(Interview with Bruce Hampton)
Grease rap What’s Grease?
It’s a concept of music. It’s a concept of life. It means lobster eggs and ointment. It means basically to suck, yeah, basically to suck. It’s hard to define.
What kind of music is it?
Suckrock. It’s a combination between suckrock and ointment. Grease is a form of life; it’s also a form of music. It’s all a form of eggs; it all leads back to eggs.
Who understands your music here in Atlanta?
About three people. Every once in a while when we’re playing, people will say, “What’s that they’re doing?” They can’t get into what we’re doing because they’re looking for some local psychedelic be-bop band. What we try to do is create power. We just try to destroy. See, our main ambition in life aside from growing a bosom on top of our heads is to die on stage and when we die on stage that will be when we ultimately reach Grease. People are scared of us around here and they don’t let us play much. What they’re really afraid of is that, if they listen, they’ll find out that they’re really as much of what we’re playing about as we are. We try to be as honest as possible. It’s complete sincerity. There’s no put-on, no stage act.
What about technical ability?
You need to learn how to play. Everything has to be together and to destroy and it’s not a question of having a lot of technical capability. The goal is complete expression, and when you completely attain this expression, you won’t sound like anybody. You have your own sound and you just destroy. What we want people to do is just climb in and hear Grease and to destroy. Yeah, that’s it.
“Give me a gun, and I ‘ll blow your fucking head —Bruce Hampton
Like most heavy rock groups, the Hampton Grease Band suffers from overhype. The public has been drenched with news of their comings and goings, their backstage fighting, their messy private lives, their overt attempts to cash in on any current fad. Still, the band feels that in spite of the television, radio, and press coverage of their not-so-innocent antics, the music will endure. According to guitarist Harold Kelling, “Our music reflects BOLTS,” and this seems to be the real strength behind Grease.
One of the heaviest rock groups in the country, the HGB totals in at 785 pounds, not including equipment. They are 109 years old and come from Krele (pronounced krel), “eight light earth years away from this planet,” according to vocalist Bruce Hampton. What has always held them together is their hatred of the Band’s bassist, Charlie, whom they hold at arm’s length because of a Business Law degree from Oglethorpe College. Yet, Charlie is their leader. According to guitarist Glenn Phillips, “Charlie’s my big brother- my father image.” Manager for the HGB is Steve Cole of Discovery: “We first met Steve at the Catacombs- he said we were a good soul band and that if we put on coats and ties and worked on our act, he’d make us a lot of money!”
Unlike most rock groups, the Grease Band is heavily into political struggles: “We stand on our record,” they say when asked to define their politics. . Deeply into the study of communications media, just how hip the HGB is is illustrated by the fact that their politics was formulated not from the book, not even from the movie, but from the television show of “My Friend Flicka”!
Not content to rest on their laurels as musicians and entertainers, the Hampton Grease Band likes to get involved. For February they are planning the First International News Festival which will bring together in Montgomery, Alabama, for the first time Frank McGee, Sander Vanocur, Jerry Psenka, John Doyle, Hal Suit, Walter Cronkite and other news heavies. Hampton says there will be no police. Emcee will be Big Bill Hill, disc jockey from Chicago, fresh from his triumph at the Ann Arbor News Festival.
The HGB is currently working on production of a mammoth one-record album for BITE label which will be an exploration of the musical world of Norma Tanega as seen through the eyes of Immanuel Kant; it will be called Who Ate the World? or, more simply, FLAPS. Sample verse: “CANADE DOWN AND GROPE UNTIL, AROUND THE PEAK AT VQLTAG’S WILL. THE CRAYON FORTH AND SIX SHALL SPEAK, SATEEMUS BLONE CABLATIC GEEK.”
Two experiences that sum up the soul of the Hampton Grease Band most effectively are the time several years ago when Bruce Hampton was playing records in his grandmother’s basement, and she came downstairs yelling, “Turn off that goddam music –it sounds like bees\” Another time the band was playing the Catacombs “coffeehouse” and the Mother David underground establishment threw them out because their music was too loud, too electric, and too rock and roll: “They said we weren’t underground—they said we were sewerground!”