As I prepared for this deep dive I had totally forgotten how hard it is to describe The Cramps’ style to, well, anyone. The Cramps hold a special place in my heart, as a teenager who liked just about everything but what was popular the Misfits has been my go too for musical interest and intrigue. Adopting the edgy horror oriented attitude and trademark colorless wardrobe there was nothing that could stop this testosterone fueled teenager’s ears from absorbing everything they had to offer. I craved faster, and harder sounding music because that’s what only the toughest people listened to, right? I mean at 16 that had to be the answer.
As I got older and matured a bit I started to realize punk and horror punk in general had a lot more to offer. The Misfits has to be influenced by someone after all, and as I widened my search through the genre I found other Misfit adjacent bands that seemed to really do it for me. I love taking the time to follow a band and than follow the musical acts that influenced them before eventually working back forward in time to what came after. For instance you can work back Glenn Danzig’s vocal delivery and personal preference to Elvis, even though Danzig himself sounds more like Roy Orbison. But in the era of Elvis and Roy were other titans of their times, in varying genres that would inspire a whole subset of artists. The Cramps so happen to be one of those bands.
The Cramps influences come from all over the rockabilly genre. Their horror punk twist on the genre that would eventually come to be called psychobilly really came into common nomenclature with The Cramps and bands like them. At the same time the surf rock genre also plays a huge part in the Cramps sound. For many years they didn’t have a bass player and instead had two dueling guitars that pushed a heavily distorted competing sound. The Cramps came to be in 1976 when record collectors Lux Interior and Poison Ivy bound by love and common interest started to write and record music. Lux took his stage name from a car advertisement and Ivy’s supposedly came to her in a “dream vision.” The band emerged in CBGB punk scene next to acts like the Ramones, Suicide, and Television.
The Cramps are funny, funny in a way that most of their more popular songs are covers. That’s right, as we all watched the song “Goo Goo Muck” explode across social media platforms like TikTok, thanks to the success of Netflix’s Addams Family spinoff Wednesday, The Cramps were back in the public’s ear again despite the song being written by Ronnie Cook years earlier. As a fan it’s refreshing to see a band like this resurge especially in a younger demographic of people. Seeing a band as special to me as The Cramps get positively showcased to a younger generation of listeners was refreshing as I had to literally comb record stores and spend hours on the internet giving my family’s home computer AIDS trying to rip most of these songs off LimeWire.
Early Cramps songs has a horror edginess to them. There are songs about teenage werewolves, human flies, and the undead! As The Cramps’ career went on things got pretty sexy. The subtle double entendre became less and less subtle. The Cramps exhibited this sexual energy. They were the counter to the raw testosterone of acts like the Misfits exhibited into horror punk. They were like the Misfits, except you knew the The Cramps actually fucked. As a friend of mine, who we’ll call the “Best Gout Machine” said, and I think this sums The Cramps up the best: “As someone that anonymously bought the band a banana split during their last tour. I can say that The Cramps music is the sleaziest, spookiest and sexiest music ever. Every human or (supposed human) should be a fan of (The Cramps). It’s the musical equivalent of finding your dad’s VHS stash. Listening to their music makes you feel like you lived life. A depraved life. And the only god you found was Lux.”