A Discussion With Mr. Shithead
D.O.A. Frontman Shares His Years in the Punk Scene
For those not hip to the scene, D.O.A. are one of the most important things to happen to Canadian punk (if not punk, period) since, well… ever.
Founded in 1978, D.O.A. are considered by many to be the fathers of hardcore, and Arsenal Pulp Press released an illustrated retrospective entitled Talk – Action = 0, a longtime slogan of the band, back in June.
For the past 33 years, frontman Joey “Shithead” Keithley has been at the helm of the band, shouting away like a man possessed. I had the opportunity to chat with Joe over the phone just as he was packing up to set out on a Canada-wide tour with the band.
DOA is going to be playing Katacombes on Oct. 8. This is almost 31 years to the day that you played Foufounes Électriques with a band called Blind Lemon Pie, on Oct. 5, 1980. Was this one of DOA’s first shows in Montreal?
I think the first one was—we actually played with a band called Scum? It was at a little hall, not at a real club, just a little underground place and I have no idea what the name of it was. So… Scum. Not Scum Element, but, I think, Scum. Right. But the one at Foufounes was probably the second one.
What, in your experience, was Montreal’s scene like at that time?
It was the same way it is now, chaotic. We weren’t quite sure what to think coming from the opposite side of Canada. We had been to Toronto a bunch already, across Canada, New York and California a bunch of times, so this was maybe the second or third time we had been to Montreal so we were really happy that it was more territory covered.
It was just different. I had never been to Quebec in my life so it was a bit of an eye-opener.
At that time did you ever play or hang out with any of Montreal’s more infamous bands like the Asexuals, The Discords or Unruled?
The Asexuals we did, but we didn’t play with them in Montreal. We played with them in Connecticut in this tiny little place everyone used to play in Stamford, CT. The biggest show around that time D.O.A. played in Montreal was in a church on Berri St. with The Nils. We got this new book out […] and I know there’s a poster in there from that show.
Can you talk a bit about the book?
The book is 300 pages of posters, stories and photos covering D.O.A. from year one to year 33. It’s pretty interesting. You can flip it open and there’s an explanation for pretty much every visual that you see. There’s 600 or 700 posters, tons of photos, and album covers.
There’s an explanation or a story-funny or sometimes tragic-on pretty well every page that kind of gives you a description of D.O.A.’s career. The other thing is that it’s a bit of a guide to “self serve” for people who want to be activists and go out there and change the world. It just shows how we have done and continued to do our bit.
I heard that it focuses upon the changing politics of the scene, what it takes to be a band for a long period of time and how things change when you progress.
You’re getting older as you go, and music changes. It’s meant to mutate, it will never stay the same. It would be really boring if it stayed the same. We’ve been through a lot of different scene changes that have all been rooted in this punk rock madness that all started in ’76 or ’77. There have been a lot of great bands that came out of it.
Tell me a little bit about Dec. 21.
Yeah! So back in 2002 our then-mayor of Vancouver, Larry Campbell—who’s now a senator—declared Dec. 21 to be “D.O.A. Day” in Vancouver, so we got a big scroll from the mayor’s office with the seal and all that kind of stuff. It’s pretty fun. I mean, they don’t hold a parade or give us the keys to the city every year.
Is that kind of a bizarre thing to happen, considering in the past when punk was starting out in North America it was frowned upon and made fun of by most levels of society?
Yeah, people wouldn’t expect that to happen and people still have a hard time believing it. But the fact is that D.O.A. started out basically as troublemakers and musicians and loudmouths, and after a while it kind of transformed.
Someone said, “Hey D.O.A., what they are is Vancouver’s protest band, and if there’s something screwed up you can probably get D.O.A. to play at a protest.” That’s kind of how we got our reputation around here, partly.
A couple years ago there was a rumour that a certain D.O.A. member had died. Why did people think that Chuck Biscuits was dead?
Well someone started that rumour and put it on the Internet and then I started getting all these emails with condolences because Chuck’s a friend of mine. I mean, he hasn’t drummed in the band for like 30 years or so. Someone started a hoax, right? Fortunately he’s still alive.
SSD, SOA, DRI, COC… What’s your favourite band with an acronym for a name?
AOD—Adrenaline Overdose. They’re New Jersey guys we used to play with. Good band.
D.O.A. / Oct. 8 / Katacombes (1635 St. Laurent Blvd.) / Buy Joe a beer and give him a pat on the back.
