March 3, 2004 -- His fascinating journey is told in I, S***head: A Life in Punk, but the book's existence is almost accidental. "It all started about five years ago when I did some spoken-word appearances which kind of came out of me having a beer with people and simply telling stories. I started bragging, 'Yeah, I'm going to write a book.' Then a book deal with Arsenal Pulp Press in Vancouver came together and once I sealed that, I realized I was facing a deadline!" laughs Keithley. "Once I got past writing the first few chapters, it just flowed."
He wrote about his life's events in chronological order, and then he called people to double-check facts like the exact month and year certain things happened. Keithley also dispensed with relating tales about alcohol-related and chemical-related exploits because those aren't shocking anymore and they didn't help the flow of the narrative. The bulk of I, S***head: A Life in Punk traces Keithley's adventures in the 1980s. At that time, D.O.A. was mostly active in North America and became one of the first North American punk bands to make a big impact in Europe. I, S***head: A Life in Punk chronicles D.O.A.'s wild punk pioneering, and it covers the gamut from busts, to riots, to problems at border crossings, to run-ins with local police and getting screwed by rip-off record companies, as well as an ample dose of D.O.A.'s legendary lunacy.
D.O.A. will tour North America this spring to promote the new best-of CD War and Peace on Sudden Death Records, which is owned and operated by Keithley. During its quarter-century career, D.O.A. has sold more than 500,000 copies of its 11 albums worldwide. "It's an anthology of material from our studio albums. Picking the songs wasn't easy. When I was deciding what to include I'd make a list of songs and then I'd rip it up and start over again," he says.
To fully understood Keithley's story, one has to go back to his youth when the seeds of activism were planted. He started studying politics at an early age and quickly discovered that he was philosophically at odds with his conservative, straight-and-narrow, strict-disciplinarian father. Young Keithley listened to the music of Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger and learned to play the drums. He even decided to become a civil-rights lawyer in order to become another voice of social change. "I was into the '60s counterculture but I was too young to be a hippie," he says. "I remember watching coverage of the Vietnam War on television back in a time when news coverage of a war wasn't censored.
"I first became a true activist when I was in high school. The American military was going to conduct nuclear testing in the Aleutian Islands in Alaska. Well, Greenpeace was actually founded in Vancouver and they were recruiting high school students for a protest demonstration against the nuclear testing. That one protest flipped me." It ultimately turned out that his literal instrument of change was a guitar. On back-to-back days, he bought his first guitar and enrolled in college. He soon discovered that college wasn't working out so he turned to music full time.
D.O.A. formed at almost the very beginning of the punk movement whose deadly serious mission was to gut, stuff and mount the bloated carcass of the jet-setting, trendy, filthy-rich monster that rock 'n' roll had become by the mid-1970s. "In 1977, the Ramones came along and transformed everything. Punk bands represented what rock was supposed to be. Rock 'n' roll was supposed to be rebellious, and punk filled a giant void," says Keithley. "By 1978, D.O.A. had started and within three months we'd released our seven-inch Disco Sucks EP."
The punk underground was built on fanzines, concerts, word-of-mouth and a cocky DIY (do-it-yourself) attitude. Keithley said punk became his "passport to travel the world." D.O.A. toured heavily on the West Coast circuit that ran all the way from Vancouver south to San Diego. There was a legendary gig in San Francisco where D.O.A. met the Dead Kennedys.
Geography cannot be dismissed as a factor in creating the West Coast punk scene, especially the inclusion of Vancouver. "It was a lot easier to drive to LA than Toronto!" laughs Keithley.
In 1981, D.O.A. released what many regard as the band's definitive album, Hardcore '81. During this time frame the band played a mini-festival for which the punk subgenre "hardcore" was coined. "Between about 1979 and 1982 there weren't many band that were classified as hardcore. It was basically us and Black Flag," Keithley says.
Calling hard-touring bands "road warriors" was an understatement in D.O.A.'s case. "Our approach was 'Let's be professional troublemakers.' We were pioneers in that a lot of people hadn't seen this music outside a few major cities. We would play a lot of towns where we would be the first punk band ever to play somewhere like Dayton, Ohio, or Missoula, Montana," recalls Keithley. "The simple fact is that we would play anywhere, anytime, for next to nothing. It was evident that you didn't need a big record company machine behind you."
It was hard trying to make a living as a punk musician. Keithley struggled for 10 years and worked part-time jobs to help support his family. Eventually, the gradual success of D.O.A. and Sudden Death Records eased the financial strain. "Success is gratifying, but struggle is part of the fun," he says.
Trying to change the world, to put it mildly, is difficult. Yet he believes in the politics of "people power."
"The best example was stopping the Vietnam War," he says. "When regular middle-class people like truck drivers and teachers started coming out against the war, that's what eventually got it stopped."
Given the craziness of the modern world, Keithley is never at a loss for song subjects. He's always had something to write about. "D.O.A. is the oldest full-time running major punk band, although we did stop once for about 18 months. Then we realized we missed it," Keithley says. "One of my favorite things to do is write songs, and I like to write about different things. I think you've got to know what's happening in the news and you've got to know history too. The most important thing about music is passion and a fire inside."
Keithley's approach is a clever one because he's trying to change the system from the inside. He's certainly no communist or socialist. As a business owner, he is technically a capitalist but he is using his resources to achieve his political goals. "I'm a pseudo-anarchist. I vote, but I hold my nose and vote for the best of the worst," Keithley says. "I'm anti-globalization, but you can't close off society. I also believe in fair trade, not free trade."
Keithley is considering writing a second book, but it would be more of a survival guide to our modern age and a primer on social activism rather than just picking up where I, S***head: A Life in Punk left off. He would also like to record a solo album and a reggae-oriented album.
Despite suffering some losing battles, Keithley has been on the winning side sometimes. He cites a couple of sweet victories that help keep up his morale as an activist. In 1988 D.O.A. and Bryan Adams, certainly strange bedfellows from a musical standpoint, joined forces for the common goal of a benefit concert to raise awareness about environmental damage caused by pulp and paper mills in British Columbia; ultimately, the laws were changed and they tightened restrictions on these industries in order to protect the environment more. Then in 1990 D.O.A. and Bachman-Turner Overdrive played a benefit concert to raise money to purchase badly needed parts for ambulances in Soweto, South Africa. "I want to change the world in a positive way," Keithley says. "I've done it a little bit, but I'm not there yet."
It was recently announced that D.O.A. will be honored in March by Canadian Music Week. D.O.A. will become the first band inducted into the Canadian Independent Music Awards' Indy Hall of Fame. This is the fourth annual "The Indies" show. In December 2002, newly elected Mayor Larry Campbell, in his first act of office, declared December 21st as D.O.A. Day in Vancouver. Joey was presented with an official Vancouver city scroll to mark the occasion.
For further information on the book by Joey Keithley, I, S***head: A Life in Punk, please contact Trish Kelly at Arsenal Pulp Press at 604-687-4233 or trish@arsenalpulp.com. The book is distributed by Consortium in the United States.
D.O.A. -- Keithley, new bassist Damned Dan Yaremko (who has worked with Econoline Crush and Bif Naked) and drummer The Great Baldini -- will hit the road soon. Upcoming tour dates are scheduled for the West Coast and more on the East Coast will follow later. Keithley also has bookstore and spoken-word appearances scheduled too, and sometimes these will occur on the same day as D.O.A. concerts. They will always be earlier in the day, between 5:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. local time. The current schedule includes:
JOEY KEITHLEY โ€" Bookstore & Spoken-Word Appearances
Thur, Mar 4th Toronto,ON Sneaky Dee's
Fri, Mar 5th Ottawa, ON Octopus Books
Sat, Mar 6th Kingston, ON Novel Idea
Wed, Mar 10th Kamloops, BC Cariboo U. College
Thur, Mar 25th Portland, OR Reading Frenzy
Fri, Mar 26th Sacramento, CA Tower Records
(2500 16th St.)
Sat, Mar 27th Oakland, CA AK Press
Mon, Mar 29th Los Angeles, CA Virgin Megastore (Sunset Blvd.)
Mon, Mar 29th Los Angeles, CA Knitting Factory
Fri, Apr 2nd Brea, CA
Tower Records (220 S. Brea)
D.O.A. โ€" Concert Appearances
Wed, Mar 3rd Toronto, ON The Phoenix
Thur, Mar 4th Toronto, ON The Funhaus
Fri, Mar 5th Ottawa, ON Barrymore's
Sat, Mar 6th Kingston, ON Scherzo
Fri, Mar 19th Squamish, BC Howe Sound Inn
Thur, Mar 25th Portland, OR Meow Meow
Fri, Mar 26th Sacramento, CA The Roadhouse
Sat, Mar 27th Concord, CA Bourbon Street
Sun, Mar 28th Malibu, CA Malibu Inn
Tue, Mar 30th Downey, CA Anarchy Library
Wed, Mar 31st Santa Barbara, CA Coach House North
Thur, Apr 1st Hemet, CA
Shooters
Fri, Apr 2nd Santa Ana, CA Galaxy Theatre
Sat, Apr 3rd San Diego, CA Brick By Brick
Sun, Apr 4th Bakersfield, CA Jerry's
Fri, Apr 23rd Eugene, OR WOW Hall
Sat, Apr 24th Tacoma, WA Hell's Kitchen
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