The Cramps: A Love Story
“Rumble” by Link Wray, released in 1958, is the only instrumental song to be banned from US radio.
Programmers in cities like New York and Boston refused to play it because “rumble” was slang for a gang fight, and the song’s distorted, tremolo‑drenched guitar tone and raw power chords were thought to glorify juvenile delinquency and possibly incite violence.
Few of us remember it today. but Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton, Ray Davies, Jeff Beck, Bob Dylan and Pete Townshend have all cited Link Wray’s work as vitally important.
Earlier guitarists like Dick Dale, Duane Eddy and The Ventures owe him a debt, too.
Wray was Kristy Marlana Wallace’s favorite guitarist.
She said she admired “the drama that’s created by not overplaying.”
Kristy and Erick Lee Purkhiser had seen each other around campus at Sacramento State in the early 1970s, but didn’t meet until she was hitchhiking and Erick and a friend picked her up.
Kristy and Erick struck up a friendship based on their shared love of music and pop culture, particularly low budget horror movies, comic books, and early Rock & Roll, Blues, Country, and R&B.
They were both record collectors. It makes perfect sense that they’d fall in love and start a band.
After moving to Akron, OH in 1975, they relocated to New York City and formed The Cramps in 1976.
Kristy took the stage name Poison Ivy Rorschach and Erick became Lux Interior.
She was the guitarist and manager, he was the singer.
They were the only consistent members in the band’s 25 year recording career. For the first eight years, they had a second guitarist but no bass player. It was a stylistic choice. After all, the bass couldn’t really be heard on those early 1950s records they loved.
Their first bandmates were brother and sister Bryan Gregory on guitar and Pam Balam on drums.
However, during their career, they went through five guitar players, seven bass players, and eight drummers.
Drummer #3 was with them the longest, 13 years.
He used the name Nick Knox, which I put in a three way tie for Best Drummer Name, alongside D.J. Bonebrake from the band X, and studio journeyman Chad Wackerman.
The Cramps debuted at CBGB and played regularly there and at Max’s Kansas City, the two clubs in Manhattan that actively supported unsigned original bands.
The Punk scene was booming.
The Cramps, while not a Punk band per se, shared the Punk aesthetic of DIY and being your true self.
In the same way that Blondie was Punk for playing their 60’s inspired Pop, and Talking Heads were Punk for playing their off-kilter, intellectual Rock, and Television was Punk for playing their Prog/Jazz Garage Rock:
The Cramps were Punk for authentically playing their cheapo horror movie Rockabilly.
And yet: they stood apart from their peers by injecting their riffs with fuzz, reverb, and raunch.
They combined early Garage Rock and 1950s Rockabilly with the Surf Rock of Link Wray and Dick Dale.
As fans of obscure records, they added touches of underground R&B and novelty records, as well as the Punk from the scene they found themselves in.
Photo credit: Tav Falco
Their striking graphics and clothing drew from all those sources, plus burlesque, Exotica, Psychedilia, science fiction, and horror movies. Lux often performed shirtless and Ivy wore leopard print, leather, and fishnet stockings.
He showed more skin than she did, and was equal parts Elvis Presley, Iggy Pop, and Bela Lugosi.
She blended sex appeal, Rock & Roll danger, and theatricality. He was hot and sweaty.
She was cool and unflappable.
Their distinct look fused 1950s pin‑up glamour, biker edginess, and B‑movie camp.
It was memorable but also worked against them, or at least against Ivy. She managed the band, wrote music blending everything from Doo-Wop to Surf to Jump Jive, and helped craft their image, but wasn’t known for any of those contributions.
She was seen as “Lux’s sidekick” with big red hair and racy outfits.
As rare as it is for rhythm guitarists to be recognized as great musicians, it’s even rarer when she’s committed to underplaying and looks like Elvira, Mistress Of The Dark.
Her musical talent is still overlooked.
The Cramps released two singles in 1978:
A cover of “Surfin’ Bird” by The Trashmen, and an original called “Human Fly.”
Their first album, Songs The Lord Taught Us, came out in 1980 and produced two more singles. One was a cover of “Fever,” which was first released by Little Willie John and has been covered by everyone from Peggy Lee to Elvis Presley to Beyoncé.
The second single was an original called “Garbageman.”
Its lyrics reference both “Surfin’ Bird” and “Louie Louie” by The Kingsmen, and gives a great definition of The Cramps’ sound: “One half hillbilly and one half punk.” They knew where their sound came from, and paid homage to the known and unknown greats that came before them.
“One half hillbilly and one half punk” also describes Psychobilly:
A subgenre they helped create, though they didn’t consider themselves a Psychobilly band.
The word was coined by songwriter Wayne Kemp in “One Piece At A Time,” which was a hit for Johnny Cash.
The Cramps used “Psychobilly” on their flyers, along with phrases like “Rockabilly voodoo,” but said they “were just using carny terms to drum up business.” Bands that followed would take up the Psychobilly subgenre, like Southern Culture On The Skids, The Reverend Horton Heat, The 5.6.7.8’s, and The Gun Club.
But The Cramps loved a wider range of older music.
And they wanted to play all of it without limiting themselves to any particular niche.
About half their catalog is covers of little known songs.
They were music nerds.
“Garbageman” didn’t chart, of course, though Songs The Lord Taught Us made it to #1 on the UK Indie album chart. However, The Cramps became a big live act, especially in England where they sold out the Hammersmith Palais four nights in a row in 1984.
France loved them, too. Their raucous live show was captured in the movie Urgh! A Music War in 1980.
(Warning: Lux’s pants are dangerously low so I’ll mark this NSFW. Plus, as Henry Rollins put it, he looks like a human salamander.)
1981’s Psychedelic Jungle produced the single “Goo Goo Muck,” which was originally recorded by Ronnie Cook and the Gaylads. The Cramps version didn’t chart, of course, but it’s still a fan favorite and it was given a new life in Netflix’s series Wednesday in 2022.
In Episode 4, Jenna Ortega takes to the dance floor in silly/serious goth‑tinged choreography that matches the show’s and the song’s dark but playful vibe.
Ortega helped shape the routine, drawing on influences as varied as Siouxsie Sioux’s post‑punk moves, Bob Fosse’s angular precision, and archival footage of 1980s Goth nightclub dancers.
As Stranger Things did for Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill” earlier in the year, Wednesday gave “Goo Goo Muck” a resurgence. According to Billboard, U.S. on‑demand streams leapt from roughly 2,500 to over 134,000. On Spotify, streams climbed by 9,500%.
And the dance went viral on TikTok.
“Goo Goo Muck” became Gen Z’s introduction to Psychobilly and Goth. The scene raised interest in both The Cramps’ catalog and the wider aesthetics of camp/horror in popular music.
They founded Vengeance Records in 2000 to self‑release remastered editions of older Cramps records.
As well as what turned out to be their last album, Fiends of Dope Island, in 2003.
They toured Europe in 2006, and played their last show in Tempe, AZ that November.
The real story of The Cramps is not commercial success or influence on other artists.
Lux and Ivy’s love story was the soul of the band.
They were not only bandmates and lovers, they were equals. Co-conspirators. For over three decades, they lived together, toured together, and created together.
Unlike many rock couples, they had no scandals. Their bond was private, stable, and eternal.
They were always together.
Ivy said, “We had the same taste in everything: music, art, movies, life. I don’t think we ever disagreed on a single thing.”
Interior, Erick, died suddenly in 2009 of an aortic dissection. He was 62.
The Cramps official website was updated to say that, contrary to initial reports, he didn’t know he had a heart defect. His death was completely unexpected.
Ivy no longer plays music. She still runs Vengeance, collects records, and maintains her privacy.
The Cramps influenced countless bands across Punk, Garage, Goth, and Psychobilly:
From The White Stripes, to The Horrors, to The Yeah Yeah Yeahs.
They are considered originators of Horror Punk and helped renew interest in forgotten R&B, Rockabilly, and Surf artists.
They were always creating, and never became a legacy act.
Their uncompromising aesthetic, their embrace of the weird, and their obsessive musical curation have influenced musicians, artists, and dancers.
But above all, the story of The Cramps is the story of Lux and Ivy.
They were eccentric sweethearts, rebels, and true originals.
Who turned lowbrow taste into high art.
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Hail to the freaks. Thanks for highlighting the outsiders.
I first encountered The Cramps in the British Book of Hit Singles 1990 edition. Yes they had a bonafide top 40 single here (#35) with Bikini Girls With Machine Guns. As well as a top 40 album. There was a photo of them showing Lux on stage in almost all of his glory, a tiny pair of leather briefs were his only item of clothing. They had one other listed single with Can Your Pussy Do The Dog that scraped inside the top 75 that marks it for inclusion in the book. The photo and the song titles were eye opening, intriguing, confounding to my naive young self.
Who were these people? I’d never heard a note of their music but based on the limited evidence the word ‘scuzzy’ came to mind.
They aren’t a go to listen for me but Human Fly is a great song and I like that they did things in their own way and in their own style. Nice they got belated recognition through Wednesday. Hopefully the royalties from that and the boost it gave Goo Goo Muck provide a comfortable income for Ivy.
Very cool to read about their relationship and how strong it was til the end. Not always how rock rolls. But again, they were not conventional in any way it sounds.
I do know the song Rumble and I was aware of Link Wray as a progenitor of guitar distortion and an influence on many key musicians of rock’s formative years. I recall reading that he would do things like take a pen and poke holes in his amp to get a less clean, more distorted sound. Definitely an important figure in rock history, if often overlooked.
I watched Wednesday with my daughter. The Goo Goo Muck scene was classic and the song was perfect for it. The Cramps did not experience near the same degree of viral as Kate Bush, due in part that the Tik Tok video that really blew up replaced Goo Goo Muck with a Lady Gaga song, and it was that song that benefited the most chart wise. That irked me.
I have Goo Goo Muck on my Halloween playlist, along with I Was a Teenage Werewolf, which I love even more.
Almost any Cramps song will fit on a Halloween playlist. I saw them right around Halloween sometime in the mid 80s. Kid Congo Powers was the other guitarist and Nick Knox was on drums, and it was an absolute riot. Spooky!
I will dig in to some more!
Love this article V-dog! I knew about half this story, but there were a lot of details I was not aware of. Of course, the Cramps are to psychobilly what Bill Monroe was to bluegrass — the foundation upon which all was built. For that reason, they’ll always be legends in my book!
Knowing absolutely nothing about them, I learned a lot, Bill! But mostly I found myself touched by their unconventional love story. Thanks for the great read.
Sacramento State, wow.
I guess you go to New York to remake yourself. I recently watched Susan Seidelman’s Smithereens. I just checked. Richard Hell is from Kentucky. I wouldn’t be surprised if the lead actor, Brad Rinn, who plays Paul, the guy with a van that Wren(Susan Berman) takes advantage of, is from Montana just like his character. Seidelman is from Pennsylvania. Oh, Berman is from California, the same as Poison Ivy and Lux Interior.
I never heard the term “Fun City” before the Criterion Channel featured a bunch of movies shot in NYC, curated by J. Hoberman, a native who wrote for the Village Voice.
You get great acting and narrative but your eyes drift towards the extras and architecture. NYC looked incredible.
The movies were supposed to attract tourism.
I’m not too sure if The Panic in Needle Park did the trick.
I think Hoberman could’ve included Times Square.
Mary Schmich said, “Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard. Live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft” New York is a great place to remake yourself but I think the very act of moving to a new place of any size allows you to remake yourself. A new home is a new beginning.
Fantastic article, Bill – thank you.