Page 8 SHOCK CINEMA As founder and lead singer of FEAR, Lee fool.You don't believe me, lay down and measure. were chasing me and I found a place to hide inan Ving was the roaring voice of the west coast punk (laughs) old world Swiss looking street, just down the hill movement of the '70s and early '80s. FEAR cut SHOCK CINEMA: (laughs) from the Bates house of PSYCHO fame, I began thru a sea of mumbling, wrist cutting, overdosing, Ving: Shock Cinema. Now is that like Shock to have a feeling of Deja Vu, of having been there musically challenged bands with an in-your-face, Theater back in Philadelphia? Growing up I had before but knew I never had. More than twenty get-out-of-my-way, 1,2,3,4 sonic wall, that sounds John Zacharly as Roland every Friday-Saturday years later while watching FRANKENSTEIN on as fresh today as it did back then. FEAR still sells night. late night TV, I realized, that was where I knew out clubs in New York, Chicago, Miami, Boston, that street from on that day at Universal. It was Philadelphia, Seattle, Austin, Dallas, Denver, and SC: So you loved movies from an early age? the street in the little Swiss-Austrian town where the Sunset Strip, with a seemingly ageless and What kind of films did you like growing up? Baron Frankenstein lived and was preparing for endless string of 15-18 year old fans still lining up What kind of films do you like now? his son's wedding. A street I had seen so many around the block. times as a kid watching the FRANKEN- Formed in 1977 FEAR was part of the STEIN movie and there I was hiding from first wave of west coast punk. Lee, stubborn security not realizing my hiding place was and perfectionist off stage as well as on, the famous village of FRANKENSTEIN. refused every record deal put in front of him There are 5 and only 5 films which for over three years (Clive Davis, Ahmed embody(no pun)the great Italian American, Ertegun and brother Nesuhi were very dis- Mafia, Cosa Nostra, Crime Syndicate and appointed) until with the help of Larry, his general Italian neighborhood fuck ups and lawyer he finally got a really shitty deal from wannabes experience. They are; MEAN Slash Records in 1981 (.014 cents per song STREETS, GOODFELLAS, CASINO all writers royalty), and no advance. Resulting in directed by Martin Scorsese and THE one of the few punk records that stand the GODFATHER and THE GODFATHER test of time, THE RECORD featured already PART II directed by Francis Ford Coppola. classic songs like ") Love Livin in the City", "I Being an Italian American myself, born Don't Care About You", "Let's Have A War", Lee James Capellaro in Philadelphia (dur- "New York's All right If You Like Saxophones" ing the time of Angelo Bruno and Nicky and "Beef Bologna", most of which had been Scarfo) to a third generation Italian bringing LA clubs to their knees since 1977. American family from Saglianomicca,un po The muscular and draining 1-2-3-4 sound di cento chilometri al nord di Firenze (a hun- was as influential as it was impossible to dred kilometers north of Florence), e di duplicate (unless you were willing to work Napoli, Italia (and from Naples, Italy). out night and day, your body just couldn't It has been my lifes ambition to work handle it). Full of wit, irony and humor that on a Mob related film (Which I am writing passes over the heads of critics to this day, about Philadelphia) directed by Mr. the stage show was as in your face as the Scorsese with his A list actors, as one of music was. Lee and guitarist Philo Cramer those colorful characters that were my would beat the audience about the head and heroes growing up on the Mean Streets of brain for hours on end, there hasn't been "Fishtown" (Kensington and Allegheny anything like it before or since. Ave.) and South Philadelphia. Thankfully it was captured for posterity in the Penelope Spheeris documentary THE SC: Where are you from? DECLINE OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION Ving: Philly, Fishtown, Kensington and (1981). A truly great film and a worthy his- Lee Ving as Mr. Boddy in CLUE Allegheny Ave., Germantown, Roslyn, toric record. That will see the light of day on Willow Grove, St Lukes Elementary in dvd sometime next year (at least that is Ving: As a kid in Philly I loved the Universal Horror Glenside, St John of the Cross Elementary in Penelope's hope). films. FRANKENSTEIN, DRACULA, THE WOLF Roslyn, Abington High School and South After the breakout performance in DECLINE MAN, FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLF Philadephia and Villanova University (V for and a hell raising lifetime network banning per- MAN, BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN also THE Villanova V for victory). Everybody sing, Now!!! formance on SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE, Lee soon MUMMY (which has the eerie same intro music as I'm from Philadelphia can't you tell. Fucking had acting offers to go along with the club dates. DRACULA).These were and are my favorites.The guy over 'der. ) was born Lee James Capellaro in A steady stream of screen and television roles best and only Great horror movies ever made and Philadelphia a couple a weeks ago, in started in 1983. From the out of control Piggy in ever worth mentioning. No others measure up. As Germantown Hospital, my family was living in GET CRAZY (1983), the sleazy club owner in Count Dracula says about Carfax Abbey "I shall Fishtown at the time, Kensington and Allegheny, FLASH DANCE (1983), the immortal Mr. Boddy in do very little repair. It reminds me of the broken sort of that neighborhood down by Pulshutsky's CLUE (1985), the ruthless thug fighting it out with battlements of my own castle in Transylvania"and peer, on Allegheny Ave, across the street from the Tommy Lee Jones in BLACK MOON RISING "There are far worse things awaiting man than Nativity church, a Polish, Irish, Italian neighbor- (1986), and not one but two TV-episodes of FAME Death." I also loved THE HUNCHBACK OF hood, bad then, bad now. I call myself Lee Ving, (1984 and 1987)!? NOTRE DAMEwith Charles Laughton. it's a joke name (un nome scherzo) like leaving Lee is a force with whom to be reckoned. One day while we were filming STREETS like ok I'm leeving now, get it? But with a name Having left Hollywood in the 1989 to raise a OF FIRE (1984), under the pretense of "warming like Lee Ving, Martin Scorsese probably never family in Austin, Texas, Lee is back in town and up the bikes" at lunch me and some of the knew that I am Italian, that I could be a "made" ready to kick ass (hopefully not mine). Bombers did our daily terrorize the lot and run guy, 100% Italian, with both sides of my family awayfrom security routine. Great fun riding a loud traced back to Italia and thus help him out in case Lee Ving: This old boy says to me, he says why Harley Davidson around Universal Studios with he has any union problems with his next film star- howdy partner, can you tell how far it is to town. I some of the most notorious outlaw bikers in ring Lee "Ving" Capellaro. Any of yous got a prob- said why yes I can, it's about three lengths of a California. So once I had lost the security who lem with that? www.shockcinemamagazine.com Page 9 SC: When did you first get one in the audience but no one knew involved in music? the difference, and that was the last Ving: I don't know, I just always was, time we played SATURDAY NIGHT my earliest recollections are musical LIVE. John was there too, he showed ones. I started playing at the age of up for the taping, he had just quit the 4, my mother had a mandolin and cast, and they said well you're here began to teach me to play and I man you wanna do something? He would entertain the family, now I'm said ok and they put a camera on him 22 and I'm still at it. and he just did one of his eyebrow numbers that he did, and that was his SC: Any crazy memories about last live bit of work for SATURDAY starting out, jobs you had before NIGHT LIVE. FEARtook off? Ving: Well shit, I was a bartender SC: Didn't somebody get hit in the most of the time, Slug'sJazz Cafe on head with a pumpkin? (laughs) the lower Eastside of Manhattan and Ving: Yea, Dick Ebersole the stage Donte's in North Hollywood, I was a manager I think, got hit in the head singing waiter at one point at the with a pumpkin but it wasn't life Great American Food and Beverage threatening. There was some dam- Companyin Westwood that was very age to one of the old television cam- crazy, people would stop for dinner eras somebody put a dent in one of and I would torture them with FEAR the hydraulic tubes that bring it up songs I was writing at the time. and down, and so I got a call the next II day from the NewYork Post and they SC: You formed FEAR in 1977, said we heard you caused 20-30 1978? (1977 really wasn't it, that's Lee Ving as Piggy in Allan Arkush's GET CRAZY thousand dollars worth of damage to what I read everywhere anyways.) the studio.