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NEIL : How long have you been living in L.A.? FABIENNE : About five years. I went to live in the mountains in Mammoth Lakes, but before that I was living in L.A. Damon and I moved here in '87. He died in '95. I started listening to Chrome in about 1979 or '80. I was in New York, which is where I'm from. I've been living in San Francisco for about 8 years. There was a lot of interesting underground music at the time. Oh yeah, it was a very happening time! Chrome was my favorite, just the craziest band. What I knew back then was mainly the stuff with Helios. He was doing really well at that time, working with Helios. I know there was some bad blood between him and Damon for years there. I gather he feels that Damon just kind of ran off with everything. (Sorrowful…) I think the best work … I shouldn't say that, he did some pretty good recording in France. But the real Chrome is Damon and Helios. I mean, come on. How did you meet Damon? At the Ramones concert in the Oakland Colloseum in '79. What kind of a person was he when you met him? Oh, he just came to talk to me, just like that. In the dark, I didn't even see him. I just heard a big voice, and some very spooky vibes. I was in a band, touring around the States at that time, Shakin' Street, we were signed to CBS Records. I had my band with me. I was touring when I met him, so I couldn't see him a lot. I was going from one town to another, jumping from one plane to another. It was difficult, but he kind of got seduced by it. By the glamour of touring? Yes. He couldn't believe it. He wanted that. You said "a spooky vibe"? Of course, Damon was very unique. Kind of a dark person? Extremely dark. Of course. Extremely mysterious, and very good-looking. He was gorgeous. Before he started drinking. He was very creative, very poetic. He was a dreamer. He was very interesting, very intelligent, absolutely adorable, wonderful person. So you two lived together for many years. Yeah, we stayed married for eleven years. And he started drinking heavily, so I had to leave. eavily, like insane. And also heroin. Did he get strung out in the early '80s? No, not in the early '80s. We went to France in '84, and it was very fashionable. We stayed four years in California, we were not taking any drugs. We were just very socially … stoned. I mean, nothing special. We went to France, and heroin was very fashionable. It's very easy to get it over there. It's a terrible drug. It started changing his personality. He was becoming … you know what a drug addict is. It's very unfortunate. He lost a lot to drugs. You remained with him for many years still. Oh yes, we really loved each other. I stayed because I thought he would change. I left because he was becoming bizarre, crazy, you know. Paranoid, agoraphobic. He was going to a psychiatrist. He couldn't stand being outside? No, he couldn't. And paranoid, constantly thinking that other people… He was constantly listening to voices, seeing things, hearing things. Oh, he was bad. I've had friends with mental health issues, some of whom have heard voices. Most spiritual teachers say that hearing voices is just paranoia. Visions could be a genuine spritual experience or not, but it's said that voices in the head should not be listened to, they're a delusion, a projection of your own insecurities. Oh yeah, that's a sickness. Thank God I never heard voices yet. I hear sounds… His last album was called "The Clairaudient Syndrome." And he seemed to be referring to that. Oh I've never heard that record. It's interesting. You're from Paris originally? Yes. I lived in Paris for a little while in 1985. Really? We were there in 1985 until '87. If I had known I would've looked you up. He would have loved to hear from you. He was extremely good to his fans. Pretty isolated, wasn't he? Well, he was ill. His mind was not functioning normally. In '85? No, in '85 he was still pretty healthy, and very social. He met a lot of friends of mine, my musicians. He played with a lot of people I knew. I did backing vocals. Yeah, they're beautiful. You liked it? Yeah. Thanks. I did all the backing vocals. One of the things Helios was bitter about was that Damon re-released a couple of the records they did together, and Helios never got any money, and on a couple of them he didn't even give Helios credit for his playing. Ooh. That's bad. Damon could do some very nasty things to people. Throughout the mid-80s, the Chrome audience that I knew was uniformly hostile to Damon and the records he was releasing. From what I hear, people liked him but he was full of himself. Yeah. Who said that? Among others, Steve Tupper who runs Subterranean Records. Oh, I remember Steve. He came to our house in San Francisco. He maintained a relationship with Helios, but he was not so happy with Damon. According to Steve, Damon wanted to put out the Chrome box with all the early records, and Steve said he'd do it if they would record something new for it. So in '83, Damon and Helios went into the studio with the Stench brothers and recorded the 2 Chronicles records, and then Damon went around shopping the recordings to other record labels. So Steve paid for the recordings, and Damon was trying to sell them to another record company? Yeah. (Sorrowful:) Oh, man. I'm not surprised. I was so busy myself, I was gone a lot. Those years were my favorite years because I was so busy. I didn't have time to see anything bad. Everything was beautiful. But I did notice, I was in conflict with him for his personality, because I did notice that he wasn't fair with people. He was not giving credit to people who helped him, a lot. Like, an engineer who actually mixed his album, I cannot remember his name. It was in San Francisco. Someone at Hyde Street Studios? Maybe. He was not giving credit to people. He was always saying, "I did this, I mixed this, I produced this." And I said, "Listen, you know you didn't mix this. He did it! I'm a witness." I started to realize that he wasn't fair. I have a Chrome record that he did in Paris or maybe L.A., and it's got his name on the cover about fifteen times. I know. He was insane about that. But you know that's in psychoanlysis, an illness. Megalomania. Yes, he was completely megalomaniac. He became a monster. Also, my friend Ruby Ray took their photographs, and Damon ran off with the negatives. I managed to make negatives from the contact sheets, and I have some wonderful photos of them. Really? The ones with Clockwork Orange? Those were good. Not those. They were wearing overcoats and glasses. She does a lot of time lapse photography. Those were so beautiful. They were on the cover of an album. No, these photos were never printed anywhere. (Surprised:) Oh my God. No, because Damon took the negatives. But I got pretty good prints from the contact sheet. Not perfect, but you can see them very clearly. I'll be happy to send you copies. The thing is that as soon as Damon started to drink and take drugs, he became suspicious, paranoid, agoraphobic, and-what is it when you hear voices?-schizophrenic. He had them all, and his parents had a lot of money and were paying for the doctors. So he was seeking help? Oh yes, every week. When was this? Oh, all the time. From '87, actually. Because in Paris he didn't see anybody. From '87 to '95. After a while, he was drinking so much that he couldn't walk, he was falling everywhere, in the streets. He couldn't drive anymore. He was totally self-destructive. Everything has to be destroyed. He was crazy. He was adopted, you know? He never recovered from that. It's said that many people who adopt a child feel guilty, so they really spoil the child to try and compensate, and then the children aren't able to develop in their early years a healthy sense of boundaries. They never make it. He was spoiled to death. His mother loved him. They were hard-working people, and they were very nice to him. He was not nice to them. No. He was very spoiled. He was nice, he was okay. He was very loving, adorable. He loved animals, children. He loved people. He was weird, eccentric, an extremely weird person. Can you think of any incidents that might shed light on his character? So many, so many. That's very difficult. Some funny ones? Yeah. I have a photo of Damon. We were taking photographs in a subway in Paris, in a little booth. We took photos together, then him alone and me alone, after. And I was waiting for the photos to come out, and in the photo, he had toilet paper all around his face, like a mummy. (Laughter) It was fantastic. He was very artistic in his craziness. Some of the records he did on his own are pretty interesting, but the creativity gradually starts to dissipate. I don't know why he dropped Helios. Helios disappeared, he was constantly getting married, having children. It's not like he was always present. He didn't have a normal life. He lived in a bus for years. He was a totally disfunctional person, so come on. Of course, he was very jealous because Damon had money. On the other hand, Helios has had a touring band. Yes? Oh yeah, he has quite a cult following. There are Helios Creed fans who don't even know Chrome. No way! Yeah, he's probably more popular than Damon ever was. Oh yeah, Damon told me that he got a band. It's called Helios Creed? Right. Soon after they broke up. I think his first album was from 1985. He puts out records regularly. Is it the same kind of music? Well, after they broke up neither of them did anything quite as amazing as what they did together. I think they must have brought out each other's best sides, musically. I've listened to all the records, and it seems to me that Damon had more of an aesthetic sense about Chrome, but was not so musically skilled, or as a songwriter… That's true. Whereas Helios was maybe spacey, but he was a natural musician. Incredible guitar player. He had a unique sound. Off the wall. This is what Damon likes very much. He could really play the guitar. Damon was way more into writing songs, even though the words were always repeating. But Damon created a sound, and a way of singing. I loved his drumming on the early Chrome records. Yes, he played the drums. That crazy, bombastic style of drumming. Yeah, yeah! When they broke up, he never played drums again on the records. No, because he wanted to be the singer, the star. He didn't want to be the drummer, and he made a mistake because he lost the … the drumming was unique, and he should've continued the drumming. But anyway… Did he do much playing live in Europe? Not much, but he went to Germany with Helios. With Helios? I thought that was Helios, no? No. He flew to Germany. You didn't know? He did a show in Bologna with Helios. In Italy? Oh, he didn't go to Germany with Helios? They played two shows together, one in San Francisco and one in Italy. The one in San Francisco was sold out. It was 800 people waiting at the door. It was really cool. There was a lot of written pages (press). They really had a following. They went to Italy and said it was great. I didn't go. When they broke up, he signed with a German record company called Dossier. Manfred, the president of Dossier organized a tour of Germany. He signed the band from France, who were my musicians. So you introduced him to all the French musicians he played with in the '80s? Of course. They were all my friends. Remy Devilla. He was a very good guitarist, a little too hard-rockish for Damon. The Lyon concert? I sang at that. It was a lot of people. 2000 people. It was very good. How did that show come about? My manager organized it. Marc Zermatti, he was a very good manager. In fact, I saw him two months ago in Paris. He was the underground manager of all those dark bands, and he organized festivals of underground music, usually fabulous, All the people from all over France would come to those, to Lyons, to Paris. He made me really known. He gave me my first concert, and this was how I signed with CBS Records. CBS was there, and on my first concert I got signed. That's great. It was fabulous. I must confess, I've been collecting records for years, and I don't think I've ever seen a Shakin' Street record. They are rare. I put out 3 records. My manager just bought my first record "Vampire Rock" on the internet auction for $35. My second record is "Solid As A Rock," and my third was "Live and Raw," from our American tour. You have a new record out, under your own name. Yes, it's called "No Mad Nomad." That's "Damon Damon". Oh, I didn't catch that. Did you ever call him Tom? No, he was always Damon. No one called him Tom? No. But my name is still Fabienne Weiss. I'm still wearing his name. Is your real name Anna Emilia? Yes, correct. How'd you know? One of Damon's solo records has a song called "Anna," and he wrote "Thanks to Fabienne (Anna Emilia) Shine." What year was this? 1986. It's from a record called "Grand Visions." I'd like to listen to the last album. He put out some terrible records towards the end. Oh, terrible. Some were horrible. I was ashamed. I couldn't believe he was putting them out. I was telling him, "Come on. This is nothing." He was just recording for a few hours, and he was making an album of it. That's all. He was not practicing because he was lazy, too stoned. He didn't want to work any more. I said, "Come on, you think people are stupid? You think you're going to fool them?" When he got high, he didn't want to work. That addiction killed his soul, you know? And his talent. It does that to all the musicians in the world. It's a sad thing. Yes. Neil, it was a pleasure to talk to you. I'd like to continue our conversation soon. I'd like that too. I'll send you my magazine, and you can let me know what you think of it. That'll be great. Thank you. Bye-bye. Bye. |
