Paul Gray was interviewed by myself(Barry Hutchinson) via email exclusively(?!) for my "Second Time Around" web page ============================================================ An interview with... Paul Gray 02/10/99 ============================================================= 1) Paul Gray joins The Damned ---------------------------------------- During 1979, while you were still a member of The Hot Rods, The Damned would 'pester' you, a number of times, trying to get you to join. You finally gave in, and joined The Damned in 1980 (exact date?!?) after you had gone along to a recording of some demos for Chiswick at Wessex studios. What were the songs you jammed to at this session, and what are your memories of this first session/jam with the band ? A: The songs were Time to Cry ( a thing of rats), White Rabbit and I think a demo of Blackout. C'ant remember the date but it was at the front end of 1980 at Wessex studios in Highbury. We started in the evening and left when everyone was going to work the next morning. the record co had got a load of whisky and Ruddles bitter stacked up in the control room and I seem to remember quite a bit of the old beakfood floating about. The songs went down real quick, almost as quick as the bevvy in fact, everyone was on form and i remember thinking, this is a band i could feel at home with! So i accepted their kind offer and said goodbye to the Rods. What are your memories of the barge(courtesy of Chiswick Records) trip with Rat & Captain, which was 'supposed' to have been in order for you all to rehearse together, and in order for you to 'learn the songs' ? A: Roger Armstrong booked this barge as a "get to know you" session, and to enable me to learn the songs without, presumably, the temptations of London. A normal Damned rehearsal consisted of the band (usually minus vanian) turning up at various times, finding the nearest pub, getting happily pissed and then fucking off home without a note being played.. I think he fondly thought of us all being in one place and having to knuckle down to it - I distinctly remember him asking me to bring my bass and some tapes. The barge was moored somewhere near Banbury, they picked me up at Didcot station and howled with laughter when they saw the bass. "Red Star it back to Cardiff this instant" they said, so I did. Captain had a Good Beer Guide and we stopped at every pub en route. Fuck knows where we ended up - Coventry I think The first morning I was awoken to the sound of an air rifle, captain was tossing all the plates on board into the air and rat was shooting them down. I looked out of the porthole and saw one of my new boots floating past on fire. They'd doused it with lighter fluid and chucked it overboard ...We had the river police after us one night. We rolled out of a pub - theres a 5 knot speed limit on the river and youre not supposed to go anywhere when it gets dark, and theres all this river ettiqette stuff. Anyway we fired the thing up with no lights on and carreered down the canal at full speed singing sea shanties to the slumbering boating folk. A few boats were hit i think, anyway the feds came after us, we pulled in and pretented to be asleep. We freaked a few people out waiting to enter the locks behind us too; basically, you empty a few fairy liquids into the lock, rev the engines full blast and watch all the bubbles rise up over the lock gates...By the end of the week there was nothing left on the boat...mattresses, everything had gone overboard, often in flames...we dumped the barge a mile or so away from the boatyard and phoned them up to say we had broken down. The bill was huge, I've no idea if it ever got paid. I havn't been on a barge since... Algy Ward, Damned bass player 1978 - 1979 has often been quoted has saying that his times in The Damned were 'the best days of his life' - do you share his views ? A: oh yeah, some of 'em, definitely. At that time everyone was getting on and the musical rapport was amazing, I was so proud to be in the band. Mind you, I've had plenty of other "best days" since! 2) The 'legendary' Live at Shepperton 1980 fan club gig ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- The first Damned record I ever bought, was the Live at Shepperton 1980 album, which was a free gig, intended only for members of the fan club. Most Damned fans, along with myself, would agree with me when I say that this is the best live recording of The Damned - the recording, for me captures The Damned at their most exciting,live best. The performance was very fast, exciting and electrifying, with a great sound captured. What was the gig actually like - was it 'just another gig' or was it really as special/legendary as the Live album captured it ? A: It was one of the first gigs I ever did wuth them, no rehearsals or anything. I don't remember much about it, but I think it was just for the fan club. i havnt heard it in years, is it that good?... It would be great if the full gig could ever be released - was the whole gig recorded ?, and do Chiswick have the other 'unreleased tracks' ? A: no idea Captain, has in the past stated that Chiswick released 'the wrong mix' of the album, and that the mix that should have been released was actually far superior. What are your views on this ? A: ditto 3) Recording sessions, albums and Songwriting ------------------------------------------------------------ During the time you were in The Damned, who would you say was the chief songwriter, and to what degree did you all work together when writing a song ? A: Captain and i had portastudios and i think rat and dave had Teac reel to reel jobs. Anyway , we all knocked out songs at home on our own and sent em to each other. We'd then go into the studio and play thru the most likely ones. There was no point being precious about them, as i discovered when they started singing "shit or piss" instead of "hit or miss" ( a song I'd first written for the Rods but done very differently by the damned!). The beauty of it was that we all had different ways of writing, but when we all started jamming thru they instsntly became Damned songs. They worked, most of the time instantly, otherwise they were usually dumped. The most time was spent on the overdubs and mixing, the backing tracks usualy went down in a couple of takes. captain had the most songs, they were the most accessible. With the recording of The Black Album, you have mentioned in the past that (with the exception of your song Hit Or Miss) pretty much all the songs were already written, and that all you "had to do was to lay down the bass parts". Did you actually add much of your own bass playing to the tracks, or were you simply playing the bass how Captain showed you to ? A: Captain once said "I'd never tell Paul how to play bass" and I think he'd probably back me up on that to this day. I bounced off rat a lot, we had a real empathy playing together, we instinctivley knew when one of us was going to do something - a mad drum roll or mental bass riff - and we'd just lock in together. It was quite awsome at times, fuck knows how we did it! I loved playing bass to captains songs, there was so much music in there, chock full of melody, because i'm a crap singer I often play vocal harmonies that i hear in my head as basslines - still do. in fact i loved playing on everybodies songs, there was just so much that i could do! Not many bassists have that luxury. The NEMS 'Friday The 13th EP' is one of my most favourite Damned records - every track is a classic, and a great sound is captured overall. Billy Bad Breaks; Did you write both the lyrics and the bass for that one ? Who wrote the Limit Club track ? A: I think Limit club was Vanians, you'll have to ask him. I just jammed along on the old Rickenbacker as per usual... With the Strawberries album, why was it that the original release had Pleasure + Pain & Generals credited as being written by 'Gray' alone, and all the other tracks written by 'Vanian/Scabies/Sensible' and not you ? (Future issues of the record credited each song as being written by 'Gray/Vanian/Scabies/Sensible') A: Ask Rat!!!!!! During the recording of your albums & singles for Chiswick, Captain has mentioned that the band actually recorded several (as yet unreleased ?) tracks which were supposed to have been issued as b-sides... but never saw the light of day. Do you remember these recordings ? and were there any classic Damned tracks amongst them ?! A: I think theres some stuff floating about on the black market, as far as I'm aware all the best stuff has long since been released Out of all the albums and singles you recorded with The Damned, which is your favourite material ? A: The Black Album, without a doubt. I'm immensly proud of it. A lot of care was taken over it. It nearly gave hugh Jones, the engineer, a breakdown tho'. Me and rat would be knocking at his door at midday raring to go, captain would surface about 6, and vanian would be ready after his bottle of red wine at about midnite. Me and rat would cut out about 3am leaving the others to it. The poor sod never got much sleep for over a month... 4) The Damned But Not Forgotten album ------------------------------------- Sometime in 1986, Castle Communications released the 'Damned But Not Forgotten' album. While side-A contained the 7" versions of Dozen Girls, Lovely Money... etc the B-side contained selected tracks from a Damned demo session (of which the full version is widely available as a bootleg). What can you tell us about this session ? I think its all demos recorded at RMS in Croydon When was it recorded ? Ages ago Who is singing, and playing guitar on 'Take Me Away' ? Rat, I think The instrumental of Billy Bad Breaks sounds just great, but the bass is quite different to the version on the NEMS e.p - is it you playing the bass ? Yep With the full version of this session, there is a track entitled 'Where Have All The Adventures Gone', is that you playing the bass on that track ? Cant remember, might have been captain 5) Light at The End of The Tunnel ------------------------------------------ In 1987 The Damned released 'The Official Biography -Light At The End Of The Tunnel' which was written by Carol Clerk - What did you think of the book ? A: I thought it was quite funny really. It was reasonably accurate.I dip into it every now and then. Its like reading about somebody else really. Do you feel it accurately portrayed your time spent in The Damned ? Pretty much. You'd need about 10 books to cover everything... According to Vanian, the book "dwelled too much on the drunken stories side, and nothing else" and . From your point of view, was there any important or interesting Damned events from 1980 - 1983, that Carol Clerk should have included, but didn't ? A: Thats probably because people like hearing about the drunken stories! But yeah, a little more emphasis on the ways the songs were recorded and what they were all about wouldn't have gone amiss. We didnt have digital stuff then. I remember we wanted a phase across the complete track one time - something like Itchycoo Park - I think we ended up sticking a pencil under the tape heads and wiggling it about as it was recording, mad stuff like that. We had a studio full of harpsichords, hammonds...I was woken one night about 5am by captain hauling a complete set of tubular bells out into the courtyard to record, i presume, with an ambience they were unable to achieve within the studio... Is there a possibility that you would ever re-join The Damned again A: Oh look, theres a pig flying past the window...