JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
In the late 1970s, The Cramps introduced the world to psychobilly.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "PROBLEM CHILD")
THE CRAMPS: (Singing) Well, my heartbeat is running wild because of you, my problem child.
SUMMERS: Blending punk and rockabilly, the band, with their eccentric outfits and campy lyrics, garnered a cult following.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "PROBLEM CHILD")
THE CRAMPS: (Singing) Problem child. Well, a cat's got nine lives. I've got one.
HENRY ROLLINS: They kind of ruined me for seeing a band in a club because it never got better than standing, like, a foot away from them next to my best friend of 50-some years, Ian MacKaye. There's no stage. They played on the floor. And it was as cool as it could possibly have been.
SUMMERS: That's Henry Rollins, former front man for the punk band Black Flag. He was a teenager when he saw The Cramps play live for the first time. Now he and MacKaye are part of a team releasing a new Cramps album. It's called "Gravest Gravy." And when I say new, I actually mean old. The band recorded it back in 1977 and intended to finally release "Gravest Gravy" back in 2008 as a kind of farewell. But after the death of lead singer Lux Interior, Cramps co-founder Poison Ivy put the project back on the shelf.
ROLLINS: These tapes were sitting in Southern California in a garage. And so here we are, almost two decades later, getting on the case.
SUMMERS: When we talked, I asked Henry Rollins, what was it like to hear those recordings for the first time?
ROLLINS: It blew my mind. I have a show on a station, KCRW, and for many years, I've told my wonderful listeners as we listen to a live version of The Cramps cover of "Rocket In My Pocket," folks, sadly, the band never recorded this in the studio, so we'll listen to this great FM broadcast version.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ROCKET IN MY POCKET")
THE CRAMPS: (Singing) I got a rocket in my pocket and a roll in my walk.
ROLLINS: So I'm listening to these tracks, and there's The Cramps doing a studio version of "Rocket In My Pocket."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ROCKET IN MY POCKET")
THE CRAMPS: (Singing) I got a rocket in my pocket and a roll in my jeans. So, baby, don't bug me with no phony scenes (ph).
ROLLINS: So I've been wrong on the radio for - I don't know - a few presidents ago.
SUMMERS: (Laughter).
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ROCKET IN MY POCKET")
THE CRAMPS: (Singing) I got a rocket in my pocket and I'm raring to go.
ROLLINS: You know, Cramps bootleggers, Cramps fans are pretty intense.
SUMMERS: Yeah.
ROLLINS: If there's available Cramps music, some maniac is going to put it out.
SUMMERS: Oh, yeah.
ROLLINS: And the fact that the bulk of this record sat completely unheard, it's like the tomb underneath Tutankhamun's tomb which never got raided because the raiders simply never knew it existed. And so it's a true find. And in 2026, that's pretty rare.
SUMMERS: It is.
ROLLINS: And it's just because Ivy just didn't want to put it out because Lux had gone. And thanks to good old Larry Hardy, we have this record. Well, thanks to The Cramps and Alex Chilton, but it's Larry who said, hey, what are these seven quarter-inch tapes doing on a shelf?
SUMMERS: I mean, I have to ask this question as an audio nerd. I mean, these recordings, they were in a garage. They - I would imagine that they were not perhaps in great shape, not listener-ready after being kind of set aside for decades. What was the process like? What did it take to put this album out?
ROLLINS: When I found out The Cramps tapes were in a garage, I begged Ivy to let me get them out of the garage. It took a while, but we did it. And luckily, if it's a good batch of tape, magnetic tape is pretty sturdy stuff. And so, believe it or not, the tapes didn't need anything but a baking and transfer. And so I listened. It was my job to listen for decay or anything else. And there's not a lot you can do without, you know, trying to fake out the listener. And so I listened with amazement and trepidation, and the tapes held up. And so the audio gods were smiling upon us for this. I've worked with tape in a lot worse condition.
SUMMERS: (Laughter) I was wondering if you could talk to us some about the album's sound. For someone who hasn't heard it, how would you describe it?
ROLLINS: For people like me - degenerates - they're classics. It sounds like classic old rock and roll with a ridiculously charismatic singer and a drummer who sounds like a metronome.
(SOUNDBITE OF THE CRAMPS SONG, "TV SET")
ROLLINS: Like, Nick Knox is, like, this fantastic timekeeper.
(SOUNDBITE OF THE CRAMPS SONG, "TV SET")
ROLLINS: It's a lot of reverb. To this day, I'm such a reverb echo fan because of The Cramps, because it adds - I don't know the right word. You know, it just makes you feel something. And no bass. Two guitars. On your right channel is Ivy. Very clean notes.
(SOUNDBITE OF GUITAR PLAYING)
ROLLINS: And on your left is Bryan Gregory, who's playing more fuzz, more distortion, which kind of substitute for your midrange and low end.
(SOUNDBITE OF SCRATCHY GUITAR PLAYING)
ROLLINS: They're dictating the terms so convincingly you don't say, well, where's the bass? You're like, wow, what is going on? And I think listeners might be taken with how much fun The Cramps are 'cause the lyrics are never serious. It's always, you know, a song based on a movie or a dream.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "WEEKEND ON MARS")
THE CRAMPS: (Singing) Well, come on, baby, let's have some fun. Well, everybody's waiting for a savior to come. I'll take you for a ride in my rocket ship. Take it for a real psychedelic trip.
ROLLINS: It's not, you know, I'm angry at the government. And there's time for that. But The Cramps are kind of a vacation from all your worries. And just to - it's not important, but to clear the air - Ian and I, who work really carefully on all this stuff, we don't get paid. The money goes to Cramps Inc. We're doing this because The Cramps brung us to the dance, as they say. We just do this because we're pretty good at it, and we just want to make sure it gets done right. But Larry asked me, hey, you want to take care of the audio? I'm like, a little bit. And so...
SUMMERS: Right?
ROLLINS: That's it.
SUMMERS: What a dream. What a dream.
ROLLINS: Yeah, it's the best job I've ever had. And so we do this because the love of the music, and that's it.
SUMMERS: Henry, what do you hope fans or even people who are new to The Cramps take away from this album?
ROLLINS: Fun. When you hear the tracks on "Gravest Gravy," you're like, yeah. That's - It's like hearing Elvis Presley, a Sun Studios recording. You go, that's the real thing. That's rock and roll. Like, you know it. And I think The Cramps did that. And they had a lot of fun. It was very affected, you know? Wearing sunglasses all the time, even to the, you know, the supermarket. They would - Lux and Ivy would get dressed up 'cause they're The Cramps. You know, Lux went to the - he went to the gym, which is a hard thing to get your head around. And he would wear sunglasses in the gym because...
SUMMERS: (Laughter).
ROLLINS: Come on (laughter), it's the best. Just him in a gym, I wish I could have seen that. But hopefully, people will just be super happy. And, like, what I do, what Ian does, what Larry and Jimmy are doing, we're just the messengers of this amazing band. And so "Gravest Gravy" is our first one. The next one is ready for Record Store Day next year. I can safely say we're going to deliver things for Cramps fans that are going to make them deliriously happy.
SUMMERS: I think we can certainly guarantee that. Just listening to this right now, I think a lot of people have a lot to look forward to. Henry Rollins, thank you so much for talking with us.
ROLLINS: You're very welcome. Thank you.
SUMMERS: Rollins is part of a team that's putting out the previously unreleased Cramps album "Gravest Gravy," which was recorded back in 1977, and it's out tomorrow.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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