Photograph
Academy 1 (Manchester Academy)
15th December 2002

Photograph of Tommy Volume of The Star Spangles being interviewed in The Academy 1 and fanzine questionnaire filled out by Tommy the following year.


In the winter of 2002 I was asked to interview Tommy Volume, the lead guitarist for the New York punk band The Star Spangles. The band were over in the UK opening up for Idlewild at the Academy 1 but when I arrived, Tommy was nowhere to be found.

“Have a seat while I go find him.” the tour manager told me, gesturing to some seats at the end of the venue.

What followed was a prolonged and joyless game of hide and seek as I watched him lace his way back and forth across the venue in search of Tommy. He looked behind flight cases, wandered in and out of the backstage area, calling out the whole time like a man searching for a lost cat.

“Tommy!” he shouted, peeking behind an amp.

“Tommy!” he bawled into an empty corridor.

“Tommy!” he yelled then peered into a nearby bin. I had just started to wonder that Tommy might actually be a cat when a skinny, slightly disheveled looking man wandered in through the fire exit, squinting from beneath a mop of died black hair as he drew the last gasps from a cigarette.

“Tommy!” the tour manager cried out, his tone infused with relief as he headed toward this man then led him over to me.

“This is Tommy,” he said unnecessarily then left us to it. Tommy looked me up and down then lumped down in the chair opposite, where he began rubbing at his pock marked face and messing with his fringe. Anyone with a decent record collection could tell you what Tommy did for a living. Cigarette thin, clad in thrift store chic and blessed with the combined resting expression of a thousand insolent teens, he looked exactly like the lead guitarist in a New York punk band.

I cheerily introduced myself. Tommy grunted. I tried not to let this put me off and headed straight into my first question. I forget what it was, I just remember his answer.

“Can I just get a cigarette?”

He got up and headed off to bum one from a charitable smoker in the road crew. I kept an eye on him the whole time, keen for him to not wander off into a skip or something. I hadn't been that fussed about interviewing him beforehand but now I had him, I didn't want to give him the chance to disappear again. After a few minutes he returned and slumped back down opposite me.

“Sorry, what was the question?”

I repeated myself.

He let out a sigh so long and unbroken that I began to worry that there was a gas leak. Then he spoke.

“Okay,” he said, dully. “Well, maybe. I guess.”

One of the reasons this interview stands out in my memory is that this was essentially his answer to every one of my questions. And when he wasn’t answering he was staring longingly across the venue at all of his contemporaries enjoying themselves without him. Members of bands and road crew chatting. Smoking. Sitting around a flight case, using it as a makeshift card table. None of them having to sit still and be interviewed by me. One of the guys at the card table cheered and threw his arms into the air in victory. Tommy sighed heavily.

“You got any more questions?” he asked.

*****

A few months later I was at the Apollo reviewing Jane’s Addiction and was asked to interview The Star Spangles again. That’s fine I told the PR man, expecting someone different this time. I was told to wait on the band’s tour bus while they found someone for me to talk to and I quietly hoped for their singer, Ian, who looked like a fire-damaged Nick Cave puppet. But I'd have been happy with the drummer. Basically anyone but Tommy. So of course when the bus door opened up, there was Tommy. But a different Tommy this time. A loveable one.

“Hey, I remember you!” he said in a slovenly Manhattan drawl, a goofy smile spreading across his face. I’m not sure he knew where he remembered me from but he greeted me like family and answered my questions enthusiastically. He talked about his future plans, the band's second album, his friendship with Dee Dee Ramone and when he was done he happily filled out the above questionnaire. Then he tried to make fire to light a cigarette by rubbing two pieces of paper together. In a word, he was adorable.

These days I often find myself thinking about my encounters with Tommy. Mostly when I hear someone dismissing a guy in a band who was off with them. Because what Tommy has taught me is that everyone has bad days and everyone deserves a second chance to prove you wrong.


Photograph: Emma Farrer