New York Dolls

Date: 07/26/2006

Dolls Interview from USA Today

The 'Day' has come for New York Dolls
Posted 7/26/2006 10:33 PM ET
By Elysa Gardner, USA TODAY

NEW YORK — The New York Dolls were a band for only four years in the early '70s. They released two albums: their eponymous 1973 debut and 1974's aptly titled Too Much Too Soon, neither of which was a commercial hit.
"But the fans never gave up on us," guitarist Sylvain Sylvain says. "And I always say that everyone who bought our album went out and started a band."

That latter line has been used to describe another seminal Big Apple-based outfit, the Velvet Underground. But it applies equally to the Dolls, whose passionate, power-chord-driven music and flamboyant, cross-dressing performance style also prefigured punk and defined glitter rock.

One disciple, Morrissey, was instrumental in the reunion that resulted in the Dolls' first collection of new material in more than 30 years, One Day It Will Please Us to Remember Even This, out Tuesday. In 2004, the former Smiths frontman asked Sylvain and the Dolls' other surviving members, singer David Johansen and bassist Arthur Kane, whether they would play at London's Meltdown Festival, for which Morrissey was curator.

"Morrissey started a fan club for us in England, " Sylvain says, grinning. "He was the self-appointed president. He actually walked to school with a jacket showing our first album (cover)."

One Day includes guest appearances from other admirers, such as Michael Stipe, Iggy Pop and Bo Diddley. Keyboardist Brian "The Confessor" Koonin and drummer Brian Delaney join Johanssen and Sylvain in the core lineup, along with Hanoi Rocks bassist Sami Yaffa, who was recruited after Kane died of leukemia two years ago.

Kane's death "was a total gyp," Johansen says. "I was so looking forward to spending more time with him, because he was an extraordinary guy. He had this perception of the universe that could sound really far out, but then you thought about it, and the things he said made total sense. I know that getting back together with the band had been paramount on his wish list."

Such loss is nothing new for the Dolls, whose original drummer, Billy Murcia, died in 1972 after mixing pills and alcohol.

Famously fast-living guitarist Johnny Thunders overdosed on drugs in 1991; Murcia's replacement, Jerry Nolan, who shared Thunders' fondness for heroin, had a fatal stroke shortly after that.

Johansen says it was drugs that "made us break up in the first place. Two people can get high, and one will say, 'That was interesting; maybe I'll try it again New Year's Eve.' But the other will say, 'I found God.' Well, some people in the band had addictions, and when you're addicted, your passion for music goes on the back burner. Also, you can't really go anywhere, and Syl and I wanted to go out and play."

Sylvain notes that there were other problems. "There was a lot of favoritism going on. Like, Johansen was living in a penthouse while we were on the Lower East Side, thinking, 'Wait a minute — who's making the money here?' " After the Dolls split, their lead singer did enjoy a solo career in various incarnations, first as an R&B-influenced rocker, then in the guise of winking lounge act Buster Poindexter, who enjoyed a hit in 1988 covering the soca single Hot Hot Hot. Johansen also popped up in movies such as Married to the Mob and Scrooged.

But if Johansen has remained the most visible ex-Doll, Sylvain insists, "we were all successful individually. Everybody had a job. That's part of the reason we stayed apart all those years."

Not that Sylvain had any second thoughts about re-forming when the chance arose. "When we broke up in 1975, I felt like the Dolls had left me. I never left the Dolls. So I know this is going to be a success."

Johansen seems equally enthused. "We've been playing consistently since we got back together, and we're going to keep playing whenever we can — because that's the whole point for us. I take this ritualistic approach to performing with the band; I learned it from watching Cuban conga players. When they play together, each guy kind of beams it up to this satellite-of-love thing, and it sprinkles down to the other guy.

"That's what we do now — or at least attempt to do. We don't always hit the mark, but we're definitely going to keep trying."