Posted on April 7, 2010 - by Editor

Duane Peters: Squaring Up To Wolfdog

Duane Peters© Imelda Michalczyk

This interview was done in December at the City Invasion tour in London but for varying boring internal technical issues we haven’t been able to get out till now. Despite the length of time since the interview took place, it’s still incredibly current and makes for an interesting read. Duane Peters and the US Bombs don’t seem to do a large amount of interviews and Distorted felt pretty privileged to have the opportunity to speak to Duane Peters for as long as we did.

For about half an hour, we discussed US Bombs touring, getting back on track and new record talk but Duane would also be absolutely open discussing punk rock and skate boarding and revealing his inner demons, past turmoil’s of drugs and drink but more sadly his sons and best friend’s deaths in recent times. Towards the end Duane would more openly and freely put across his world views on how people are being manipulated, exposing “conspiracy theories”. I can honestly say that after years of interviews, this was one of the more intriguing and exciting interviews I have been present at.(Ed-Steve)

We made our way to band room at the rear of the Islington academy, Duane in shorts and punk rock hard life worn face greets us before taking a seat on the mirror ledge in the small room. We start talking about the current tour to date and Duane mentions how Germany and Belgium for him are now the new capitals of punk rock.

Duane: This is like a fucking electronic, sports bar type place. Like, if you’re the Dropkicks you’re good to go. It’s amazing to me, to be on the planet and watch all of this. We took the Dropkicks out on their first tour. And from what we know and what they dumped in the old punk rock world; you used to have to earn your stripes and there were a lot of things that were forbidden. Like if you were a poser and you broke all these laws you would go get beat. And we went with these guys in Ireland; (and we were gonna get fucking worked) and they fucking love them they like they could do nothing wrong. And then they kick out the fucking singer and Ken Casey who has never been in a band in his life has his construction and there is still nothing they could do wrong? And like in the old days they would be wiped off the fucking map, like “go back to your day job” but nowadays it’s like “do I want to take the track like it’s all finished and done?” Or do I want to fly the flag all the way to the ground. Like, what else do you know? I don’t know anything else? And the next thing they are on with the Cardinals or whatever their fucking baseball team is and I’m like, well know I have seen it all. This has been really great life but now it’s like “am I really here?” or did I die and am I like on some purgatory thing? I’m constantly questioning ya know?

And I’m not trying to bad talk the Dropkicks, they are all great guys and they put James to work from the Ducky Boys; all great, I love the band.

Cerven Cotter: So in your opinion, punk and what it originally was, is that gone?

Duane: No. Not at all cos it’s been a rollercoaster ride that’s been going downhill for quite a while, it’s been the same thing in skateboarding cos I still skateboard and I always correlate back and forth and its gone back and forth and no one in punk rock knows a fucking thing about skateboarding anymore, and any real punk rockers that are in a band? Like in the old days bands like the The Black Athletes, cool fucking bands, Drunk Engines were ok, JFA the Arizona’s were good, and they were like me, good guys, but there was a cool underground scene. TSOL were all linked to skateboarding, Pat Brown (the drummer) all skate rats skaters, like “boom, boom, boom” like hip to Devo before anybody. Now the skaters don’t know anything about punk rock. And punk rockers don’t know a fucking thing about skating. And I feel like I’m on an island all the time, especially while touring. And you get all these skaters coming up all the time after like 12 hour drives and I end up being like a asshole cos I’m freezing to death, get all this hostage time and bad food and this, that and the other and your freezing to death and finally you play, bang it all out and do all your fucking shit and get outside and the skateboarder guys are like “check out this fucking ditch.” And there is so much more to skate now; it’s insane and perfect shit. I don’t have to skate a shallow end shitty pool, like the bones I have left; I want to dust them in a good pool, not help them fucking end now. I end up saying “Are like, are you serious? Its 2:30 in the morning, freezing out here and I got to play tomorrow!”

Cerven Cotter: Yeah but don’t you still feel good that the kids know who you are and are so stoked to skate with you and see you ride.

Duane: Yeah I know and I have to talk to them but my immediate reaction is “are you fucking out of your minds?” I’m

Duane Peters© Imelda Michalczyk

going into the van and go sleep in a shit hole to wake up, who fucking knows where. But at the time I’m like are you fucking serious man? And they are like “yeah we want to go skate right now”, but that’s cool and if have to talk to someone in the band and say “am I a fucking dick? I better go say sorry to those guys” but I’m fucking human. I have been poked since I was 16 doing this shit and I’m 48 dude. But on the road it’s like here poke me with a stick like I’m a monkey. I get spread out all the time, like, will I do that skate thing and this and that. And the band doesn’t have to do shit, except sleep. Especially in Brazil where you get treated like royalty over there cos skating is a fucking sport. None of this shit was around; I have been on the planet too long. There were no tricks when I started, it’s about going over the light, we had to make up tail taps and all that shit, there was no pads. We went through all these shitty pads and no surgeries, no parents that wanted to be stoked for you; like “do you want to be a doctor, a lawyer or a skateboarder?” I was number one in the world and my dad was telling me I was a loser. “You need to get a job!” and all I could do was wash dishes. And I was a drug addict and a alcoholic and all this and I wish I could die with my heroes but I have done more drugs than all my heroes 15 times over. And I married Corey Parks and she knows all these fucking rock ‘n rollers and she says bar none, has sheI ever seen a garbage pail like me. And she has only seen a little bit, but who can explain any of this shit. But what was the question.

Duane laughing out loud at his own prolonged rants and he doesn’t need much prompting to talk free flowingly and does go off a little bit on tangents but you can see the wheels in the cog turning and maybe it’s been his absence from the road and touring that means he is embracing talking his mind so eagerly.

Cerven Cotter: I follow you on Twitter and was gonna ask…

Duane: (Jumping straight in) Oh that’s another thing just to set that straight now, they put that fucking shit in your contract now. And they (record label) tell you “how come he is not twittering” and I’m like “what the fuck is Twitter? That sounds so god damn gay I don’t want to do it.” So I ask for someone to give me the account details and I lie and I’m like where is my paycheque? And they are like “No, you’re not twittering.” Like oh fuck! This is a violation man; I’m a cavemen I’m from the old days!

Cerven Cotter: I’m amazed by that cos you are on it quite a lot?

Duane: (Laughing again) Well now I’m kinda digging it. I went from “ok I will check it out a couple times” and the next thing you know a couple people write you and it’s alright and I got into it.

Cerven Cotter: Well Ii like it cos after a skate session in the pool I can post pictures and…

Duane: Oh like those guys; Lance and all those guys are twittering more. Stan Stern an old photographer was with us and he was gonna take pictures but was like “Peters has got every single shot I was gonna get!” and I’m like “it’s for Twitter, it’s for Twitter!” Anyways we are just trying to have fun.

Cerven Cotter: One thing I picked up on Twitter is how much fun you’re having on this tour and you guys are gonna write something new, how possible is that?

Duane: It’s pretty possible. Ok, here is the thing with Johnny (“2 Bags” Wickersham) and Social Distortion is he thinks he is gonna bang out a record (and he has been writing and got some pretty rad songs for that) and Nuts; he has to be more anal than ever on this record and he is a anal mother fucker anyways, it took him a long time on the last record and it took him a long time on the one before that. It’s no way Johnny is gone be done writing in January and they go in Feb 1st to record. If he thinks he is gonna be done in a month he is out of his fucking mind. I think that record might not even be done by August that’s from me talking shit. Speak of the fucking devil..

(As if planned but it wasn’t, Johnny walks in at that point to bring Duane an Indian curry and introduces him to us Distorted people and tells Johnny what he was saying about writing a record for Social Distortion and US Bombs and Duane goes back to finish what he was saying)

Duane: That aside with us it will take a week to record, with his camp I’m predicting August it might be over. Look at you getting all serious. (Gesturing to Johnny)

Johnny: Well it won’t be out till then – August? Once we get in and start, it’s a matter of starting it ya know, it took five years to start but once we were in there we are done in a month.

Duane: Really? Have a fucking sense of humour. (Not sounding convinced at all)Ok like I never see you all the time and “how’s that record coming it’s been three years!” Oh yeah you quit the band and that’s why it took five fucking years!” (Says mockingly and teasing).

Johnny: We never got in there! That was the problem! (Getting agitated at being put on the spot and being defensive)

Duane: Well the band is huge and you are going to have to be more anal that’s what I’m thinking, it’s his main baby but that aside….

Johnny: Ok here is the thing; it took us a month to record “The World”, a week to write it, a month to record it. We went and got a studio in Padena, locked it out, me Chip and Kerry and Wade came in and out and wrote, wrote and wrote an gave him tapes, ( pointing to Duane).

Duane Peters© Imelda Michalczyk

Duane and Johnny start talking discussing tuning of guitars and how his guitars were setup differently for that record without him knowing!

Duane: Well these guys are like “yeah its pre pro and 4:35” and actually we rock out on 4:40 and don’t tell Peters! So I’m already having to be dragged out of my house, and it’s not like it was and I don’t know fuck about tuning, and I fucking hate that record and never give it a listen but people keep going “I love that record” but hey that’s my personal shit. But yeah we got that one down pretty quick. And I think while he is recording, and we are all fucking lame, we can have Johnny for a day here or there but everyone is getting along really good and putting something out and possibly hitting the road again looks good. Sorry about the fucking nine year answers to every question!

Cerven Cotter: No it’s cool you got things to say. I think a lot of US bombs and fans of Duane in general will feel good to see you playing and riding. How are your demons, are you coping with them?

Duane: It’s going really good, 30 days without anything; booze and drugs except this shit (cigarette). I think I got the law on me, I had a gun in my mouth on this one, and it’s been a long bad gnarly two years. One bad thing after the other. I got tired of the doom and it’s either get busy living or get busy dying. The bottom line is when Chuck Briggs died (in 2000), the guitarist, he was my best fucking friend. And for four months before when I left for Europe, I was carting him on the wheelchair everyday getting him his Heineken and chilly cheese fries and I remember leaving and saying “ok I will see you later man, I will see you in one month and we will get you to play on the “Laundromat” recording that’s coming up” and he could barely hold his guitar up and it gave him life and I would bring him videos over there and getting him all good and it broke my fucking heart, my best friend I had lost.

For four months it was a total dark house; I would go to the store and we lived in Long beach in underwear; shat in and pissed in and I didn’t care about living anymore and would get my bottle every morning and drugs and shit, and one day I just got this feeling like; the get busy living or get busy dying thing from Shawshank Redemption and it was the weirdest fucking thing, like this light goes on and the blinds go up, the music comes on and I hated music and skating. I hated everyone; the most negative mother fucker. And in a beard and in a robe with blood and piss all over it, I hated it. Then that happens, it was like let’s go and clean this place up and makes things happen, and when my kid died (Chess (Chelsea) Peters in 2007) there was no bringing me back. I wanted to die; I absolutely knew the party was over and this shit wasn’t for me anymore, I’m not a happy drunk, not a happy user, none of it could kill me quick enough and weirdly it was two and half years later when I got the law on me and I had a lot of luck with the law; drunk driving, I broke a pelvic bone, I didn’t drink then but I was on the drugs when they pulled me over. They want to put me away forever.

The last button I ever pushed was my 9mm and I got that every night in my mouth. It was just weird waking up, (mimicking gun in mouth.) And I took my other kid, he is 25 and his girlfriend out to dinner, listen to me talking about killing myself; Mr happy dad. They were gonna come down & spend the night but were like “nah thanks”. He thought it would be last time he would see me; I didn’t find out about that till I was leaving for this tour. He was like my best friend and he was gonna skate, be a pro skater go to the skate camp, and it broke my fucking heart, it wasn’t his fault, he was trying to avoid this old man that had fucking cut him off. I had to go see his body, like this is your son ya know and you

Duane Peters© Imelda Michalczyk

have to look at him and I just didn’t want to be here anymore.

Cerven Cotter: I can’t even imagine.

Duane: It’s something no one should have to go though, it doesn’t leave you, and you come home and lose your mind. I got that a week before we left on this thing, if we cancelled this thing with all the damage control I knew I was gonna be done! They were so sick of my bullshit and these cancellations, and Corey (Corey Parks, his wife) I left her and my other kid and I got a van and drove to Cardiff and left everyone, I was just lost. I gave my gun to this guy, some sober guy and I just though I’m done I’m gonna live this one out. He doesn’t want to see me drag the planet with all this darkness and lightning bolts, like a bad movie situation. I’m rolling with it – I got the call like “are we doing the tour or not?” No-one knew and we decided to go ahead and it was on. Which is why there wasn’t a lot of promo, cos they were all like “what the fuck is this guy going to do?” Corey wanted me to go back to Cry Help (rehabilitation centre) where they sent me last time when my kid died and it’s like a big poop party in there; fucking crazy. And I don’t have it in me to do that one again; I would rather bleed in front of everyone. I was so low –I even twittered it.

Duane sometimes can be hard to follow in his prolonged answers, obviously covering a lot of back history and trauma from his personal life and his train of thought and seem to roll out at a 100 miles per hour. We were planning on slowly wrapping things up but Duane had more to say.

Cerven Cotter: Is there maybe one thing you want to say to the Bombs fans?

Duane: I don’t have anything to say- um but back to the first question, I’m seeing it all come up, the kids and the pools and the skate scene which is where I was going with that first question. Watching these guys from not being able to turn 90s political years and kids wanting to be individual again. Only in the skate scene I see these youngsters; they are listening to traditional punk rock ‘n roll again, and there are good bands now, and skaters are more on top of it than they were in rapperville, and there’s really cool fucking kids.

Like style is back and it makes me want to cry. And it’s coming back and they are all into it and getting bands together, at least where I live. I watch that shit and think it might get good again and there is respect there again and let’s see what comes out of the cracks. For so long it felt like everything I do doesn’t matter. The labels were looking at only the whole emo thing and what’s selling and they don’t even like you, they don’t even listen to the record. They throw it against the wall and see what sticks. Like so many of these bands are like “should we do the ska set or the punk rock set?” And all this crap. Are you fucking real or a puppet? We already have puppets running the world and the country. Where the fuck are the real people; poor or rich? Style is still the name of the game and I’m gonna take a bullet before I take a computer chip in my fucking arm. Tracking devices? Quit watching the news, get up outside with your skateboard, go skate and figure it out, I think you are closer to something other than just this. This is cool but you can really see what’s going on without just reading, no one wants to read I didn’t when I was younger –you can see videos of what’s really going on; alternative news, independent news like projectCamelot.org go check it out, it’s the best, it will blow your fucking mind. All facts, not conspiracy theories and no one wants to see it cos no one wants to be uncomfortable. And we die and leave our kids to this uncomfortable shit ruled planet, there are FEMA camps all over America, think I’m crazy, look it up. Look it up on infowars.com- Alex Jones has been doing this war for ever. People don’t get it cos they got us running around doing our taxes, everyone has got to have like 90 jobs, the suburbs are starving and are all on fucking food stamps (sorry about the spit, but I didn’t have teeth for 12 years) What was I saying again? I lost my train of thought.

Cerven Cotter: They (governments) are just controlling everybody with fear.

Duane: Yeah they are and it’s going Orwellian gnarlier than ever and they put this fucking doomsday on us, 2012 – I have known about that for a long time and the polar shifting, trust me it’s all bullshit, it’s a spiritual Y2K. Same thing as 1984, same fucking thing they always got to have; a doomsday on us and keep us in fear. And it’s all bullshit and I think its consciousness that gets raised, in religion it’s not only a form of control but is it not easier to believe the book of Revelations that we are all doomed and we are all sinners and you got a willing public willing to read their bible it’s a lot easier. And the people running the planet; the 13 families! Love is the only thing that matters and all the rest if fucking bullshit.

Duane Peters© Imelda Michalczyk

There is a ton of shit out there that validates all this shit I’m saying but no one wants to get outside the box, wave their hand, and fly the crazy flag cos its designed that way, they are fucking smart. As soon as I do that I’m the fucking sheep that got out of line and wolfdog is gonna come get me and put me back in line or tear me apart. Just like they did William Cooper and a ton of other guys. Anyways it’s all there, you either want to look or live, it’s the red or blue pill, what do you want to do? Walk in line and be a sheep or do something about it, and I have had a great fucking run; I don’t give a fuck about my life. It’s been a great run and if they kill me now, great. I’d love to pay some shit back before I die but I’m pretty much good. My kids that’s who I care about, I look at my youngest son and I think I need to do something for him you know.

And kids are lost, what the fuck do they do, they are jobless, it’s all setup so they join the army, my kid that died was gonna join the army and I was like “you’re not going to join the fucking army dude.” There is other shit you can do, get on your skateboard. And the mid west is falling apart and it’s the biggest advertising agency out there, they are even at the punk shows. “Join the army” and the kids think“my recruiter says I’m gonna get to join and be a pilot”. Bullshit you are going to be on the front line you little fucker, that recruiter isn’t going to be there to save your ass when you are there in boot camp. “But the recruiter said….” “Fuck you, you little maggot get in line and suck my dick” (mimicking a drill sergeant) and they teach these guys the police and military are joining forces. The cop academies are training them with all the military bullshit. They are joining forces and the World Bank with; problem, reaction, and solution. Give the people a problem, they react and you give them a solution, that’s world banking.

It’s just like fucking 9/11 we blew that fucker up, just like the Reichstag; Hitler blew that up to get the same reaction, it’s the same people running the same show, we got Bush and the Rothschilds family, everybody is connected. Our presidents are selected not elected. And the people, I have to believe we have a chance but I go to fucking Magic Mountain and look at the people we have on the planet and I’m like are you fucking kidding me? We don’t deserve to know. They are so conditioned that they can’t strip themselves of it. They are fucked because they believed everything they have been fed and everything we have been fed is a lie, everything. So there is my positive fucking interview.