This Friday, a compilation titled Godspeed… A Tribute to Pierre Kezdy will be released, with 100% of profits donated directly to the family of the late Naked Raygun bassist. The album features Hot Water Music, Face to Face, J. Robbins, Swingin’ Utters, The Methadones, Josh Caterer of Smoking Popes, and others, all contributing their own renditions of Naked Raygun songs. Kezdy sadly passed away from cancer in October of 2020 and this tribute album consists of cover songs from artists who were influenced and inspired by Naked Raygun.
We caught up with J. Robbins, (Government Issue, Jawbox, Burning Airlines) who covered Naked Raygun’s “Got Hurt” for the album. When asked if he could remember the first time that he heard Naked Raygun, Robbins recalled a story from his formative years in Washington, D.C. He said, “The first NR record I remember hearing was the Surf Combat 7”, which my friend and punk rock mentor Damon Locks had bought from one of the local independent record stores – and shortly after that, the Throb Throb LP. ‘Surf Combat’ was an instant favorite song, so we had to go digging for more. The manic energy and weird swing of the music, and that eviscerating guitar sound – magic.” He continued, “In my circle of friends there was a real hunger to discover new bands and to get info on music scenes from elsewhere. D.C. had a fantastic scene, but we were from the suburbs, so we were engaged, but felt slightly apart. And it was also a matter of ‘If so much cool stuff is happening here, there must be more happening elsewhere too.’ It was like looking for a connection with the outside world of weirdos. I wouldn’t say we felt like music wasn’t readily available, it’s just that you had to go to the record store, you had to try to research by reading zines and record inserts. For example, I made it my mission to buy records by every band Steve Albini mentioned in the insert of the Racer X EP, and I bought every record that I could find that had Iain Burgess credited as the recording engineer. It was more of a quest back then, but that was part of the magic.”
In terms of how he went about selecting which song to cover, Robbins indicated that he wanted to choose one of Naked Raygun’s more obscure tracks. He explained, “I was really excited to discover ‘Got Hurt’ in the bonus material on the Basement Screams CD reissue, and then to find a completely different version on YouTube. The prospect of covering one of the better-known NR songs kind of didn’t appeal to me, because how would I do anything but just an okay homage to a song I already regard as essentially perfect? But knowing that ‘Got Hurt’ was never formally released, and hearing these two wildly different versions gave me a sense of possibility. It felt like I could do something with it, and I wanted to try to combine the things I loved about both versions. So, I had an outline of what I wanted to do, and then Darren, (drummer Darren Zentek) took it way over the top when he came up with his insane drum pattern in the verse. It was super fun to do.”
Robbins was later asked to create an accompanying video for his version of “Got Hurt.” When speaking about what inspired this video, he said “Initially I wanted to cut together a bunch of Road Runner cartoons, basically a supercut of Wile E. Coyote being blown up, crushed by boulders, falling of cliffs, etc. – but there was bound to be some copyright conflict there, so I just went looking online for public domain film footage instead, and I stumbled on the One Got Fat bike safety movie, which…I mean, what the fuck even is that!?! Super inspiring. Then everything just kind of developed from there.”
Check out J. Robbins’ “Got Hurt” below and be sure to order a copy of Godspeed… A Tribute to Pierre Kezdy here.
