While Hair Metal is often synonymous with Los Angeles, the city also had a flourishing punk
scene that was made up of groups including the Plugs, Alley Cats, the Screamers,
the Germs and today’s topic X. While they were far from the first punk band in LA,
X would go on to become one of the most resilient bands over the last 4 decades.
Frontwomen Exene Cervenka would tell Loudersound “We didn’t disgrace Los Angeles, that’s for sure,
We are a soundtrack to Los Angeles, and that is a big deal.”Today, let’s explore the history of X."
3 of the 4 musicians from the band would hail from
Illinois & It’s purely a coincidence since they didn’t know each other as young kids.
Bassist and co-vocalist John Doe would find his way to LA sometime in the 70’s
via Illinois, Maryland, and New York & Doe saw LA as a place to reinvent himself. He was a fan
of old cinema and the novelists that emerged from the City so it only made sense to migrate there.
Meanwhile guitarist and multi-instrumentalist Billy Zoom was living in LA starting in the
60’s and served as a session musician. He would reveal to Rolling Stone he grew.
Ambivalent to the music scene revealing “all the bullshit that popped into the Seventies,
all those over-produced, super-processed, over-sensitive, ‘we’re so arty’ arena bands,”
He also saw the LA music scene as being dead and was hungry for something new and raw.
coincidentally enough Zoom and Doe would place ads in the local paper the Recycler the same
week looking for other like minded musicians. The pair would eventually meet up and form a band.
Future X vocalist Exene Cervenka would also hail from Illinois but move to
florida at the age of 13. She would tell the Oklahoma Gazette “That was the early ’60s,
and girls couldn’t even play baseball,” “I lived out in the middle of nowhere in the country,
so there was no chance [of starting a band. Everything was in your mind, and it was all
about imagining things" Cervenka would take a liking to writing and poetry. It would be that
interest that caused her to hitch a ride with only $80 in her pocket across the country to LA at the
age of 20 Cervenka would take up a job at Beyond Baroque Foundation in Venice, It was at an open
mic night for poets at her place of work where she met future bandmate and husband John Doe.
She would recall to Rolling Stone “I was just sitting there and he came down and sat next to me,
We were talking and he said, ‘You wanna go next door to the jazz place and get a drink?’
So we did that and he told me about punk.” The pair would soon started dated Doe and started
attending the band’s rehearsals bringing the song “I’m Coming Over”. Cervenka would
admit that she never initially dreamed of joining a band whenshe moved out to LA.
Drummer DJ bonebreak would join round out the lineup.. By 1978 the classic lineup of X was born.
LA served as the perfect backdrop for the the group with Doe telling Loudersound “Hollywood
was in real decline, The Tennessee Williams in me said: ‘Yes! The perfect moment!’ Be in the heart
of the beast when it’s all falling to pieces." Fueled by alcohol, the band’s sound would rely
heavily on rockabilly type guitar hooks. They would release their first single Adult Books on
label Dangerouhouse & it was soon after that htey caught the attention of former Doors keyboardist
Ray Manzarek who read about the band in a local paper attended one of the group’s shows at the
Whisky A Go Go, the old stomping ground for his band. It was during that performance
the band even performed a blistering cover of the Doors song soul kitchen.
Impressed, Manzarek not only wanted to produce the band, but get them signed to a major label.
Ge would tell he mercury news “I saw them and I just fell in love,”They were amazing.
About the fourth song into the show they’re just wailing on something.
“My wife Dorothy said to me, ‘Do you recognize that one?’ I said, ‘Honey,
I don’t know any of these songs.’ She said, ‘No, no, no listen carefully.’ I said, ‘Oh my god,
it’s ‘Soul Kitchen!’ They were doing ‘Soul Kitchen’ at a thousand miles per hour.”
Manzurek tried to get the band signed to the Doors old label Elektra Records,
but was unsuccessful at first. The band instead, signed with indie label Slash records & they would
soon hit the studio with Manzarek as producer and he would lend a hand playing organ. By this time X
,already enough material for two full albums, but picked the best nine songs which would form their
impressive 1980 Debut, simply titled Los Angeles. Also included was their cover of Soul Kitchen.
The band would get noticed by critics and the album would not just make many best year of lists,
but is also considered by some to be one of punk’s finer moments.
X’s debut record would end up selling an impressive 100,000 copies in just half a year.
Following two gigs in San Diego in 1980, Doe and Cervenka would make their relationship official
and get hitched. Zoom recalled to Rolling Stone “They got married in Tijuana the next day in a
little justice-of-the-peace office. I remember I hired a mariachi band to come over and play,
and everybody drank a lot of tequila.” The leftover tracks from the Los Angeles
sessions would find their way onto their 1981 follow up Wild Gift. Critics once
again praised the band’s second ouing with Rolling Stone Magazine calling the record
“The best album by an American band this year,” Despite the obstacles that stood in the band’s
way, they would attract legions of fans, but they soon outgrew their small indie label Slash
Records. They would frequently show up to signings at records stores but had no records to sign.
The label couldn’t keep up with demand and had supply issues. Manzarek felt that now that the
band had some credibility, released a few records and built up a following, that Elektra might be
interested in X and they were. The band signed a deal with the label & for their major label
debut they allotted a whopping $100,000. .It would result in the 1982 album Under the Big Black Sun.
Featuring less punk and more bouncy beats as exemplified on the opening track The Hungry Wolf,
the record would be heavily inspired by the death of Cervenka’s sister, who would be killed by a
drunk driver in Hollywood while she was on her way to an X Show. Once again, they charmed critics,
but struggled to find a nationwide audience. FM Radio just didn’t want to touch the band.
Manzarek would recall to the Mercury News “by the time the third album had come out it was like,
‘God, what’s the matter? Radio will not play them.’ It was very depressing
to me because I knew how good they were. They’re America’s best punk rock band.
The band would release their follow up album 1983’s less punky More Fun in the
New World. The band’s first four releases all charted in the upper echelons of the billboard
charts but once again they just couldn’t quite captivate a nationwide audience.
Elektra’s insisted the band change their sound incorporating more synths and try to sound more
radio friendly. They would recommend the band work with Producer Michael Wagener who had worked
with MOtley Crue, W.A.S.P and Poison. & the end result would be the commercial and critically
diappointing record Ain’t Love Ground. Cervenka and Doe would both admit they weren’t fans of the
album with Cervenka telling Loudersound "The worst thing we ever did,
and the only regret of my life, in terms of my career, was that record,”
Doe would be a little less critical telling the same interviewer: “I can’t listen to it.
And couldn’t listen to it fairly soon after doing it because it didn’t sound like us.. “We thought,
what if we tried to marry the metal sound to the punk rock world? But it was a bad idea.”
It was around 1984 -85 that Doe and Cervenka got divorced but they decided to keep the band
going. Doe would tell Rolling Stone “I felt like our creative partnership was more important,
so even though I was hurt and she was hurt, we kept going. She was a friend before she was my
wife. And she was still a soulmate when we sing ’cause we sung together for so long" he'd say
Following the poor performance of Ain’t Love Grand’s recording and poor chart performance Zoom
would leave the band telling Loudersound “We hadn’t succeeded,”“I
felt it was time to get a real job.” X would continue to release albums during
the 80’s and early 90’s but none of which were as well received as their first four records.
The band would go on hiatus several times without officially breaking up while their
members explored other musical opportunities It would strangely enough be the show the X-Files
which got Billy Zoom to rejoin the band In 1997 the X-Files movie was in production and the studio
asked Cervenka and Zoom if they would be willing to appear in promotional spots for the film.
Zoom immediately agreed as he was a big fan of the show & Cervenka would recall seeing
Zoom after time apart recalling to rolling stone “He showed up with his silver guitar,
his silver jacket, sunglasses on and his amp, and I just pretty much started crying,”
During his time outside of X Zoom had become a born against christian, gotten sober, went back
to school and starting an amp-repair business. In 1997 the band put out a compilation Beyond & Back:
The X Anthology & according to zoom The band had made him an offer he couldn’t refuse.
The band hit the road in 1998 with Zoom admitting to Rolling Stone
“On that tour, I made a lot more than the rest of the band and got my way.”
The band would tour throughout the 2000’s and 2010’s but health troubles also stopped them
several times. Cervenka would reveal she had been diagnosed and then possibly misdiagnosed with MS
telling an interviewer "I've had so many doctors tell me I have MS, then some say
I don't ... I don't even care anymore" Zoom meanwhile would undergo treatment
for bladder cancer in 2015 before returning to the band later that year.
The band recently celebrated their 40th anniversary together with a tour in 2017
and released their first studio album in almost 3 years with 2020’s well received Alpahbetland.
That does it for today's video guys. Thanks for watching. Be sure to hit the like button
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