Music of the 50’s

The Cramps’ style has that ground of rockabilly, and I wondered why over the years you’ve kept that as sort of the staple to start from?

                    ‘Cause it’s the coolest. It’s just the best thing there is. It’s the center of the universe—the heart of rock-and-roll.

You mentioned that it was like the dangerous music of the ’50s. When people think of the ’50s, they don’t think of danger in the music…

                    It was really dangerous. I talked to people who remember the first time they heard Little Richard, and they said it just scared them. When they heard it. Older people that were young at the time, they said that it was just terrifying to them, the sound of that… And these people had tough lives, the better entertainers of that era.

They also mix a lot of sexual innuendos in the songs… the same as you do today…

                    They sure did. Well, yeah, Tutti Frutti, you know… Little Richard was also known as Miss Laverne, you know, and did drag shows, and the same thing. And Tutti Frutti, the hit version, is just a cleaned up version of some party song he did in bars. It’s much better to leave a little to the imagination. It’s more surrealistic that way. Leave something for people to visualize.

The Cramps

TV Spotlight Interviews

(Toronto, 1990s)