Oct 8, 2026 · 20 min · 10 segments
Henry Rollins established his heavy music bonafides with groups like Black Flag and Rollins Band, but these days, the author, radio host, and hardcore record collector is more focused on archiving the…
Jason P. WoodburyHost[rock music] With bootlegs and the internet, and Cramps fans being as intense as they are, it's amazing the Gravest Gravy tracks didn't find themselves on the internet.
It's just the fact that Lux and Ivy are very private people and kept stuff to themselves.
And Alex Chilton, uh, didn't exactly trust people, so he's not, like, sending out cassettes to people.
Stephanie Chernikowski, the great photographer who did the cover for Gravest Gravy, she introduced The Cramps to Alex Chilton.
He just went, "Wow, that's the band." And I, I, I could see how someone would come to that conclusion after seeing The Cramps.
Rockabilly, Sun Records, and Alex Chilton knows a thing or two about Memphis, so I'm sure the conversation between he, Ivy, and Lux were probably pretty animated immediately.
You know, this, Charlie Feathers and, and Hazel Atkins, you know, on and on and on.
And when he said, "Let's go to Memphis and record," they probably all went, "We just won the lottery."
What The Cramps probably didn't know, that maybe no one knew, maybe Alex knew, was how damn good it was gonna work.
You know, that's the first time I heard The Cramps was the song Human Fly, and everything changed for me.
And I had heard The Clash and The Damned and, and, and, but I heard The Cramps, and I was like, "Oh." And to this day, I put on that song, and my, the hair on my arm stands up.
And I think in any, any other hands, Cramps songs would sound like good rock and roll.
Not often, not often as, as should happen, but sometimes it just happens, and that, The Cramps never sound...
I'm not saying they weren't as good, but they never sounded the same way again after Alex Chilton.
[rock music] With bootlegs and the internet, and Cramps fans being as intense as they are, it's amazing the Gravest Gravy tracks didn't find themselves on the internet.
It's just the fact that Lux and Ivy are very private people and kept stuff to themselves.
And Alex Chilton, uh, didn't exactly trust people, so he's not, like, sending out cassettes to people.
Stephanie Chernikowski, the great photographer who did the cover for Gravest Gravy, she introduced The Cramps to Alex Chilton.
He just went, "Wow, that's the band." And I, I, I could see how someone would come to that conclusion after seeing The Cramps.
Rockabilly, Sun Records, and Alex Chilton knows a thing or two about Memphis, so I'm sure the conversation between he, Ivy, and Lux were probably pretty animated immediately.
You know, this, Charlie Feathers and, and Hazel Atkins, you know, on and on and on.
And when he said, "Let's go to Memphis and record," they probably all went, "We just won the lottery."
What The Cramps probably didn't know, that maybe no one knew, maybe Alex knew, was how damn good it was gonna work.
You know, that's the first time I heard The Cramps was the song Human Fly, and everything changed for me.
And I had heard The Clash and The Damned and, and, and, but I heard The Cramps, and I was like, "Oh." And to this day, I put on that song, and my, the hair on my arm stands up.
And I think in any, any other hands, Cramps songs would sound like good rock and roll.
Not often, not often as, as should happen, but sometimes it just happens, and that, The Cramps never sound...
I'm not saying they weren't as good, but they never sounded the same way again after Alex Chilton.
The rest of this transcript — segmented and speaker-labeled, so you land on the exact moment something was said
Search every transcript — by keyword, by phrase, or by meaning, across every show Radar indexes
Trends — what is surging across podcasts, measured against its own baseline
Alerts — when a name you follow appears in a newly indexed episode
No account is needed to search Radar.
