The Cramps
Sometime in the mid-70s, Erick Lee Purkhiser of Stow, Ohio exchanged
his given name for words he found in an automobile catalogue. Taking
on the mantle of Lux Interior, the quiet, arty boy from an Akron
suburb disappeared into the persona of a hoodlum staggering away
from a knife-fight.
He returned from university in California with a girlfriend -
Kirsty Malana Wallace - who called herself Poison Ivy and shared his
new-found taste for the trash aesthetic of punk rock.
The myth they promoted was that they met when he picked her up
while hitch-hiking in Sacramento. There was also a story that
Purkhiser joined the navy in order to avoid being drafted into the
army and sent to Vietnam, but escaped service due to a drugs charge.
Together personally and professionally for over 30 years, Lux and
Ivy fronted The Cramps - a group who fused the buzzsaw guitar sound
of indie rock with the hiccuping rhythms of 50s rockabilly,
inventing the sound they called 'psychobilly' and blazing a trail
for the scene that would become known as Goth.
 For three decades the pair presided over an ever-changeable
line-up and consistently produced their own special brand of
psychobilly freak show, brimming with sex and drugs . . . and
zombies and werewolves.
The band were initially signed to Miles Copeland's IRS label and
supported The Police on an early tour. The group first emerged with
the single, Human Fly (1978) - a fuzzbox
death march produced by former Big Star mainman Alex Chilton and
imbibed with the ghost of early Elvis.
Chilton also produced their
debut album, Songs The Lord Taught Us - a mix of
rockabilly, surf intros, 60s garage and freaky psychedelia converged
in one unholy lysergic soup.
The Cramps made 12 albums which rarely troubled the chart
compilers, but always remained a serious draw on the live circuit,
and were regarded as one of the acts from that era who retained
their credibility.
Lux and Ivy knew their old Rock & Roll
45's, even if at times (Ricky Nelson's Lonesome Town
for example) their treatment bordered on the criminally insane.
Given their ghoulish image, they were also the kind of group in
whose vicinity rumours always found fertile soil: In 1987 there
were allegations that Lux had died of a heroin overdose. The rumours
were strong enough to bring half a dozen wreaths to the singer's
door.
Lux Interior eventually died in 2009 at a hospital in Glendale,
California, from a pre-existing heart condition. He was 62.
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