Jesse Malin is a New York City institution. Malin not only fronted the seminal New York bands Heart Attack and D-Generation and amassed an impressive solo career, but also he is part-owner of the Niagara and the Bowery Electric, two thriving clubs that help continue to give downtown its character.
That’s why it would be easy to misconstrue his new album, “New York Before The War,” as a “New York City” record. But Malin’s message is broader, because what he has been doing all along through his music and his actions has been showing how through creativity and hard work, we can overcome adversity to build our own community — our own home.
Having a sense of community improves health and well-being, not only because it feels good to be connected to others, but also a community can provide the social support needed during difficult times. And for Malin, music has always been that opportunity to connect with like-minded people.
“For me, it’s always been having friends, music, a place, a style, an attitude, love, family, those things that matter, a community. And to me rock music is a community of the world,” he told me. “Wherever I go and travel with my band and guitar, there are people who I believe are in a like-minded state. Whatever their religion is, whatever their politics, we’re getting together, and I think I’m really supportive of the live situation. I love getting on the road as much as possible.”
“Making a record is a great opportunity not only to let the music come out and be an album, a concept, a sonic landscape, but also a reason to go out and be the travelling salesman and create that bus, that van, that pirate ship with your people. Go out there and spread the message. And it’s that connection every night of having people come. I always talk about record stores and bookstores and walking and getting out and going to shows is like that thing where you get a bunch of people in the dark. Strangers have a shared common thread while they’re there.”
And the desire to form his own community was based in part on resisting having to conform to what his peers were doing. Research shows that pressure to conform can be very powerful, and is seen as early as 4 years old. “When I was a kid, I didn’t really fit in where I grew up in Queens, and I always wanted to do something a little different, and it was a hard time,” Malin says. “People wanted you to dress the same, think the same, be the same, like the same sports teams. And so finally, with punk rock and music, there was a place that you can go and dress a little different, you can think a little different, you can listen to different things, and you know what? It’s accepted — and you know what? It’s encouraged. Create something of your own and be proud of that.”
While many people may stereotype hardcore punk as being without social value and even harmful, research shows that Malin’s motivation to change the world around him is in fact very consistent with the punk-rock ethos. Studies demonstrate that in contrast to people who follow other forms of music, punk rockers are actually very high in civic activism. And as much as hardcore presented a different style of sped- up, aggressive music, it also spawned a do-it-yourself (DIY) ethos where people made their own labels and fanzines, and organized their own shows.
Malin’s path towards creating a new community was anything but easy. “I think that right then, there were people who had to really find stuff, and it was dangerous to find the things that you like. I was 12 years old and had to come into Manhattan,” he says. “They didn’t really care if you were underage to go into clubs. They would let you play. I would take two trains and a bus through all hours of the night, risking being in dangerous streets, you know, the areas we came down to see shows. The Bowery wasn’t like it is now. Certainly, east of that for more underground shows on Avenue A was more burnt-out buildings and gangs and a lot of drugs.”
“It was a risk to get to a show to get to see the Bad Brains or the Stimulators. We were very young, but I grew up taking the train to the city when we were 11, just to look around, and then I’d run back to Queens. Little by little, start making it down to the Village to the record stores. And they sold these records you couldn’t get in Queens at the Sam Goody or the chain stores. So you’d meet some guy, and you’d come looking for a Sex Pistols record and he’d tell you about Gang of Four and the Clash. And that would lead to a thing.”
When considering how much hardcore punk has influenced rock and metal music, it might seem surprising that hardcore was initially rejected. “But at this time, when I started coming of age and make trips to downtown Manhattan, we did our first audition at CBGBs on Monday night with Heart Attack, and they said that the punk stuff that we were into it’d happened already. We missed it. And that we should get into something new like rockabilly or new romantic or new wave or electronic,” Malin says. “And so, I didn’t really want to accept that, so we found something, we found other bands. And it was before hardcore was really a thing. So we started to get records from the West Coast like the Dead Kennedys and Circle Jerks, and in D.C., the Bad Brains were coming to New York and speeding the tempos up, and it kind of influenced a lot of my friends, and Heart Attack started to speed up a lot.”
One of the things that Malin and other hardcore bands such as Minor Threat rebelled against was the stereotypical “sex, drugs, and rock and roll” lifestyle that they witnessed in the music scene. In fact, as explained in songs such as “Straight Edge” by Minor Threat, hardcore punk rockers didn’t need drugs and alcohol for inspiration and strength, and in fact derived much of their strength from being sober.
“And we realized that there was a way to express ourselves that was different than the late ‘70s needle-in-your-arm thing,” Malin explained. “That Jello Biafra or Henry Rollins or someone like that were really saying, ‘Hey, we’re really going to be messed up and have a lot to say, and we’re going to be really crazy, but we’re going to be sober.’ Or that idea that you can be this force that makes people look and react and question things and nervous — but you were strong. And I think also the message that came from Bad Brains was ‘PMA’ — positive mental attitude. There was a strength in these performers, this energy.”
As Malin and others began to break down stereotypes and overcome barriers to develop their music, they developed an “All-For-One and One-For-All” community that supported each other both emotionally and tangibly. “And with Heart Attack, we started to play with those groups,” Malin explained. “Bad Brains was very generous to us with the gear. We’d play A7 on Avenue A, 171A up the block on Avenue A. And we put out the first [7-inch record] of New York Hardcore on Damaged Goods. It was a fanzine made by Lyle Hysen, who put out the first [7-inch] and it quickly sold out. Something I learned from the old days of Heart Attack, is DIY, like, take a loft, throw a gig, throw a [public-address system] in, bring all the booze in from a cheap beer distributor in Brooklyn, and have your girlfriend sell it and suddenly you’ve created a club.
“You might get shut down by the cops, but if you don’t, then you’re going to have this place. Hire your friends, create that ship. Just finding ways. I had a van because I needed it to go on tour when I was in Heart Attack. And then in the years after, I became the ‘man with the van,’ so I became the moving guy. So I moved the Cro-Mags and Barbra Streisand and the Swans and t-shirts for the Ramones, and I roadied for all these bands, so when I started to play, I kind of learned a few things from being a roadie and being a shlepper. My van isn’t being used, and someone I know needs to go on tour. I share that stuff because people did it for me, and people really gave me the support. And that was something I didn’t forget. And that was something I got out of hardcore, is treating people in this community.”
What Malin soon found was that the sense of community that he developed in New York was embedded in a much wider community that developed nationally. He explains: “And these bands toured and got out of New York and out of Los Angeles or wherever, scenes would develop. And the hardcore scene was something where you could go anywhere in the country, and people would accept you as far as in that scene and put you up, give you a place to stay.
“It was like when bands would tour, other scenes would come out and, like, five bands would form after. Black Flag would play this town, and you could get a phone call from some guy on 42nd Street and book a whole tour. Just get out there, and that community. People danced differently than they had in the past. People looked differently. It really felt like it was part of its own movement. It was very exciting to be part of it.”
Many people will point to when the hardcore band Fear was on “Saturday Night Live” as the moment where that community became more known and hardcore was introduced to a wider audience; even that felt like a communal experience. “They put us on ‘Saturday Night Live’ to dance to Fear to show the world this new thing that John Belushi was supporting,” Malin recalled. “I jumped off the stage, and my science teacher said, ‘I know where you were on Saturday night,’ and I was like ‘Oh, shoot.’ And they gave us a dressing room, and Fear was really nice to us. It was something that felt very exciting.”
As time went on, Malin was starting to face the effects of gentrification of New York City. Gentrification can often undermine health and well-being for those who cannot afford to live in previously affordable neighborhoods. “We came down to those places on Avenue A. I eventually left my house when I was 16 and moved to Avenue B. The False Prophets band had a rehearsal room, and I moved into that space, and rehearsed and crashed there,” he explained. “And you know we found places downtown because we could afford to go there because they were cheaper. You needed places where not only could you be accepted to be yourself, but where East Side Manhattan downtown the rents were lower because it was dangerous and it was a mess. But you could have a rehearsal room for a couple of hundred dollars. You could have an apartment, you could be a painter, you could be an artist, an actor. Now in the present day, people have left Manhattan.”
The availability of housing in Manhattan became more difficult. “As we moved out of the 80’s to the mid ‘80s to the later ‘80s, suddenly the city is now getting more polished up, even though it was still New York in the late ‘80s, early ‘90s, you know. You come into [New York Mayor Rudy] Giuliani, you know things are definitely changing,” Malin said. “And then suddenly 42nd Street was one of the first blows to see; you know, the Giuliani Times Square turn into Disneyland. You know, it was like the ‘Taxi Driver,’ ‘Midnight Cowboy’ 42nd Street that we got so inspired from now was like, you know, it was like that scene in ‘Planet of the Apes.’
“It was, like, shocking when I saw that. And then suddenly it started to happen downtown. And little by little, I saw these chain stores. And now you go one block, and, you know, it’s the Duane Reade [drugstore], Walgreens or the Starbucks, or the same bank or the Subway, and that’s all of the stuff we see all over the world now, so it’s very much the same, and that kind of makes it a lot less exciting. And now we come here — we used to love to come back to New York, because it was different than everywhere else, and I always thought it was its own state, not even part of America, provincial little place outside of America, it wasn’t even part of America. Suddenly, America and New York became one.”
Malin also felt that the gentrification of New York was mirrored by more of a homogenization in the music industry. And that’s when Malin started a new concept, D Generation. “With D Generation, I think we were fed up with what was going on musically and in the world, and the shiny MTV, and like, we said we felt the lack of style and attitude in the statement,” he explained. “People wearing short pants and flannel shirts dressing up like farmers and these long, slow songs, this whole funky, putting a sock on your penis and athletic; this funk-metal watered down thing that didn’t really have any rawness or anything to say. You know, we were singing about the state of how big the music business had gotten and how fat it was. There was no connection to the street, there was no connection to people, or of being a real sense of where rock and roll came from, a rawness, a freedom of nasty expression.
“It just seemed like everything was really watered down. So it was just our own taste. We wanted to make music that pleased us and find an audience. D Generation was the dream rock band that we always wanted to have. The Dolls, Aerosmith, the Dead Boys, the Rolling Stones; we wanted a poor man’s punky, New York version of this. You know, if I look back at it, some of it seems a bit silly, and some of it seems like it made sense as a reaction to the times.”
But while the band and the concept of the music changed, the central ethos of building a community stayed the same — maybe even intensified. “So we formed that band and around that band I guess we would DJ and throw parties, and we traveled. We’d try to make the whole thing a complete package, a scene where it wasn’t just the 45 minutes on stage. It was everything we did together as a gang,” he said. “But we would create a scene. I would make mix tapes at the Continental, all kinds of stuff from P-Funk to the Stooges. We’d play that stuff between sets, we’d DJ after, we’d hang out — light the bar on fire — we’d get people to dance. We’d get all the girls on the bar. We’d get people on stage.
“We really wanted people to take part of it, to dress up and dance and form bands and make this whole scene happen. So in the ‘90s, a bunch of bands got signed —New York Loose, Clowns for Progress, Space Hog, Nancy Boy, Speed McQueen; I can’t and a few indie singles and get to tour the world with a lot of our heroes and have a band that like I said was a gang of people who really connected; that were, onstage and offstage, the same thing.”
As time went on, Malin realized that as much as a band was a vehicle for connection with others, there was a new way to connect with people more directly — as a solo artist. At first, he was afraid. “I never loved the singer-songwriter thing. I was scared to be a solo artist, because I thought it was very adult. You know, I thought I’d have to wear Hush Puppies, grow a mustache, sit down. But I realized that there were other ways.
“Ryan Adams, who produced my first solo album, really encouraged me; also in his own actions, going from Whiskey Town to his own solo career. He showed me you don’t have to be normal. You could still be somewhat of a bad-ass. And I thought of people like Johnny Thunders and Alex Chilton that did it their way, too. He’s like ‘You pay for the rehearsals, you write all the songs, you might as well call it Jesse Malin. You’re just scared; you’re hiding behind a band.’ The band I have now is killer, one of the best bands I’ve ever had musically, and the more we tour, the more we develop a dynamic, and that becomes home. You feel very comfortable when you get onstage. That’s your home.”
As with many singer-songwriters, some of Malin’s work involved a great deal of self-discovery. But it also provided an opportunity to be more expressive to others. “The thing is that I was writing for four other people. When I was writing my first solo record, ‘The Fine Art of Self-Destruction,’ it was almost taking my couch and putting it up there and being able to examine myself, or sing about real personal things.” He says. “I guess, the first record, the solo album, was kind of a breakup record, and maybe a record of trying to send a message to a particular girl, hoping that they would come back. Using the songs as a letter of some sort.”
And on his new album, Malin talks about how one can take risks to make a world for yourself. “With that title, ‘New York Before the War,’ it makes it feel like everything might be connected. It’s not about New York directly. I think New York is just a metaphor. War is just a metaphor for holding on to things you believe in in a very apathetic, disposable culture, where we’re burning through things and information goes super fast. And the things that do and the things that we’re searching for that we can hold onto and rely on,” he says. “There’s not a lot of things that people retain I feel. But it could be any city; New York City could be substituted out for London or something. I feel that song is something I’ve experienced in my life, where you could be really happy in a situation, and then something comes along, and you can’t help but feel ‘Wow! If I do that, I’m risking everything.’ Playing that Russian roulette or putting your hand to the flame.”
“I’ve always been drawn to characters in films that I’ve watched, characters, people that’ll just wreck themselves because they can’t help it. Characters like the bank robber on ‘Dog Day Afternoon’ or R.P. McMurphy in ‘Cuckoo’s Nest.’ People, they go down with the ship because of their humanity. They can’t resist. ‘She’s So Dangerous,’ being one, is about temptation. Somebody that represents and has all of those things that get you interested and excited and turned on, but it’s also something that could be damaging, You’ll go for broke on this situation; you’ll wreck whatever you have. Your heart is out for it. So it’s really a person that you probably shouldn’t be with, but you can.”
Malin remains optimistic that despite the gloss and gentrification, there is still the gritty part of Manhattan to which he feels connected. “So you have to look deeper when you travel, you have to look deeper when you’re in New York. You’ve still got Central Park, and parts of Coney Island, and Chinatown, the Mojave restaurant,” he says. “But they close killer bars and killer record shops and bookstores, and I come from a place where I want to have the artifact; the stuff, the thing in hand, the record. And maybe vinyl is on the up, and you know kids: There’s always a new generation that’s getting turned on to the history, and new kids reading ‘Please Kill Me’ or getting a Clash or Ramones album, getting into Patti Smith. A culture from the 70’s is now in museums, and getting respect, becoming part of art that is qualified to be something on a high level. Like a lot of the people that came out of downtown New York.”
And he’s excited to watch others take the same ethos and style of music and take it in new directions. “But there’s new kids now, there’s new bands, and they are in Manhattan still, and they are taking all of these things and creating their version of it,” he says. “Bands like Threats, and Drowners, and Skaters, Dirty Fences, these bands I see downtown. And playing in little rooms just like when the Strokes came out.”
Malin is paying it forward by supporting the young bands, not only directly, but also by supporting clubs such as Bowery Electric that support live music. “You know the Bad Brains would lend us their equipment; they’d lend us their rehearsal space. Peter Crowley at Max’s would let me call my junior high school friends and put a bill together with Rick Rubin’s band the Pricks, with the Mob, with Even Worse, with Jack Rabid and Kraut, and Reagan Youth, and people would give us that,” he says. “We’d lend out our rehearsal studio to young bands, and let people jam, and they went on the road.”
“I got involved in a club. We let bands come in and film videos and rehearse; There’s a sense that we’re in this together. And times change, the city changes the economy changes, but if you’re a true artist, and you believe in this, it’s what you need to do. You have to express yourself; you need that outlet. It has to happen. So whatever the economic times, you find a way to get around that and dance through all the changes in a city.”
He continues to be optimistic about his journey. “That’s something I learned from the Clash, or you could see it from a lot of great artists, [David] Bowie or whomever that are constantly changing to survive. David Johansen, singer of the New York Dolls, he was in the Dolls, then he had a solo career, then Buster Poindexter, then back to the Dolls. I think the evolution is interesting,” Malin says. “For me, I’m not a bazillionaire or anything, but I like that I’ve been able to do these different things. If there’s an audience there in some form in different places and different times, it’s been really rewarding to see that, that this is what I do. It’s a journey. It’s a progression to take those roads, and not have to work a straight job, and to find ways.”
So Malin continues on. And we look forward to following him on his journey of new creative adventures.
And we can be reassured that wherever he goes in his career, he will be home.
