It’s very hard for me to focus solely on the death of Lux Interior; the lead singer of The Cramps passed away earlier this week due to a heart condition at age 62. The Cramps were one of several bands from the CBGB punk era of the ’70s who seem legendary, and they had their own garage-punk style which added to the patchwork collection of punks and new-wavers who frequented the club.
While Interior took an Iggy Pop style of punk showmanship, the band also mixed their sound with rockabilly and a whole lot of camp to separate them from many of their peers. Though now that Interior has died and CBGB has been replaced by a high-end clothing store, the punk spirit he embodied lives on in other acts.
“You don’t try, you just do.” I can’t think of a better six words to describe the spirit of a band like The Cramps. Does a bit of that spirit live on in Andrew W.K.? Well, Andrew doesn’t have the rockabilly vibe going for him, but he does have a certain sense of humor and fun about him–I can think of at least four Andrew W.K. songs with “party” in the title (and two with fun). In addition, it’s hard to imagine what an Andrew W.K. live show would be like without The Cramps setting an incredibly high bar to top.
On the other end of a spectrum, O’Death probably owe a large debt of thanks to The Cramps. O’Death certainly have a panicked live show and even have that rockabilly influence. But how did someone like Interior manage to influence acts as varied as Andrew W.K. and O’Death? That’s part of the magic of a legendary band. Their influence ends up in such a wide diversity of musicians that they live around us all everyday–often times without anyone really noticing. Lux Interior may be gone, however, he lives on in not only his own music but the music of others.
TOPICS: poingly