Welcome to a breath of fresh air with Sandy Kaye. Welcome to another episode of A Breath of Fresh Air, the show where the music and the memories come flooding back. Today, we’re heading straight into the wild, chaotic, and wonderfully rebellious world of punk rock, with one of the true originals from the legendary British punk band, The Damned.
Now, if you know anything about punk, you’ll know this band helped blow the doors off the music scene back in the 70s. They were loud, fast, theatrical, unpredictable, and unlike anybody else. In fact, The Damned released the very first UK punk single, beating even the Sex Pistols to the punch.
Right at the heart of all that glorious mayhem was drummer Rat Scabies. Now, I do need to confess something before we begin, I had an absurdly difficult time calling this man Rat. Honestly, every time I said it, I felt like I should apologize to his mum.
And the surname Scabies, well, let’s just say I became slightly obsessed. I asked far too many questions about it, probably more than any serious music journalist should. But once I got it into my head, I simply couldn’t let it go.
Thankfully, Rat was a good sport about the whole thing. Putting aside the name, Rat Scabies is a fascinating musician with incredible stories from the front lines of punk rock history. From the explosive early days of The Damned to the madness of touring, the rivalries, the chaos, and the music that helped shape an entire movement.
So settle in, because this one is fun, fascinating, and just a little bit outrageous. Here’s Rat to tell you more. Hello.
I’m having a difficult time calling you Rat. Why? Well, I don’t know. My mother calls me Rat.
She still does. She’s 90 this year. Did she have any trouble calling you Rat? No, I don’t think so.
I think, to be honest, they were pleased that I managed to land a job. What about girls that you dated? You called yourself Rat with them too? Yeah. Because my real name’s pretty dull.
Chris Miller is really not very impressive. You know, but Rat Scabies, well, what have we got here? You didn’t really care what I called myself. It was, but the fame took over.
But giving away your name, Chris Miller, they must have been upset about that. That’s the name they gave you. You know what? If I made a fuss about it, then everyone would notice.
But if you just say, that’s my name, you know, nobody really remembers it. Nobody’s really that bothered. You know, they know I’ve got a real name, and it’s quite a disappointment when they find out what it is.
Did anybody ever refer to you as Mr Scabies? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Quite often.
Did it take some getting used to for you to answer to that name? Well, here’s the thing about the name, right? I was determined I was going to be a drummer. And I didn’t think this punk thing was really going to last for very long. And I thought, if I adopt this name, then when this is all over, I can then apply for real jobs under my proper name, and I can become a respectable musician.
Also, wouldn’t you have to sign on for benefits from an adult? If they printed your real name in the newspaper, then you’d be off the benefits. So a couple of reasons there. Right.
So you could be two people. Well, yeah, I quite like the schizophrenic approach sometimes. But to be honest, I think it’s a bit of a cop-out.
You know, oh, I become someone different when I go on stage. It’s like, do you, though? You’re not really. You’re still that same person.
You’re just acting a different way than you do when you’re at home. So, Mr. Scabies or Rat or Chris, how did it all start for you? You said you knew from the year dot that you wanted to be a drummer. How did you know that? There was a radio show on Sunday afternoons that used to just play jazz.
And jazz is great because every song has a drum solo. And I just remember listening to the radio and this drum solo. And just absolutely falling in love with the sound of the drums then and there.
And that’s for me. That’s what I want. I want to be able to do that.
How old were you then? About eight. Really? That young? Yeah. And so I just kept on trying and trying and trying and doing different things.
And eventually met up with Brian James. And he was such a great guitar player. He was everything I’d been looking for musically.
He was fast, flash, loud. He was great. And so it was like, yeah, he’s great.
Let’s give this a go for a while. And I’d done a few auditions for things and never really got through. I just didn’t like the thing of sitting there with 50 other drummers all going for the same job.
And your hair cut being the deciding factor as to whether you got it or not. So when I met someone who I really respected in every level. And when we played together, there was a great communication between the pair of us.
It was kind of two gloves finding the other one. You know, that sort of left and right. And it sort of fell into place and worked.
And so that was the kind of birth of the whole thing. We’re talking about what, 1974? Probably late 75s. And you weren’t still at school at that stage, were you? You’d finished school.
Yeah. And I was out in the big open world. And what were you doing? I did anything and everything.
I sold insurance. I worked on building sites. I did removals.
You know, I cleaned toilets. I didn’t want any of those lousy jobs. And the only reason I had to work at all was because, you know, to pay the rent and to eat.
It wasn’t because I had a career in mind. It was I was going to be a drummer. And this is just going to fill the gap and keep me going until I can manage to do that.
Right. And what other bands and drummers were you particularly influenced by at the time? Well, I used to like Gene Krupa, Sandy Nelson, Dave Clark from the Dave Clark fight, and then a bit later on anything that was a lot of drums, really. So, you know, Ginger Baker, Keith Moon, people like that, you know, anybody that overplayed because that was what I wanted.
I wanted the drums, you know. So I dismissed quite a lot of bands just because the drummer was not lively and not what they call orchestral these days, I suppose. And did you spend a lot of your time practicing the drums? You’re obviously self-taught.
As much as I could. It wasn’t easy, though, because, you know, England’s very small. We don’t have big, luxurious living rooms like that, you know, and you have neighbours and, you know, they were all pretty good with me, though.
Yeah, self-taught, so you have to kind of – you end up tapping on cushions and bits of furniture. To deaden the sound a bit. Yeah, and also back then you couldn’t get lessons, you know.
Everything was like a closely guarded secret. So not like now you can just go online and someone will show you everything you need to know, you know. Yeah, of course.
But that wasn’t there then, so you had to kind of listen to a record and then try and guess what they were doing or how they’d done it. And, of course, you never get it right, which is how you evolve your own style. And you definitely did do that, didn’t you? Well, I don’t know.
I’m a very, very simple player. I don’t do anything really complicated or jazzy. But then, you know, it’s not for me to say, really.
I still can’t call you Rat. I’m having a lot of trouble saying your name. How did you get the name in the first place? Oh, God, this is so boring.
For you it is because you’ve told it a million times, I’m sure. Okay, when I went to, when I first met Brian James, I was trying out for a band called Land and SS, which was Mick Jones, Tony James, and Brian. And I had scabies.
And it got pretty manic. And they said, what’s wrong with you? And I told them, there’s two versions. The first one is that they said I looked like a rat while I was playing.
And so that was what they did. And the other version is that there was a rat in the rehearsal room while I was telling them to scamp it away. So you can choose which one you think is most likely to be the true one.
Scabies is like an eczema type of thing, yeah? It’s a mite. It lives underneath the skin. Okay.
And it itches, like it’s going out of fashion. And it’s highly contagious as well. And it doesn’t sound like fun.
But the name is so memorable, nobody ever forgets it. And that alone is kind of almost a breaking show business. Did you get teased for it? I guess it went with the times that were, didn’t it? And the music that was then evolving.
Yeah. No, it was part of the scene. It was fair game.
No, nobody ever gave me a stick for it. What was the scene like then as you were emerging? Dangerous. You know, you had to stop by the police quite often, chased by teddy boys quite often.
You know, and just regular individuals on the street weren’t very, you know, they were very shocked by Punk’s appearance. Some people reacted violently. Some people were kind of quite cool and curious.
And, you know, but it was so anti what was going on then, because everybody kind of looked like, you know, long hair and status quo t-shirts and denim jackets and flares and the couture. We didn’t want to be anything like that. It was a good way of upsetting everyone.
Yeah, I can imagine. The changeover really happened quite quickly too, didn’t it? It wasn’t like it took years to evolve into the Punk scene. It was almost overnight.
Well, not quite. I mean, for us it was pretty quick, yeah. But Punk was not welcomed with open arms by the media and the press or anyone else.
It was a curiosity, a freak show, a novelty act led by bad behaviour, you know, and the newspapers had something to write about, you know, with the pistols mostly. And that’s when it actually started to grow much faster. I thought the shame of it was really was a lot of the bands that emerged in 77 when Punk became kind of like a household name didn’t really have the kind of the artistic, you know, they didn’t have the songs weren’t as good.
You listen to the Punk bands that started the whole thing, you know, like the Stranglers, the Dams, Clash, Pistols, Jam, Eddie and the Hot Rods. Not one of those bands sounded the same. They all had a unique sound and unique songs, unique way of performing the songs.
None of them had any similarities. And then by the time we got to 1978 and the bubble had burst and it then became a much more standard thing, the Punk, without any of those other qualities, and things started to sound the same all the time. And it was kind of like they were missing the point, that, you know, in order to do away with one kind of society, they were forming one that was even harder to be a part of.
This is a breath of fresh air with Sandy Kaye. It’s a beautiful day. A lot of negativity, you know, and a lot of lyrics weren’t particularly… But the negativity you refer to was a sign of the times of what was happening in the UK, particularly at that time.
But it stayed in the bleeding obvious. I didn’t need anyone to tell me how shit the world was, I already knew. You know, and so does everyone else.
I don’t need some kid up there, you know, telling me that it’s shit. Give me a solution. Give me something that makes a difference.
Give me a different way of thinking, a different attitude. But don’t just state, you know, what we already know. Cosmic schools that burn the books.
The churches in ruins. The priests hang on hooks. The radio’s on ice.
The telly’s been banned. They were hardly writing songs, you know, happy little love tunes, were they at the time? No. No.
How did the formation of The Damned come along and why the name The Damned? Well, the name came twofold. Well, the forming of The Damned came, as I said, I met Brian James. And London SS didn’t want me to play the drummer, but Brian did.
So we decided we’d form our own thing. I met Dave Vanian through Malcolm McLaren. Who was the pistols manager, right? Who was the pistols manager at the time.
He was looking at finding other things to look after. But that’s how I met Dave Vanian. And then I knew Captain Sensible because we’d both been cleaners working at Fairfield Halls in Croydon together.
What’s Fairfield Halls? It’s a concert hall. Ah, OK. And me and Brian had decided to form a band.
We found Dave. We needed someone to play bass. Captain had a bass and an amp and so that kind of, that’s how that fell into place.
And The Damned? Why The Damned? We wanted to be the children from the midwich cuckoos that had formed a group. That was the original idea. And at the time the movie was out and it was called Village of the Damned.
And there was also Tony Visconti’s The Damned film that was out that Brian used to really like because he loved all of that kind of decadent and wild and stuff. So it was like The Damned. Yeah, sure.
It worked. Yeah. And it’s funny because names, you know, you kind of become the name.
When you’re trying to choose a name, everything seems not very good. But actually it doesn’t take very long for the band itself to supersede it. And then the name of the band is that item.
Like The Beatles. I mean, what a dreadful name that was. I mean, the corniness of the B-E-A-T, you know, it was.
But you’re right. You get used to anything, don’t you? I mean, you became Ratscabies. You just got used to it.
You probably can’t imagine yourself as anything else anymore. No, not really. Actually, it irritates me because some people do call me Chris.
And they do it because it makes them feel as if they’ve known you for a long time. And I hate it. I’m like, no.
Do you? Well, yeah, because that’s not my name now. I mean, there are people that I have genuinely known for years and years, and I don’t mind them calling me Chris because that’s what they’re used to calling me. Yeah.
So The Damned released the first UK punk single in 76 called New Rose, which was from the first UK punk album in 77, Damn, Damn, Damn. You were the first British punks to tour the United States. That’s some pretty big accolades.
How did you? You were right on the precipice of being the first of the punk bands. But I think it all started with opening for The Pistols. Is that right? Well, we only ever did two shows for The Pistols.
One was our very first gig. There was maybe 50 people there, if that. And they were playing The 100 Club.
The 100 Club was sympathetic with having those kind of bands on because we didn’t have a name then. We weren’t punk bands. We were just bands that were different.
And then we did one other show with them on the Anarchy in the UK tour, which they then fired us from. So we didn’t have a big history with The Pistols. We had much more of a social history with them, with meeting them in the pub and having beers and having a laugh.
But when it started to get serious with money being involved and men in suits as your managers and people arguing about who should do what, then it started to turn. Making punk hits cost your life And every inch of the world It makes them proud to be a crowd And take their summer pickeys To drink at nights in soul clubs And end up feeling sicky And we’re all making money Money Money Publicly it seemed as if there was a much bigger divide than there really was. The bands themselves were always OK, but like I say, the men in suits had other ideas.
They’d get in there. It always got in the way, didn’t it? When you say when it started to become serious, was that after the release of New Rose? Yeah. So that really turned your world around.
Yeah, and also there’d been murmurings about punk rock and suddenly there was something you could hold and you could play. And that was what got us our first kind of airplay. And I think we actually might have even gotten to the lower end of the charts because the curiosity value of this thing that people had heard about had actually arrived.
And it was a great record. Did you realise that you were groundbreaking at the time or you were just going against what had come before you, specifically trying to do something different? No, we were just doing our own thing, really. We were playing the way we wanted to play.
And that counted for a lot, I think. And also, you know, we had a good attitude because the B-side of New Rose was helped by The Beatles, which we absolutely bastardised. It was a real kind of feud to the rest of the music establishment.
It’s like they’ve got the A-side, which is this, what is it? And now they’re having a go at The Beatles as well. My God, how dare they, these spiky-headed little oiks that can’t even play properly. How dare they do this to me? When I was younger, I was younger like this Didn’t need anybody else to help me in any way So I said, fine, I’ll open up the door And I’ll do anything you tell me So on the one hand, they were kind of, the people that knew about music, you know, the John Peels and stuff, were going, this is worth having.
And the rest of the industry is kind of going, well, you don’t know, let’s see how much money it can make. Were you already interested in the money or it was all about the music then? Well, you’ve got to have the money, but we never made any. I mean, that was part of the frustration, really, was that, you know, you were part of this thing that seemingly was quite big, but I still didn’t have anywhere to live.
I still was, you know, sleeping on people’s couches and stuff. It was crazy. It didn’t catapult us into first-class living or anything.
You know, it was… So all that initial success really didn’t make any difference to your lifestyle? No, not really. Well, only things that, you know, like going down the pub wasn’t as easy and, you know, the hassle that you got, because it was a lot of hassle, but the payoff was always, you know, you’d do the show and you’d have a fun time doing it and there’d be free beer in the dressing room. But you paid for it with a lack of privacy.
Yeah. And it also gave the band a so-what attitude about trashing equipment and stuff like that, because so what? You know, we’ve got nothing. We’ve got nothing to lose here.
I’m just going to sling that over there and see if I can use it again tomorrow. So were you angry or frustrated? How would you describe what you went through then? I mean, you knew you should have been getting money and you weren’t. That wouldn’t feel too good.
No, it didn’t. And I quit. You know, I didn’t see the point in doing it.
Why am I bothering? This is the same place I played last time. There’s loads of people there and I’m getting 30 quid a week. You know, really? Well, and not only that, though.
I mean, you know, there were things that Brian, who’d been the principal songwriter, didn’t really have much material for a second album. It didn’t seem as if, you know, the band was really functioning very well. It seemed like it was, you know, if you can’t move on artistically, then there’s not a lot of point.
We did the second album anyway, which turned out, you know, a lot of people didn’t like it because it was the wrong kind of record for the time, I guess. Was Nick loaded in that one too? No, no. We had Nick Mason produce that one.
Who was Nick Mason? Mm-hmm. Right. You know, it’s very easy to get tangled up in other people’s politics, which is what we were, you know, because I didn’t want to make a second record and we didn’t really have the right kind of material for a second album.
But the record company were in the middle of doing a big deal for their own distribution and it became important to them that we made another album. And so by having Nick Mason on the record meant that the American side of their operations would go, oh, want a Pink Floyd? Okay, that’s… Must be good, yeah. They have an approval, that will help sell the album.
But really, I think we should have been pulled out and given, you know, like some time off to go away and write another one properly or to be a band again properly, because when you’re touring that hard and you don’t get any time to do anything, you’re just kind of into the van, on the road, out of the van, gig, sleep, into the van. You know, you’re most creative when you’re bored and when you don’t have anything else to do and you need that boredom, which means you can’t be sitting in a van and doing a show every day. So what did the writing process look like? The record company’s forcing you to put together another album.
You’ve got no time to do it. Was it a collaborative effort or did someone take the lead and everybody else had to follow? How did it look? No, we all kind of came up with something each. Brian did have some ideas, you know, but it was the first time I’d ever written a song or Captain Haddon.
I just remember sitting with the captain and he had the guitar in his hands and I said, well, it’s on there somewhere. All you’ve got to do is move your hands at the right time and we’ll get it. And that kind of was all it took.
You know, we just did it. We wrote our first kind of song together then and that was a huge hurdle. So it was a collaborative album.
You know, we all kind of came up with different stuff but not all necessarily at the same time. I want to call home at 3 a.m. And look my records All right, I’m going to play them Problem child, problem child We’ve been killed in the civil war Problem child, problem child When you get home Daddy’s going to take your heart You’re close to my sister Only to be up to your dreams And you’re stuck Don’t care about my grades At school or my teacher Race lady says you ain’t so cool Problem child, problem child We’ve been killed in the civil war Problem child, problem child When you get home You’re close to my sister Only to be up to your dreams And you’re stuck Don’t care about my grades At school or my teacher Race lady says you ain’t so cool The album you’re talking about that did come out as a result of that is called Music for Pleasure. And straight after that came out you decided to walk away.
Yeah, well I’d left before then. And I was talked into making the album on the argument that, you know, it would slow down the band’s career and, you know, the rest of the band wouldn’t be able to continue with a new record if I didn’t play on it because there wasn’t time. And also, you know, that I should be on it just because and it would mean that maybe I’d get some royalties in a few years’ time and, you know, so I was talked into staying on for it really.
I was still sort of thinking, you know what, that was quite easy to do. I’d just joined the band and we’d done really well. Maybe I can do that again.
And so I was sort of thinking, well, yeah, you know, the world’s a big place. There’s loads of people out there. Maybe I can put my own thing together and we’ll do something that, you know, that works just as well.
But that… But what were you chasing? A different sound? Obviously different band members. A different way of being a band? No, I was chasing and feeling excited when I played. And you’d lost that? You have to have an adrenaline.
Yeah, because that’s what Brian gave me. So when that disappears, when that’s not around, then it’s very difficult to, you know, to want to do it or want to be part of it. Well, then it becomes more like a 9-to-5 job.
I mean, obviously it’s not 9-to-5 but it’s the routine thing where you’re doing the same thing over and over again. If there’s no passion about it, that’s right. It’s not fun.
You have to feel excited. Otherwise you can’t put it… you can’t give it back. You know, if you get energy from someone, it’s very easy to repay that and to put that same energy back in it.
But if it, you know, if the other side’s flatlining, then that’s what you do.
This is a breath of fresh air with Sandy Kaye. It’s a beautiful day. What did you go off and do? Well, I put my own band together, which was kind of okay, but I ended up, I was writing all the music, and I realized I was okay at it, but I wasn’t great.
So, I was still very friendly with the captain, so he and I then put our projects to one side and decided that, you know, we’d work together. And when it came to singers, you know, it was like, well, you know, Dave Banyan’s the best one. Let’s see if he’s up for doing it.
And then, of course, as soon as you put the three of you in the same room, you have to really, you’d be mad not to return to being the Damned. So, you recreated the same group again? Pretty much, but this time without Brian James, because Brian had decided he wanted to do his own thing and he was already doing it, and he was doing very well with it, you know, the Lords of the New Church and stuff, and then we got Algy from the Saints to play bass. But also, it opened up the doorway to the next stage of the career, which was, you know, Phantasmagoria and that whole goth pop.
Goth pop, yeah. I mean, and that took on a life of its own too? Very much so. By the mid-’80s, you were having fun again.
The passion had been reignited in you. Yeah, the songs were good, and the band was good. We did The Young Ones TV show, and I remember it was kind of themed with a horror thing, and I just remember all of us having the white face make-up and gothy clothes and stuff, and I looked at it, and I was like, this looks great.
We should do this all the time. And so we did. And I guess your audience has started to dress the same, and you started this whole, not only the new movement in music again, but the new movement in fashion, if you can call it that.
Well, it’s the style, yeah. You know, Dave Boehning was the original goth. I don’t care what anybody says.
He was doing it before anyone, and, you know, he used to take great delight in changing, because we’d be on tour, and the first night he’d wear something on stage, and then the next night the audience would be wearing the same thing, but Dave would have changed. So he was always, like, one step ahead. They couldn’t keep up with him.
No. And that was just him expressing who he was. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.
Dave Boehning is the most genuine person I’ve ever met, and people don’t really believe it because of his lifestyle and the way he looks and dresses and acts, but he’s 100% real. He was always like that. You know, he doesn’t just put that stuff on to go on stage.
That’s what he’s like when you’re in the hotel lobby in the morning. That’s what he’s like when he’s doing the gardening, when he’s fixing the car. Yeah, he’s got an incredible amount of style and class, and that’s, you know.
Oh, yes, he’s theatrical. Rat, you scored that massive UK hit with the cover of Eloise, that Barry Ryan song. Why did you decide to do that one? Dave, again, always wanted to do it.
Interestingly, I was looking through an old copy of Sniffing Glue, our first interview that we did with him back in 76, and Dave says in that, one day I’d like to cover Eloise. And when we finally did it, it paid off. It worked.
I’m always there, she knows I’m there And heaven knows I hope she goes I find it hard to realise That love was in her eyes It’s dying now She knows I’m crying now And every night I’m there I break my heart to breathe Eloise Eloise You know I’m on my knees I said please My Eloise is like the stars that please the night The sun that makes the day But lights the way When that star goes by I hold it in my hands and cry Her love was mine You know my sun will shine And every night I’m there I break my heart to breathe Eloise Eloise But you got to hear my prayer, my prayer You seem to have been on a bit of a rollercoaster ride with the band, but there’s definitely a couple of huge peaks and Eloise in 1985 was a big one for you wasn’t it? Well yeah, I mean you can either be on the merry-go-round and go round and round or you can go on the Big Dipper I’m on a high at the moment, I’m absolutely thrilled to be where we are So pleased that we’re able to tour still, so pleased I’m able to play still So pleased that people are interested enough to make it worth our while flying all the way to Australia How do you explain that sustained interest? Is that all about nostalgia and people kind of going back to their youth and reliving those times or is it a form of music that really has managed to go the distance all of its own accord? I think it’s because, first of all, we didn’t mind changing horses halfway through, you know, so the first album was very kind of punk rock second album was much more musical, a bit more experimental and then we became a bit more like an indie sounding band I suppose in a way and again we broke the rules when we made the Black Album and we did the Curtain Call which is like 17 minutes long and it’s absolutely unheard of for a punk band to even attempt something like that I think what happens is that a lot of younger fans or younger people have discovered the band and the songs always stand up as being pretty good We like melody, believe it or not, but actually we do I didn’t think punk music has melody Ah, but the good ones do Listen to the Ramones, they’re nothing but melody Gerry never carried a vocal, you know, he ain’t no rock singer Same with Stranglers, same with Pistol, all of those bands, they all had great songs That’s why we’re here Do you have a favourite amongst all your songs? To play at the moment, my favourite track I think is one called History of the World but I think to listen to is probably a song called Stranger on the Town It sounds like a soul song, it’s got that kind of groove and it’s got that kind of melody going on it The vocal rhythm and stuff, it always makes me feel good They say OK when they turn you down Cos someone’s always smiling when they’re really proud You turn me out Don’t think, won’t think, say no more Did you always agree with each other in terms of musical direction? That’s because we didn’t know what we were doing It was very easy to just make do, I suppose No, that’s kind of detrimental But because we didn’t know what we were doing, anything that kind of worked was good It was fair game, it was nothing It’s one of the reasons why some of the records sound the way they do and are very interesting because there’s a lot of ideas There was no ego about who wrote what It was because we were all split over the money used to go for between the band And so there was none of that, oh God, he’s going to earn more money than me So any idea that you came up with was always going to be beneficial to the song Cos you only put your best ideas forward Or maybe if it’s just something that only lasts for 30 seconds It might be the 30 seconds that makes the record a lot more interesting It could be all kinds of different collaborations go on on it And that was really healthy, it was all good You kept changing the sound up a lot, didn’t you? In 2008 you had So Who’s Paranoid, which was pop influenced, wasn’t it? Actually I’m not on that one How did you amuse yourself when you walked away then? I made guitars out of cigar boxes I did some removals and I went to look for the Holy Grail Did you find it? Yeah, well I found a few And when did you come back to them again? Well we did the reunion I think it was about three years ago So I was out of the band for pretty much 30 years And what brought you back in the end? Well, the money I knew you were going to say that Well it was because there’d been so much bad blood And there’s so much animosity And then the manager rang up and offered me a lot of money And said would I be prepared to do it if… And the captain said the same thing When you start to reflect on your reasons for doing it And I do that shallow Actually it started from those There were a lot of very good reasons to do it The first one being we were all still alive and capable And I didn’t want to stand around dug out a grave saying You know what, we should have done that reunion While we still could I didn’t want to have that regret Also, you know, life’s too short I’d spent a lot of years with those guys To sort of throw that away Because they weren’t bad years, they were good To kind of throw that away because of an argument about something About money or something A few years, you know, 15, 20, 25 years ago But that seemed wrong And then when we started playing And I realised that Actually there’s an audience for this band There’s an audience for what we do What we four do When we go on our stage together There’s something that’s kind of different And the fact that people were still really interested in that Seemed to me that it was good to Give the people what they want Yeah Yeah, you know, and also I was out of the band for 30 years Which meant really I disinherited myself from all of the songs And so by going out and playing them live They become mine again So you’re having fun again Yeah It seems like you’ve come full circle You’ve got back the passion that you started with Would it feel like you’re 16 again Doing it for the first time? Well, almost Except it’s a bit more comfortable You’ve got a padded drum seat now? I’ve got a padded drum seat I’ve got a hotel room I don’t have to share The quote really on it is That it’s not what I was that matters But it’s what I am now And that’s what I’m selling Is what I am now and what I do now Not watch me lose my breath Trying to keep up And from what I can tell The audience agree with me That it’s okay It’s damn good Well, thank you Right, Scabies Oh, there you go I’ve said your name now There you go, well done I’ve gotten used to it too Thank you so much for your time today It’s been a real joy chatting with you And learning a little bit more about you And the band Australia, can’t wait to see the dam Down under one more time Thank you Great, thank you Bye Beautiful day Oh, baby Any day that you’re gone away It’s a beautiful day