Moulty of the Barbarians Talks With Garagerocktopia!!!

This week’s post marks another milestone in what I hope to make Garagerocktopia be, and a very exciting one at that. We have our first artist interview, and who better to be the first than Moulty, leader of the seminal rock band the Barbarians.

For those of you who don’t know – and that's why we're here -- to school you up  -- the Barbarians were one of those bands that really helped kick off what would become known as “garage rock.” Hailing from the Boston area, the Barbarians were a direct influence to succeeding generations of punk and metal bands. All you need do is listen to their tough sound, great hooks and clever, sometimes biting lyrics -- as well as their bad boy image -- to understand why.

The band was led by Victor Moulton, known to everyone as Moulty.  Moulty was one of those rare birds – a drummer who was the most visible member of the band. 20 years before Rick Allen of Def Leppard would show that a one-armed drummer could more than get it done, Moulty was already doing it.

Moulty lost his hand in an accident as a teenager. Rather than hide his prosthetic hook, he made it a visible part of the band’s renegade image. Losing a hand didn’t stop him. His biggest inspiration was the immortal jazz drummer Gene Krupa, who infamously had battled a horrible drug addiction. Krupa's story pushed Moulty into becoming one of the early ‘60s best rock drummers.

The Barbarians would score two national hits “Are You a Boy or Are You a Girl” and “Moulty,” a biographical song we’ll talk about later. Other songs, like “Hey Little Bird,” which didn’t hit the charts, would clearly echo with bands like the Seeds and the Music Machine and still resonate many years later with the Ramones (who name-drop Moulton in the song “Do You Remember Rock and Roll Radio?”

Moulty, as many can tell you, is about as personable and down-to-earth guy as you could hope to meet. He spent almost an hour on the phone with Garagerocktopia, talking about life with the Barbarians and the many other things he has done since. When you have a career that spans six decades, you end up with a little bit to talk about. We’re going to post the interview in two parts, with part two next week.

There was, according to Moulty, never any intention to create a new genre or change the direction of rock and roll. The Barbarians just did what all good rock bands are supposed to do -- they just played what was inside.

“We were much tougher than any band we had ever heard of or seen in early 1964,” admitted Moulty. “We never heard of punk rock in 1964. Our personalities just projected a very heavy and full sound. If punk bands or garage rock bands said we influenced them, we had no idea of that until the 1970's. We just started playing and that’s what came out.”

Some have said that the Barbarians were being groomed as an American version of the Rolling Stones. This is a real head scratcher since, maybe outside of an image bound to scare parents, their music has almost nothing in common. Moulty says most of the groups were too busy building modern rock from scratch -- and figuring out their own sound -- to worry about being the American this or the British that.

“The Stones, the Beatles … we were part of that wave in the early ‘60s,” Moulty recounts. “We all really had nobody to copy except maybe the ‘50s guys.”

Formed in July 1964, the group quickly built up a loyal following in the New England area, also gaining airplay and a reputation for being a blazing live rock and roll band. They were scouted, not just by record companies but by movie people. That would lead to a huge event – being included in the historic 1964 rock concert film “T.A.M.I. Show.”

The exuberant 1964 concert film, as Moulty rightly points out, helped set the tone for rock music for the rest of the ‘60s and beyond. The movie combined well-known hitmakers such as the Beach Boys and Leslie Gore, Motown artists like Marvin Gaye and the Supremes, and first-wave British invasion bands like Gerry and the Pacemakers and the Rolling Stones. 50 years later, you can still feel the absolute ecstasy pulsating from the walls of the Santa Monica Civic Center, where the show was filmed.

With a sneering, hard-edged performance of “Hey Little Bird,” the Barbarians were clearly what today would probably be considered the hard rock part of the show, nestled right between the Supremes' set before and James Brown's set after. Moulty says the band was utterly thrilled to be a part of it.

“There were actually three performances,” Moulty recalled. “One was a rehearsal with nobody there, then there were two live shows. We weren’t nervous -- we had already been playing for a while. We thrived with live audiences and we couldn’t wait to do our thing.”

Perhaps most notably, the film introduced mainstream (read: white) audiences to James Brown in one of the most memorable concert performances ever caught on film. But it was hardly the only memorable moment of the film.

“The TAMI show changed an entire era of music,” Moulty contends. “It’s in the Library of Congress right now. We were just a bunch of wild kids headin’ out to California. We didn’t even really know who James Brown was. Boy, did we find out.”

Moulty had nothing but praise for the whole experience.

“Everybody was really nice – the artists, the people running the show, everybody was great. We were so happy to be there, just watching Marvin Gaye and the Rolling Stones and the other performers. They were already great performers. I think certain people are born with greatness, and those guys were born great.”

Despite their fine showing in the film, “Hey Little Bird” never charted. But garage rock success isn't dictated by what Billboard says. The song, with its sneering vocals, would influence punk rock directly, while the Barbarians haircuts would be copied over and over again, most notably by the Ramones.

Still, there were hits just around the corner. One that would seem to have an impact well-beyond its time on the charts was “Are You a Boy or Are You a Girl?”

 

“Are You a Boy …?” hit instantly,” said Moulty. “Our label, Laurie, assigned Doug Morris to produce it, and he also co-wrote it. Then, off we went, we learned it and we made it ours.”

Given that hair length was such a contentious issue at the time the song, it’s easy to assume the Barbarians were making fun of hippies or British bands with long hair. There was no such thought of that, Moulty says. In fact, he had long hair way before the Beatles made it hip.

Johnny Weissmuller

“In those days sometimes you would see a nice girl from the back, then get disappointed when a guy turned around, that’s what that song was about,” Moulty said. “My hero was Johnny Weismuller (An ex-Olympian who became perhaps the greatest of all the movie Tarzans and who had a great head of hair in the ‘30s.). He had that great long hair. And in Provincetown (Massachussetts), nobody ever looked out of place, no matter how they looked.”

“Are You a Boy …” was perhaps the first song about rock’s occasional androgeny. Its  impact continued well beyond its place on the charts, beating David Bowie's confused gender odes by 10 years.

“Peter Wolf (lead singer of fellow Bostonians the J. Geils Band) did a great version of “Are You a Boy...,” Moulty pointed out. “His version is great – a lot bluesier, but I like his better than mine. Aerosmith had the song “Dude Looks Like a Lady,” which I think also copies us a little bit.”

Check out part two of the interview here. We’ll pick it up with perhaps the best-known Barbarians song, the self-titled “Moulty,” the breakup of the Barbarians, and why we still love this music 50 years after it first came out.