Interview with vocalist Chris Jones, Brian Simmons of Atomic Action!, and audio engineer Nick Townsend | By Joshua Maranhas
Between the hubs of Boston, New York, and Washington D.C., magic happened in the hardcore music scene out of Rhode Island. Verbal Assault may be the band you haven’t heard enough, and it’s time to listen up.
Verbal Assault lit up clubs like The Living Room in Providence—which is gone now—with Circle Jerks in 1983. That’s before playing Boston, New York, D.C., and then touring Europe. In 1986, Ian MacKaye produced their EP Learn, and they toured with 7Seconds. Later, they toured with Agnostic Front in the winter of 1987 after recording arguably their most important record and sole full-length, Trial, in fall of the same year.
For eight years in the ‘80s and early ‘90s, it was all happening—and then, Verbal Assault were gone.
What never disappeared is their amazing catalog of smart hardcore punk rock. What remains are words, thoughts, chords, and punk rock history that play perfectly today.
Whenever Greater New Bedford became the South Coast of Massachusetts and Rhode Island became “Little Rhody,” Verbal Assault—and albums like Trial—were already off the mainstream path but still in the atlas, coming from Newport, Rhode Island. They set their legacy in marble like the Newport Mansions and stood the test of time.
“I think, in some ways, it speaks a lot to Newport and to Rhode Island, just in the sense that I always thought that we had a really cool underground music scene and a very eclectic one,” vocalist Chris Jones says. “That was one of the reasons that the bands that came from this area were really good. For instance, we’ll set the Wayback Machine to 1986 or whatever: all of us were going to Rogers High School in Newport. The kids that didn’t kinda fit in—whether you were the punk kids, art rock, or whatever—because we all got beat up after high school together, we kind of, you know, formed a bond. Because the city wasn’t that big, everybody kind of ended up hanging out together.”
“The example I always use—and it’s a really important one for me—is Throwing Muses,” he continues. “We were always close friends with those guys, and I don’t think it was an accident that we ended up having a lot of the same members. You know, if you do the little band family tree or whatever, you start off with Verbal Assault, then the Muses, and then, later on, some of the Verbal Assault guys—like [guitarist] Tom [Gorman] and [drummer] Chris Gorman—end up working with Tanya [Donelly], and they form Belly. For a while, this guy Fred Abong was playing [bass] with Throwing Muses as well. He was in a bunch of other bands, more punk bands and stuff. I think that just having everybody hanging around with different kinds of musicians made for better music all around. To me, that really kinda says, like, ‘All right, Newport was a pretty—it is a special place.’”
Verbal Assault always played true music, and 2018 looks to be the year they get back on the map. “2018 is the year of Verbal Assault,” Jones concurs.
Since 1983, Verbal Assault have steered clear of “being hokey,” according to Atomic Action! Records’ Brian Simmons. “I was always so proud of them. They kind of, to me, connected the D.C. thing with the New York thing. They were heavy and strong and powerful, but the lyrics were incredibly intelligent, and there was so much integrity involved with what they did. Everything they did was well-thought-out and well-planned.”
Simmons is putting out the band’s remastered catalog on his label, starting with Trial in May. “Initially, I just wanted it out,” he says. “You know, they were talking to Revelation, they were talking to different labels, and I didn’t care if I put it out or anybody put it out. I just wanted it to get out, not just because they were friends of mine, but I thought they had—they were one of the better bands of the mid to late ‘80s. They never did anything to really embarrass themselves.”
Why not start at the beginning and work to the end? Simmons answers, “We decided to do Trial first just because people are clamoring for it.”
They took the original tape and mailed it to Los Angeles to begin the process. “It was a scary prospect for me,” Simmons says. “We literally got the original 30-year-old tape and UPS-ed it out there. So stressed about it. It’s like history at this point.”
Verbal Assault are not rebranding, compromising, or selling out. The remastering of Trial is the start of something positive. They’re bringing back each album beautifully and with dignity. “We actually tried doing this 10 years ago,” Jones says, “and we actually got as far as getting in the studio. We did do some remastering. It came out so-so, and then, life kinda got in the way or whatever, so we’ve been meaning to get this going again. To Brian’s credit, he helped pull things together. He was the one who actually hooked us up with [engineer] Nick Townsend who did the remastering. It was really, really easy so far. Actually, it was great. We just basically sent Nick the quarter-inch final mixes of Trial. He did work some magic, man. It came back really nice. Much brighter, much better than our first attempt at doing it.”
“I was surprised,” Simmons adds, “Nick hit that stuff, and he hit the nail right on the head mastering it. Pete, the guitarist, Pete [Chramiec] was literally happy right away with it. In my mind, I had kind of given it time for them to go back and forth and changes to be made and everything else. When I first heard it, it blew me away how much cleaner and how much better it sounded. So, I was really excited that Pete was really happy with it, like, right off the bat.”
In response to the praise, Townsend is humble. “It’s been a blast working on Trial,” he says. “I have been a fan of Verbal Assault since I was 17, and it’s been surreal to be entrusted to give this record new life.”
In addition to remastering the album, Townsend is a musician himself, currently playing drums in Fireburn with vocalist Israel Joseph I, guitarist Todd Jones, and bassist Todd Youth. It’s a lineup full of masters of the musical craft, and Townsend is an expert with a keen ear.
After giving the original recording of Trial a solid listen, Townsend went to work. “I guess the first thing that popped out at me was hearing all the tiny little details in the original quarter-inch tape masters,” he says. “After I listened to the raw masters a few times this way, I was able to take my rose-colored glasses off and get down to business. Ever since I first heard Trial, I had always wished there was more definition and space between instruments: the bass was always hard to hear, drums were always a little mushy, and the vocals sat in a weird place in the mix. So, that’s where I dug in on the remaster.”
“It’s like listening to a completely new album,” Townsend concludes. “Everyone involved loved the first pass I did, and now, I am just impatiently waiting to cut the lacquers for the vinyl pressing of this album.”
The team are cleaning up the album jacket presentation too. “That photograph [on the cover] is by Chris Gorman, who was our drummer for a while and was also a drummer in a band called Belly,” Jones says. “I ended up being their tour manager for a while. The person in the photo is Tom Gorman, who was the bass player, and then, he was the guitar player for Belly as well. Chris moved back to Rhode Island recently from New York, and when he was packing up his stuff to move, he found the original photo. So, that is awesome. He sent Brian some really nice scans of it. It looked really cool; there’s a lot less contrast in it and stuff. I’m really looking forward to doing a nice job with the layout. You know, it’ll be the same photo, but it will look that much clearer—almost in the same way the music will.”
Verbal Assault’s music is important in 2018, because—borrowing from the title of Trial’s fourth track, “Never Stop”—the band never stopped. The lyrics still ring true. “I’ve known these guys, for the most part, my whole life,” Simmons says. “Say, 1983 roughly, and they were around for eight years. It’s kind of hard to differentiate what I thought of them then versus what I think of them now. They’re still those same people, and they still—how they’ve lived their lives is very similar to how they did then. It’s cool that they set that pace and maintained it. The band is honestly who the people were and who they still are.”
Hardcore kids steal lyrics for their hearts, and those words become “More Than Music,” to borrow from another of Jones’ songs. The catalog Verbal Assault created—from their hearts to the world—is as true today as it was every minute they were a band and every minute of Chris Jones’ life.
“One of the things that I always say to people is, you know, the band was such a huge, huge influence on my life,” he says. “It changed the way I looked at everything. You know, just the traveling, stuff like that. It was a really important part of my life. It’s like, listening to this again, [and] I’m also starting to redo the website, so I’m going back through a lot of old photos, video, stuff like that. It’s bringing back memories—you know, happy memories—but also, again, just kind of that feeling of, ‘All right, this was good stuff. This was good stuff.’”
“I take it as a compliment Brian never thought we were ‘hokey’ and it’s worth putting out because people are still interested,” he adds. “I take that as a huge, huge compliment, ‘cause it is fucked up to think that we did this 30 years ago. That’s like when you’re talking about the first Exile on Main St. [by The Rolling Stones] or something, or Sgt. Pepper[’s Lonely Hearts Club Band by The Beatles]. ‘Oh, well, 30 years ago…’ It’s like, ‘Hey, wait a second, that’s us,’ you know? So, it’s a nice feeling that it seems like it’s really stood up to the test of time. I’m really excited to have people hear it again.”
Look out for Trial on Atomic Action! this May and listen up: there’s sage experience in those newly-shined and brightened thoughts and chords, lyrics and music. This is fundamental hardcore punk rock. These are things you should hear.
“It definitely stands the test of time,” Jones concludes. “We’ve been meaning to do this for such a long time. People have been very politely pestering us for a long time or whatever, and getting to listen to the tracks again, it’s like, ‘Oh yeah, all right, cool. This is why people have been bugging us.’ It’s a damn good album, and it needs to come out again.”
