Page 8 SHOCK CINEMA

As founder and lead singer of FEAR, LeeVing was the roaring voice of the west coast punkmovement of the '70s and early '80s. FEAR cutthru a sea of mumbling, wrist cutting, overdosing,musically challenged bands with an in-your-face,get-out-of-my-way, 1,2,3,4 sonic wall, that soundsas fresh today as it did back then. FEAR still sellsout clubs in New York, Chicago, Miami, Boston,Philadelphia, Seattle, Austin, Dallas, Denver, andthe Sunset Strip, with a seemingly ageless andendless string of 15-18 year old fans still lining uparound the block.

Formed in 1977 FEAR was part of thefirst wave of west coast punk. Lee, stubbornand perfectionist off stage as well as on,refused every record deal put in front of himfor over three years (Clive Davis, AhmedErtegun and brother Nesuhi were very dis-appointed) until with the help of Larry, hislawyer he finally got a really shitty deal fromSlash Records in 1981 (.014 cents per songwriters royalty), and no advance. Resulting inone of the few punk records that stand thetest of time, THE RECORD featured alreadyclassic songs like ") Love Livin in the City", "IDon't Care About You", "Let's Have A War","New York's All right If You Like Saxophones"and "Beef Bologna", most of which had beenbringing LA clubs to their knees since 1977.The muscular and draining 1-2-3-4 soundwas as influential as it was impossible toduplicate (unless you were willing to workout night and day, your body just couldn'thandle it). Full of wit, irony and humor thatpasses over the heads of critics to this day,the stage show was as in your face as themusic was. Lee and guitarist Philo Cramerwould beat the audience about the head andbrain for hours on end, there hasn't beenanything like it before or since.

Thankfully it was captured for posterityin the Penelope Spheeris documentary THEDECLINE OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION

(1981). A truly great film and a worthy his-toric record. That will see the light of day ondvd sometime next year (at least that isPenelope's hope).

After the breakout performance in DECLINEand a hell raising lifetime network banning per-formance on SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE, Lee soonhad acting offers to go along with the club dates.A steady stream of screen and television rolesstarted in 1983. From the out of control Piggy inGET CRAZY (1983), the sleazy club owner inFLASH DANCE (1983), the immortal Mr. Boddy inCLUE (1985), the ruthless thug fighting it out withTommy Lee Jones in BLACK MOON RISING(1986), and not one but two TV-episodes of FAME(1984 and 1987)!?

Lee is a force with whom to be reckoned.

Having left Hollywood in the 1989 to raise afamily in Austin, Texas, Lee is back in town andready to kick ass (hopefully not mine).

Lee Ving: This old boy says to me, he says whyhowdy partner, can you tell how far it is to town. Isaid why yes I can, it's about three lengths of a

fool.You don't believe me, lay down and measure.(laughs)SHOCK CINEMA: (laughs)Ving: Shock Cinema. Now is that like ShockTheater back in Philadelphia? Growing up I hadJohn Zacharly as Roland every Friday-Saturdaynight.

SC: So you loved movies from an early age?What kind of films did you like growing up?What kind of films do you like now?

Lee Ving as Mr. Boddy in CLUE

Ving: As a kid in Philly I loved the Universal Horrorfilms. FRANKENSTEIN, DRACULA, THE WOLFMAN, FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLFMAN, BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN also THEMUMMY (which has the eerie same intro music asDRACULA).These were and are my favorites.Thebest and only Great horror movies ever made andever worth mentioning. No others measure up. AsCount Dracula says about Carfax Abbey "I shalldo very little repair. It reminds me of the brokenbattlements of my own castle in Transylvania"and"There are far worse things awaiting man thanDeath." I also loved THE HUNCHBACK OFNOTRE DAMEwith Charles Laughton.

One day while we were filming STREETSOF FIRE (1984), under the pretense of "warmingup the bikes" at lunch me and some of theBombers did our daily terrorize the lot and runaway from security routine. Great fun riding a loudHarley Davidson around Universal Studios withsome of the most notorious outlaw bikers inCalifornia. So once I had lost the security who

were chasing me and I found a place to hide inanold world Swiss looking street, just down the hillfrom the Bates house of PSYCHO fame, I beganto have a feeling of Deja Vu, of having been therebefore but knew I never had. More than twentyyears later while watching FRANKENSTEIN onlate night TV, I realized, that was where I knewthat street from on that day at Universal. It wasthe street in the little Swiss-Austrian town whereBaron Frankenstein lived and was preparing forhis son's wedding. A street I had seen so many

times as a kid watching the FRANKEN-STEIN movie and there I was hiding fromsecurity not realizing my hiding place wasthe famous village of FRANKENSTEIN.

There are 5 and only 5 films whichembody(no pun)the great Italian American,Mafia, Cosa Nostra, Crime Syndicate andgeneral Italian neighborhood fuck ups andwannabes experience. They are; MEANSTREETS, GOODFELLAS, CASINO alldirected by Martin Scorsese and THEGODFATHER and THE GODFATHERPART II directed by Francis Ford Coppola.

Being an Italian American myself, bornLee James Capellaro in Philadelphia (dur-ing the time of Angelo Bruno and NickyScarfo) to a third generation ItalianAmerican family from Saglianomicca,un podi cento chilometri al nord di Firenze (a hun-dred kilometers north of Florence), e diNapoli, Italia (and from Naples, Italy).

It has been my lifes ambition to workon a Mob related film (Which I am writingabout Philadelphia) directed by Mr.Scorsese with his A list actors, as one ofthose colorful characters that were myheroes growing up on the Mean Streets of"Fishtown" (Kensington and AlleghenyAve.) and South Philadelphia.

SC: Where are you from?Ving: Philly, Fishtown, Kensington andAllegheny Ave., Germantown, Roslyn,Willow Grove, St Lukes Elementary in

Glenside, St John of the Cross Elementary inRoslyn, Abington High School and SouthPhiladephia and Villanova University (V forVillanova V for victory). Everybodysing, Now!!!

I'm from Philadelphia can't you tell. Fuckingguy over 'der. ) was born Lee James Capellaro inPhiladelphia a couple a weeks ago, inGermantown Hospital, my family was living inFishtown at the time, Kensington and Allegheny,sort of that neighborhood down by Pulshutsky'speer, on Allegheny Ave, across the street from theNativity church, a Polish, Irish, Italian neighbor-hood, bad then, bad now. I call myself Lee Ving,it's a joke name (un nome scherzo) like leavinglike ok I'm leeving now, get it? But with a namelike Lee Ving, Martin Scorsese probably neverknew that I am Italian, that I could be a "made"guy, 100% Italian, with both sides of my familytraced back to Italia and thus help him out in casehe has any union problems with his next film star-ring Lee "Ving" Capellaro. Any of yous got a prob-lem with that?

www.shockcinemamagazine.com Page 9SC: When did you first getinvolved in music?Ving: I don't know, I just always was,my earliest recollections are musicalones. I started playing at the age of4, my mother had a mandolin andbegan to teach me to play and Iwould entertain the family, now I'm22 and I'm still at it.

SC: Any crazy memories aboutstarting out, jobs you had beforeFEARtook off?Ving: Well shit, I was a bartendermost of the time, Slug'sJazz Cafe onthe lower Eastside of ManhattanandDonte's in North Hollywood, I was asinging waiter at one point at theGreat American Food and BeverageCompanyin Westwood that was verycrazy, people would stop for dinnerand I would torture them with FEARsongs I was writing at the time.

SC: You formed FEAR in 1977,1978? (1977 really wasn't it, that'swhat I read everywhere anyways.)Ving: Si, Certo, FEAR, 1977, 78.

SC: You were playing clubs?Ving: We were playing clubs in LA we had record-ed one single in 1978 "I Love Livin in the City" witha b side of "Now You're Dead" we hadn't done abig studio record yet, and I was slamming upposters with a staple gun up in Laurel Canyon try-ing to stay out the way of the cops as they droveup and down the street and I see this white mus-tang convertible come hauling ass down thestreet and stand on the breaks, and this greatlooking girl inside with pretty black hair says "Heyyou guys wanna be in my movie?" and we said"Sure," she turns around and comes back andsays "Here my name's Penelope gimme a call."blah blah blah. So we talked to her and before youknow it we're scheduled to play in this documen-tary film that Penelope was directing, PenelopeSpheeris that is. Before you know it she's bringingher film crew to gigs, huge crowds showed up totwo of these performances that we had scheduledfor ourselves to play. She filmed it, and we did alittle bit of interview work, not very much, some ofthe other bands with much less to say did muchmore of the interview sequences than we did, butwe brought the meat and potatoes where it wasneeded out to the live performance with thecrowd, we were baiting them arguing with themcarrying on intellectual repartee with the numb-skulls that had come to see the show (just kid-ding) wound up being pretty entertaining footage.I still get a chuckle out of it. That was the start.The film went around the country we went aroundthe country right behind it and toured in placeswhere this movie had just been. People like JohnBelushi saw the film and thought it was prettyfunny, we got to meet him based on that later on,and became close friends with him, he was agreat guy.

SC: How did you end up on SATURDAY NIGHTLIVE?Ving: Someone at SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE real-ized that there was this thing going on called punkrock, for want of a better term, you know I neverfelt that's what we were, I knew we were playingfor the audience that thought that's what THEYwere. Some people at SATURDAY NIGHT LIVEwanted to book a band that played this kind ofstuff, albeit what we played was very different thanall the other bands that called themselves this

one in the audience but no one knewthe difference, and that was the lasttime we played SATURDAY NIGHTLIVE. John was there too, he showedup for the taping, he had just quit thecast, and they said well you're hereman you wanna do something? Hesaid ok and they put a camera on himand he just did one of his eyebrownumbers that he did, and that was hislast live bit of work for SATURDAYNIGHT LIVE.

SC: Didn't somebody get hit in thehead with a pumpkin? (laughs)Ving: Yea, Dick Ebersole the stagemanager I think, got hit in the headwith a pumpkin but it wasn't lifethreatening. There was some dam-age to one of the old television cam-eras somebody put a dent in one ofthe hydraulic tubes that bring it upand down, and so I got a call the nextday from the NewYork Post and theysaid we heard you caused 20-30thousand dollars worth of damage tothe studio. I said "that's bullshit, we

are professionals we caused $ 500,000 worth ofdamages I counted it myself."Demolition was theother thing that we did, we played music,did dem-olition, public relations you know. (laughs)

II

Lee Ving as Piggy in Allan Arkush's GET CRAZY

name punk rock. They decided they were gonnacall up some band or another, my friend TinoInsana who was good friends with John Belushi,they grew up together, slept out in each othersback yards in tents and shit, they were really closefriends. Tino said to John no no don't get whoeverthe hell they were gonna get, call FEAR. So oneafternoon I get home and the phone is ringing, itsMichael O'Donaghue and he says, hi is this Lee?I say yea. Well this is Michael O'Donaghue fromSATURDAY NIGHT LIVE we'd like toknow what you guys are doing on the31st of October Halloween night. I said,Well let me check my schedule andsee... just kidding, for you we aren'tdoing anything. What do you have inmind? He said we'd like you to comeplay SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE. I saidthat sounds great let's do it, so wewent, and in the meantime we had metJohn, and I realized right away we weregonna be friends, we hit it off. Weshowed up in New York, played therehearsals for the show, played the tap-ing without the audience and the tapingwith the audience, which got shut downin the middle because we had invited afew people to see the show, not we, butJohn did, called some people in DCand Philadelphia, and by the time theygot to New York what was intended tobe 20-25 people wound up being 100,and they were in the green room, drankall the beer, ate all the sandwiches,gave each other haircuts, by the timethey let them out into the audience theywere a ball of springs and jumped ontothe stage as we were playing the introto one of the tunes, all hell was break-ing loose as far as they could see, itwas what was normally expected for ashow of this kind, but no one fromNebraska or Kansas who had come to

SNL to see the taping of this show was preparedfor that. So it got shut down after someonescreamed an expletive (FUCK NEW YORK) into amicrophone that we had dropped because therewas such pandemonium going on, they cut tostock footage because they couldn't bleep it out,and it went out to the whole country over the air-waves and this four letter word happened and itwasn't anyone in the band saying it, it was some-

SC: So how did you end up acting? Was it offthe SNL appearance?Ving: Not really. It was from THE DECLINE andthen Allan Arkush came to see FEAR play at theWhiskey, and they were about to do a movie that

had a part in it for a crazy singer named PIGGY,and apparently I fit that description quite well, andbefore you know it I'm acting in this film with thegreat Malcolm McDowell, this beautiful Icelandicactress named Anna Bjorn, The Turtles, DanielStern and Lou Reed. I got an agent, JohnBurnham at ICM and the rest is history and how Ican now afford to live in Bel-Air next door to JohnTravolta. It's the American dream really.

Page 10 SHOCK CINEMAsc: What was the very first thing you shot, doyou remember?Ving: Yeah I do. It was this guy who owed money,couldn't even pay the vig to some people that Iwas working for in Philly. It must have scared himcause he paid up right away and I just winged himso that he would not croak and could pay the loanya know what I'm talkin about over there toughguy.

However, I was told that on the JohnnyCarson show, Malcolm said that all he remem-bered of the filming of GET CRAZY was workingwith that maniac Lee Ving. Showing that he is adiscerning fellow.

sc: (laughs) What was your next job?Ving: My next movie was FLASHDANCE, myagent, John Burnham at ICM at the time, sent me

to read for it he said Leeyou're not gonna get this partAdrian Lyne wants KeithRichards to play the part,they're buddies, but just go,it'll be good practice.Well, youknow maybe Keith doesn'ttalk like an east coast city guythat has a club that he runs,and maybe they thought itmight be difficult to get himout of bed at 4:30 in the morn-ing for 8 weeks to make themovie. Anyways make a longstory short and since I wouldalso cost a bit less, I wind upwith the part.The movie cameout, and in three weeks it hadmade like 90 million dollars orsomething, all of the sudden Ihave a lot of friends atParamount and Universal, notto mention Jerry Bruckheimerand Don Simpson.

Lee Ving in Walter Hill's STREETS OF FIRE

Yea. I was in the trunk of this car being driv-en by these three actresses, only a crazy personwould get into the trunk of a car being driven byan actor much less these three ditzos. So theypulled in and stopped, the trunk opens, I jump outof the car run over and dive into a bunch of trashcans, run back over to the car where somebodyhas put down a contract for me to sign, butinstead of signing the contract I decide I am goingto put a dent into it with my head and plow myhead into the trunk of the car and put a huge dentin the thing, for real, this was when I was crazier,and that was my initiation into the world of dra-matic acting, having been taught by Miss StellaAdler and Mr. Lee Strasberg, because my craft iseverything, yis know what I'm talkin over there?

sc: (laughs) Yea, It has to be one of the great-est entrances in film history,right up there with OrsonWelles in THE THIRDMAN.Ving:Yeahor Arnold in PREDA-TOR.

sc: What was it like workingwith Malcolm McDowell?Ving: Of course, Malcolm is agentleman and an unpredictablesort in the presence of debauch-nik droogen mates such asmyself or a right gorgeousdevotchka patitsa as AnnaBjorn. And so your humble nar-rator one afternoon in Malcolm'strailer having many a malaka ofBudweiser and some Gran FineBrut is introduced to us the veryBeautiful Icelandic co-starringactress Anna Bjorn. Malcolmbefore saying a word, sweepsher into the bed chamber of hismotorhome, picks her up andonto the bed as he introduceshimself. Right, Right says I.

sc: That was Bruckheimerand Simpson's first huge hit right?Ving: Yea. The late Don Simpson, rest his soul,was on location with us in LA near 6th and Hillwhere we were shooting FLASHDANCE, and wasentertaining everybody with this plastic gun, wan-dering off our lot into the downtown area, continu-ing to flash this plastic gun, I went up to him andtold him, don't be doing that shit off the set man,they don't know you, the LAPD is gonna freak andshoot you. Hill St. ain't Hollywood.

sc: Was NIGHTMARES(1983)next?Ving: Yea. Christopher Crowe and Alan Barnetteare friends of mine. This was their first feature.They cast me as an escaped killer hiding in theback seat of a car. In the end I get shot up withsquibs, just blown away. I had my family, my wifeand son on the set to watch, they found it all high-

Iy entertaining. Alan and Christopher then didsome ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTSremakes for Universal, and cast me in the veryfirst episode, called "Incident in a Small Jail;' aremake of an old black and white episode thathad starred my friend Richard Jaeckel.

sc: Ned Beatty was the other actor in yourepisode, what was he like to work with?Ving: Ned Beatty is a true gentleman, he went onthe Merv Griffin show about the time this was

going to air, and said to Merv that he had workedon this episode with a great young actor, talentedfellow, smart fellow, named Lee Ving. I never got tothank him. Thanks for the plug Ned.

I

,

sc: How did you get cast in Walter Hill's rockepic STREETS OF FIRE (1984)?Ving: I read for the part of the boss of this bikergang The Bombers for Walter Hill, Judith Holstraand Joel Silver.The part called for a sledgeham-mer fight. I just happened to have a 12 poundsledge at home so I snuck it into universal in myguitar case, I also hid a .38 in the neck of thecase. So I'm reading for the part, I pull out thesledgehammer and go through those motionsand Walter's eyes are very wide at this point,Judith's too, then I pull the .38, man I thoughteveryone was gonna need new shorts. It wasn'tloaded, I didn't bring a loaded .38 to UniversalStudios but I did bring a .38, to accentuate myotherwise brilliant reading of this part. Fortunatelyfor me I wasn't arrested, I was hired, for the partof Greer the underboss. We shot over like 16weeks at Universal Studios I met the Heathensmotorcycle club during the filming, and shortlyatter we wrapped the movie I became a memberof the Heathens, go figure.

sc: Did it get crazy with all these real bikers atUniversal Studios?Ving: One day at lunch me, Willem Dafoe andsome of the other guys, took the motorcycles wewere riding in the movie out on the universal lot,mine belonged to this guy named "dog" who wasin the Crucifiers. We're out terrorizing the lot,going real fast, being crazy, the Universal tramcomes by and the lady sees that there's thismotorcycle speeding towards the tram and shesays, ladies and gentleman that is one of our stuntdrivers from the film STREETS OF FIRE, at thevery last minute I grab hold of the breaks, the bikestarts to slide in the sand on the lot out there, and

I bring the bike to a stop maybea half a foot from the tram. Shesays again, that's one of ourstunt drivers from STREETSOF FIRE. (laughs)

Tim Curry, Lee Ving and Colleen Camp in CLUE

sc: (laughs) That was likeBill Paxton's first movie?Ving: Yea, yea, I got to hit Billreal hard in the stomach andWalter put a really good sonicthud in the soundtrack of it, soit looked like I really whackedhim. I just ran into Bill the otherday, and we went and hadlunch together, I said, Bill and Igrabbed him by the neck and Ireally slammed him in the gutand said, I just wanted to see ifyou still had it man, and youdo,you still got it Bill.

j

.II

sc: Next up you were in thatweird almost sequel to FastTimes with Chris Penn andEric Stolz, THE WILDLIFE.

www.shockcinemamagazine.com Page 11Ving: Yea Cameron Crowe wroteit. I was a cable guy that showedup and wouldn't go away. It wasa lot of fun. Chris Penn (god resthis soul) and Sean came to afew FEAR shows along the way.

SC: So all through these act-ing roles FEAR was still play-ing?Ving: Yea yea yea. In fact up untilwe started to film FLASH-DANCE I was still tending bar atDonte's Jazz supper club inNorth Hollywood.

SC: Somewhere along hereAlan Arkush the guy who putyou in GET CRAZY, cast you inan episode of the TV showFAME right?Ving: Yea I did two episodes. Igot to sing in both. I playedsomelocal hood in the first episode,then a computer repair guy inthe second one. In the course of chasing aroundsome of the regular actors in the first one, I standand sing "The Impossible Dream" on a stage, asong most out of character for a local hood, butsomething I enjoyed doing. It's all about contrast.

SC: In the second one you had this big BruceSpringsteen style dance number.Ving: Right, it was supposed to this BruceSpringsteenkind of number.One of the lines I wassupposed to deliver, was "I've got better pipesthan the boss,"When I was reading for the part, Iswitched that to "Yeathat's right I got a better pipethan the boss,"I may havealready had the job, butif I didn't it was secured after that. I went into thestudio and sang the song that you hear.

Lee Ving in Michael Mann's CRIME STORY

great actors, it was pretty cool. One day, after Mr.Boddy was killed in the story, the cops are on theirway to the house, and I am supposed to be pas-sionately making love to Madeline Kahn, she isoperating my arms making them look like they aremoving, my back is to the door as Bill Hendersonthe cop shows up. Jonathan Lynn says letsrehearse it, he says action, she starts moving myarms and kissing me, all of the sudden she stopsand screams "He is kissing me BACK!" and I say"hey over there whataya expect, a guy gets a shotyou take advantage," Heh.

SC: That's a movie that wasn't considered abig success when it came out, but it seems tohave a big following now.

Ving: It's a cult film, the three endings, itwas very cool. Last year they asked meto host this midnight screening of CLUEwhere people throw stuff at the guests,somehow I found something else Ineeded to do that night.

Ving sings on the TV-series FAME

SC: You played the infamous Mr. Boddy inCLUE, what was that like?Ving: CLUE was great, working with MadelineKhan, Eileen Brennan, Christopher Lloyd, ColleenCamp, Michael Mckean, Tim Curry, Martin Mulland Bill Henderson, a singer and actor who I'dworked with on GET CRAZY.

SC: You were a dead body for most of the film,but you were on screen a lot, what was thatlike?

Ving: Face down on the rug was position onemany an afternoon. It was all the same to me, itwas very cool.To be riding my Harley Davidson towork at the Paramount lot with a big old buckknife,and then getting into wardrobe with all these

SC: BLACK MOON RISING?

Ving: BLACK MOON RISING was great.Got to work with Tommy Lee Jones,good fella, country music fan like myself.We had fight scenes where we beat theliving tar out of each another. When itwas over, the stunt coordinator, BudDavis, a guy who had done the stunts inSMOKEY AND THE BANDIT was so

impressed by my pummeling of TommyLee that he offered me work as a stunt

man. The shoot was great. It was thegreat Keenan Wynn's last role. The lateRichard Jaeckel was also in it, who I hadbecome friends with at Joe Gold's World

Gym. That was a great place, you would see thegovernator, the hulk Lou Ferigno. We were on theset of BLACK MOON RISING and I was com-

plaining about something, and I turned to Richardand said what do you think? and he said "man I'mjust happy to be here," I thought to myself, "oh manI wish I had said that," My hats of to you Richardwherever you are, bless you man.

SC: You did this TV movie with the great SteveCarver.Ving: OCEANS OF FIRE (1986) with SteveCarver, cool guy, he let me say camera soundaction, and yell cut, get practice in for my directo-rial debut which has yet to occur. It was great, wewere in Cancun for a month, with Lyle Alzado,

Boom Boom Mancini, KenNorton, Gregory Harrison,amazing cast. We shot inCancun and in Puerto Morelosa little town north of Cancun, itwas great, like a little vacationfor everyone. It was an NBCmovie of the week.

SC: SCENES FROM THEGOLDMINE (1987)?Ving: SCENES FROM THEGOLDMINE was great, direct-ed by a friend of mine MarcRocco. He was doing a movieabout the backstage life of rockn roll. I got to work with thegreat Steve Railsback, fromHELTER SKELTER. Veryintense actor, great guy.

SC: You had a great gueststarring part on MichaelMann's CRIMESTORY (1987).Ving: I got to playa Jimmy Hoffa

type character "we're lookin out for the workershere, were lookin out for the union benefits" all thatkind of stuff, I got to do great scenes with all theCrime Story regulars. I deliver this big speech in aunion hall, my ties loosed up, sport coat off, mysleeves rolled up, talkin turkey to the union mem-bers, it was gift, it was just a great part that I lovedthoroughly. Bonnie Timmerman cast me in it, shewas gonna cast me in a MIAMI VICE, and cast mein this CRIME STORY instead, got a phone call onTuesday morning, can you be in Vegas by tomor-row afternoon and I say, "Does a bear shit in thewoods? Is the Pope Catholic over there?"

SC: Somewhere along in here you did a songfor the Louis Malle movie ALAMO BAY (1985).Ving: Yea Tom Scott and Ry Cooder were doingthe soundtrack, I got to write the title song "AlamoBay" with Ry Cooder, sang the song and playedharmonica on it.

SC: How did you end up on a WHO'S THEBOSS episode?Ving: (laughs) I playa hoodlum from Angela'shigh school days that still has a band, I get to singtwo songs to Judith Light.Singing two songs on ahit TV show is very cool.Tony was a great gentle-man, everyone was great. I showed up torehearse one day and it was supposed to be abunch of bikers in this bar, and it looks likeHollywood's version of what bikers look like, Iwent up to Tony and I said, you know I can getsome guys in here that look a helluvalot morerealistic than this bunch. Tony said yea just goahead. So the next day I had populated the barwith Heathens, Crucifiers and other clubs. Allactual members at the time, so it looked extreme-ly authentic, I knew many of them from Streets ofFire, so the bar scenes really looked as real asthey could possibly be. I got to sing "Are YouLonesomeTonight", the Elvis tune for Judith Light,and Charlie Musselwhite's "Help Me" which I stillsing to this day, it was very cool. We finish filmingand it's the big wrap party, this red headedactress Twink Caplan who was in a scene at theclub, swiped this 4 star brut bottle of champagnewith my name on it, she takes it and leaves methe cheap bottle and scoots. (laughs) So me andall the bikers head back to my house for an allnight party, the cops didn't come, happy ending.

SC: DUDES?Ving: Penelope Spheeris was directing movies bynow and she cast me as this local Montana guy

Page 12 SHOCK CINEMAcalled Missoula. I lovePenelope always have,always will. Flea was inthe movie, he had been inFEAR for a couple years,he was our bass player,we didn't record duringthat period, by the timewe recorded again Fleawas in the Chili Peppers.Iremember one night bothme and Catherine MaryStewart one of the starsof Dudes,fly into Phoenixat the same time andmeet at the rental place,we have to drive fromPhoenixnorth to Flagstaffat like 2 in the morningand we decide to race, ittook us a good20-30 min-utes to get there.We went120-140 mph the wholeway. We just saw eachother, it was 2:30 in themorning and we decidedwhat the hell, let's race.

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Ving: It was at DeLaurentiis Studio inRome, heaven on earth,the place they break youfor lunch is the best Italianrestaurant I have evereaten in, but then everyrestaurant you go to inRome is the best Italianrestaurant you've evereaten in, and I'm movingthere as soon as we finishthis interview. (laughs)

sc: PULSEPOUNDERSwas finished, but it'snever come out?Ving:Yea it's finished. It'sgreat. I see on the inter-net that they are still try-ing to get it out.

sc: MASTERS OF MEN-ACE?Ving: Oh yea, TinoInsana wound up produc-ing this film, sort of a

biker comedy, and I get to sing two songs in thefilm. It was a tongue in cheek biker movie, wherewe are bringing a friend of ours' remains back tohis home turf to be buried and the long odysseywhich involves stealing a beer truck and gettingdrunk many many times.

sc: What's with this lost Charles Band moviePULSEPOUNDERS?Ving:It was a trilogy of stories. I played the devil'stheatrical agent, the devil was played by the greatRichard Moll. The devil is killing me in the end,levitating me up in the air, and I get to say to theItalian crew "per favore non mi ropere i coglione"which means in Italian, please don't break myballs. Ok over der, that's for the Italian languagestudents in the audience. (laughs)

SC: Were you living in Austin at this point?Ving: I don't remember. (laughs) Just kiddin, yes Imoved to Austin in 1989, had this hard core honkytonk country band Range War. MASTERS OFMENACE was 1991 and I sang two Range Warsongs that I wrote in the film. "If They Aint Got ColdSC: Where did you film that movie?

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Beer In Heaven Who the Hell Would Want To Go"and a biker tune called "Two Wheels to the Wind".

SC: Why did you move out of LA.Ving: I moved to Austin to relocate. (laughs)

SC: Range War is this mythical band you stillhear people talk about, read about on theinternet, but you never released an album oranything.Ving: Yea we played all over, we played out herein LA. We played one night at a club called TheLingerie in Hollywood, and I was a member of theHeathens at the time and I had to tell the guys inthe motorcycle club that we were playing a jointcalled The Dead Dog Saloon so that they wouldshow up, (laughs) they did, the rest is history.TheRange War album is finally coming out. Therecordings are done. It's finally gonna be avail-able.

SC: So what are you up to now?Ving: I am up to establishing the empire. My ownrecord company, I'm writing a book, I have a LiveDVD featuring confiscated FEAR footage from thebest shows, I have a bluegrass band called LeeVing and String Theory, the Range War record isabout to be released on my own label, there are 4FEAR albums due to be released on my label, .FEAR played this years Warp Tour, there will be areality show from that that we are in, a record fromthe tour and a DVD. Next year we are gonna playthe west coast leg of the Warp Tour again. I justappeared in a surfer film set in the early 80's thatKevin Lyman wrote and produced. That should becoming out next year. A film called "I'm callinFrank" that I star in and playa baseball bat wield-ing entrepreneur named Frankie "Bats" Capellaro.And FEAR will be coming to a city or MegaMetroplex near you. Keep your eye out. Q