THE DAMNED... Still crazy after all these years or what? DAVID QUANTICK discovers that Dave Vanian now lives in a frock coat, that Rat Scabies doesn't demolish his kit any more. And who are those other two?

SITTING IN the bar of an Aberdeen motel, decorated with caps bearing the logos of about a million oil companies, The Damned are accosted by a young man brandishing a beer Mat. "I cannae read this", he moans, waving the autograph infested object at the people who've just signed it, "can ye write 'THE DAMNED' on the back so I know who it is? Dave Vanian, neat, polite, white as a bag of flour, obliges. The autograph hunter looks at his Beer-mat. "I still cannae read it!" Such am the perils of life on the med The Damned am in Aberdeen to play the seventh rvght of an epic 40 or so date tour to promote their imminent ~. It befalls me to stay wth them in ths motel, watch them ptay the local trendy nitene, eat their Yorkshire puddings, anet ask them things Naturatly, I am fIfed atfe trep+~ton will I retum home 55th iv trous rs 'n~ I Sat v ml ict? An it tums out, I do, having erfioyed their atfable company, their large collecson of cassettea, and even their Yorkshire pudding Now; I'm sifbng in the bar w'th Rat Scabies, drummer and raconteur estraordinary, and Roman Jugg, gLntahstand w&sh Yugoslavian, RAT SCABIES is a man familiar to us all. Over the years, Na,... ah well, his ruggedface and joyous antics have amused a nation Vanian and Scabies are the remaining original members, the great Captain Sensible having finally denarted for solo pastures. Eo, Rat how much would you say this isa new Damned" Rat thaks "Bout ..."A silence descends like a ficeung shaft of sunI~ht " SD per cent,' he finally adds, amidst audience amusement Undeterred, the intrervd joumaliat forges on. Whafa ivthatftjpercest? Rat says, "Well. when you say 'new' Roman's been in the band four years now, innit? So it's not acfiually a new face, but his role w.this the band is a new one. And the bass utayer, Bryn (a cheerful Welshman, now asleep in his room), he's binwith usfwoyears. Ifs all news to me; these faces in the new publioty shots seem to come fiom nowhere. And arith even Scabies looking wistful and powder-pufted in the pica, you could be forgiven for thinking The Damned had been taken away and rebuilt quietly by thwr new megahorne, MCA. A lot of peorrie who own Damned records like 'Love Song' or 'Neat Neat Neat' have never even heard of Bryn or Roman, The Damneds wildemess years have beenepiconea Roman Jrgg he really is called Roman Jugg. tact tans - enters the conversabon Of the changes in The Damned, he says, "I think it's rnore unified now. When Captain was nrith us, towards the and it was alwaysserydiwicus, Captain having his different record company, different managernent; he was very much segregated from The Damned. Now ifs like we're all pulling together Rat"'lfslikebeinginagrospi" Funny, that The Damned always struck you as a group They were never a vehide for any one person, be it Vanian on Gothic drone, Scabies on Thrashing, or Sensible on orange furry tumpers They might have been a shambles, but.. Nota group? Rat. 'I know that now he's gone, it feels like a real group with four people that are playing very important roles in the other three's lives Everything's kina of come together" Later, Rat will reminisce, 'The Captain's a very much larger THIS IS, for better or for worse, not The Damned we knew and often reviled. If it was possible for a group like this to 'mature', I'd say it had happened even though they may sblI be fond of Bacardi by the bottle and they ablI have an audiecco who greet them with a cheery "SCABIES ISA WAN-KERI SCABIES IS A WAN-KERI." I hear you say, don't be daft, The Damned are the biggest prats that ever walked the earth They take their trousers off on stage and show their bottoms and play Deep Purple's 'Black Nighf, and, besides, their first album was recorded at 33 and speeded up to make it sound like Punk, you say Ah, but things change There are fewer bottoms since the Captain went, the rendihona of 'Black Night' am replaced by a good attempt at 'Lust For Ufe' which actually fits in a Damned set now nd, come to that 'Damned a: Damned Damned' wasn't recorded at any funny speeds either Nine years of anarchy, chaos and destruction (remember when their label said 'three years'?) have to have some effect on even the most reddiviat punk rockers, and The Damned, as people, have become almost, er, sensible. Thoughtful, even. Rat. "I think a lot of the reason why The Damned have been so ignored is people have only ever read live reviews or they sew that Whiafle Teat. Then it becomes, oh, that's what The Damned do, and that's it. The real problem we had was gethng people to actually listen to the records we made atfihout them having that preconceived idea of, hem's a three chord punk band that kinds sing out of tune with a drummer that plays too much We've never been afraid to try something. If I think, ooh, that might sound good, I'll do it, if it doesn't work out too bad but at least I've tried it I'll never know othernese "The Damned at their best are absolutely brilliant, at their worst, ifs a disaster area." 'Course, it's easy to disagree wrib that; I do. While life would not be complete without the bimonthly ainngs of 'Smash It Up' and 'New Rose' (and their accompanying Lps), and while even 'Gomly Fiendish' was a little pop gem, the first Madness album seen through the eyes of Syd Barrett on a very bad day, I can take or leave 'The Black Album' or 'Strawberries' But The Damned take what they do quite seriously. They talk proudly about their "unique" audience - and any band that has fans who come down to Aberdeen from the Shetland Islands must inspire some sort of weird devoton, they do telk to the punters ('ilme to meet the Hillmansi' says Rat cheerfully as we go into the evening's venue), and in thwr own cartoony, rock '5' roll way, they eeem to want to give back as much as Unde Bono Hey, and now they' re pop stars "Suocess," drawts a suddenly arrived Vanian, 'would be all the mom appredated for the nine an a half years of struggle. We knan how to deal with it, and plus, we'I enjoy it..." "I think The Damned have come up the hard way," ponders Rat, 'we're probably the Rockys the music business. It gets embarrassing when you talk to people,'cos they talk about the latest scam, and it's like, oh yeah, done it, that happened to me, y' know? And it's like virtually everything everyone says 'They's. run off with all the moneyl"' Of the toture, Rat dedares, 'I've always believed that The Damned can become one of the major boring bands of the vnorld, that then becomes the dinocaur that becomes obsolete. Hopefuty. I'd lose itl" Of the past he reminisces 'One minute you were nobody, and the next you're playing to 3fioD people chanfing your name out, saying God aren't you great? and befom that all you ever got was hassled by the police and fucrin' people in bo~er hats Eu'~' you weird looks And what of the present? "You get weird looks from people in bowler hats and Adidas T-sfens and deaignerjeans... I RATHER like the idea of The I Damned as chart po~stars; it I might only happen once every three or four years, but you can't have everything Also, apart from the fact that 'Grimly' or even the new single, 'Shadow Of Love', have more humour and life in them than a thousand copies of 'View To A Kill', The Damned have another advantage over their appalling chart chums. While Simon and John vie to see who can come up with the most abaurd solo project, The Damned sit about in an Aberdeen bar and simply revel in each other's Company. "He's a bleeding phenomenon, this geecerl" Rat suddenly announces, overcome after the merest glance at his chum Vanian, 'I've never met anyone like hirel' Dave protests vainly, his languid Transylvanian drawl mined with a small slice of London, 'what a fing to say at this bree of the aftemoon I' Scabies plougha on wildly: '5 that man was tucking puthn' a new engine in a Ford Cortina, he'd still look Immaculatel' "Yeah, well," says Vanias, languidly, "I've had a couple hundred years to work on it The Damned as the last old pals act of pop? Put that on a beer-mat and see what happens,.. than life person. He's vary hard to hold down when he's got 15 pints inside him."