I’d Just As Soon Stay Sick: A Tribute To Lux Interior and The Cramps

The biggest visceral response, however, was the one I had towards the leader of the group: the grown man named Lux Interior who wore a vinyl suit and high heels. He had me all but paralyzed. He was frightening as hell, but at the same time, I couldn’t take my eyes off of him. He was on the slightly masculine side of androgyny—if that makes sense—with a face that was large and animated, yet vacant and ghost-like at the same time. I didn’t know what rockabilly was, let alone stuff like “trashy,” “retro,” “B-movie sleaze,” or any other adjective that’s usually used to describe both his look and the larger sound of The Cramps. All I knew was that the sight of him had me in a trance. It was like I had crawled inside the belly of something disturbing and scary (and possibly Satanic), and yet, I kind of liked it.

As one of the only videos that EVER came on The Jukebox Network, I had seen the “Bikini Girls with Machine Guns” video at least 25 times by the time my parents decided to get cable again. And by this time I knew all the words. When I got to high school, I went out and bought Stay Sick on cassette and listened to it constantly, then started digging deeper into The Cramps’ back catalogue and buying the rest of their albums. I could not take Bad Music for Bad People out of my tape player; I must have listened to that album every single day for an entire year. I eventually started listening to the artists they had covered and watching the movies they referenced, immersing myself in their world even further (a pastime that would eventually become a lifelong fascination).

I got the chance to actually see them live in the mid 90s, and needless to say, it was a mind-blowing experience. Even though they were already seasoned veterans by this time, I marveled at how insane Lux still was on stage. He was still wearing the skin tight, full body suits, getting up on stacks of monitors, fellating the microphone every chance he got. He was just as scary and powerful and sexual as he appeared to be when I was a kid, except this time around I understood and appreciated it more.

I bought their later albums and totally devoured the “Songs the Cramps Taught Us” compilations they released. I dreamed of one day being a part of a couple as cool as Lux and Poison Ivy. I always believed they probably had the coolest house in the world, with the coolest shit ever. They’ll always and forever be one of my favorite bands, one that I can honestly say I was introduced to (for better or worse) at an early age and still keep up with to this day.

A friend of mine told me the news of Lux’s passing this week, and it felt immediate and shocking, like I had lost someone I knew personally. I called my friend Ben (who also shared my Cramps obsession through the years) and we talked about how sad it made us. I guess we both assumed someone so amazing and legendary would never die. That a guy with such style and presence and such an incredible career has to leave Earth, while someone with 1/16th less originality and panache gets to stay here and make miserable music, is a completely unfair thing. If anything, I hope his death will inspire other twelve-year-olds to break out of their pop music phases and become entranced with Lux Interior and The Cramps as I was.

Stay sick, my children—stay sick.

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