Oi! Uberfall-Denver's controversial punk band.

“We are united” was Uberfall’s rallying call for scene unity. The members of the band seemed to have links to all aspects of the scene from skinheads, to punks, to goths and even befriending artists and experimental musicians. The reach of their friendships and connections were vast and varied.

Once the group formed, it was impossible to get away from noting the band’s kin to a swastika logo spray painted in alleyways and dumpsters around the Capitol Hill neighborhood and beyond. Uberfall was even a household name amongst detectives within the Denver Police Department as I learned firsthand sitting in the back of an unmarked car along with two friends being questioned about the so-called Uberfall gang. To read about the incident click HERE. The band certainly found themselves in many spotlights. 

Musically, the group’s niche was stop on a dime crisp sing-alongs. That didn’t keep the band from experimenting with slow dergy and sometimes noisy tunes. Uberfall recorded a 10-song demo that never saw the light of day due to a lack of funds for a properly release. Plus the continuous line-up changes plagued the band since the group’s inception. One of the running jokes was, “Raise your hand if you’ve never been in Uberfall.”

Uberfall was more than a one-liner. The depths of their sideline controversies and shenanigans were largely disconnected from their music. One of the misconceptions was that they were merely a band, when in fact the group’s in-your-face guerrilla art tactics generated strong reactions from the public and authority figures. Big John and Flye were basically the visionaries of the band. Eventually one strong personality inched out the other and everything downward spiraled from there. All the ingredients were there to create a legacy, but the band couldn’t maintain their charismatic mojo that made them a momentary sensation. Big John, Flye along with Carl shed some insights to the inner working of what it was like to be in Uberfall.

An early line-up of the band. Original photograph from DMT fanzine. Brush and ink drawing by Bob Rob (Medina)

Your origins?

Big John: I grew up in Cheyenne, Wyoming.  I was part of Wyoming’s first hardcore punk rock band, Spontaneous Down Syndrome. We played our first gig in Colorado at a nice place. They had a deli tray and beer waiting for us. We were really impressed. They called us and asked us to come down and play, we were like, “Sure.” Then they asked if we wanted anything special. So we said, a 12-pack of good imported beer and deli tray with an assortment of meats and cheeses. When we arrived at the show, they took us into the back and pointed us to our dressing room, “The beer is in the fridge over there!” I looked over at Paul Howard and said, "Oh my God, they were being serious." I think that's the night I met Pete Flye and we started hanging out. Anytime we'd play Denver I'd stay over at Flye's house. Paul had other friends in Denver he stayed with. That's how we got Uberfall going. I didn't want to live in Cheyenne anymore. The town was really boring in comparison with the scene in Denver. We played about 5-6 gigs in Denver before I finally moved.

How did you get into punk being in Wyoming?

Big John: My parents got a separation and my mom and I moved into an apartment. One day I'm in the apartment and hear music coming from the next-door neighbor. It sounded really cool and I liked it. I wasn't shy at all, I put down the book I was reading and walked over to the neighbor’s house and knocked on his door. He opened it and I said, "Wow, what kind of music is that?" He said, "Punk rock." This guy was an English teacher at the high school I was going to. So the guy who would later become my teacher introduced me to punk rock. At that point I had been mostly listening to the Velvet Underground, David Bowie, and Iggy Pop.

And you Flye?

Flye: I got a scholarship to a private school and that is where I met Carl. I started going there in the 4^th grade. Carl and I started hanging before I got kicked out in the 8^th grade. I didn’t do well academically plus I wanted to grow out my hair, which they didn’t allow. So we had a special meeting during which I told them art and music shouldn’t be mandatory classes. I eventually went to vocational school and Carl also went there. At the time he had turned me on to Bad Religion, Circle Jerks… I met the skins because of little Sammy who went to the same school. I befriended Sumo at Wax Trax, he was the guy that didn’t have any attitude. He would always give me fliers trying to get me to go to shows. I had wide spectrum of friends.

I went to school with the original bassist, Mike Lee. Since he knew I was taking art classes, I think by default asked me to design a sticker for the band. While I was in Biology class trying to draw the perfect skull with the Uberfall logo on the forehead, my teacher, an Orthodox Jew walked past my desk and kindly asked me not to draw what she thought resembled a swastika. Would you consider the band’s logo as a way to stir the pot, to make people feel uneasy?

Big John: The name came about because our drummer Matt Johnson had a party one night. We were trying to think of a name for our band and Matt grabbed a German dictionary and said, "I'm just going to randomly open a page and the first word I put my finger on will be our band name.” Flye and I thought, "Ok, that sounds cool." He opened it up, spun his finger around and put it down in the word, uberfall. When we saw the definition, “to overthrow” we collectively thought, “That’s cool!” Out of that we were trying to make a logo, and the U and the F together looked kind of like a swastika and thought it was pretty hilarious. We went ahead with that. It was meant to be a red herring, make people think one thing then have it mean something totally different.

Flye: The logo definitely served its purpose. You want a symbol that draws attention and demands an explanation. Something easy to draw on a school desk, spray paint on a wall or paint on a jacket. Most of all, with punk rock, you need controversy. Look at bands like Dead Kennedys...now it's almost a household name. It’s very offensive. Same thing with their logo...how many kids had that logo on their jackets and couldn't name one DK album? The UF logo may have been somewhat of a joke, but I considered it more of a promotional gimmick.

Uberfall art. Unknown. Courtesy of Pete Flye

Did you get a lot of shit for that?

Big John: We got tons of shit for that! Anytime we had our jackets with our logo painted on them people would get so mad. It was great for us-we loved for people to get mad; it was attention. I know it got the local police a little worried. I thought that was just awesome.

Did they think you were some sort of gang?

Big John: Yeah, they thought we were some type of underground neo-Nazi punk gang. Then the whole Christian’s thing happened. Christian and Omar took over a space on Larimer Street, which they appropriately called Christian's. It was basically a commune with a bunch of artists, punk rockers, and weirdoes living there. The brothers had been separated from their parents when they were young and put into a home for boys where they were mistreated by the staff. The staff would tell them stuff like, "You know you need some new sheets for you bed since they are really dirty and maybe you'd like another blanket, but we don't feel good giving that to you unless you tell us something really private about your lives." The brothers would tell them things and then they would use those things to keep them in the home instead of finding them a place to live outside of the system.

There was an former military guy living at Christian’s and knew how to make bombs and stuff like that. He left brochures and pipe bomb making materials outside everyone's door one day. Christian and Omar got into making them. Omar sent one to the head of the program that he and his brother had basically been trapped in when they were kids. It was suppose to detonate when she opened the package, but it didn't. They found out the Federal Postal Inspector and the FBI was looking for them so they disappeared. Nobody knew the pair’s whereabouts. They were good about not telling anybody. Since they couldn't find them, they decided to investigate all of us. That's when the government came up with the gay neo-Nazi conspiracy theory and linked Uberfall to it.

Gay neo-Nazi conspiracy theory?

Big John: They knew Christian was gay so they just threw the rest in there. They thought that Uberfall was some sort of organized neo-Nazi recruiting arm of something larger. I don't know what they thought, but they figured we were a part of it. Their one-way window vans were parked out in front of Christian’s and in the parking lot behind it. I remember when I had to go in and talk with the FBI and the Federal Postal Inspector. There was this camera image of Mike Lee on the back bumper of one of the vans shaking it. They were, "You know this illegal, and this is considered interfering with an investigation." I said, "Mike just thought it was a random person's van, he didn't know it was the FBI. “You're in such secret vans, how could we know you guys were the Feds?" One of them tells me, "You're a real smartass."

Some of this came out in Westword, the article was titled: Pipe Dreams.

Big John: A lot of it did come out. You know, the Feds even had our phones tapped. We'd make-up fake conversations pretending to know were Christian was, stuff like, "He's in Hawaii now" The FBI would later interview somebody else and say, "We know that Christian is in Hawaii, which island is he living on?" We were passing around bogus information; it was pretty funny.

What happened to Omar and Christian?

Big John: Well, they both got caught and went to prison for a long time. I don't recall the outcome after that.

They were born to be institutionalized-from a home for boys to prison?

Big John: It's sad. They were both really nice guys. I just think the system fucked them up.

Flye on the cover Rocky Mountain News Sunday Magazine. Collection of the author. 

Do you also think the attention you got from the police was partially due to all the band's logos painted everywhere?

Big John: It was. We'd make little propaganda fliers and randomly put them up in different places around town that would say stuff like: The time for the revolution is now. We did stuff just to fuck with people and authority. We knew they were watching, so we wanted to give them something to do.

They should be out there fighting crime instead of chasing a bunch of punk rockers wasting taxpayer’s money.

Big John: I was into graphic art before I knew it was called that. It was like a little hobby making propaganda fliers. I would only make 10 or 15 and take spray adhesive and put them up in different parts of town in places like Cherry Creek.

Did the attention help popularize and propel the band?

Big John: Definitely. It was band propaganda for sure. The more shit we could stir the more people were interested.

At what point did you finally stop playing in Uberfall?

Big John: I thought about why I left Uberfall…then went, “Oh, yeah” and remembered the band having different people in it all the time. It was a revolving door of members. It wasn't even the same band anymore. Towards the end when I left it was like 5 months of different people. It was just Flye and I.

I left shortly after I joined Idiots Revenge. I was also doing my project Control Corporation, which was techno/electric stuff. We had those lovely samplers and stuff like that. That was mainly my project and sometimes Scott Hosterman would join along. We really didn't play out as a band more than once. I also did this industrial project with Flye and a couple of other people. It was basically this percussion thing with found objects from around the Packing House. We thought making sound with the objects would be interesting and it was.

Carl: I honestly don’t remember leaving the band. The place where we were practicing got sold or the renters got evicted and it took me like 2 months to get my drums back. As I recall that time was kind of a hiatus for UberFall. I was going to this Shamanic church at the time, and I got Mike Lee involved and he disappeared for like two weeks on some crazy camping spirit quest. Those are the last things I remember about my time with the band.

Flier collection of Pete Flye. 

Denver was a hotbed for experimental music, My theory is I think underground music in Denver had an art element to it because early punk shows happened in spaces like the Pirate Art Gallery, and later the Art Department, Flash Flood Art Space, The Core…beside people in Colorado were somewhat isolated from the coasts and didn’t have any sort of templates to follow. Do you think there was a strong relationship or a correlation between the two?

Big John: I really think there was. I met Bert Bodnen, Hugh Caney and Paul Dickerson at Christian’s and really got along with those guys and they started introducing me to industrial music. I was over at Kelly Cowan’s house and I picked up one of his records and asked him about it? He said I wouldn't like it. I said, "It looks really interesting, would you play it for me?"  It was SPK. I liked it. He was shocked and asked if I wanted to listen to other stuff. And I was, "Yeah." It was through meeting them how I became involved with industrial/experimental music.

What was the relationship between punk/hardcore/industrial music in Denver at that time?

Big John: Those guys were interested in the punk scene because it was underground. I think though that they met other people. They had access to people putting on shows, like Headbanger.

I remember asking Mike Lee what he was doing one evening, and he said we're having a band meeting with our manager? That sort of caught me off guard. At the time, I didn't think local punk bands had managers. Managers seemed anti-punk in a way. He described it to me that all the members sat around and talked about stuff. I guess in today's terminology, it sounded like you guys had group therapy with a life coach (LAUGHTER)...I don't know, maybe because the band was a revolving door of band members. Perhaps Big John and Pete Flye were just difficult people to be in a band with and you needed that mediator to make sure the band got along.

Big John: Was Carl Frank one of our drummers?

He was the drummer on the band's demo!

Big John: Oh, now I remember Carl. We had gone through so many drummers. It was like that mockumentary Spinal Tap. We had a manager. We met these two guys from Nederland, CO: Dan Lockridge and Robert Hall. They were fun to hang out with and both had a lot of money. When we met Dan he was talking about wanting to manage and record bands. When he said "record" Flye and I both looked at each other and asked Dan if he wanted to be our manager. He casually said, “Yeah, ok." That's how we got into the studio. It was great because we didn't have to look for shows anymore, he just found them for us.

Flye: Dan also opened Flash Flood Art Space. We helped him clean-up the place and made it so bands could play gigs in there. As for Uberfall playing shows, a lot of times we would throw our guitars into a car and show up to gigs and ask if we could play. Maybe borrow another band’s drum set and amps. Sometimes Dan would slightly manipulate other bands into letting us borrow their equipment. That’s what happened at the Flash Flood show that Nate mentioned in his interview. We weren’t on the bill and while everyone waited for Bum Kon to play, we got on stage and did a couple of songs. We probably played a 10-minute version of Sex and Violence.  

Carl: I got to record with UF on this session and it was a really good time. We were recording at Barking Spider in Boulder and staying with the band’s manager in Nederland. We talked about releasing it, but I think I had moved on before that came to fruition. I don’t think anyone had money at the time for duplication and artwork.

Flier collection of the author.

Uberfall's first show was my band's first show too, at the Packing House. We opened, but you guys already had a fan base, so you went on 4th or 5th. I think you blazed through your set and people wanted more. So you played Oi! Uberfall twice.

Big John: We thought the 10 songs would be enough. When you're playing everything speeds up. The three-minute songs turn into a minute and twenty second song. As for people coming to see us that night, it was Pete Flye’s doing. He was a kid that people liked. He was super social and got out there told people about coming to see his band.

Flye: One of my main objectives was scene unity.  Not only did I really like the Oi! sound, but I really loved the early L.A. stuff and the whole D.C. movement. We tried to incorporate these influences to draw a wide fan base. We also tried to book shows with bands with different followings and sounds, not only did this draw a diverse crowd but it allowed people to hear us and other bands that normally wouldn't. I loved playing shows with Mau Mau 55, Human Head Transplant, A.S.F. etc. 

In the beginning, Uberfall was more punk than Oi!  Your look and Oi! sound didn’t develop until later. It seemed that the band was hitting its stride both in image and music. Describe that time.

Flye: We all pretty much had or hands in the mix when we made songs. Sometimes I would show up with some lyrics and John or Mike would come up with a melody. There were times John would show up to practice with a whole song. "Oi! Uberfall" started out as a bass riff Mike came up with and I wrote the lyrics. Carl would always have good input on tempo and structure of songs. As the band slowly disintegrated I was leaning towards the Oi! sound and was looking for members to fill that genre...that was my big mistake, looking for members to fit the mold instead of letting members mold the band like we did in the early days.

It was difficult to find a practice space especially since we had problems keeping members. We shared a practice space with H.H.T. on 11^th and Broadway above a beauty salon. Later in the band’s career I told a guy he could be our manager because his mom or aunt let us practice in their basement.

The name, logo, the charisma of the band members seemed to be the initial success of the band. Uberfall seemed like that band that had potential to go far, but it never did.

Big John: What happened to us is we...certain people in the band started taking it too seriously and started to show a lot of ego. Every time we had good band members, an argument would happen and they would quit. And we had to go back looking for replacements. With every new batch of people they progressively were less talented. I think what we had when we first started was great with a lot of potential. Even after the 2nd or 3rd generation still had the potential but it just got worse.

The more Oi! version of Uberfall. Original photograph unknown. Brush and ink drawing by Bob Rob (Medina)

I hear you on that. I know by 1986, Flye even recruited me to play in the band and we went over to some death rock guy's house. He was decked out in his black clothes and white make-up. After trying him out, Flye and I get back into the car and earnestly asked me what I thought. It was hard to imagine that guy playing those songs. To me there were always two different Uberfall bands. At the beginning there was the casual, come as you are, let’s have some fun and spray paint our logo around town, type of band. Then there was the later period Oi!/street punk looking guys Pete had recruited that were good as well, but the band couldn’t maintain the momentum. The band eventually took a dip and seemed to be trying out anyone who had a car and equipment. I understand wanting to keep a band on life support, but in retrospect I think Flye should have taken his talent and done something different.

Big John: It just got way to serious. I think in our punk scene, the more fun you had, the more successful you were. Sure, you did your practices and tried to become better, but the main thing was just to have fun.

Like the Lisa Geyer song, Bad Girl?

Big John: That was just fucking with Lisa.

Flye: She wanted that song dedicated to her and always asked us to play it for her. That’s why we put that song on the demo. Come to think of it, the music from that song was from of Big John’s old bands. I think he might have done that with several of our songs.

Yeah, when John joined my band, Idiots Revenge he would say such and such part was from one of his old bands. We even took an old Uberfall song, played it backwards at a slow tempo. John was a master at recycling melodies.

Flye: (Laughter). Yup.

John, one of the interesting aspects about your personality is that you are a cross between a conceptual and performance artist in that you come up with these ideas and you try to see how far you can get away with things. Even when you played in Idiots Revenge we had that song ‘Not My Fault’ and you would target Anarchy Annie, and the A.S.F. girls, who in turn thought we were a sexist band. We totally weren't!

Big John: You’re right we weren't, that's what was funny. I remember being at a party and Annie came up to me and said, "Why are you guys such dicks, why do you have to be such a dick? And I said, "Why are you even saying this to me?" And she goes, "Your music, you're just nasty sexist dicks" Finally, I go, "You take our music seriously? Can't you tell when somebody is poking fun at you, we don't really want to make anyone angry, we're just teasing." I'm not going to be singing, “Stop your bitchin' and get back in the kitchen” and be serious about it. I'm not a caveman. So she finally understands it's a joke. After that conversation they all liked us. I like to push the envelope and do little pokes at people and see the reaction. I never mean any harm. It's more along the lines of, “Lets see what they do if I do this.”

Burn any bridges with this approach?

Big John: I think it's about a 50/50 deal. I burnt some and made others stronger.

After making the demo did you want to make a record and go out on the road?

Big John: We were hoping to put out a record and there was some interest. I don't know what happened to that. Dan was actually a good manager and he grilled the label with questions and told us that we wouldn't have been happy with the deal and we would get screwed in the end. In retrospect being screwed wouldn't have been that bad if it got our record out. (Laughter) I don't know, we had our principles back then. We did play out of town like Boulder, Ft. Collins, and Greely...a poorly attended show.

In the interview I did with Ted of Dead Silence, I asked him what went down between his band and Uberfall. What was your version of that?

Flye: I think the interview you did with Ted was the first time I heard about Kevin referring to me as a Polish Nazi. Dead Silence was putting on a benefit one time and we reached out and offered to play. They didn’t want bands playing they thought would bring out the skins. In the true Oi! fashion, like on the Oi! compilation albums John wrote a poem about that incident then we wrote a song called Dead Silence. At shows, John would read the poem before going on into the song. One of the lines in the song goes, “Waited for a call but all we got was dead silence." We had fun like that.  

Happy World and Hippies: Shane's world.

*Please help support this project in becoming a book though my Kickstarter campaign. Please visit: 
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/802254760/denvoid-and-the-cowtown-punks

The word, the term, the very idea of anything associated with “hippy” has always been the anti-Christ, the kryptonite, the Ebola of punk rock. As punk rockers we all steered clear of that word and immediately quashed any notions that punks and hippies shared any common ground, much less belonged in the same room together. The H word suggests visions of brightly decorated VW vans, love-ins and sitting around a campfire passing a joint talking about peace-a far cry from punk.

Certainly the Sex Pistols resented the movement with their slogan, Never Trust a Hippy. Black Flag/SST artist, Raymond Pettibon dedicated many of his drawings and even released one of his chapbooks with the call-to-action title: O.D. a Hippy, Legalize Heroin, Ban Hippies. Hippies couldn’t even catch a break from one of Hardcore’s most forgiving and open-minded bands, 7 Seconds who sang the line “succeeding where the hippies failed.” Lets face it, punk was anti-hippy even though members of both counter-culture groups shared similar sentiments about non-violence, non-conformity, anti-system, and unity.

Courtesy of the internet.

Not all punks passionately hated hippies; most were probably indifferent. But the association with long hair versus the buzz cut look lead to profiling and harassment within the Denver scene. Punks had the notion of embracing the concept of tolerance but even that idea proved to have limitations when it came to certain aesthetics and groups of people. Perhaps punks were only barely tolerant of each other.  

Happy World versus Hippy World.

Denver’s Happy World was NOT a hippy band even though some people in the scene referred to them as Hippy World. Members of the group did flirt with drugs, psychedelic imagery and aesthetics, rightfully branding the group somewhat. However the band’s music paints another story, one that doesn’t summon images flower power. I think of crunchy, driving, snappy guitar lines interplayed by breaks of tuneful bass notes topped with sudden and unexpected tempo changes only begins to describe the band. Had the group stuck around longer, the music would have been the ideal soundtrack had Atari released a punk rock video arcade game.

Yeah, Happy World was definitely a 100% punk band in both sound and attitude. They were a product of the suburbs and all the boredom which led to experimentation with sounds, drugs, or otherwise. The band came at the tail end of the fading hardcore thrash sound and took all those sensibilities and individual musical influences and put it the blender to inch out their unique groove.

Happy World was somewhat of a loveable oddity that was part of the hodgepodge Denver sound. By the mid-80’s the Denver sound meant most bands were off forging their own styles and the only common thread was geographical location.

Although Nate Butler was a critical equation in forming the band in 1983, he departed shortly after in search of new musical horizons on the west coast. I’ve always considered Happy World as Shane, Dave, and Gant. The unit put out a handful of great albums and when they played live, especially in the later years, they transcended punk and were on to something much bigger. Watching the trio at their best was like capturing a glimpse of people lost in their own world locked into a channel trapped in a collective mindset seducing the audience with their infectious synergy. 

The harsh eventuality for Happy World was the all too common rock-and-roll story of addiction and substance abuse. Drugs destroyed the band. Sadly, there’s no other way to sugarcoat that statement. The good news is that Shane is a fighter. He is someone who wants to overcome his challenges and move forward with his life. We chatted several times on the phone and through e-mail about what lies ahead for him. I’m hopeful about his musical aspirations and art-making endeavors. I appreciate and admire Shane for being open and honest about his time in Happy World. 

             

How did you get into punk, what was your first show?

I lived by Wax Trax until the sixth grade before moving to the suburbs. I would save up my allowance to buy records there. I went from the Beatles and the Rolling Stones type of stuff to Bowie. I graduated to Bowie early on. I was going to buy the KISS album Destroyer and they gave me the first Ramones record. That was in 1976, I was 10 and that was pre-Sex Pistols. I embarrassingly went through a progrock phase listening to Rush and Yes. During that time, I was listening to punk, but not all the time. I was into the English punk. I didn’t know about the Germs or any of the American punk bands except the Ramones and Devo. In 1982 I saw a flier for a show on Washington Street. I figured out the address and I had a couple of friends with a car drove us to it. The show was the Frantix, White Trash, and Bum Kon. It had to be an early Bum Kon show. I thought it was fucking awesome. The venue was a little fucked-up place; it was definitely ready to be torn down. I also met Headbanger at the show. I was blown away-I did not know American punk rock existed. That was my first show and I loved it to the max and I even slammed around to it a bit. The bands were kick ass. I kept going to shows after that.

Maybe it was Slovenian Hall?

It very well may have been Slovenian Hall. But it didn't look like a hall in my memory. Anyhow, when I was in my San Fran band; The Boy Explodes I wrote a song called Slovenian Hall. The lyrics are: In the halls, Slovenian Hall, The Frantix, White Trash and Bun Kon... A wild sound a dangerous crowd that's where we found the underground.

Happy World. Oil, ink on paper. Bob Rob (Medina)

What made you want to start a band?

Happy World was my first punk band. I had been in a band during junior high with some friends. We only had a couple of new wavey songs. Happy World was the first real band. What made me want to start was that other people our age were playing shows like Peace Core, Bum Kon…it made us less scared to do it.

I played with my brother, Gant who only had a snare drum. By then I was going to Mountain Open High, an alternative school. Gant played the snare and I played around with him. He started getting pretty good and I thought, wow, we could start a band because I was already inspired from other punk rock kids playing.

How did you hook-up with Nate Butler to play bass for Happy World?

I saw him at shows and I knew him from the neighborhood. Nate, Davey, and I lived within a few blocks of each other. Nate was older and I remember him when I was a younger kid, getting into skating way back when Skateboarding magazine came out. There was a big paved hill that the older kids would go down. Nate was a part of that older group plus he had a quarter pipe ramp. This was back before anyone had those.

Nate was a skater?

Oh yeah, he was a wicked skateboarder. I saw that guy zipping down that fucking hill standing up and I'm like, “Who the fuck is that?” Some one said, “Those kids are the crazy kids.” We went to Nate’s house where the ramp was and watched people skate. That’s where I first met him. He was playing in U.S.A. in 1983 and Happy World started playing at the end of ’83. We needed a bass player, so I just asked him. Nate played on our first record. He was an important part of Happy Would and we wouldn’t have existed had he not started Gant and I off. We originally played our first show with a new wave kid named Ken. Ken lost interest because he had a new wave band that played parties. Davey took over seven months later after Nate left Denver. Davey and I went to the same school and we were best friends.

The name Happy World?

I remember having a list of names and the phrase happy world was an ironic name with hippy sensibilities. I was a hippy and a stoner and had seen the Grateful Dead nine times by the time I was 15-years old.

You were a stoner?

I smoked weed from the time I woke-up until I went to bed from the age of 14 until I got into hard drugs. Pot sucks now.

Happy World sort of rejected the typical hardcore sound and in lieu of forging your own direction. What vision did you have for the band?

A lot of it was Davey on the first record for sure. He was into Zappa and the Minutemen, I was a huge Sonic Youth fan. When we first recorded, we brought in Social Distortion’s 1945 single to reference because we wanted our record to sound like it production wise. The engineer misunderstood, he thought we meant our sound. I'm not really sure why we sounded like we did. I was a Deadhead into the Sex Pistols, KISS, Beatles and Bowie. All that was influential on the way I played guitar in Happy World. All hardcore is basically minor pentatonic scales…the Rolling Stones kind of shit, but speeded up. I took playing serious since junior high school.  My training was in notes, scales, and chords. I learned what to play on top of other notes. We weren’t afraid to experiment. In many ways I feel the band conformed too much towards the hardcore sound.

How did you fit into the scene since you considered yourself a Deadhead and had the Bowie influence?  

I was into punk right away because punks are individuals. I initially gravitated towards that. Denver was behind the times because punk was already dead in a lot of places like San Francisco and L.A.. By 1984 the original punk bands had all changed and were growing out their hair. Then came Grunge, that shit was all made up by the press, those guys all had long hair because punk had become lame.

Do you think the Frantix and later the Fluid was the original, quote unquote grunge band?

Definitely, Happy World was sounding that way to towards the end. We were way more rock and roll. We grew our hair because that’s what was going on in Denver. The suburban jocks got into punk rock and that is when the violence started. Punk was originally about non-conformity and I got that right away. Unfortunately hardcore became a conformist scene. You had to look a certain way to be accepted and Happy World got caught up in that. We played with Agnostic Front and the Cro Mags at CBGBs 1985 or 86. I was thinking that we were going to get beat up because we had long hair and there were 100's of punk rockers and skinheads in the Bowery and at that show. Of course we didn't get beat up because we were a punk rock band. The point was punk rock was conformists at that time; mohawks, shaved heads, leather jackets… People took hold of the negative aspects of punk rock. That attitude came to Denver and people were beat-up and killed. The irony is punks were hurting outcasts. Some factions became the right-wing of punk rock.

Punx Unite, Assholes Die, did you get shit for writing that song?

It was about violence at shows. I went to a lot of punk shows, knew a lot of people and hung out at places like Kennedy's. I would watch people at shows throw the new people around. People would get punched because they were new and they just wanted to check out the bands maybe because they had never been to a punk show. And people would get hurt for no fucking reason because some dickhead didn't like him because of his hair or not looking punk enough or whatever fucking reason. There's no reason for doing that to some for just watching a band or maybe dancing around a little bit. They weren't thrashing around or running into people or anything that would warrant that. The song was about seeing that violence time and time again. And it sucked. We never got shit for playing that song. The people that were at the shows didn't know what the song was about. The assholes didn't understand they were being assholes.

Collection of Tom Headbanger.

Do you think the people who were being assholes in you opinion were part of a weeding out process to see if people belonged at our shows or not?

In a sense maybe, depends what it’s about. That's where the conformist jock mentality came into hardcore. Why would you have to make people belong at a show? Especially with a place like Kennedy's Warehouse; they needed people to go and support the shows. I saw so many fucking empty shows at that place. I'm talking about Discharge and bands like that. Empty. Maybe 50 people most was considered a good show at Kennedy's. And you wonder the person who got punched for no fucking reason except that he didn't look the part. I think shows would have been way more crowded had there not been the "bullying" and conformist violence against new peeps checking out the gigs. The song isn't specifically about anyone in particular; it's about the consistent violence I saw.

People always make a comment of how young Gant looks on the first EP, How old was he when it was released?

When it was recorded he might have been 13, but he was 14 when it was released.

The first tour?

It was Oklahoma and maybe Kansas City. It wasn't easy getting shows unless you were somewhat hooked -up. We went to the east coast twice and did really well. However, when we wanted to play the south, most of the shows were cancelled, except Texas, it was always kick-ass playing down there. 

When I would see the band, especially during the later years, it seemed like you guys really locked into a groove. Did you feel that way? It seemed like you got lost in playing and that the songs just naturally flowed?   

It was a lot fun and much of that was being a 3-piece. We practiced two-three times a week. Almost every practice started with jamming. Dave would come up with something and I would play on top of that and Gant would have an idea for the beat. Plus everyone listened to different music and that brought a lot to our sound as well. Gant got into metal like all drummers do. That was a time when metal didn't leave such a bad taste on my mouth.

How did you hook up with Rabid Cat Records?

We were looking for a label. Rabid Cat signed different bands. We played with Scratch Acid often and they were on Rabid Cat. Many of label’s bands were different sounding.

Tell me about the rumor that you were trying to get signed with SST.

I tried SST. Greg was always nice to me. I knew Greg from promoting shows. I worked with the guy Jordan Schwartz from SST’s booking agency; Global Network. In the end, getting signed with SST didn’t work out.

You had a fanzine at one time didn’t you, what made you want to start one?

 I can't even remember the name of it. It was fun and easy to do because I had access to a copy machine. I started it because I was a fan and wanted to be more involved in the scene. I looked-up to Flipside and MRR. I figured if other people did it… It was similar to being in band. I eventually ran out of time and interests in continuing it. If I had other people that were into it, that would have totally been a different story, I would have kept it going. 

How did you get into promoting shows? What sort of problems did you encounter booking shows with bands or audiences?

That happened because I knew Headbanger and knew that sometimes he needed help with shows. I started scouting out places to put them on. I helped Headbanger find the Eagles Lodge up in Thornton. I liked doing shows, it was similar to booking a tour in many ways. A show Headbanger and I pulled off…Tom had an idea and I ran with it. It had to do with the SST booking agency. They called and said the Swans want to come to Denver, but they wanted way too much money. But the Swans were ONLY going to play Denver and L.A. period. Nowhere else would do it. At the most, 1% of the people that saw that show knew what they were seeing. It was history. I didn't even like the Swans in that era. I knew their music a little bit, but it was an undertaking and we pulled it off. I had my ears stuff with toilet paper standing there while they played. It was so loud and I wasn't that close to the stage and my ribs were vibrating because the bass. And they destroyed Mark Thorpe’s drums.

Promoting helped me with my people skills especially because I had to tell bands they weren't getting the money they were guaranteed. (Laughter) The only reason why the Swans made any money that night is because the DC 3 van broke down. People actually went to the show to see DC 3 only because Dez was in Black Flag. No one would have gone if they knew what DC 3 sounded like.

I was there and it was a crazy show for sure especially when the little skirmish in front of the stage broke out. Michael Gira started screaming at the people fighting; DON'T STOP! KILL EACH OTHER over and over. It was vey confrontational, but funny. Most of the time bands try to stop fighting at shows instead of encouraging it.  

The band was gracious at the end of the night when I told them, "You know we went through fucking hell to give you this money, and yeah, it's a few hundred dollars short, but here it is. It was a bold thing to do. In retrospect I would have not done that show alone. Headbanger made it happen. I knew it would be cool to bring a band like the Swans, they were a very heavy band.

Other crazy shows?

The Lady's Choice was all me, all by myself. That place had the best set-up for the shows. It was jazz club, Denver was had a serious jazz culture in the 30's or 40's. Famous jazz musicians played there and that place was a kick-ass club. I brought D.R.I., Agent Orange, D.O.A., JFA...and those bands sounded really good in there. The Lady’s Choice was located down in Five Points, it was hardcore part of town. The neighbors pretty much left people alone. I believe the punks and the skins knew better than to fuck with anyone that lived around there. It was amazing that we did shows there without anyone actually ever getting hurt. People didn't fuck with my shows because they liked me and because I sold fucking weed and had parties. And if you fucked-up at my shows you were barred from the shows and barred from my parties. People behaved for the most part.

A Denver police captain’s daughter had been going to shows there and his wife calls him at work and asks, “Do you know where our daughter is?” The cops raided the club and that was it.

Look out Michael Jackson, here comes Happy World. Collection of Tom Headbanger.

At some point you started to get heavy into drugs.

I had a drug problem from the gate. Waking up and smoking weed until the time you go to bed at the age of 14 is a fucking problem, a serious problem. I got into heavy drugs because I tried them. I got into opium; I don't even say the name of the drug because a lot of my friends died using it. If you shoot it it's dangerous. At best it's 5% pure. The only reason why I'm even alive is because in NYC I forgot to bring my needle with me. I can say this about drugs, I learned everything there is to learn about drugs really fucking early on. Addiction runs in my family. I believe it is a genetic thing. I knew I had a problem with drugs, but I didn't really accept it on such a deep level on what a hardcore addict I am. I can't use a little. I tried. My biggest regret in life is selling LSD. I didn't know what people did with it. I don't know if someone took a couple of hits and never came back and is fried forever or....Drugs cost me everything band wise, music wise, life wise…it wasn’t worth it.  

Tell me about your awesome handwriting? Was that part of the band’s aesthetics?

That's just how I write, I don't even do that on purpose. During 5^th grade my teacher made me come in for hours every morning for more than half the year to work on handwriting. We went over and over all the letters. When we came back from Christmas break, the teacher finally said "Shane, you're really trying hard, aren't you?" I was, "Yeah, I've been trying, I've been trying the whole damn time!" I didn't really say damn, but she goes, "It’s ok, Shane, you don't have to do this anymore." That was it. I kind of like my handwriting. Maybe one day I'll show some of my art I make with it.

Happy World art. Photograph unknown. 

The song Cold River has the line, ‘Sexually abused in lost in the woods’

That was a movie, and not a very good one. I knew at the time no one had really seen it. It was on cable when cable was new and it had just come on one of the movie channels. The song Cold River is just about two kids and how their daddy died in the river. Plus they were sexually abused and lost in the woods. I don't even own that record anymore.

What prompted the band to move from Denver to San Francisco? 

We wanted to make it band-wise. We loved the city, we moved there at a great time, got a kick-ass practice space. Punk was dead. We weren't going to make it in San Francisco by being the type of band we were. We got some shows and continued to play.

The Sisters of Sodom?

I think Nate described it best. The band was just a lot of fun. It was a tongue and cheek joke band. We were supposed to be lesbians from outer space and we were screwing our way around the universe to spread cheer and good fun.

What were Happy World’s last shows?

I'm almost positive our last shows in Colorado were at the Mercury Cafe. We played our newer songs. We didn't know it would be our last shows. Gant and I recorded a 5-song cassette without Dave. My drug addiction was the end of the band. Gant and Dave started a new band, Hate Holiday. They were already playing shows after two months. It bummed me out, but hey, it was my fault. By that time I was living on the streets; a homeless drug addict. I spent 3 years of my life, not solid in a row, but 3 years, 3 x 365 in a county jail cell. I was in San Quentin for 18 days on a 90-day observation. Which, thank God, I was able to go back to the long-term Walden House. Going back there saved my life for sure. When I got out was when Happy World and Dave didn't want to do it anymore. Dave was getting ready to move away. It wasn't the same band without him.

Shave has some unreleased Happy World material. If you are interested in contacting him, click HERE