I recently had the opportunity to interview Bob Noxious, Lakewood resident and member of local punk rock band Horror of 59.  Keep an eye on their MySpace page for upcoming Lakewood shows.

Kat...  How long has Horror of 59 been together?

Bob Noxious...  I guess the band officially started in the summer of 2002.  It was just Deke on drums and his brother M Balmer on guitar and vocals.  They weren’t playing shows or anything yet, just writing songs.  They eventually did some recording around the end of 2003.  Deke says they put the early recordings up on the Internet and got nothing but negative feedback, so they decided to get a bass player and a vocalist.

Tommy Horror came into the band in April of 2004, and I joined in July.  We played our first show on September 19, 2004 , at the Hi Fi Concert Club in Lakewood .  We parted ways with M Balmer late last year, and played musical chairs with the line-up.  Deke is now playing bass, Tommy is playing guitar, and we have a new drummer named Brent Bastard.

What bands have the members of Horror of 59 been in before?

Horror of 59 is Deke's first band.  Brent was most recently in a band called The Late Mr. Jones, and I believe he's been in other bands before that.  Tommy has been in a few bands as well, mostly in the Toledo area.  The last one before he joined us was Johnny Hooligan.  I've played in a bunch of bands since 1987, most of which nobody would know about.  Punch and Judy was an "alternative" rock band I played guitar for, and I played bass and sang for Martian John, sort of a tongue-in-cheek stoner rock-metal band that had Alan Seibert of Abdullah on guitar.

You confess to the obvious Misfits influence in your music, but you guys are inspired by a whole lot of other stuff – “ the whole history of seventies and eighties punk, sixties garage rock, fifties rock 'n' roll, and even a little bit of metal” is what your website says.  What, more specifically, are some of your other influences?

‘Screams From the Cellar’ definitely has a lot of Misfits influence, with some Ramones, fifties rock 'n roll, and metal thrown in.  That stuff was mostly written before Tommy and I joined, though, and since then we’ve broadened our sound a bit.  Some of the influences on our newer stuff would be Social Distortion, TSOL, The Dead boys, Johnny Cash, Slayer, The Sonics, Elvis, The Mummies, Judas Priest, Cannibal Corpse, and Dick Dale.  It might sound like we’ve gone completely schitzo, but the basic foundation of our sound is still the same.  Some of those other influences are obvious, but a lot of them are just little things here and there that we’ve adapted to our own sound.  Some of the new songs would have fit on the first album, but in general the arrangements are a bit more complex and we’ve added lead guitar to a few songs.  We’ve been playing all the new songs live, some for almost as long as we’ve been around, and people seem to like ‘em so I guess we haven’t screwed up too badly yet.

I noticed the song “Moonville Spooks” on your “Screams from the Cellar” album, which I assume is about the haunted railway tunnel in Vinton County .  Have you written songs about any other of Ohio 's local legends or ghost stories, like the Torso Killer?

Yes, that song is indeed about the Moonville Tunnel haunting.  “Helltown” on ‘Screams’ is also based on an Ohio urban legend.  Helltown is what some people call the area around Peninsula and Boston Township .  Supposedly it’s home to a Satanic cult, among other weird things, and if you go to websites like deadohio.com or creepycleveland.net you can read some of the stories people have told about the area.  I don’t buy the stories for a minute, but it’s good fodder for our lyrics. 

It seems like Horror of 59 plays a fair number of shows in Lakewood .  What venues have you played at, and what do you think of them?

In Lakewood, we’ve played The Hi Fi Concert Club, Mahall’s, and The Phantasy.  We only did Mahall’s once and it was a blast.  They treated us really well and even gave us free beer, which is something that used to be standard back when I started playing music in the late eighties but doesn’t happen much any more.   The only problem with playing there for us is you need to bring your own PA, and the one we have isn’t really cut out for doing a show with. The Hi Fi has been very good to us, and both times we’ve played there we had good, enthusiastic crowds even though both shows were on a Thursday.

We’ve played The Phantasy once, and at least at this point it’s just not the best venue for us.  Because it’s so big and they hire security and so on, they have a lot of costs which they take out of the door.  So if we have a crowd of 50 people, which is about what our shows at the Hi Fi have pulled, we wouldn’t see any money.  Don’t get me wrong, we’re not in this for the money.  But if it’s a choice between playing the Hi Fi and getting some money to put towards recording or making shirts, and playing The Phantasy and going home with nothing...

Any thoughts about the music “scene” in Lakewood, or Cleveland?

As far as the actual artists go, I think Cleveland and Lakewood have a lot to offer.  Whatever type of music you dig, there’s a band in the area playing that style well.  Just looking at bands either based in Lakewood or with at least a member or two living here, off the top of my head there’s Uncle Scratch’s Gospel Revival, Abdullah, Jacknife Powerbombs, Colorforms, Nunslaughter, and Iron Oxide.  That covers a pretty broad range of music from metal to punk to noise to whatever the hell you call Uncle Scratch, and I think every one of those bands is as good as any band in their genre anywhere.

And it’s great to be able to just drive down the street about five minutes and see good bands at The Hi Fi, Mahall’s, The Phantasy and, soon, The Hard Times Saloon.  You also have The Winchester bringing in major touring acts in classic rock, jazz, folk, and other genres.  Plus the Phantasy and Hi Fi both do occasional big shows.  Obviously there’s still some acts that you’re only going to see if you go to Cleveland proper, but I can’t think of too many other suburbs the size of Lakewood with that kind of thriving music scene.

The only thing I’d complain about is I wish there was a club with a real stage and pro PA that books our kind of music and was willing to do all-ages shows without charging the kids more than the drinkers.  I know it ain’t gonna’ happen, but it would be nice.  And I wish more people would come out to local shows in general.  It boggles my mind that people will happily plunk down 50 bucks to see bands 20 years past their prime go through the motions of playing their old songs, when there are some great local bands putting on killer shows for 5 bucks.  I know there are some crappy bands out there, too, but now that every band has a website or MySpace page with their music on it, it’s easy to find out if you’re going to like a band or not.

What’s in the future for Horror of 59?

A lot, hopefully. We’ve been working on our next album, “The Golden Age of Sin.”  Hopefully that’ll be out in late winter or early spring of 2007.  We also just recorded our last show at The Hi Fi club for a DVD.  And of course our busy season is coming up soon.  We’ll be playing the Bloodbash at The Pirate’s Cove on October 21st, with former Misfits vocalist Michale Graves headlining.  Then the last weekend of October, we’re joining up with the World Horror Network.com fall tour for a few dates.  A band called Others from NY is headlining, and on various dates we’ll also be playing with Lugosi’s Morphine from PA, Nuke and the Living Dead from Michigan , and The Fismits from Akron .  Right now we’re on the Buffalo , Akron , and Detroit dates.  This’ll be the first time we’ve gotten out of Ohio , and we’re really looking forward to it.

Anything else you want to say?

Just thanks to all the people who’ve come out to the shows, bought our CD, or just listened to our stuff on the Internet and enjoyed it.  And anyone who hasn’t checked us out yet that wants to can go to www.horrorof59.com or www.myspace.com/horrorof59.
  
  

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