“The real sick ones”: How horror carved out the sound of The Cramps
Trying to pinpoint the exact origins of punk rock is a rather tricky task, but if you were to ask every punk outfit for their initial inspirations, the same names tend to crop up: The Stooges, Patti Smith, and The Velvet Underground. For psychobilly progenitors The Cramps, however, the inspiration behind their kitsch punk mastery wasn’t musical at all.
From the very beginning of their story, Lux Interior and Poison Ivy never really fit into any niche within the punk scene. Planting the seeds that would eventually become The Cramps in the surroundings of Akron, Ohio, the pair might as well have been aliens when they arrived in New York City, failing to fit in with the various groups that made up the CBGB scene. Musically, the group took far more inspiration from the realm of 1950s rockabilly, garage, and surf rock than any of the abrasive experimentalists in the Big Apple at that time.
As they progressed, however, The Cramps seemed to carve out their own distinctive space, far removed from any local punk scene in New York or further afield. Almost single-handedly birthing the scene that would eventually be dubbed psychobilly, Lux Interior’s band were irreplaceable, operating in a league entirely of their own.
Although that distinct individuality did arise, in part, from the pair’s appreciation for the old-school rockabilly stars of decades past, it also emerged from their deep-rooted adoration for horror films, sci-fi B-movies, and kitsch comic books. In many ways, this eclectic range of Atom Age influences was far more impactful on the early days of The Cramps than any music, whether it was obscure garage rock or cutting-edge punk.
Asked for his prevailing source of inspiration during an interview with Gravy Zine, Interior shared that the root of The Cramps was in, “Mainly horror movies and exploitation movies and a lot of stuff comes from those press books from those old movies.”
Adding, “Lines out of old movies, comic books that we collect, all the old horror comics of the ’50s, probably about the only comics that we collect are obscure horror comics, the real sick ones from the ’50s.”
That comic book inspiration is plain to see, both in the iconic album artwork that The Cramps produced over the course of their illustrious history, and in the content of their best-loved tracks, too. Kitsch horror-infused tracks like ‘Human Fly’, ‘I Was A Teenage Werewolf’, and ‘The Creature From The Black Leather Lagoon’ all sound as though they were created by a group who consume nothing but colourful old horror comics and Hammer horror films.
Alongside those influences, there were, of course, musical waypoints, as signified by the sheer volume of cover versions and interpolations that the band recorded over the years. If it wasn’t for Lux and Ivy’s penchant for collecting those forgotten relics of horror culture, The Cramps might never have existed or, even worse, they could have been little more than a run-of-the-mill mid-1970s punk outfit.
Instead, Interior’s Screamin’ Jay Hawkins-esque delivery and the bone-chilling riffs of his right-hand woman made the band into something incredibly special. Everything from their leather-clad look to that unmistakable psychobilly sound is rooted in those horror flicks and comic books, and that is what made the group such a unique beast.
They might not have been aiming their records directly at the throat of Ronald Reagan, or advocating the heroin-infused fast-living of other American punks during their early days, but The Cramps’ amalgamation of rockabilly and 1950s horror made them one of the most exciting, energetic, and original bands ever to be produced by the punk scene.
