LEGEND OF THE VANCOUVER MUSIC SCENE… PUNK GLOBE CATCHES UP WITH ANTHONY WALKER A.K.A. TONY BALONY
Interview By: MS. LIGAYA & THE FLOYDIAN DEVICE
Anthony Walker/ AKA Tony Balony has been a legendary figure on the Vancouver music scene since the 1980s… He’s played pretty much every genre of music with way too many bands to list.. The Bludgeoned Pigs, The Actionauts, Antheads, Melody Pimps, I Braineater, The Real McKenzies, The Rubes…
We caught up with Tony in Vancouver to hear about some of his punk rock history and what kind of projects he’s working on these days.
Punk Globe: Tony, thanks for taking the time to talk to us. You’ve been in so many bands in Vancouver over the years playing different styles of music.. From Stones to Iggy, English punk to Celtic rock.. All over the musical map. What kind of stuff did you listen to when you were growing up that gave you such a wide range of musical influences?
Walker: English punk? Nah, I never did that. haha. My parents were ballet dancers and had these nightclub acts as well as their dance school so there was always music around. I met The Temptations in ’65 when I was 4 at The Cave Supper Club one afternoon while tagging along with my dad to a soundcheck or whatever it was. The Temptations were the first black people I’d ever met.. not that that’s important but it was during the civil rights era and Vancouver was mostly white back then. I was colouring in my ‘Trolls’ colouring book when my dad came over announcing “Tony it’s The Temptations! The Temptations!” like I should know who they were or what that word even meant. Otis Miles was the leader and right away invited me to “feel that fuzzy hair” on his head. He obviously realized my wonder and showed me his hand saying “look see? I’m black on this side but white on this side” showing his palm, “because we’re the same on the inside”. They were also the first famous people I’d ever met.. not that I knew it at the time. I think Otis is still alive. That would be cool to meet him again. My first 45 was Herman’s Hermits that my folks must have used for some dance class or go-go dance act. It wasn’t fast enough though so I would put the 45 on 78 rpm and really freak out to it. Early punk haha. The Beatles were my first band though.. literally. I had a little kid band we called the Beatles that would play our brooms and cardboard boxes in local parades or in our yard. I started playing real guitar when I was 11. One of my mom’s wealthy hippy friends saw I was plunking around and decided to give me a stack of albums by Hendrix, Rolling Stones, Ry Cooder.. she was pretty integral to my early start on guitar. Those are all still some of my favourite albums.
Punk Globe: What were the best live shows you saw as a teenager that made you want to get into rock n roll?
Walker: I wanted to get into playing rock before I ever saw a live band. Shows were easy for a kid to see back then because they were maybe $5.00 or something. Our first show was when we dragged our dad to Alice Cooper (Billion Dollar Babies tour) but it was sold out so my brother Nick and I ran around to the stage door and knocked and this scary roadie with Alice Cooper tour patches all over him just waved us through. I’ll never forget hearing ‘Hello Hooray’ start up as we walked in completely freaking out we were backstage. Nick also bought me my first decent guitar by working at McDonalds when he was 14.
Punk Globe: Brian O’ Nolan from The Georgia Straight (Vancouver’s premiere entertainment magazine) once wrote that “Tony Balony is the first, finest, and to date only legit guitar hero of the Vancouver punk/new wave scene..” And that was before you had even turned legal to drink in the bars you were playing. How did you get to that kind of level before you were even out of your teens? Were you one of those kids that got his first guitar and spent hours in his room every day practicing?
Walker: Really? I’ve never read that. I’m not the first, finest anything.. haha. Ok yeah, I was one of those kids that played guitar constantly. I had goofy teenager bands in high school and pretty much didn’t care about much else. It was great having that early punk scene in Vancouver though. We all felt like stars in training or something. Having guys like Randy Rampage, Zippy and Buck etc.. we all shared a sort of stardom without actual stardom. Haha
Punk Globe: I think the very earliest band recordings we found online was “Anthony Walker and The Loved Ones” 1988. One-sided cassette tape that had 3 songs (“I’m Asking You” “Pussycat” ” Jobsite” ), and has a “hotline” number on it, which was pretty cool… every album should have a ‘hotline’! Was the hotline direct to your house? How old were you when you formed that band and recorded the album? How did you record that?
Walker: That stuff was from ’87 and I credit Jobsite as the first ‘punk-rap’ recording at least in our neighbourhood around Vancouver. My first recordings were back in 1980 with Antheads though. First vinyl ’81 with the Thirsty Souls and Melody Pimps on the Bud Luxford ‘On Sale Inside’ album. The Melody Pimps ‘You Freak Me Out’ went to #1 on CITR radio. Actionauts put out a 45 in ’83 I think it was.. ‘Hash Assassins’ also went #1 on CITR. Our Antheads demo has recently been released as a 45 EP on the Supreme Echo label.
Punk Globe: That would be amazing to hear. Is there a link to where we can find this?
Walker: There’s Melody Pimps, Actionauts, Perky Pat up on YouTube along with other stuff.. my Tony Balony ’Standing Rubes Only’ and Anthony Walker ‘Treasure Town’ are on all the platforms that pay little to no money. I do still get cheques from Joey Shithead for the Real McKenzies ‘Clash of the Tartans’ disc. I haven’t received a dime from the band though who have been bootlegging and playing my stuff for decades. I’m doing ok though so the drinks are on me.
Punk Globe: I think another one of your first bands was The Bludgeoned Pigs. That was some great early hardcore punk. What were the crowds like at those early shows?
Walker: That was probably the greatest punk band in all punkdom. We were kids.. none of us were of legal age when we started out. Al Jamieson was the greatest punk frontman I’ve ever seen and that’s saying something. I’m not alone in that opinion. He had the greatest snarly voice and was the most exciting, frightening and hilarious performers. He deserves punk accolades more than me or anyone else. I have some stuff I recorded with him and Sam Salmon I really need to put out in some capacity. I’ve also found some great live video of a show we did in 1980 with the Subhumans. Sadly, he’s no longer with us. He was the best and I miss him greatly.
Punk Globe: Yes, you should definitely put out those recordings. Time is ticking by and some of our greatest friends have left this crazy marble. Some of them we were lucky enough to have had the chance to record with, and there are some epic unreleased recordings still floating around out there. It would be amazing to listen to and feel that energy with ‘them’ again. Like those Braineater songs you and I recorded with Jim Braineater and Phillip Western IV a few years back. I would love to hear that.. or anything either of us did with the late and deeply missed iconic Gerry-Jenn Wilson (Rest In Peace) . She loved her band with you – “48 Crash”. You, Gerry-Jenn and 48 Crash go way back… can you tell us more about you and Gerry and the bands you played in together? What’s one of your most favorite Gerry-Jenn memory?
Walker: I first met her in 1990 I think. She sat next to me on the floor and was literally vibrating. I looked sideways at her to see what was going on to see her looking sideways back at me. We had some fun times. 48 Crash was our Suzi Quatro tribute since we were both huge Suzi fans. I’m wearing her wig and clothes in that pic of me with Art’s band in drag.
Punk Globe: After The Bludgeoned Pigs, you joined the Melody Pimps. That band had a song called “You Freak Me Out” that was #1 on Vancouver’s CITR radio station for a month. It was a really different style than what you’d been doing with the ‘Pigs. How did you get into that? Was it a conscious decision that you wanted to go in a different direction with your music? Or was it more related to just who you happened to be hanging around with at the time?
Walker: Actually, The Pimps, The Pigs, The Thirsty Souls, Antheads.. all those bands were happening at the same time. I remember being in 6 or 7 bands around that time.. Corsage, Perky Pat, KraftDinner.. other one-offs as well. Melody Pimps are a funky ‘fuck band’ that started by accident. The Smilin’ Buddha called me one night asking where the Antheads were and Buck Cherry was with us at the time saying what a great band name ‘Melody Pimps’ would be so went down to the Buddha immediately and played under that name.
Punk Globe: Was it The Melody Pimps that played the infamous Budstock ’81 show? What was that night like?
Walker: That was the greatest show anyone in Vancouver has ever put on. Ask anyone who was there. “10 bands for 10 bucks” which was a lot then but we got it and packed the place to the roof..
Punk Globe: Who were some of the bands playing that night? Is that the infamous show that turned into a riot?
Walker: No, the riot was in ’92. After the 10 year anniversary Budstock ’91 we thought it should be a yearly event so did it the next year – which was also the last Budstock ..or Bloodstock as it’s now referred to. First on was ‘Jewelled Indifference’ that I did with /Sam Salmon… Then the Real McKenzies first show after that. Sluts and Bozos did their debut that night as well – coming out on tricycles with balloons and a flaming hoop I jumped through nearly lighting the place on fire. Those bouncers really hated that. We were the first punk clown band I think. Then 48 Crash played and the place exploded into a raging full on riot. That’s another story.
Punk Globe: Not long after the first Budstock in ’81, you put together The Actionauts with vocalist Gus Vassos. That was a great band that sounded way ahead of its’ time. (You can still find Actionauts songs like Vagabond and Hash Assassin on Youtube). Gus Vassos is a Vancouver icon all on his own… I read somewhere that when Gus Vassos calls, you answer the phone! There’s some really great history between you and Gus …how did you two meet? What was the songwriting process like with you and Gus in this band?
Walker: Gus and I first met when we were 10 years old and have been best friends ever since. We were North Vancouver grease-ball troublemakers as kids and started banding when we were about 16. I just saw him yesterday with Bud Luxford for one of our bi-annual ‘crusties’ meetings. Actionauts were a great live band and we really were developing a sound like no one else at that time. We loved all the local power-pop bands that were coming up then like the Modernettes, Pointed Sticks, Young Canadians.. I blame myself for that not working out properly. Young and dumb. We recently took our unfinished recordings we were working on back then and finished them with Ray Fulber who produced the project originally. It’s amazing how well that stuff stands up decades later.
Punk Globe: Did you have any memorable gigs with The Actionauts?
Walker: We backed up the Ramones in ’83. I tried to get Joey and DeeDee to come back to the Snake Pit with us. It was our official band/ party house we shared with 10 other people and as many bands. DeeDee really wanted to go.. “C’mon Joey, it’s the Snake Pit. We gotta go!” Joey told him “we can’t go to the Snake Pit DeeDee”. Of course I didn’t even get a picture with them or anything. Didn’t seem like too big a deal at the time.
Punk Globe: You were a founding member of the celtic punk legends The Real McKenzies from the early days around 1992 to 2000. How did the idea come up for a bunch of hard partying Vancouver punks to put on kilts and go onstage with heavy guitars and bagpipes?
Walker: I was working on Budstock 3 with Bud Luxford who basically told me “Tony, you know all the bands in town these days so you get them all together and I’ll get the Commodore Ballroom together and do the promotion.” So I had a stable of musicians I was putting bands together with and I ran into Paul McKenzie at a bar where he was griping about TT Racer who had recently broken up. I told him to get his old fuck band Tartan Haggis together and do Budstock 3 with me. He didn’t want anything to do with that band so I said “just take these musicians I have here, put some kilts on them and call it ‘My Scottish Ass’ or whatever you want to call it. Fine, a week later I call to see how it’s going and he tells me he won’t do it with the guys I set up, and if I don’t do it with him then he won’t do it. I was already in 3 other bands in the show but said I’d do it. Aaron just happened to walk into the Railway Club just as I was talking to Paul about it, and Paul turns and says to him “hey can you play bass?” And Aaron – who neither of us knew at the time – says “yeah!”. I wouldn’t have it and started in on him “what bands have you played in? What bass you got?” He showed up to our one and only rehearsal with a crappy bass and Sears sucker amp and couldn’t play a note. I was so pissed off but when Aaron showed up for the gig he looked better than any of us. He had rented a full Scottish kilt tux with all the gear and we did our 3 song set to a large group of Japanese tourists who had wandered in off a tour bus – all snapping pictures and laughing. I wish there was footage of that first show.
Punk Globe: Did you do a lot of touring with The Real McKenzies? What countries are the biggest fans of celtic punk?
Walker: You’d have to ask Paul. I only ever toured the US and Canada. We started touring pretty early on going back and forth across Canada and the States. I’m sure the Dropkick Murphys must have seen us at an early Boston show before they started that act. It was great writing music for bagpipes and putting those songs together back then. We could probably do an article just on that band. Or any of them for that matter. Ha
Punk Globe: Filmmaker Danny Novak, aka Danny Shmanny from The Spores, shot one of our favourite McKenzies music videos for ‘Mainland’. I remember you ended up taking one for the team at the end of the shoot and were taken off in an ambulance. Can you give Punk Globe readers a quick lesson on what not to do when filming a video on a beach?
Walker: Well, it wasn’t actually ‘a beach’ where that happened so much as an old rusty boat graveyard with giant spikes hiding under the sand. I stepped on one in my bare feet and it went clean through my foot. Danny fainted.
Punk Globe: Punk author Chris Walter wrote a book about the band: ‘Under The Kilt: The Real McKenzies Exposed’. Was that a pretty accurate depiction of the debauchery that ensued while you were in the band? Any good dirt that got left out that should be served up to the fans?
Walker: Chris has some great books but I doubt that one is his best. He told me it was basically going to be ‘the Paul McKenzie story’ which is funny since I think he credited some of my stories to Paul. Maybe I should try reading it again.
Punk Globe: You always end up with incredible drummers in your bands.. From the early days with Ron Reyes in the Bludgeoned Pigs to Jon Card, James Brander, Brien O’Brien, Charlie Quintana, Doug Donut, and so many more… How do you always end up with these amazing cats? And you do so many different styles of music.. Do you get really specific in finding the right drummer for every project that will really get the feel of what you’re writing at the time?
Walker: A good drummer is the hardest and most important person to find for any band. It’s not only their drumming but their persona that can make a great drummer. Like Dudley Welsh in the Actionauts or Rob Esch in the McKenzies.. those guys are giants to me.
Punk Globe: You played with Charlie Quintana on your 2009 record ‘Treasure Town’. He’s drummed with some pretty legendary bands like Social Distortion, Izzy Stradlin, and Bob Dylan. How did you hook up with him, and what was it like recording together?
Walker: He was truly awesome. That was 2009? Holy crap. When I gave him my demos to learn for the session he said “I don’t wanna hear no keyboard or bass player. I just want you and your guitar in my headphones. Nobody else.” Great, I said since I didn’t have any of those guys. The bed tracks were just him and me.
Punk Globe: Treasure Town had some great tracks. The title track is a standout.. Starlight Train and Good Times both sound like they could have been golden-age Stones songs. What is Starlight Train about? And what’s your favourite song on that record?
Walker: Thanks for asking about it. It’s the best work out of everything I’ve done. Starlight Train is a swampy train ride to the other side. I let the listener decide what that one’s about. All the songs on that disc were written together as a theme. There were a few good tracks I wrote and sang with the McKenzies and some great songs on ’Standing Rubes Only’, but Treasure Town is my concept album. It’s meant to be a tribute to 20th century American music, from the early days of minstrelsy jazz and blues right up to sweet mother rock n’ roll.
Punk Globe: The Rubes have been around for a long time in different forms. When did you start that band? Is it your main creative outlet these days?
Walker: I think I started the Rubes around 2005 or something? Not sure. The name came from my buddy Andreas who referred to any good drinking buddy as a ‘good rube’. His bar had a tiny little sign near the front that said ‘Standing Rubes Only’. I loved the appeal of that.
Punk Globe: Who’s in the band now, and how did this version of The Rubes come together?
Walker: Around 5 years ago I had a gig and no band so I called up Doug Donut, Dave Charan and we did the first shows with Zaff on 2nd guitar – but it wasn’t for him – so we then added James Paul McMaster Philips or ‘ James Names’ as I like to call him on keyboards. We’re currently playing around and going into the studio soon.
Punk Globe: Pontiac is such a classic song. Probably one of the greatest rock n roll songs to come outta these parts. Was that written with The Rubes, or did you have that one around before?
Walker: That was from another great fuck band from Budstock I was in called ‘Sluts and Bozos’. We were a seriously awesome clown band before anyone was doing that. That band really should have took off. Haha
Punk Globe: That’s a beautiful strat sound on that one. You’re more known for playing SGs.. What got you into the SGs as your main machine?
Walker: I like the punchy tone of the SG. They have a particular honk.. or more of a ‘tonk’. Tele’s are also great.
Punk Globe: The obvious question for an SG aficionado.. What’s the greatest AC/DC album?
Walker: Powerage of course. I ran out and bought it the next day after seeing them blow Aerosmith off stage when Bon Scott was still in charge.
Punk Globe: How do you write.. Do you come up with an idea for kind of a lyrical theme and write a story; or just scat to the music and see what kind of words come out – then try to make sense of them?
Walker: It’s not so easy to describe. I do ‘scat’ though, did I tell you that? With ’Space Rabbits’ I had a cable plugged into a Mouse amp and just tapped my thumb on the end of the jack to get that ‘bamp bamp’ rhythm happening. The rest just fell out of the air.
Punk Globe: Your two daughters have fiercely followed in their Dad’s footsteps. At one of I, Braineater’s gigs a few years ago, there was a moment when your kids ‘band’ took over the mic after the show and it was so impressive. It was impromptu, but it was loud, it was fierce, and it was authentic with so much attitude, it left me with great shiny hope that punk is definitely not dead.
Walker: Those kids are something else and definitely vibrate on their own wavelengths. Both pretty musical too so who knows what they’ll get up to.
Punk Globe: Describe yourself in three words.
Walker: Honest, trustworthy and dependable. haha ok fine. Fun, colourful and hopeful.. or ‘not very punk’ haha
Punk Globe: Any words of wisdom for the young punks out there?
Walker: “Hey kids, no future!”
Punk Globe: Where can people find your stuff?
Walker: Tony Balony and the Rubes is on all the digital distribution sites as is Anthony Walker – Treasure Town. I have a ton of cd’s I’d love to get rid of. If anyone wants one contact me on FB. Thanks!