Venerable punk rock band D.O.A. is dead on arrival, so to speak.
After 35 years of touring the world and making music, the godfathers of hardcore are calling it quits. Their upcoming show at Wild Bill’s Sunday (Feb. 24) will be the final gig of the band’s final tour.
Band founder and lead singer Joe “Sh--head” Keithly says D.O.A. is disbanding so he can pursue a career in professional politics.
“Hard to believe we started in ’78 and it’s our farewell tour 35 years later,” he said in an interview with the Outlook. “I’m going into politics out here in the Vancouver area, running for the NDP.”
Founded three-and-a-half decades ago in Vancouver, D.O.A.’s loud, aggressive rock sound has always come with a message of political and social action and change.
“D.O.A.’s track record has been always trying to help the regular person get through life, against all odds, against the system,” said Keithly. “I’ve been working from outside the system for 35 years, so here’s my attempt to work from inside the system and make some positive change.
“It seems like a positive extension of what I’ve been doing with D.O.A. all this time.”
When it comes to politics, he stressed education as being the most important issue.
“One thing we’re really lacking here in B.C. is a clear vision on education,” he said. “We need more teachers, students are leaving secondary education with way too much debt and there’s not enough emphasis put on the trades which is really lacking. B.C. is growing and that’s essential.
“And I’m trying to invoke some compassion and fairness back into politics, which is sorely missing out here, and I daresay in other parts of the country too. Those are a couple of the issues I’m working on, and they’re very effective on the doorstop.”
Beginning with Something Better Change in 1980, over the course of its history the band has released 19 studio albums. The latest – We Come In Peace – hit the streets last year.
“People know me for music and for politics, but music is the primary one,” he said. “We have a new album out, the show in Banff is the last show. We did 12 shows in (Eastern Canada) in fall, after I announced my candidacy, and then we had 17 shows lined up for Alberta, B.C. and California for January and February.”
After the Banff show, Keithly returns to Vancouver for the next stage of his career.
“Banff is the last show, and then March 3 is the nomination meeting, to see if I am the candidate,” he said.
Finishing the tour in the Bow Valley is fitting, considering D.O.A. has played Banff and Canmore many times before and they always get great receptions.
“We love Banff and Canmore – probably played six or eight times in each town – it’s a good stop going to and from Calgary, and it’s just a great part of the world,” said Keithly. “I love the outdoors, I love going out there – on a tour you don’t have a lot of time, but people keep showing up and that’s why we keep going back.”
A memorable experience came in the early days of the band, while playing the Canmore Hotel, he said.
“I played at the Canmore Hotel one time, and the next day after the show I was packing up getting ready to go – the place is over a hundred years old and was still being heated by these old steam pipes – and as I went into my room a pipe burst and a flood of hot water soaked everything I owned in the room,” he explained. “And of course nobody at the hotel knew anything about maintenance or could turn off the water.
“I’m running up and down, dragging stuff out into the hallway, so you could say I got soaked in Canmore.”
While there are many bands which purport to be the “Kings of Punk,” D.O.A. can claim the throne, said Keithly.
“There’s plenty of people around that might try to make that claim, you just gotta look at the longevity,” he said. “That’s just the title – the Godfathers of Hardcore is another one attributed to D.O.A. – I’d say we’re the longest running punk rock band in the world, for 35 years. We’ve been doing shows pretty well continuously, a claim that others couldn’t make.”
While the punk movement over the years has changed in a lot of ways, Keithly’s worked hard to keep D.O.A.’s sound aligned to its roots.
“I’ve kept the roots in the same place, in punk rock, and in a lot of ways it hasn’t changed,” he said. “I think if you totally change your style, you should change the name of the band.
“D.O.A.’s always incorporated different sound around the edge – you’ve got your basic punk rock, with loud, obnoxious guitar rifts, blatant sloganeering and politics and lots of humour – but around the edge of that, we’ve incorporated the use of ska and reggae, funny cover songs, and stuff like that. That’s our sound and that’s what people know.”
The new album features collaborations with other punk legends, including Jello Biafra from Dead Kennedys, Hugh Dillon from Headstones and Benjamin Kowalewicz from Billy Talent.
“The first generation of punk was bands like The Clash, Sex Pistols, Ramones, and then the second generation would be D.O.A. and Black Flag, a couple of years later,” said Keithly. “And then into the mid-’80s bands like Bad Religion.”
Despite being the Conservative heartland, Keithly stressed D.O.A. is looking forward to coming and playing this Alberta tour.
“Alberta’s my second favourite province,” he said. “There’s some forward thinking people in Alberta for sure.
“The B.C. Liberals, even though they call themselves Liberals, are like an extension of the Conservative party in Ottawa. B.C. politics has been a rough ride.”
With that in mind, Keithly’s eager to bring D.O.A. to the political stage.
For more information on the punk legends, visit suddendeath.com
