“It Was Like a Monster Movie With a Beat”: Henry Rollins Interviewed on the Cramps’ Lost Album

Transmission 388: Interview with The Cramps

The Cramps left behind a record that technically already existed. Lux Interior and Poison Ivy mixed it in the summer of 1989, chose a cover photograph by the late Stephanie Chernikowski, gave it a title, and then, for reasons that remain genuinely unclear, put it in a box and left it there. Twelve songs from the October 1977 Ardent Studios sessions produced by Alex Chilton, the same sessions that gave the world Human Fly and Surfin’ Bird: a Paul Revere and the Raiders cover with Chilton on organ, a studio version of Rocket in My Pocket that Cramps fans had only ever caught on bootlegs, Bryan Gregory’s guitar locked into Nick Knox’s drums in a way that Psychedelic Jungle would never quite replicate. The tapes sat. The world did not know what it was missing.

Title: Gravest Gravy
Artist: Henry Rollins The Cramps
Release Date: 2026-08-21
Genres: Psych-obilly, Punk Rock
Label: In The Red Records, Vengeance Records
Description: Henry Rollins on Gravest Gravy, the Cramps' shelved 1977 Alex Chilton sessions, now finally released on In the Red/Vengeance Records.

Henry Rollins, alongside Ian MacKaye, has spent the better part of the last year making sure it finds out. Their work, undertaken without pay and with the kind of seriousness usually reserved for the restoration of things the world already knows it loves, runs from tape baking and archival transfers in Nashville to late-night listening sessions full of copious notes and arguments about which mix is the keeper. Gravest Gravy, out August 21 on In the Red Records / Vengeance Records, is the result.

Featured image: Cramps Bowery Basement, 1977 © David Godlis

You have described the first time seeing the Cramps on April 20, 1979 in Washington, D.C. with Ian McKay standing next to you. What specifically happened that night and why has that experience stayed with you for nearly 50 years?

It was the first club show I’d ever been to. I’d been to arena rock shows because I was underage, it’s what I could get into. Like Led Zeppelin and Aerosmith. That was fun. Then I saw, a few weeks before the Cramps show, I saw The Clash in an old movie theater that’s now a condominium. About 800 people. It was such a different experience. You could walk right up to the front of the stage and look right at the band, which I did. Then the Cramps I saw in a bar with about 100 people. There’s no stage there. They played on the floor and you could literally walk up and smell them. It was four really interesting-looking people. They all have a look, so it’s like four charismatic, fascinating people who you don’t know. It was like a monster movie with a beat. The music was great, drenched in reverb. I knew two of the songs, like the first set, the second seven-inch, maybe Human Fly. But the rest of the set I’d never heard. I remember really liking the song Rockin’ Bones and Rocket in My Pocket. I found out later that they were both covers, that the Cramps did a lot of cover songs. I had no idea.

It took me years to actually hear the real versions of those songs, years and years, actually. It was an overwhelming experience. I was young, never had been to a club to see a band. They’re serving beer and all that, it’s the adult world. They were kind of my introduction to that. If there was an opening band, I have long forgotten who that was. The Cramps are basically the band that brung me to the dance as far as going to clubs. If you’re going to be introduced to the club world, that’s a great band. I just consider myself extraordinarily fortunate. I found a CD-R of that show on eBay years ago and I bought it. It’s a good audience recording and it’s as good as I remember the show. Ian and I, we still talk about that show now and then, and pretty often now because we’re doing so much work with the Cramps estate. But the music was amazing. Visually, I’ve never seen a band that close. Visually, they’re just four really different-looking people and they’re all coming on with something, like they get dressed in this manner so you will see them and go, ah. There’s nothing about them that’s subtle. They’re just going for a reaction. They certainly got it from me.

It contains covers ranging from Paul Revere and the Raiders to Ronnie Dawson to Ricky Nelson. What do you think they were excavating when they chose these specific songs?

I think the Cramps, Lux and Ivy, they’re kind of bossing the set list. I think they had tapped into a great rock and roll truth that the rockabillies, the primitive music, Sun Studios and all of that, and the labels that are even smaller than Sun at the time, that these people had tapped into something really essential, primal and powerfully direct about rock and roll that makes, in my opinion, a lot of punk rock seem very polite, very put-on and very affected. Where the rockabilly people, you want to talk about drug taking, car stealing, womanizing, going to jail, can’t read, real threats to society, it’s the rockabilly people, because they weren’t going to the club and going home. They were doing this from home, like it’s really who they are. They grew old looking like that if they got past 25 years of age. I think Lux and Ivy got that, valued it and kind of shoved themselves into that vein of rock and roll and embraced it and basically drank it up to their eyeballs. That’s why they looked the way they did and played the way they did and chose the covers that they did. As you might know, they borrowed a lot of riffs. You hear one of their songs and you go online and find out, okay, they took that riff from this song. You’re like, oh, they did. You play like that Link Wray song, you’re like, oh, come on. They were just basically like magpies grabbing bright and shiny things and flying them back to the nest. I don’t mind. That’s kind of the spirit of blues and folk music. You go over to your neighbors and get a cup of sugar and put it into the mix and there’s your cake. Lux and Ivy did that quite a bit.

They also did a lot of those covers. I think they’re trying to brew a batch of moonshine that wasn’t punk rock, that wasn’t rock and roll, that was kind of more base, more primitive than all of that. In my opinion, at least, they succeeded. It made me discover rockabilly music, because when I saw them I didn’t know what to call it, because it wasn’t punk rock and they didn’t seem punk rock. I was talking with the singer in Ian’s band, the Teen Idols, who was like eight months older than me or something, and he’s kind of a little further down the track. He said, well, it’s rockabilly. Like, what’s that? He goes, well, go to the record store and buy this cheap compilation called the King Federal Rockabillies. It’s a compilation of King Records and Federal Records rockabilly tracks. It was a cutout you could buy for two dollars. So I bought it. That’s how I heard Charlie Feathers and these crazy rockabilly people. I liked the music, even though I was young and like, it has to be punk rock or I can’t listen. I heard it and went, yeah, this is deviant enough for me. I never forgot that. As I grew older, CDs came in and now you can buy these very authoritative multi-CD box sets with great liner notes, like here’s 150 rockabilly songs and a great music writer telling you what you’re listening to. You reassess the Cramps and go, oh, you guys are like archaeologists and intense students of music. You read their interviews and Lux and Ivy never liked to talk about themselves. They liked to talk about the record collection, this band, this label, Elvis, whatever, Hazel Atkins, Link Wray. You realize they were really intense studiers of music and appreciators. They would go on stage and basically show their love for their record collection and this crazy music. That was the Cramps. It was a music appreciation society with a drummer. At least that’s my opinion. They carried on with that until Lux passed away. I think all of their records were in that posture of let’s cut to the chase and get right to it. Sex, drugs, fun, danger, and probably something illegal. That kind of informed all of the lyrics more and more so as the band went on until Lux passed away in 2009. But they never made nice music, like they’re deviants, they’re heels. I’m so thankful.

When you first played the seven reels and understood what was on them, what was the atmosphere in the room?

Larry Hardy from In the Red Records, a very good guy, he was going through the garage of the tapes, Ivy’s tapes, Cramps tapes, and he sees these seven reels, quarter-inch reels, all together. He pulls them out and there’s all kinds of handwriting on there, a lot of Ivy’s handwriting. He said, what’s this? She explains it was a concept record they never did. It was called Gravest Gravy. They had the cover picked out, they had the title picked out. It’s outtakes from the October ’77 Memphis, Tennessee sessions that gave you Human Fly, The Way I Walk, Domino, Surfin’ Bird and Lonesome Town for those who got the 12-inch with five tracks in England, Gravest Hits. He said, why didn’t you do it? Who knows, reasons lost to the mists of time. So Larry took the tapes to our good pal Brian Kehew, who’s a master tape treater over at Warner Brothers, and said, can they transfer? Brian did it. The tapes are in good shape. Larry sent me the contents of the seven reels. I sat at this desk I’m sitting at now and I listened and took a lot of notes, because Larry said, we are going to put this out and you’re producing. So get to work. I took my marching orders and got to work. I listened to all the tracks and it’s multiple mixes on every reel, so I have to figure out which is the keeper. It would make sense that it would be the last take. You get the mix you want, you move on.

You keep the other ones, why, I don’t know, but you do. Some people do, some people don’t. It occurred to me after listening that the mixes were a little more guitar, a little more vocal, a little more guitar, which sounds like Lux and Ivy are mixing it. The singer walks up, how about a little more vocal? The guitar player walks up, hey, we need a little more guitar. The last mix, because Ivy was probably in charge, is just right. You hear it and you’re like, that’s the one. So over many nights and copious notes, I sent the audio and my notes to Ian MacKaye, whose ears I trust more than mine. I said, okay, debate and discuss, go through my selections and tell me where I’m getting it wrong. He wrote back and said, I agree with all your selections, they’re kind of obvious, which I thought. He said, I would like to work on two of the tracks up here in Arlington, Virginia, a level thing here, an EQ thing here. I said, go, man, go, because I trust him and Don Zientara at Inner Ear. They did their work and sent me the tracks back. I sent Ian a sequence for sides A and B and he went, yeah, and he took mine. My order made it better, of course. We took that to Infrasonic Studios, a studio here in Nashville where I live, gave it to the great Pete Lyman, great mastering engineer. I sat on the couch and watched Pete for about five hours as he carefully mastered this record to perfection. We sat and listened and went, this will work. Larry said, we’re going to turn this record around immediately. So start writing the liner notes and a press release. It’s coming out in August. I thought it was like August of next year, but like right now, and on a production schedule, that’s like in 20 minutes, five months is tomorrow. I literally started writing the liner notes that night. I made my drafts, sent them to Larry, sent them to Ian, took everyone’s notes and considerations. I fixed them up, sent them to the press person, Joe, and she liked them. Okay, now do the press release. I did that and that went through its rigors, that might be what you read. The record apparently has already sold out on pre-order. Most people have not heard it because it’s not out yet. But those who have heard it went, well, you got that right. I didn’t, the Cramps did. But I know what they mean. People are advance-ordering this record because of the description. You know, 12 Cramps songs you haven’t heard, from the Alex Chilton and the Cramps sessions, mixed by Alex Chilton and the Cramps in 1989. Here’s the cover photo by the sadly just-passed Stephanie Chernikowski. Back cover photo by the great David Godlis at CBGB, one of the best photos of the Cramps ever. We have this amazing set of tunes, a Paul Revere and the Raiders cover, a Sam Phillips song, Problem Child, that gets covered. If you are a fan of early Cramps like I did, you remember Problem Child and Hungry, the Paul Revere and the Raiders song, from their early sets. Those two songs were dropped because of all the original material that was flooding the set list. The fact that they put those two on tape is astounding to me, the fact that we have that to listen to.

There’s a studio version of Rocket in My Pocket. It’s thrilling to me, having been a fan of this band since 1978. I live alone in my little house and I heard all this by myself. I just sat at my desk like, whoa, wait till Ian hears this. Soon, not soon enough for my liking, anyone so inclined will have a chance to hear the record. If you’re a Cramps fan, I can’t see you having any complaint about this record. Whenever you do something, you do get angry mail, you will get pushback. We made a video, well, I didn’t make it, but some people made a video for one of the songs on the record which we put on the internet for free. There’s pushback email: what’s up with all the AI? Most of the band are dead, we just had to use what we had. Shut up. I said to Larry a few nights ago, you better enjoy this moment because you and I are never going to release another record that is going to be this fun and without friction. Anything else we do, all we get is, what’s up with this, it’s not round enough, whatever. But this one, I think, will go down without too much argument or complaint, because everything else we do there’s always someone coming up telling you that you suck.

Do you have any theory about why they shelved the album since it was ready?

No, I don’t. We couldn’t get a straight answer from Ivy. I’m taking myself back to the year 1989 because all the tape boxes are dated down to the day when the songs were mixed. I have a pretty accurate date, which is in the press release, of when, I think it was June ’89, I know for sure, don’t hold me, June or July, in North Hollywood. Alex mixed a few tracks in Memphis and sent the tape in. The tape says mixed by Alex in Memphis, written on the tape in somebody’s handwriting. I don’t think it’s Ivy’s anyway. Why did they shelve it? I looked up what they were doing at the time and they just seemed to be busy on tour. I saw them play in ’90 in Belgium at Pukkelpop. I have no idea. They went as far as to get the cover picked out, which we had to track down. Stephanie basically gave all of her stuff to Getty, who are some of the meanest people to work with. They’re just not friendly, very expensive and they don’t give you very high-resolution images for your overpayment for usage.

We got by. But why the record didn’t come out at the time, when it would have been such a blast for people, my only guess, and it’s only a guess, is that Ivy is a hyper-perfectionist. I think Lux was to a great degree too. But Ivy ended up the band’s producer. If you look at the notes she kept on the outside of some of the tape boxes, it’s accurate engineering writing, like hi-hat up half a dB, she really knew what she was after mixing. She became a very precise player. You hear her string work, those notes are going exactly where they need to go. I’m guessing that Ivy, and this is all mere assumption, I’m guessing Ivy listened to it and just thought, it’s the past. We were young and unpolished and we’re much better now. Why let this out when we deliver so much better? I’m only guessing, I’m not trying to put words into her mouth. But it did not come out and it was finished. Larry asked her, well, what’s the photo? It’s us with these dogs. Larry told me that. I’m like, I’ve seen that photo, it’s on a bootleg seven-inch. I pulled it out of my little record box: yes, I’ve seen it. She confirmed that’s the photo and that’s the one we pulled.

We showed Ivy the cover of the record the other day and she’s really stoked, she’s super into it, which is great. Better that than her saying, what the hell are you guys doing? I wish I had a better story as to why. Larry said, well, we’re doing this, so let’s go. I love hearing let’s go. So we did. I went to California, flew out to L.A., rented a van, loaded it full of the Cramps tapes and drove them to Nashville, where they now live in a climate-controlled environment. I’ve been slowly transferring tapes from boxes in ill repair to archival boxes and taking the tapes in for baking and transfer. They’re digitized for life, or at least until the hard drive glitches. We’re just trying to stabilize this recorded catalog because it’s the Cramps. I’m in charge of that. Ian, I wouldn’t say he’s my wingman, but I do all of this stuff when I ask Larry for permission, permission to take these two tapes in to have them baked because he’s paying his money. He goes, go. Whenever I get the tapes back, I send them to Ian. I go, I like this as a release, what do you think? Because Ian will never tell you it sounds great if he doesn’t think so. He’ll ruin your day. He’ll just say, no, that doesn’t sound good. He’ll always give you his version of the truth, which is probably the one you should leave the house with. He’s the other set of ears on all of this. Anything you’re going to hear that we are doing on behalf of Vengeance Records and Cramps Inc. I probably came up with the idea, but it was vetted through the ears of Ian. Then we went to Larry and said, Daddy, can we go play? The next project is finished and mastered. Sounds really cool, it’s coming out next year.

The project after that is mixed. Ian and I did that about a week and a half ago, about eight days ago, a week from yesterday, we were in the studio in D.C., Arlington, Virginia, at Inner Ear. We made our first records mixing a multitrack Cramps project. The mixes have been approved. Ian had a great idea of later this year, when we’re both well-slept, to go back and listen again and make sure we can’t do a little change here, a little change there to make sure it’s good, good, good. We’re going to do that in the next month or so and we’ll probably find something to improve. That’ll come out when Larry says it’s going to come out. He and I worked on the cover for that record over the weekend, we’ve got it. I’m going to start working on liner notes pretty soon, because next year means next week in a production schedule. We have more projects kind of loosely set up after that. This is all from the master tapes from the Cramps vault for Cramps fans all over the world to be stoked on. In my opinion, it should have happened a long time ago, but it’s happening now is better than it never happening at all. I would dare say that Larry and Jimmy, who kind of run Cramps Inc with Ivy, are the right people for that job. On audio, Ian and I are good enough, right people for the job, because we care. Ian and I work for free. We’re just doing this because we’re fans. We kind of know how to do this after 50 years of work and we love it. I’m 65 years old. As far as working on records, I’ve never had more fun working on a record than working with this bunch of tapes, by a long shot. I would pay to do this.

May I ask another question? The bootleg economy around the Cramps has been massive for decades. What does it mean to finally have some control over the merchandise and the music?

Everything. I want that money to go to someone who is in the band. A bootlegger is like a day trader, they don’t really make anything but money. You get a t-shirt or audio and the band gets nothing. Say it’s a bootleg of demos, there was a producer, they’re not getting anything. If it’s a cover song or a Cramps song, there’s music publishing to be paid. That’s just fair, that’s how it should go. That doesn’t happen with a bootleg. The Cramps, they’re just fiercely loved all over the world. You probably don’t have to go too far from your house to find a Cramps fan. We are everywhere. If you’re someone like me, I have all those bootlegs in every different color, I show up, I’m part of the problem.

But I’m not as much a problem as the bootlegger themselves, because I’m paying because I’m a fan, I’m not getting paid because I’m a fan. What we are seeking to do is find all of those demos, and we’re on the case and we’re making progress. We want to release them legally with all the publishing and everything intact. So you, me, we, the fans, get these tracks from the master tapes, mastered to perfection by Pete, vetted by Ian and I and Jimmy and Larry. You, the fan, get a really superb-sounding record and not something some guy got on a cassette. As far as the merchandise, Larry is his department. He’s been designing t-shirts. You are going to see, hopefully, t-shirts made by Cramps Inc. for the world instead of bootlegs that have been coming out for literally decades. I’m not in the Cramps, it’s not how I would run my show, I tend to take care of this kind of business. Better late than never. Everyone’s getting paid. All the I’s are getting dotted, the T’s are getting crossed. We’re doing the best we can to do right by this great band, this great catalog and this great music.

How does hearing Bryan Gregory’s guitar on these 1977 recordings change your understanding of what he brought to the band?

That’s a great question. What’s interesting to me is to hear the Psychedelic Jungle tracks on this record, because Kid Congo is amazing, I’m a huge fan, but he’s different than Bryan Gregory. That’s a good thing. When you hear Bryan’s version of Can’t Find My Mind, The Natives Are Restless, that is when you really can understand what he brought to the band, because you have something to compare and contrast with. You can go, okay, well, Kid played it this way, here’s Bryan’s idea. Bryan came first, and you hear, this is to me what he brought to the band. He’s a very aggressive player, really noisy, really ripping up that guitar, where Kid is just not the same approach. They’re both great, but really different. Bryan’s attack on the guitar got Nick Knox to play differently. You have no bass in that band, so Nick has to lock in with something unless he’s purely playing to himself, which maybe he is. But if you’re in a room of loud music, you’re going to be vibing off something. I’m thinking he’s vibing off Bryan, who’s really chaotic and really violent at times.

If you listen to the comparative tracks, Nick Knox is playing far more aggressively, and I think that’s inspired by Bryan’s playing, not necessarily Ivy’s playing. What did Bryan bring to the band, which was your question? My answer is he got a different approach to the songs out of Nick Knox, who’s the bedrock of the band and he’s powering the whole thing. Everything is on top of the drums, like Led Zeppelin, like any good band. The drums come first and everything else is layered on top. If you don’t have good drums, it doesn’t matter what else is in the band. Luckily, the Cramps had a great drummer. I think that’s the compare and contrast where Bryan locked in with Nick and those two worked together and inspired each other. When you hear Psychedelic Jungle, Nick is in a different place because Kid Congo is coming from a different place. Basically, Bryan and Nick were a rhythm section and Kid and Nick were a rhythm section. Not only did Bryan bring a whole lot of sketchy noise and fury, which I love so much, I think he brought a different output from Nick. I think that’s the most profound and noticeable thing that he gave to the Cramps, besides that amazing playing.

Photos courtesy of Henry Rollins

Matteo Damiani

Matteo Damiani is an Italian photographer and author. Curator of the sites Retrofuturista.com; weirditaly.com; china-underground.com and others