’77 Montreal: OFF!’s Keith Morris is still as fired up as ever

My conversation with Keith Morris begins with him taking a piss. Not in the British sense of the term, but the actual sound of him loudly relieving himself moments after we start our call from his home in LA. “That’s water falling from the tip of my penis,” he helpfully informs me in his instantly recognizable West Coast cadence, familiar to punk fans around the world as the voice of early Black Flag, Circle Jerks, OFF!, and seemingly every documentary about punk and hardcore ever produced. Morris also recently released his autobiography, My Damage: The Story of a Punk Rock Survivor, which covers his decades-long run as one of the most influential figures in the genre.

Over our 40-minute chat on a Sunday night, the 63-year-old vocalist touches on how social media has changed the landscape for new bands, the fights on the road that nearly ended OFF!, the punk rock supergroup Morris has fronted since 2009 that also features Steven McDonald on bass (Red Kross), Mario Rubalcaba on drums (Rocket From the Crypt), and Dimitri Coats on guitar (Burning Brides), the band’s highly ambitious upcoming Watermelon film and soundtrack, and much more. There are of course some lengthy digressions about politics, including references to piling politicians and CEOs into a giant hole in the desert and covering them with lime, talk of a number of upcoming scripts he’s developing, and much more, including his enthusiastic vocal take on Pennywise’s “Bro Hymn.”

OFF! returns to Montreal on July 26 to play ’77 Montreal, the all-day outdoor festival featuring Bad Religion, the aforementioned Pennywise, Streetlight Manifesto, The Avengers, Cro-Mags, The Dirty Nil, The Exploited, and more. Tickets are available via the official ’77 Montreal site.

Bad Feeling Magazine: What are your thoughts on the streaming age of music? Can you imagine when you were growing up and getting into music if you had access to nearly everything that had ever been recorded at your fingertips? How would you have been able to develop interests?

Keith Morris: Well, the advantage to that would have been that we would have been able to blow our stuff up easier, and quicker. Rather than having to get on the phone and call ten people and tell them that we’re playing on Monday night. “We’re playing tomorrow night at 8:00 pm over in Bill’s garage, so tell all of your friends, we would like 50 people to be there.” And hopefully, it would turn into 500 people, and then whatever city it’s in, the police would show up, and the helicopters, then the riot squad, and then people start getting thrown in jail, and all of that fun stuff.

Now I’m just being facetious, but we didn’t have all of that stuff in the beginning. It was like, we’ve got to go out and put flyers in the record store, we’ve got to staple flyers to telephone poles, we’ve got to go to all of the other shows and pass out flyers to all of the people who are lingering and meandering about. Then we’ve got to go out into the parking lot and put flyers underneath all of the windshield wipers. And then when all of that’s done, we’ve got half an hour to get to wherever we need to get to to play for all of the people that might get these flyers that we’ve been passing out and what have you. [Laughs] So with all of the new modern technology, somebody can sit at home and record their album, and put it up, and become an overnight sensation. I don’t know what they call it, a “breakout artist” or what have you. When all of a sudden you’ve got 50 million people viewing whatever you’ve put up on YouTube. For some of these people it’s too easy. And the thing with music being too easy, is that the music itself is actually pretty easy too. It’s actually pretty easy to dismiss the majority of it.

It’s something I think about when I talk to bands that were around before this technological burst. If Black Flag was starting today, would it have been easier to make the same impact the band did back then?

That’s an interesting question, and I actually love the way that we did it, because it was very workman-like. Like, we actually had to go out. Not only was there a physicality to the music, but there was also…we would do a thing where we would go out at around 3:00 in the morning and drive up Pacific Coast Highway, pasting with wheat paste, pasting flyers on like the sides of buildings and metal tower boxes, just wherever we could stick something up. And hope people would see it and appreciate our effort, and want to come and see us. I think kids nowadays just have it too easy.

“…why shouldn’t we hate the police?”

Black Flag’s Nervous Breakdown EP just celebrated its 40th anniversary; when you’re playing those songs with FLAG now, do the songs still resonate the same way with you? Or has their meaning changed for you over the decades? 

Well, one of the things that happened is that we actually lived these songs for a good chunk of our life. And say we’re singing “Police Story,” which is totally just as appropriate now, with all of the police shootings and all of the brutality, and how all of the different groups of police across the country are siding with white supremacists, which is like, “Are you serious?” No wonder a lot of people really hate the police. They shot that one kid in Missouri, they shot him like eight times in the back. It’s like, why shouldn’t we hate the police? There was a point in time where the police actually cared, and they actually served the public. And now it just seems like they’re serving themselves, and they’re serving all of the wrong people. But we lived these songs. We played these songs until we knew them in our sleep. For the amount of time we put into these songs, we deserve the right to be able to go out there and play them. and if people want to buy it, and if people want to believe it, great. If they don’t, and they want to question it, and be like, “Why are these old guys running around like they’re 16-year-olds?” That would be Henry Rollins’ argument towards us. Because we were doing such a great job. And when we play them, we play it like we mean it. Granted, we’re older. Granted, it’s more of a physical challenge, but we’re pretty much up for the challenge.

The latest news in the OFF! world is this Watermelon project that you’ve been working on;  how did you envision this project in the first place, and what’s the status of it now? 

We’ve been working on this for a little over two years. The Watermelon concept is, [OFF! guitarist] Dimitri Coates, he’s the guy that birthed it, it came out of his head. When we started writing songs, and I started writing lyrics, all of the lyrics are based on conspiracy theories. Except for one song where we’re singing about Donald Trump, I mean, we’re a punk rock band, we’ve obviously earned the right to be able to sing about The President of the United States, whether he’s a good guy, or whether he’s a bad guy.

Dimitri and I wrote 25 songs. We have two drummers. We have Mario Rubalcaba, and we also have Dale Crover from The Melvins. Mario plays in Earthless. We also plays occasionally in Rocket From the Crypt, and he’s also a member of Hot Snakes. Both of these guys are just incredibly, insanely brilliant drummers. We’re very fortunate, it’s not like we’re just playing with a drum machine or a glorified drum machine, or a metronome or what have you. These guys are extremely, extremely, just beyond talented. So now we have 25 songs with Mario, he’s recorded all 25 songs. And then we have 25 songs with Dale, because he’s recorded 25 songs. That makes 50 songs that I’ve got to sing on. And I’m about 7 1/2 songs in, I have a bunch of work to do. And the problem with me, is that we don’t rehearse as a band. So, I get to go in cold. Some of these songs, some of these versions, I get to hear them for the first time.

All of this accompanies a movie that we are scheduled to film in February. Four weeks. We’ve got to get in a room, all of the people that are participating, with their scripts, know their lines, and we’ve got to start rehearsing. I think in all of the movies that I’ve participated in [including cult classics Repo Man and Sid and Nancy], I don’t think I’ve ever done that. So this is a really big deal. And the whole shebang is called Watermelon. The reason for Watermelon is — have you ever drank watermelon juice? It’s one of the greatest drinks that anybody ever concocted. I’m a diabetic, the last time I drank watermelon juice it got me up to about 300. Being a diabetic, I don’t want to go past like, 200-225, maybe 250. But it got me at 300, then I was at 350, then I was at 400, and I wanted to like, jump up and kiss the ceiling. I wanted to take a bite out of the fucking roof. It got me sky-high. But it’s such an incredibly brilliant tasting drink.

The watermelon allows me to pass through different dimensions, and it allows me to levitate. It also gives me even more superpowers, where I’m going to fight Gibby Haynes from The Butthole Surfers, and I’m going to kick his ass. I’m going to show him who’s boss. I believe there’s 41 scenes in the movie, and I’m in 35 of them, so that makes me like, the main guy in the movie, and I’m not looking forward to it because I’m not an actor. I get along however I get along. But see, with this performance, I know that I’m going to be…they’re going to nominate me for an Academy award. And so, I’m thinking about what I’m going to say in my acceptance speech.

“The watermelon allows me to pass through different dimensions, and it allows me to levitate.”

Like when I’m President of the United States, it’s going to be a bloodbath and all of these politicians are all going to disappear. We’re going to dig a big whole out in the dessert somewhere, maybe 100 miles from the Paiute Reservations that’s 30 miles south of Las Vegas, Nevada, where they’re dumping coal tar ash that’s creating and causing cancer among the Indian tribe there. We’re going to dig a big hole, and we’re going to take all of these dead politicians, and their wives, and their neighbours, and all of the CEOs that have been part of a company that’s maybe responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths, and any of these CEOs that run companies that send everything off-shore so they don’t have to pay taxes, and they send all of their work to foreign places to be dealt with by child labour, and if they don’t, if they stay here, and they purchase the robots to do the work for the human workers and lay off all of the workers, they’re all going to be piled in this giant hole. ‘Cause that’s where they belong. And I believe that they’ll pour lime on top of them, and then cover ’em up with sand, and nobody will miss them. Maybe some of their relatives, but for the most part they won’t be missed.  I will be doing the world a favour. This is my Academy speech.

So we’ve got this going on, soundtrack, movie. I also found myself in a situation that I didn’t need to be in, where I was lied to for six months and I had to get out, I had to figure out a way because I was reduced to a guy who was screaming and yelling and saying a bunch of things that I didn’t need to say. So I had to walk away. And I can’t get this person out of my head, so my horoscope from about five days ago said, “You can’t dwell upon these things, what you need to do is keep yourself busy.” So I started rewriting a script for my movie, and I’m sitting on scripts for three other movies. I have another story in my head for a science fiction movie involving a 13-year-old girl who’s experiencing puberty. She’s starting to get some peach fuzz down there…it’ll be a Walt Disney, Nickelodeon-type movie. Not only does she save planet Earth, but she saves everything in the galaxy and the universe. It’s really brilliant, I’m patting myself on the back because I’m just so smart. In my own mind, I’m just fucking genius.  That’s just in my head, there are a lot of people running around that would not be backing that. I’m also getting to work on a documentary for Vans tennis shoes. I can’t get into any details about that, but I will be working with somebody that was responsible for The Decline of Western Civilization.

“In my own mind, I’m just fucking genius.”

Are you looking forward to seeing anyone particular at ’77 Montreal?

Now, I’ve not heard Wavves in 800 years, but that main guy is kind of goofy. OFF! played a show out in Pamona, and he took it upon himself to come into our dressing room and pick up a case of beer. And he thought that he was just going to be able to walk out of our dressing room, and walk through the backstage area, and walk out the back door, and find a place to sit and drink all of this beer with his friends, and no! You don’t get to do that. You want a couple of beers, take a couple of beers. Help yourself. Don’t help yourself to an entire case you smartass, weasel-dick, chisler skinflint you. Don’t even try. Don’t even think about it. I’m going to try and swipe a case of his beer.

I love The Avengers, our friends in Bad Religion, OFF! actually played on a tour with them. of course they were on a bus, and we were in a van, and one of the last things you want to do when you’re driving a van is chase a bus. ‘Cause the bus driver sleeps all day, and then gets on a bus and drives all night. At the end of that tour, Dimitri and I were going to kill each other. I actually picked up a chair, I was going to hit him over the head with it. I was just going to give him the el kabong.

Is Steve the peacemaker in the band? 

The peacemaker [role] falls into Mario’s lap, because he’s just really easy go-lucky, just play it by ear. “Hey fellas, come on now.” He saw Dimitri and I backstage, and he grabbed his beer, he popped the top off, and slunk out. I’m sure that his mentality was, “I can’t stick around for this, this is going to get ugly. Somebody is going to get hospitalized.” It didn’t get to that, but it got really, seriously ugly, to the point where a couple of us, the guys that started the band, one of the lines was, “I’m not going to get in a room with you, fuck you. I’m never playing with you again.”

“I’m not going to get in a room with you, fuck you. I’m never playing with you again.”

Which is not the case because you’re on tour…

Because we’re friends! [Laughs] We’re friends, friends fight, friends argue. That’s what friends are for. What would happen if all of us just held hands and licked ice cream cones, and skipped up to the park to watch the squirrels?

I’m at a point in my life where I’ve lived the majority of my life, I’ve done so many fantastic and great things, I’ve seen so many people and been to so many interesting places. I mean yeah, there are other places I want to go, there’s other people that I want to meet, there’s more books that I want to read and more music that I want to listen to, and more food that I want to eat. And movies that I want to watch. But it is what it is, and I’ve got to let it just play out, and not worry about it.

It’s a very Zen-like attitude. 

I wish I could be like that all the time, but I’m not. Sometimes all the buttons get pressed and there’s nothing to do but just blow off steam.

OFF! plays ’77 Montreal on July 26 with Bad Religion, Pennywise, Streetlight Manifesto, The Avengers, Cro-Mags, The Dirty Nil, The Exploited, and more. Tickets are available via the official ’77 Montreal site.