The Ballad of Rogue Weirdo

Punk Rock Architect Cliff Roman Reclaims His Legacy

Los Angeles musician Cliff Roman, founding member and primary composer-arranger for ‘76 spearheads the Weirdos, is one of the most significant and groundbreaking talents in West Coast punk rock history. The Weirdos were Hollywood punk’s earliest, elemental keystone—the creative and material center of that spontaneous musical conflagration—and Roman was always one of the most amiable, down-to-earth, low-key and charming architects of the genre.

The Weirdos called it day in 1981, occasionally emerging from remission with their dignity—and Roman’s sock-o set list—intact. That all changed a few years back, when the brothers Denney decided to freeze him out with a summary dismissal from the band he conceived and created, a scandal rivaled only by the hideous Biafra-DKs kerfuffle.

Fortunately, Roman has returned with his own roaring, righteous incarnation of the Weirdos, a group as hard-hitting and estimable as any laying claim to his creation, with an upcoming show at Maui Sugar Mill Saloon on Fri., Dec. 30. Read all about it:

JW: I was flabbergasted to learn the Weirdos were gigging without you. What the hell is up with that?

CR: “Yeah, well I was flabbergasted as well but that’s all in the past and right now is what’s important to me.  I had pretty much jump-started the band in 2004 along with original members John and Dix Denney by getting some commitments for shows, which wasn’t too difficult in the LA area. We put together a new Weirdos lineup with Sean Antillon on drums, who I met while doing some shows with the Skulls, and Zander Schloss from the Circle Jerks on bass. We had 7 or 8 shows lined up over a period of three weekends in Seattle, Portland, LA, San Jose and San Francisco. We did some more shows the following year in Las Vegas and LA area and a string of dates back east.”

How did you come to form this incarnation?

“I was contacted a little while back to do a couple of shows where I would perform a set of Weirdos songs with a back-up band. The shows were cancelled due to Covid so when things seemed to get better later the next year, I decided to give it another try and contacted my friend Steven Drojensky [Angry Samoans, RF7, FiFi, Moral Decay] about joining me and he agreed. He recommended his friend Danny Dorman [Wasted Youth, Aggression, Circle One] for bass because they’ve played in numerous bands together. I contacted Sean Antillon and he was available to drum and then Steven suggested Jeremy from Circle One as a vocalist and he was in. I sent out a playlist of ten songs then invited everyone over to my house for a learning session in my living room and it sounded great. I had a date lined up at the Corbin Bowl in the cocktail lounge for August. We put together a nice set of Weirdos faves and the show was great. In September, we did shows at the Doll Hut in Anaheim and the Offbeat Bar in Highland Park and recently returned to play the Corbin Bowl to a sellout crowd. We’ve beefed up our set up to 16 songs now and invested in good gear. It sounds and feels authentic. It should I guess, I mean, it’s the real thing, right? We have a couple more shows before the end of the year and into February. Now what we need is a good punk rock booking agent!”

Describe your musical background

“I grew up in a family of musicians—classical, jazz, and Klezmer. I guess I was the first rock musician of the family, but I started learning clarinet and learning how it read music in third grade and even played in the school orchestra during my elementary school years and in high school, I started playing saxophone. My grandmother, who bought my first clarinet, bought me a tenor sax. I played in bands with high school musician friends and listened to radio, bought records and went to shows in LA starting at age 14 in 1968. Some of the most memorable were The Who, The Kinks, David Bowie, the New York Dolls, Iggy and the Stooges, Captain Beefheart, Lou Reed, T-Rex and the Ramones. My expanding record collection included blues, rhythm & blues, rockabilly, jazz, classical, country, rock & roll, folk, British Invasion, garage and glam. I learned about music mainly from listening to the radio, collecting and playing 45s and albums, TV shows, magazines, fanzines, newspaper reviews and write-ups and talking to my peers. Along the way I picked up guitar and tried to mimic what I liked—’Wild Thing,’ ‘Little Honda,’ Eddie Cochran, Link Wray, New York Dolls, Velvet Underground, surf, twang, Stooges and Ramones style rock and roll.”

Describe how the Weirdos initially formed—that was in ‘76 right?

“Right. By 1976 I had collected some gear-a Vox Phantom Guitar paired with a Fender Vibrolux that had a single 15” speaker. The Vox had built in effects and I played it with the distortion switch on through the Vibrolux at screeching, feedbacking, ear-piercing volume. I had written a handful of tunes and recruited my pal from CalArts, Dave Trout, to play bass and brought in my good friend and partner in crime from high school John Denney to be frontman-vocalist. John suggested that we include his younger brother Dix who was a phenomenal guitarist and away we went. Initially, we worked the songs out in Dave’s living room at his house on Sherman Way in Reseda. I found a nice little rehearsal space at the Gower Gulch movie studio in Hollywood where we started rehearsing a set of songs. The studio was in a tiny room up a long flight of stairs above a sound stage. We didn’t have a drummer, but that didn’t stop us. We stacked our amps and speakers making a wall behind us and screeched through our songs at full thundering volume. We smoked pot, drank beer and had a fun time. After a few rehearsals we were getting tighter and more dynamic. We started advertising for a drummer and Dave Trout designed a work of art collaged color Xeroxed punk flyer that we distributed around town. It said: Punk Rock Drummer Wanted. We had a few responses, but no one worked out.”

How difficult was it to find a venue and get a show together early on?

“We had no idea how to break into the local music club scene. There was the Roxy Theater and The Whisky on Sunset and the Starwood Club on Santa Monica and not much else locally except for bars around town and in the valley. What we learned was, you could rent a small theater, stage, or hall and put on a show yourself. And we learned that from a chance meeting with another band. Apparently, we were at the right place at the right time. One night in March of 1977 while we were rehearsing, we met the Nerves who happened to be downstairs checking out the soundstage for a showcase. While they were downstairs, they could hear us running through our set. They found their way up that really long flight of stairs to our studio door and walked in. I recognized them because I had recently bought their record from an ad I saw in Rolling Stone Magazine. We talked for a while and they asked us to play their next show, which was a pop-up venue they called the Hollywood Punk Palace. On the bill were The Zippers and the Dils-the five piece rock & roll version. We performed with no drummer and we caught everyone’s attention. A few weeks later, we played with the Nerves and The Zippers at the Orpheum Theater on Sunset across from Tower Records still without a drummer.  A journalist named Phast Phreddie and a photographer named Debbie Schow, from the local fanzine Back Door Man, put us in touch with a drummer named Nickey Beat who they thought would be a good match for us and he was. With the band now complete, we started promoting show with the Nerves at the Orpheum. For some reason, the Nerves couldn’t do the show so I rented the theater myself and we played there with the Zeros from Chula Vista and a band called the Germs who we had just met at the opening of Greg Shaw’s Bomp Records store.”

“That show became a historic event. It was the Germs first appearance, with myself, their teenage friend Belinda Carlisle and a few other people in the audience. They made a bunch of noise and then the singer, Bobby Pyn (later Darby Crash), started smearing peanut butter on himself and throwing it around. When he shoved the microphone into the jar of peanut butter, they were stopped by the owner of the theater and kicked out. Next up were the Zeros, who were fantastic. They had a really cool look with their skinny black jeans and long hair and played some great punky power pop songs.  By that time the theater which, had 99 seats, was filled. And in attendance were British punks the Damned with their manager Jake Riviera, Rodney Bingenheimer, Kim Fowley, Greg Shaw of Bomp Records, the Screamers. Everyone else there was either a photographer, journalist, fan, musician, or groupie. The next day, everyone started a band and the LA punk scene exploded from there.”

You were the primary writer, correct?

“Yes. I either wrote or co-wrote all the songs and arranged them as well. Our original bassist Dave Trout wrote some songs, too.”

Are you writing new stuff?

“Yes, I am. We perform a new song called ‘Punk Rock Rules!’ I wrote some new songs for another band I play in called The Robot Uprising. They are ‘I Robot’ and ‘Kindness.’  New riffs and tunes still bubble up in my brain every day and I have several hundred ideas recorded and saved on my iPhone voice memo.”

What is a typical set?

“We’re up to 16 songs now, including Weirdos favorites ‘A Life of Crime,’ ‘Solitary Confinement,’ ‘Destroy All Music,’ ‘Neutron Bomb,’ ‘Message from the Underworld,’ Fort USA,’ ‘Happy People,’ ‘The Hideout,’ ‘I’m Not Like You,’ ‘Helium Bar,’ a few obscure ones ‘Pagan’ and ‘I’m Plastic’ and a few covers, ‘7 and 7 Is,’ and ‘Beat on the Brat,’ and the newer one ‘Punk Rock Rules!’ We just worked up ‘It Means Nothing’ and there are others we plan on reviving, as well, including the Hank Mizell rockabilly classic ‘Jungle Rock’ and Link Wray’s instrumental ‘Fat Back.’”

It’s so bizarre now, us all being “old men”—when you look back at the early days of punk, what seems most significant/memorable?

“Yeah, I’m old! Just turned 69! Most memorable are the first few shows including the one at The Orpheum with the Zeros and the Germs, playing the Whisky with the Runaways and DEVO, headlining the Whisky and the Starwood. During the summer of ’77, our first few recording sessions when we recorded ‘Destroy All Music,’ ‘A Life of Crime,’ and ‘We Got the Neutron Bomb,’ are memorable. Also, all the interviews and press including having our photo in Time magazine’s July 1977 issue, titled ‘Youth Crime.’ Then there was the cover, interview and photo spread by Melanie Nissan in the second issue of Slash magazine, as well as playing the Hollywood Palladium with Blondie, playing the Masque with The Screamers, playing Mabuhay Gardens with the Germs. And, basically doing something that had a major impact on musical history and has affected many lives.”

“Right now, I just try to stay motivated, have fun and keep going. I collect vinyl, listen to music, go to shows, talk to friends, meet new people, make new friends and rekindle old friendships. I write and arrange songs, music and I record and perform. I try to stay healthy physically and mentally and stay open minded and forward thinking. Musically, I still think it’s important to practice, stay sharp and improve—the creative process is what’s important to me.”

Roman’s Weirdos appear at the Maui Sugar Mill Saloon, 18389 Ventura Blvd., Tarzana; Fri., Dec. 30, 8:30 p.m.; (818) 344-0034. Also at The Sewer-Sans Souci Cocktail Lounge, 21 S. Chestnut St., Ventura; Fri., Jan. 6, 9 p.m.; (805) 643-4539. And Corbin Bowl, 19616 Ventura Blvd., Tarzana; Fri., Feb. 3, 8 p.m.; (818) 996-2695.