I was talking with a friend the other day who saw Junkyard play in the UK in November last year and I casually mentioned that I’d seen them play there back in 1991, a few clicks of the mouse later he informed me that I must be mistaken as there were no UK dates on setlist.fm prior to 2017 – I had to produce the ticket stub before he agreed that perhaps the internet may not yet be completely and utterly reliable and the source of all knowledge.
Junkyard were one of my favourite bands from late 80’s Los Angeles and like so many of the bands I loved back then they certainly weren’t your standard Sunset Strip fare (but we’ll get to that later). After 26 years in 2017 the band finally released their 3rd studio album ‘High Water’ and there are plans for both new material and also a definitive reworking of the unofficially released ‘XXX’ and ‘Joker’ demos from 2008. Not only that they’re regularly playing live and vocalist David Roach is giving it his all. We caught up with David on the eve of their latest run of dates.
Mark: Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to The Rockpit today, how are you?
David: I’m well, I’m OK, but I’m really deaf because I’ve been playing with maniac guitar-players my whole life! (laughs) So you might have to struggle with me a little bit! How are you?
Mark: I’m very good thank, I’m a bit the same I’ve been listening to way too much of that music over the years!
David: These guitar players they say they can’t hear themselves and they always need to be louder than the guy next to them!
Mark: That’s so true!
Mark: I remember seeing you guys play Nottingham Rock City back in was it 1991? With The Almighty I think?
David: Yeah! That was a long time ago!
Mark: You must be about ready to pack your bags for the next string of dates you’re playing?
David: Oh no we’re here already. We’re in Charlotte – the NBA, the National Basketball Association has their Pro-Bowl game and it’s in Charlotte so the town is packed, the flight we usually take, the red-eye, is sold out, everything is sold out so we had to come a little early. The boys are net door in some steak restaurant having some drinks and I’m here doing the work man! (laughs) So you were in England back then when we played our first visit?
Mark: I was, great days, some great bands around at that time and a great bill of two bands whose music really went well together. It’s great to see you back – one of my favourite records of the last few years was ’High Water’ – some bands come back after a break of years and disappoint you a bit but this could well have been your third album it sounds so good.
David: I wish it was! (laughs)
Mark: What made you want to get back to recording again, I know there was an EP before that and through the years there have been live albums and demos and you’ve been playing shows.
David: It wasn’t like we were seeking to make another record, I mean we wanted to be able to make one if the opportunity arose, we played infrequently because we love playing and we wanted to keep doing that but we weren’t out to get a record deal, but we figured the more we played the more interest there might be and so we worked up some songs. So we were writing songs a few years before that album, and then we came out with it. And if you’ve not been making records for the last 30 years and trying to reinvent yourselves constantly, or experimenting with keyboards and jazz-fusion and shit, it’s not hard to stay on the path you started on! You know, you don’t stray off the trail and do stupid shit! (laughs)
Mark: That’s a good point David, in one way it’s a fresh start but it’s also picking up where ou left off with the same outlook and no clouding of the waters. You’ve stayed true to those roots, and you were always a band back in the day that we very real and you didn’t really fit in with the music of the time!
David: We still don’t! (laughs)
Mark: I always thought you had more of a no-nonsense sound, more like a Motörhead or even The Almighty who you played with, but with that added shot of Texan Blues, not like those bands who played the Strip.
David: Oh that’s a misconception, I don’t know about English bands but we definitely didn’t sound like what was happening in Los Angeles in the late 80’s, and also there’s the misconception that we were a Strip band, we never played the Strip. I mean we’ve played there since we got signed but when you’re trying to get signed The Strip was strictly ‘pay-to-play’ where guys would ‘buy’ tickets and sell them to their mothers, and brothers and girlfriends, whoever they could for the right to play on stage. But we didn’t go that route because it was bullshit! I’ll play for a 12-pack of beer or five bucks or something, but I’m not gonna pay to play, that’s such a black concept that we were never art of. There were a lot of cool bands in Hollywood that were from the East side of Hollywood that were more underground who played some of the other clubs, some of the sleazier rock bars. You don’t ‘pay-to-play’ it was our principle you know.
Mark: I love that and I couldn’t agree more, I think back in those days though pre-social media bands kind of all got lumped into the same basket – there was a scene and we were told everyone was part of it. A bit like the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, there was no scene, it was just a convenient label.
David: There was a whole world of cool music in L.A. at that time that wasn’t on the Strip and wasn’t anything like it, and that’s where we played, that’s where we were. We’re just rockers you know. We just didn’t want a part of that, all those bands fighting to sell tickets, and they all looked the same, they all sounded the same. And then they all disappeared after a few years.
Mark: So now you’re back, what’s the plan for the rest of the year? There are some dates already lined up but is there the possibility of any new material?
David: Yeah we’re writing right now. And there’s also a bunch of demos that we had released, not officially that were supposed to be the third album for Geffen – they were released as ‘XXX’ and ‘Joker’ and we’re going to release that stuff first, we’re going to consolidate it to abut ten songs and release that and then we’ll start working on the new record.
Mark: I remember hearing those demos years ago, I always took it as a work in progress, some nice ideas and some great songs though in there.
David: Yeah there was some great stuff on there and there was some shit on there!
Mark: (laughs)
David: The person who released it just released the whole thing. There’s some stuff though that should never have been heard by human ears y’know. Some of those songs are just scratch lyrics that we just recorded to get the song down, it did matter what the words were, it was just to have something to work off. Then when we were going to go off and do the real album we’d use them as reference. But this guy just put everything out there. There’s a lot of crap that would never have made it: there were like 25 songs or something and we’re just going to take the best of it and probably release about ten of them, maybe twelve.
Mark: That would be great, I’m going to go back to those recordings after we finish up and see if I can pick the ones that will get the treatment.
David: But were writing new songs now too. I’m thinking that album will come out later this year, I can’t say when exactly. And we’ve still got that deal with Acetate Records who put out ‘High Water’ and as far as I know they’re going to put out this one too.
Mark: I managed to get a copy of the limited edition version of that album the one with the black cover and the extra tracks. I loved it.
David: Was that the European release with the extra songs?
Mark: It may well have been all I know is that the lure of five bonus tracks reeled me in! So was it made for the European tour?
David: Shit I don’t know, I’m not the business man you must have figured that out after talking to me for a few minutes! (laughs)
Mark: (laughs)
David: I’m not the brains of the operation, I’m the guts but not the brains.
Mark: (laughs) Take it all the way back then if you can David. I know you were pretty young when Junkyard started but what was it that really got you started? What made you realise that music was going to be your life?
David: I don’t know. Ever since I was a little kid I fantasised about being a singer in a rock band. I always used to sing a lot. I’d go to goodwill and buy Elvis Presley 45’s, and then I got into The Beatles and The Stones and all that shit, Zeppelin and other bands progressively over the years, like a chronological lesson in music, and I loved all of it. When I first started my band I was 14 or 15 and all my buddies were skateboarding and I couldn’t skateboard and they were getting all the chicks and I didn’t have no game so I had to find some way to get mine so I started singing. I just think that sometimes you just know what you want to do and luckily enough I was able to do it. I mean not successfully (laughs) it’s had its bumps! And there’s been a lot of down yeas in between but, you know but having this resurgence at this point in my life is fucking epic, the timing is perfect. I intend to go out with a bang now you know. I didn’t burn out along the way, at least not on stage!
Mark: What are your feelings about the health of Rock in general these days, I mean you look at Europe where it’s never really gone away and Festivals are still pulling huge numbers, clubs are playing rock music every night of the week, rock is strong in South America, but everywhere else we seem to be struggling?
David: Honestly, I don’t want to be a downer but I feel like it’s dying or dead, I know guitar centres are closing down and they’re selling more keyboards. I think a lot of these kids today, god I sound like an old man! (Puts on old man’s voice) But these kids today with their computers and their instant gratification and always wanting to get what they want here and now. They don’t have the patience to sit down with a guitar and play it. It takes some fucking work! You sit down with a guitar and play for an hour and you’re not fucking Yngwie Malmsteen and they think, well this is boring, it sucks and they’re onto the next thing. But I could be completely wrong and I’m sure that there are a pocket of young people that still love real Rock and Roll. I mean sometimes my fans from way back when’s children come and say “My dad made me listen to you, you guys are pretty cool I guess…”
Mark: (laughs)
David: And you know there’s certainly a lot of old fuckers like us who go back and milk it now 30 years removed. And I don’t know how successful any of us are, or if we’re just stroking our egos and want to go out with a flame or something. But I think you’re right it does seem to be more accepted in Europe. It’s tough though to fill up places in America. We pretty much just do weekends now, there ain’t no more going out on a six week tour like we used to. You can’t get people out on a Wednesday night in New Mexico, it’s not feasible. It doesn’t work, not at this point, not for us at least.
Mark: One of the things I’ve been dying to ask you is about your influences you mentioned picking up old Elvis 45’s which is a great place to start…
David: Well I mean I listen to all kinds of music. Well I probably shouldn’t say all kinds of music but most of my fans if they saw my I-pod, if they got on there they’d be really disappointed. (laughs)
Mark: (laughs)
David: Tome it’s more about songs, I need to hear fucking integrity, I need to hear that it’s fucking killing them to get it out. A good song moves you, it stirs you and that can happen in all genres of music. But as far as influences go I did it chronologically, I loved 50’s Rock and Roll, I loved 60’s Rock and Roll, and then when I was a 14, 15 year old it was Judas Priest, C/DC, Motörhead, all that stuff and then there was Punk Rock. So I got my influences from all of that and also Country music – the old Country guys – Hank Williams and people like that and then Blues, growing up in Austin in Texas there’s all kinds of Blues. It’s like second-hand smoke, you know anything you’re exposed to you just take it all in and it all affects you. So yeah I get it from everywhere.
Mark: I think that’s one of the best ways I’ve heard that described, it is just like second-hand smoke, it’s all that’s around you when you’re young that forms those tastes and those really strong connections with music.
David: And as you go through your life and song can take you back to another time in your life, different places and people. It’s all relative to what you’re exposed to and how you react to it, whether you think “shit that sucks I hate that” or whether it’s so cool you feel like knocking your head in the wall or whatever!
Mark: That’s so cool.
David: So when are we coming over there!?
Mark: We’d love to have you. And there is one promoter here at the moment who is doing a great job of bringing US bands over from back in the day, you’d be just the right fit.
David: I hope we’re on their list! We’d love to come over.
Mark: We’d love to have you too, let’s see if we can make it happen. Hopefully we just have time for a couple more questions?
David: I’ve got no life I have time!
Mark: (laughs) The first question is, if you could have been a ‘fly on the wall’ for the creation of any great album of the past, just to see how the magic happened. What would be that…
David: (even before I finished the question David answers) Highway to Hell.
Mark: That sounded like it was a pretty easy answer for you?
David: Yeah Bon Scott is a great inspiration. I don’t listen to anything after Highway to Hell. I mean of course I’ve listened to Back in Black a few times, but it’s just not right without him, and as well our lives, and I’m not saying I’m Bon Scott by any stretch, but I live hard too. I just love his passion man, and he was just starting to take off. That was the album to take them over the top and he wasn’t there to enjoy it and it would have been interesting to see them recording that record and knowing it was going to be huge.
Mark: That’s always been the AC/DC album for me too. ‘Touch too Much’ is pretty much the perfect Rock song for me. And Bon, if you do get the chance to come over, is our local hero here, there’s a statue to him and he’s buried in Fremantle just south of Perth, Western Australia.
David: Man, I’d love to see that.
Mark: And the last question we have, the easy one, is ‘what is the meaning of life’?
David: The meaning of life? I’m just now thinking that I’m starting to get it, I wish I could tell you exactly, but I’m pretty sure it’s “Forget what everyone tells you and do what you know you’re supposed to be doing.” I’m just now getting that. I just quit my job a couple of years ago and I know I never want to take another job again, I’m done. I just don’t give a fuck anymore and I wish I’d known not to give a fuck a long time ago! (laughs) The meaning of life is to make your path and do your thing and don’t have any hesitation or doubt about it.
Mark: we’ve been asking that question for ten years now and I think that’s one of my favourites.
David: I don’t think you’re supposed to now too early. I think you’ve got to get close to the end before you start seeing everything really clear, you know. (laughs) That’s why life is such a rip off! Just when you start figuring it out and get all your aces, and your ducks in a row then you’re done!
Mark: That would be the great irony wouldn’t it! As soon as you work it out that’s it!
David: (laughs) Bang and you’re hit by a truck! Or whatever it is!
Mark: (laughs)
David: But I want to enjoy the rest of it, live the rest of what I have left! And Australia is part of that plan!
Mark: And it would be great to have you over, we’ll take you out to see Bon’s statue when you get here.
David: And I’ll accept drinks from your fellow countrymen! I know we have at least 65 people who are petitioning to get us over!
Mark: That’s a good start, we can work on that!
David: Well it’s almost one night (laughs) Thanks Mark see you soon!
Mark: Thanks for taking the time David, it’s been a pleasure to talk, hopefully we’ll see you soon!
David Hot dog! Cheers.
