guys had retapped that old enthusiasm like on "Dynamite", you were infusing those songs with that brilliant, racously raving, old Dogs spirit...Everybody was like, firing on all cylinders at once... BAM: We definitely were, yeah, everybody was fucking-going for it! THE GENERAL: So how's he doin'? Is he okay? BAM: I haven't talked to him for awhile. THE GENERAL: Was it hard for Share to try and assimilate into the Dogs? BAM: Nahh...she's like, a scary fuckin' musician, you know wot I mean? It's like, before Bubble, when Share and I first got together and started doing sessions around L.A., and everybody was calling us Sly & Robbie, you know, cos I guess if you sleep together and play together, you're gonna be pretty tight! So for her to step into the Dogs bass position was no problem at all. And she actually really...she was a fan of Steve's playing, y'know wot I mean? THE GENERAL: Me, too. BAM: So it was kind of like natural for her, she really dug like a lot of the licks that Steve played, y'know, and wrote, so she had a lot of fun with it. You know she engineered the album, she actually engineered more of it than I did- I was more of a producer, but, she put in a lot of hours on that record. THE GENERAL: I know how impossible it is to keep four creative people actually fed and satiated in a band scenario, and it seems to get increasingly harder, as people get older, cos eveybody's already fed up and disappointed by how hard it is to infiltrate the money making side of the music industry; and at some point, there's not just, mere ego to contend with, there's families and spouses, and kids and mother-in-laws...and money becomes a real issue, AND anyone's bad habits, AND you still have to somehow feed all the out-of-size egos! Everybody plays music for their own personal reasons, so friction seems almost inevitable at some point. You and Share had the guys from Faster Pussycat in Bubble for awhile, you toured Japan with 'em, that surprised alot of people... BAM: Yeah, it fuckin' surprised us, as well! (Laughs really infectiously!) We were just, y'know, um, we wrote a set, Bubble, Bubble is WEIRD, it's like, Share and I'd almost got to the point where we were like, cos we had a band before that, we were playing together, just playing gigs in Hollywood... THE GENERAL: What was that incarnation called? BAM: Fuck, what was it called? It was called Sub-Cool... THE GENERAL: "SUB-COOL"?? BAM: Yeah, she was still playing bass at that point, y'know wot I mean? But it got to the point where we were writin' songs that were so fuckin' complicated to play and sing at the same time. I think we were onstage one night at Billboard Live and we just kinda looked at each other and went, "What are we doin'? This is crazy! This ain't fun! This is hard work", y'know? We sacked ourselves that night and sacked Alex Kane, he was our guitar player at the time, we just sort of broke up the band right as soon as the gig finished, you know- and just, we were miserable! Just like four weeks later, I was workin' in some warehouse downtown, having a miserable fucking time for Serious clothing, at the time doing this day-job, and it was a nitemare-the first day-job I'd had in twenty years to pay the rent. We were both fucking miserable and I come home one night, and said, c'mon, y'know, let's---you play a bit of guitar. You play guitar! We'll START THE WORST BAND IN THE WORLD!*   (*Is Bam an absolute genius or what? -The General!)   BAM: So we became a two-piece, I had a couple of riffs, and she had a couple of riffs, and literally, after four or five hours, we had, like, five songs! And we started writing lyrics and I went back to work, literally, the next day, and the guy who owned the company, Magmus (?) said to me, "Hey, there's a new club opening called Goldfinger's and you said you were putting something together with Share again. Did you wanna play there?" And I'm like, yeah, sure, when do they need someone? And he goes, "Tomorrow night!", and I'm like, fuckin' hell! Ya know wot I mean? 'Started the band yesterday, let's play a gig tomorrow! I said, yeah, alrite, we'll do it. So I phoned Share and said you better look through my lyric book cos we got a gig, she said when, I said tomorrow night, she's like, "FUCK!", so we put it all together and ended up with a six song set and went and played this gig, and there was like, ten people there, including the fucking bar-staff, and we thought, "Oh, God, we were terrible", and they all flipped-out! The girl who owned the club was like, "Do you guys wanna be the house band?" And we were like, "you're fucking joking!" y'know, we were DREADFUL, and she's like, "No, you're brilliant", so that's how it started...and we ended up being the houseband there for like, just as a two-piece, y'know, way before the WHITE STRIPES, but it was really funny, and we just sort of went from there. It started out as a JOKE! But we had so much fun writin' this stuff that it was like deconstruction, y'know. Share will admit that she was such a bad guitar player at the time, it was like...so then eventually, we got a bass-player, and then, thought, well, we'll add another guitar player...and meanwhile, we got ahold of some dust cos we wrote all those songs for Jesse Camp! ...That twit from MTV, we made a bit of dough out of it, which was great, and we invested all that money in a studio, building it and buying equipment, and I built the studio, so then, Bubble just kind of started rolling, y'know? THE GENERAL: How hard was that to work with him, he seemed like such a flakey kid. BAM: He was fucking off his head, you know wot I mean? I mean, at the time. I've met him since, and he's actually eaten alot of humble pie since then, but at the time, he was just a fucking crazed kid, y'know? And he was just uncontrollable, he didn't wash, he stank, fucking-he just wanted to come from the streets and he didn't, y'know. His real name's James Fireholdencamp the third (Something like that, it's hard to understand Bam's pronunciation here. Sorry, trivia buffs! -The General!) Y'know wot I mean? His Dad's a fuckin' university professor, he told MTV that his Dad was a fuckin' brick-layer and he abused him, y'know? So he caused all this trouble y'know, but God Bless him, he LOVED rock'n'roll! It was great to find some kid who was like, "YEAH, I LOVE THE DOGS D'AMOUR!!! WHOOOOO!!! I LOVE AEROSMITH, MAN! Yeah! Dogs D'Amour and Aerosmith are my favorite bands!" And he just couldn't believe he was workin' with me and Jo, and that, y'know. It was just a crazy trip, and it all went dreadfully wrong at the end, as it always does, the manager stepped-in and got greedy, da da da da da, you know... But everybody made a bit of dust out of it so...it underwrote Bubble, really... THE GENERAL: What's Jo up to now? BAM: Jo is playing all the time. Me and him jammed the other day, he came over, and we laid down some shit on  Pro-Tools, he does little bits here and there, sessions, and that, he's workin' on his own solo record, a new one. THE GENERAL: I really love that Sonic Boom record he did. I think I saw him play with this band called Badge once at the Coconut Teaszer in L.A.  BAM: What were they called? THE GENERAL: Badge? I think it was the singer from the Broken Homes? BAM: Oh, right! That singer was good, as well, wasn't he? THE GENERAL: Yeah he was great, he was almost as good as the singer from The Phantoms I saw play at the Continental Divide one time. He was just a beltin' out all these songs like he was purging demons from the depths of his soul. BAM: ...and Jo just stands there, like a lemon, and cranks out all this amazing, sort of blistering fucking blues...He's in a band, as well, at the moment, called Hawkeye. THE GENERAL: Do they have awebsite or anything? Do you know anything about it? BAM: Y'know, I think it's www.hawkeyeband.com I know jo's taking over the site soon, or he already has. That's like, more of a sort of, country thing. THE GENERAL: What do you think of the London Quireboys? BAM: Hey, they are rock'nroll....All rock'n'roll is good. They are still out there "treading the boards" and making records. It's what we love to do. THE GENERAL: What were your fave records growing up? BAM: I learned to play drums listening to Bonham and Keith Moon, so I love both those bands. I suppose I really started buying stuff when T. Rex, Slade, Bowie, and all that glam was in it's first incarnation. Later on, I kind of went back to the Kinks, the Move, Beatles, and Stones. THE GENERAL: What current groups do you like? BAM: I really like that fuckin Jet album! (www.JetTheBand.com) THE GENERAL: Yeah, I was surprised when I did, I had such doubts about the name and all the hype, I was expecting the Vines or something, but instead, they were more like, a high-energy Gunfire Dance/Motorcycle Boy/old Thee Hypnotics kinda thing. Swaggering hard rock with hooks, and I'm usually pretty hard on bands who kinda plagirise their best riffs, and call it sampling or whatever, but it just smokes, they got some kinda soul power compensating for the fact that half their riffs seem cadged. I was also impressed by the emotional-range of their album. It feels really-alive! BAM: Yeah, the energy's there. The energy is very truthful. That shines through in their recording. But I know what ya mean, yeah, cos that first single was like, "Wow-it's Iggy Pop". But look at it from the other point of view, as well- ya know wot? It AIN'T FUCKIN' BRITNEY SPEARS! That's a fuckin' relief, y'know. And just the fact that they're playin' it on the radio gives you and me hope, ya know wot I mean? THE GENERAL: Absolutely. Do you have somebody on the other line? BAM: Yeah can you hang on a sec? (Comes back laughing) That was Share, she's just done a TV show where she's uh, she's got into knitting... THE GENERAL: She's what?! BAM: She's got into knitting! Yeah, I always thought, that was for Grannies y'know, and that sucks, y'know wot I mean? But Fuck Me, man! She just made me the most awesome, deconstructed, fucking scarf! With knittin' needles like the size of my drumsticks! So it's all fulla holes and shit? She's makin' some pretty whacky shit! So, she's just been on this TV show this morning, knittin' a guitar strap! THE GENERAL: That's hilarious... BAM: Yeah and I'm thinkin', but is it like, gonna stretch, d'ya know wot I mean? THE GENERAL: How are your kids doin'? Didn't you tell me one time you have like three kids? BAM: Yeah, I'm a Grand-dad, actually, now...They call me Glam-Daddy! I've got three kids, yeah, I've got two by my first wife in England, who are now grownup or whatever and one's got a little girl. THE GENERAL: You don't seem old enough to be somebody's Grandfather... BAM: I started a bit early, I suppose... (BAM & THE GENERAL discuss, in-depth, the pressures of parenting and rock'n'roll and the pains of estrangement) THE GENERAL: So do you ever get to see 'em? BAM: Well, I saw 'em when I was back on tour with the Dogs at Christmas, and that's the last time I saw 'em so it's been quite awhile! They're in England, the two girls, and the grand daughter, and I've got a son who lives up in San Francisco.... (BAM & THE GENERAL swap syrupy stories about kids, and the recent visit he had,  when his son and him spent time riding bikes through their scary cholo gang-infested Eaglerock neighborhood in L.A., last week, where they hear automatic-gun fire on the weekends, and how his boy brought home a stray pitbull; "and I'm like, Oh, no, leave it!" and how he went back to his Mom's in Oakland, and stuck Bam and Share with this stray dog, "Lucky", whom they had to find a good home for, as their place is too small for a telephone chord munching, hole digging, turd leaving pitbull, and embarrassed Bam while pre-boarding at the airport on his way home, by turning around in front of a huge crowd of people goin', "DAD, can we PLEASE try to keep the dog?" BAM obviously loves his kids very much, and very affectionately, referred to being put on the spot, by his 11 year old son, as "a Walt Disney moment!" Funny, funny stuff!) THE GENERAL: So back to the record release, what are your current plans? Gigging in Hollywood? It doesn't seem that viable to really tour anymore, if you're in a little band, since Clear-Channel and these monopolies have sewn up all the booking agencies, and own all the radio stations, and the venues, and everything... BAM: It's fuckin' hard ,man, innit? ...Hollywood's like, a fuckin' nitemare! It's just this catch-22, the club-owners and the club-promoters, number one, have got bigger egos than anyone I've ever met in a band, including Blackie Lawless, it's fuckin' crazy, these people are insane, their egos are outta control! You have to bring fifty people to get paid! You get these fuckin' clubs phoning you up from the Valley, goin, y'know, "Do you guys wanna play here?" No, not really, cos no one's gonna leave Hollywood to come and see us! But it's weird, it's a weird little scene, here! THE GENERAL: Have you ever seen this local band called, THE COMATONES? BAM: Yeah! I love 'em! THE GENERAL: I heard that Eric Stacey from Bubble and Faster Pussycat was playing bass for them at their last show! BAM: I actually was at that gig! Some anniversary gig for The Garage, cos it was shuttin' down, and the Comatones played, and Share and I just went down there cos there was alot of bands playing there that we wanted to see...Texas Terri was playing... THE GENERAL: And The Hangmen? BAM: The Hangmen, and, oh-the Black Halos played! My mates from Vancouver, so I went down and videoed them, and lo and behold, there was Eric Stacey onstage with the Comatones, I couldn't believe it. He'd had two rehearsals with them and just put the set together, but Jimmy, y'know, from the Comatones, he's an amazing player. I'd love to do an album with him and Jo or something, it'd be fucking devastating! (THE GENERAL & BAM discuss the Comatones record being mixed for release on Acetate Records; the Acetate documentary of the Hollywood scene featuring Bam and Share, "Badsville", and how he cringes when he watches it now, because it was filmed before he quit drinking. Bam and Share have been concentrating on putting creativity before drinking for the past two years.) BAM: ...and I think we've written the best album we've ever fuckin' written! It's called, "Rock'nroll Hell"!   Visit Bubble soon to order ROCK 'N' ROLL HELL!  Planet Bubble TYLA & The Dogs D'Amour JO DARRELL BATH WILDHEARTS Stay Tuned For More Exclusive Transmissions From Planet Bubble!    -The General used to drink Wild Turkey all day... Home _________________________________________________________________________________________________