An interview with the Fangtastic Dickie Devil
Interview By John Wisniewsk
In this interview, Dickie speaks about his enthusiastic fans, his favorite bands, and horror punk.
Punk Globe: What bands were you in before you formed Dickie Devil and the Deviants?
Dickie: Well this is Dickies’ first band that actually panned out and the members didn’t want to kill each other, Daddy-O! And even now we have had multiple lineup changes. Luckily I have a lot of musically inclined Cousins in the Deadsville area.
Punk Globe: When did you form Dickie Devil and the Deviants?
Dickie: We started in 2019, right before the pandemic. Right after the first season of Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, I wrote “Book of the Beast” and that kinda set the tone for where we were headed musically. Of course,the pandemic shut everything down and we made our debut as a band via Livestream from AstroMonster records during the lockdown.
Punk Globe: Any favorite bands, Dickie?
Dickie: Oh hell yeah Daddy-O! Sooo many! Obviously, The Ramones and The Misfits are our godfathers, so to speak. But I love and draw from classic bands like KISS, Sex Pistols, Iggy and the Stooges, Buddy Holly, Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, Black Sabbath, The Cramps, Slayer… And then a few more modern bands we dig: Teenage Bottlerocket, The Jasons, Masked Intruder, Midnight, Lillingtons, Memphis Murder Men, and Koffin Kats… Love Suzi Moon! I love the new Sack album! Those two are getting a lot of spins from me right now Daddy-O!
Punk Globe: What are the live shows like?
Dickie: Our live shows are a gas! When this whole thing started my number 1 goal was to write songs that made people DANCE and have a good time. So I ‘m not gonna lie, we pander to women a good bit! Women dance, and I figured if I could write songs that made the Daddyettes dance, those uptight Daddy-Os with their arms folded in the back of the room would eventually soften up and join ’em, And it worked! Hahaha!
Now the Deadsville Daddyettes are up front at the start of every set ready to rock n’ roll! It’s always the ladies who get the party started when we play. And the guys jump in right in! We get some great crowds in our area that come out and dance from the beginning to the end of the set, and have even developed their own ritualistic circle pit for our closing song “Da Humans Run Run”, where they run and scream and jump on cue w the yeah’s in the chorus. It’s awesome to see, and we feel pretty honored that our Deadsville crew created and Developed that organically over the course of our live shows. And they take it on the road with us too! Hahaha, it’s Fangtastic!
Punk Globe: Why do you like horror punk?
Dickie: Being a generally spooky, reanimated rock n’ roller such as myself, obviously the subject matter draws me in, Daddy-O. And today’s horror punk sound is a bit broader spectrum than the previous generation, where everyone was either a Misfits or Blitzkid clone. No disrespect to the legends, but things get a bit stale when you limit a genre to sounding exclusively like 2 bands. So it’s great to bring what we do, a more Ramonescore pop-punk thing, to the table and still, fit in. At the same time, we don’t limit ourselves to the label of “horror punk” since what we do fit into a few different punk boxes.
We embrace horror punk, but also consider ourselves a Ramonescore band, a retro band, rock band, a power pop band, a pop punk band, 70s punk?? We coined the term Munstercore when we started because we had a campy surf sound in there then, but lately, we have leaned more into Scooobycore as now a power trio that sounded more straightforward retro pop punk.
We like to think we hang in that grey area between horror and pop punk similar to bands like the Groovy Ghoulies, Lillingtons, The Jasons, Zoanoids (RIP), Horror Section,Teenage Bottlerocket.
Punk Globe: Any future plans for the band?
Dickie: We have lots coming soon Daddy-O! We just wrapped shooting the rebooted episode one of our horror sitcom Deadsville Rock n’ Roller Mysteries, starring Hollywood horror legend Kane Hodder ( Jason Voorhees, Friday the 13th) as the voice of our puppet dog manager. We have celebrity cameos every episode, similar to the old Scooby Doo cartoons with ep2 guest starring legendary scream queen Linnea Quigley (Return of the Living Dead, Night of the Demons) and ep3 guest Hollywood horror icon Bill Moseley (Devil’s Rejects, TCM 2, House of 1000 Corpses). We have 4 episodes currently in production that will be shopping to streaming networks when complete.
We also have our first full-length LP releasing Feb. 2023, Featuring 18 songs all recorded by the current lineup of Deviants. Half the album will be some re-recordings of previous songs with the new lineup, which def change the feel of the songs a bit. We are looking forward to getting the new album out there so all the groovy Daddy-Os and Daddyettes can cut some rug to our current sound!
We will of course, continue to make zany music videos for our songs.
And plenty more love shows in 2023, starting with a quick run thru Ohio at the end of January w stops in Cleveland Jan. 25, Columbus Jan. 26, Cincinnati Jan.27 and then hitting Indianapolis for Punk Rock Night Indy at the Melody Inn on Sat. Jan.28.