It’s the age-old cliche in punk rock for a band to decide to settle down in their glory years and clean up their act in order to continue playing and making music. But in the case of legendary Portland punk/hardcore band Poison Idea, cleaning up was a necessity.
After years of alcoholism that saw the loss of his best friend and guitarist Tom “Pig Champion” Roberts in 2006, vocalist Jerry A. (real name: Jerry Lang) finally decided that enough was enough.
“We kind of hit a wall a few years ago,” says Lang from his home in Portland. “We started playing when we were young and kept going at that pace, and going at that pace, and eventually you wind up beat down, and I just came to the conclusion that I had to change my lifestyle if I was going to continue doing this.”
Widely considered one of America’s best old-school punk bands, Poison Idea has fought through perpetual lineup changes with Lang being the only constant over the 34-year history of the band.
“I don’t plan on doing this forever, but there are a few things I haven’t done yet that I always wanted to do, and as soon as that’s done, I’ll be happy,” says Lang. “But we can’t keep doing this band if we’re all getting fucked up, sleeping on floors, driving 28 hours to the next show, jumping onstage and playing, driving 28 hours to the next show… It takes its toll on you. So I just decided there needs to be rules, which I’ve always hated, but they need to be instilled: no drugs, no drinking before a certain time of the day…”
The band heads into the studio next month with Joel Grind of Portland thrashers Toxic Holocaust to attempt to record their first real album since 1992’s Blank Blackout Vacant (“We’ll wave it up the flagpole and see who spits at it,” jokes Lang). We say “real album” because 2006’s Latest Will and Testament wasn’t supposed to be released, according to Lang, until a German record label took matters into their own hands.
“We sent it to them as a demo and it was never intended to be put out the way it is, so we’d like to put out a real record again,” chuckles Lang. “A lot of people liked that recording; they thought it was raw and punk rock and stuff, and I guess it is, for a demo tape. You can’t get much more raw than that!”
Poison Idea
Saturday, October 4
$20, Victoria Event Centre
cloveandanchor.com