The amount of early 80s hardcore bands that have reunited in the past few years is staggering. Unsurprisingly, most of them are a stinky pile of mid-life crisis wrapped in a mall-purchased leather jacket. But then you have a band like Washington DC’s Scream, who recently reunited and seem to have picked up where they left off in the late 80s without any nostalgic “82 FOREVER! REAGAN NEVER!” vibe anywhere in sight. Their new full length, Complete Control Sessions, is actually really fucking good, and their recent live outings have been reported scorchers. So when the opportunity to speak with Pete Stahl, vocalist for Scream (as well as Goatsnake, Wool, and Earthlings?), came up, I jumped at it like John Brannon on a PBR 12-pack.
VICE: It’s common press release fodder to write things about reunited bands like “They’re back together and they picked up where they left off,” but the new record actually does sound like it starts where you left off with the “Mardi Gras” single. Was that a conscious effort?
Pete Stahl: I don’t think we ever tried to do anything other than be what we are. I think we’ve developed our own thing over time, and everybody in the band has their own sound. I’m really happy with the new record because I think it really catches the vibe and spirit of the band. To me, our stuff hasn’t translated well from what I hear in my head to what comes out on the record, but I think this one does. What you just said is a real compliment, so thank you. I’m glad that you didn’t say, “This sounds like something from ’82.”
Videos by VICE
It sounds like you guys went away to a cabin for 15 years and came back and said, “We made a record.” It sounds like what you would have turned into if you stuck around.
I wish we went away to a cabin and did that! There’s this one recording I did with Jerry Williams, the Bad Brains guy, before he passed away that I’m going to be selling on this tour. We made a little cassette called Jerry’s Free. We recorded with him back in ‘82, as did a number of bands from DC, New York, and Boston. Bad Brains said they were going to put together a compilation LP back then, but it never happened. All we got from that recording session with Jerry was the cassette I walked out of that studio with. I found out that Jerry was living out in Yucca Valley, which is really close to Rancho de la Luna Studios, a place where my brother and I have worked on different projects, so we tried to hook up with him a couple of times but were never able to. When we finally got in touch with him he wasn’t in great shape, so I was like, “Man, there is a spot five miles from where you live—you’ve got to do some recording and hang with cool people. It’ll make you feel better.” He was kind of reclusive, but we ended up recording two tracks with him before he passed away. We had to do everything in one day, which was hard for him, but we were able to knock out a couple of tunes.
I put the cassette together and it’s got a song we recorded with him and then it’s got the stuff we recorded with him at 171A Studios back in ’82. It was dubbed from an old cassette, so it drops in and out but it’s a historic thing to hear, I guess. He gave me a copy of the whole unreleased Bad Brains compilation that day.
It seems like that was a compilation that everyone was asked to be on. There was some band from the area I grew up in from the early 80s, and they were called Autistic Behavior…
Yeah, man! I remember them! They were from Pennsylvania.
Well, they were originally from Jackson, New Jersey, which is close to where I grew up, and then they moved to Philly. I have a copy of the songs they recorded that were supposed to be on the comp.
I got the whole fucking compilation on two CDs right here. I never asked Jerry if he still had the master tapes, but I suggested he find a place for this stuff and talk to Ian (MacKaye), because Ian’s really into archiving. He digitally archived the whole Dischord collection. It was a really big project for him. He went up to this studio in New York and has been digitizing everything, even demo and practice tapes. He saved everything. The Dischord house is like a museum, practically.
He was a great help with this book project I did. It’s kind of weird to think of someone who keeps everything like that. It makes me wonder if he knew someone someday was actually going to care about this stuff.
It’ll probably be in the Smithsonian one day. I know that sounds crazy to some, but I think that’s where it’ll end up. He always had Dischord distributed through Southern, but they went south—no pun intended—so he took all the distribution back and modified the garage in the Dischord house, so it’s kind of back to where it was in the very beginning. It’s kind of like the Motown house. He’s preserved it all. It’s exactly the same, the basement where we used to practice, everything’s the same! I’d like to go back there and record in the basement!
How did you and your brother first find out about punk rock?
My brother and I had always been into music. My dad used to manage rock bands in the 60s and he used to drag us to shows on the weekends. I was ten and my brother was eight, so we kind of got the bug then. There were some great college radio stations in DC, like WGTB and WAMU. There was a DJ named Steve Wilbur and I heard Stranglers and Iggy Pop for the first time on his show. After that, I started to check out new wave bands down in DC. My brother and Skeeter [Thompson, bass player] couldn’t get into bars, so I was kind of the scout. I had to go down there and check out bands like Slickee Boys or Urban Verbs and report back to them. I’d call them up on the pay phone from the club sometimes and have them listen to it while I was there.
When did Bad Brains enter into your conscience? How’d you find out about that?
Pretty early on. I saw them at Madame’s Organ, a small art gallery. We were already playing by then, but we were definitely playing more garagey punk stuff. When we heard Bad Brains, all of a sudden speed came into the equation. But it wasn’t just about the speed—it was also about the execution, because all the bands we liked before punk, whether it was Parliament or the Allman Brothers, were really musical bands. Even though we appreciated the raw power and looseness of punk rock, to see Bad Brains fuse together that punk energy with the type of musicianship that could stop on a dime—it definitely blew us away. So we started playing our songs faster and, looking back on it, I wish we evolved a little more naturally from seeing Bad Brains and being like, “Wow! I wanna play fuckin’ fast!” because we had a whole group of songs that we just threw away after seeing them. Somehow Skeeter befriended Bad Brains and they invited us to play this Show in DC at the Wilson Center. They also got us up to New York to play CBGBs. They really helped introduce us to the scene—they were kind of our bridge into it.
I’m glad to hear about the rock background of the guys in the band because I have an older brother who was bringing home the first records on Dischord and Touch & Go when I was ten or eleven years old. I remember when he brought home the Scream record, even as a kid, I was like, “These guys can really play!” It was pretty obvious that you guys had played music before punk rock.
And we’re not scared to admit it, that’s for sure! When I was 14 years old, I fucking took the greyhound down to see the Allman Brothers. Southern rock was a big influence. I mean, shit, we’re from Virginia! The Mason Dixon line is north of us. Your music education starts early when your dad is managing bands. I think it fucked me up because by the time I was 14 I was into jazz fusion. Thank god I discovered new wave and punk rock, because it got me out of that mindset where I thought “I can’t play what Miles Davis plays, so why try?” Punk and new wave energized us to do it ourselves.
In that book Dance of Days, they sort of paint this picture that you guys were outsiders to the early DC hardcore scene. Was it as big of a deal as the authors make it out to be?
Where we were living, in Baileys Crossroads, Virginia, we played mostly with southern rock bands. Fights would start over nothing and there wasn’t much going on there for us. It was fun to fuck with people in our neighborhood, but we really wanted to be a part of something cooler and larger. Unfortunately, we weren’t cool enough for the DC scene at first. We had a hard time getting embraced by the scene in the beginning.
What was the deal? Did you not have the right clothes or something?
We were definitely seen as jocks and rednecks by those guys. All the people in the DC scene were from Georgetown, and they were going to art schools and knew what was going on around the country way more than we did. We didn’t have a clue what was going on then.
We did this show in Arlington once with The Faith and DOA, and when we started to play everybody walked outside! It was real disheartening for us. We finally had a chance to play with all these bands that were doing something cool, and they totally shunned us. After the show, Jello Biafra, who was on tour with DOA, came up to me and I didn’t know who he was! He gave me this “You guys are great. Don’t let this get you down” type pep talk and gave me his phone number and address. He talked about us in a few interviews after that too, so I thought that was real cool of him.
Why do you think people still care about Scream in 2011?
I don’t know! We got back together for us, without any real expectations. We played Gilman Street and kids were telling me that was the first show they ever went to. They were singing along to songs from the first record. It blew my fuckin’ mind, man. We’re only doing this to write songs that mean something to us and other people. We just wanted to get together and have some fun. There’s not much more to it than that.
Pick up Complete Control Sessions here.
Scream is on tour right now. Go see them in one of the nice places listed below.
Friday August 26 – San Jose, CA The Blank Club
Saturday August 27 – Long Beach, CA Alex’s Bar
Sun August 28 – Eagle Rock, CA Permanent Records
Wednesday August 31 – Denver, CO Marquis Theater
Friday September 2 – Seattle, WA The Funhouse
Saturday September 3 – Olympia, WA TBA
Sun September 4 – Portland, OR East End
