Moulty of the Barbarians Talks With Garagerocktopia -- Part 2

This week, we feature part 2 of our feature story on the Barbarians, the great first-wave garage rock band that helped set the tone and give the flavor to the music we now call call "garage rock." If you missed the first part of the story, click here.

The Barbarians had two songs that hit the national charts and surely inspired other people, both musicians and not. The group experienced success with the song "Are You a Boy or Are You a Girl?," which reached #55 on the Billboard singles chart. The Barbarians followed up with “What the New Breed Say,” a fine song which, alas, did not dent the chart. Pressure to generate another hit was on.

 

What came next was the Barbarian’s best-known song, the autobiographical “Moulty.” The song is about Moulty’s own tragedy – he lost his hand as a teenager in an odd pipe bomb accident. Moulty had reservations about the song at first.

“I said ‘there’s no way I’m going to pour my guts out on a record like that,” Moulty remembered. “I changed most of the lyrics, and it was released and it charted. We didn’t know what was going to happen next, which was a tremendous positive reaction.”

It seems like an odd choice for a song, but it turned into something that resonated with a lot of people, and continues to this day. The song is the autobiographical, sometimes spoken-word  account of an accident that Moulty had as a teenager which cost him one of his hands. The song, however, is not a downer but rather a tale of overcoming adversity -- something that came out loud and clear to a lot of people when it came out.

“I had so many people tell me, ‘I was going to commit suicide, or there were things I never would have done if I hadn’t heard that song,” said Moulty. “I had a lot of teens react to it. Their problems may not have seemed a big deal to adults, but when you’re a teenager, those problems seem very real.”

Some have described the song as “melodramatic” and even “humorous,” not quite the way Moulty himself would characterize the song.

“Melodramatic is not the word I would have used,” Moulty commented. “I overcame something. I didn’t want to be a drummer – I wanted to be a great drummer. Learning to play drums with that hook was the hardest thing I ever did. And I thought if I did that, it would inspire others to overcome their own problems.”

 

A little fun fact about the song: Most of the original members of the Barbarians do not appear on the record. The musicians that Moulty did work with -- their credits do not appear on the record --was a group that frequently worked with Bob Dylan. They would later come to be known as "The Band."

The 1966 release peaked at number 90 on the Billboard singles chart. More importantly, though, the song, like the rest of the Barbarians' music, retained a loyal following that remains to this day.

In rock tradition, and especially garage rock tradition, the Barbarians didn’t last all that long. By 1968, the band members went their separate ways.

“We thought we would be big forever – we thought people would always try to tear down our walls,” Moulty admitted. “Do you know the average time a rock band lasts? About 2 and three quarters years and then they break up. It’s like having five wives – imagine that. You’re living together, and you want to do one thing and they want to do another. It’s tough.”

Moulty did not disappear from music, though.  In 1973, he formed a new version of the Barbarians that was short lived. He also wrote songs that other artists recorded. And, the Barbarians' songs were later included on the Nuggets compilation, which is where yours truly discovered them. Moulty said, though, that the Barbarians always retained a following, and that Nuggets didn't seem to have too much effect.

Clearly, the Barbarian's impact has never completely faded. From the outlaw image -- including the extra long hair, aggressive beats and edgy vocals, they were at least two years ahead of their time and their music echoes from bands like the Music Machine, to David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust phase, later to the Sex Pistols and the Ramones. Legions of metal, punk and garage rock bands, whether they're aware of it or not, owe something of their style and sound to the Barbarians.

The group's impact wasn’t just stylistic, though, but geographic. Boston, while contributing some artists to the still-young genre known as rock and roll, wasn't  exactly a hotbed. The Barbarians helped put Beantown on the rock and roll map.

 

“We were the ones that broke Boston open,” Said Moulty. "For a long time we were the ones that everyone was watching." One internet rumor has members of Aerosmith as teens working as roadies for the Barbarians. Moulty said this is absolutely untrue, though he did confirm that a young Brad Whitford did frequent their gigs. It's not hard to see the influence to other area bands like The J. Geils Band to Gang Green.

Many thanks to Moulty for spending so much time talking to your humble blogger.

On a different note, I was very lucky recently to catch up with Sid Herring of the Gants, the great band from Greenwood Mississippi who, at their best, rivaled the British Invasion bands for melodic, catchy pop. Like Moulty, Herring was a severely gracious and friendly guy who spent a good deal of time talking about the Gants and what he's up to today. So tune in at the same bat-time and the same bat-station for our feature on Sid Herring and the Gants.