Photo Credit: Gary Leonard
X has had plenty of memorable experiences over its 40-year career. But in August 2017, one of the last things one would expect to happen for a punk band occurred.
The Los Angeles Dodgers honored the band, which started in the City of Angels, inviting them onto the field before the game, wearing jerseys with their names on the back. Vocalist Exene Cervenka, who practiced for weeks, threw out the first pitch and John Doe sang the national anthem while guitarist Billy Zoom and drummer D.J. Bonebrake soaked up the experience.
“It was cool, it was a fantastic night,” Bonebrake says. “That’s one of the weirdest things ever. People always ask, ‘Did you expect to be playing after 40 years?’ Well, maybe. But that was totally out of left field.”
Then, in October of 2017, “X: 40 Years of Punk Rock in Los Angeles” began a six-month run at the Grammy Museum in L.A. “That’s an honor too,” Bonebrake says. “We donated whatever we had around the house. I had an old drum kit that was gathering dust, lots of posters. I think we gave them too much.”
Honor aside, Bonebrake has some qualms about being enshrined in a museum and seen as a piece of history. “You aren’t going to retire me that quickly,” he insists. “Once you’re in a museum, you’re not alive. I went to a museum in Washington, D.C., once, one of the Smithsonian museums and looked at all these stuffed birds. I went outside and saw a real bird and I was taken aback. I don’t want to be a stuffed bird. I want to be alive.”
So how do you stay alive?
“To not be a museum piece, what you have to do is play well,” Bonebrake continues. “That’s when you transcend the superficial ‘stardom,’ the reality TV stardom, the media recognition. We still do that. That’s why people come to shows.”
That’s what X will be doing as it tours this year, celebrating its 40th anniversary and hinting at new music in the not-too-distant future. “The show has an arc,” Bonebrake said. “We start out rocking a bit, bring it down and, at the end, we give you ‘Los Angeles,’ ‘Nausea’ and all the loud, rocking stuff.”
“Los Angeles” is the title cut of X’s 1980 debut album. The disc features songs driven by Zoom’s high-octane rockabilly guitar and Bonebrake’s powerhouse rock ’n’ roll drumming with Cervenka and Doe blending their voices in edgy harmonies, singing their poetic lyrics of underground life in the City of Angels.
That was a far different approach than the likes of the Germs, Fear, The Circle Jerks and Black Flag as seen in The Decline of Western Civilization, director Penelope Spheeris’ documentary about the L.A. punk rock scene. “We were kind of oddballs on that scene. Billy had so much experience. He’s older than the rest of us,” Bonebrake says of his bandmate, now 71. “He started playing guitar when he was four or so. Rock ’n’ roll wasn’t even around. He was playing cowboy music, trying to imitate Roy Rogers or something.
“I started in 1967, so I had 10 years of experience playing all sorts of rock ’n’ roll,” he continues. “And I had the orchestral stuff and I played in the jazz band. So we could play. Some on the scene could and some couldn’t and some tried to hide it. We were different than some of the other bands. That’s why I joined X. They were bringing a variety of songs and influence as opposed to the straight-up punk beats.”
X’s second album, Wild Gift, was considered by many as the best album of 1981. Then came Under the Big Black Sun, which showcased the band’s country leanings. Two more albums followed before the group had a lineup change with guitarists Dave Alvin and Tony Gilkyson replacing Zoom in 1986 before X split up for a few years.
Regrouping in the early ’90s, X put out Hey Zeus! (1993), went on hiatus in 1997 and started playing shows again in 2004, releasing a very good live album in 2005. Now comes word that X recently went into the studio with producer Rob Schnapf and cut five new songs in two days. Plans for the release of those and any other new songs are pending.
Regardless of whether there’s new music, X will be out there, staying alive and enjoying the long-deserved recognition as one of the great American bands of the punk era. “It’s funny, how you end up being the iconic band where in the beginning you were the oddballs,” Bonebrake says.
X performs at Summerfest’s U.S. Cellular Connection Stage on Thursday, June 27, at 4 p.m.
