“We wanna have that power”: Why The Cramps rejected being a ‘cult’ band
Forged in defiant reaction to the complacency of the mainstream, punk rock was never meant to produce rock stars on the same level as Mick Jagger or Elvis Presley. With a handful of exceptions, punk rockers were often chasing cult audiences – a small but dedicated crowd of die-hard fans whose love for an artist often borders on obsession. The Cramps, in many ways, were the archetypal cult band of the punk age; their psychobilly styling and anarchic live performances appealed to a dedicated cult audience throughout the band’s tenure.
It is often said that mainstream rockstars often wish they had cult success while cult artists yearn for mainstream success – the grass is always greener, it would appear. Either way, The Cramps are a pretty unique case. Although they embodied cult rock in numerous ways, they were certainly no strangers to mainstream success either, releasing a string of modest hit singles, including ‘Bikini Girls With Machine Guns, during the 1990s. Throughout their time together, the Lux Interior-fronted group expertly toed the line between these two disparate worlds with characteristic chaos.
The Cramps were always something of an oddity within the punk realm. Originally, the movement had been formed on the basis of rejecting the nostalgia of the past and creating a defiant new sound to reflect the realities of life during the 1970s. However, Lux Interior and Poison Ivy were devotees of old-school rockabilly and 1950s nostalgia, which potentially put them at odds with the prevailing attitudes of the punk movement.
Nevertheless, The Cramps quickly became fan favourites within the scene, thanks particularly to Interior’s wild onstage antics and amphetamine-rendering of old rockabilly anthems. Some of the band’s most notable material, particularly during their early years, were covers of obscure and forgotten rockabilly, garage, and surf rock tracks by the likes of Ricky Nelson, Kip Tyler, and Elvis Presley, among various others.
Their dedication to rockabilly meant that Lux Interior and the gang tended to have a different attitude towards the music industry than their punk comrades. After all, no self-respecting rockabilly artist was searching for a cult audience, they wanted big hits and lots of them. The Cramps’ perpetually-sweat-drenched frontman confirmed as much during an interview with MTV back in 1990.
“We never wanted to be a cult band,” the singer shared. According to the singer, this attitude came from the band’s love of old-school rock. “Any of those hillbillies making music in the south, at Sun Studios back in 1954, they didn’t want to be cult figures,” he said. “They might have only sold 500 records or something, but they wanted to have a number-one hit.”
The Cramps never achieved a number-one hit, much like the various obscure rockabilly artists they covered over the years. That never stopped the band from aiming for the stars, however. “We wanna have that power,” Interior said, before adding, “because we’ll know what to do with it if we get it.”
Although The Cramps achieved multiple minor hits in the United Kingdom during the 1990s, their only hit song in the United States came nearly two decades after the death of Lux Interior. The band’s 1981 track ‘Goo Goo Muck’ reached number 25 in the Billboard Digitial Song Sales chart in 2022 after featuring in the series Wednesday. As with the vast majority of cult artists and musicians, The Cramps always operated years ahead of their time, and the renewed success they witnessed in the 2020s reflects that fact.
