Rat got on board early on, contributing drums from London through the wonders of file-sharing, while Paul – having re-joined The Damned<\/strong> <\/a><\/span>– was recruited via Facebook for the band’s last studio album, the grungy Disintegrate Me<\/strong><\/em>.<\/p>\n The quartet’s new collaboration, Seance<\/strong><\/em>, feels more ambitious in every sense, eclectic and multi-layered, it sees the band advancing further into prog-rock territory.<\/p>\n In a wide-ranging interview, guitarist and co-songwriter, Sean tells Matt Catchpole <\/strong>how he and Alfie drew from ’60s and ’70s influences\u00a0 to create an album that’s more a theatrical experience than a mere collection of songs.<\/p>\n He also outlines his growing disenchantment with punk and reveals exclusively the subject of the band’s next project.<\/p>\n With the wind howling and my dodgy electric lamp flickering, as dusk draws in on a gloomy September evening, conditions feel eerily suitable for a seance as I dial into Zoom for my appointment with Sean Elliott.<\/p>\n Wildfires are raging near Sean’s home in Fullerton, southern Califonia, and as a presidential election approaches, the US seems more divided than ever with riots across the country and militias gathering in support of both left and right causes.<\/p>\n “You know man, this world has always been like this,” Sean says, when I point out that PATM’s album appears to have weirdly foreseen this chaos.<\/p>\n “When there\u2019s elections going on – it’s the same in your country too – no-one\u2019s paying attention to what\u2019s really going on. That\u2019s why I hate politics. If you’ve heard the election record {Elixir, Vol II: Election<\/strong><\/em>} we put out four years ago – that\u2019s what that was all about that, just crazy politicians. They don\u2019t give a fuck about us, that\u2019s for certain and that\u2019s worldwide – that\u2019s not just us.”<\/p>\n Despite its references to a blasted and chaotic world, Sean says Seance <\/em>is not an expressly political record and he’s really not that bothered who wins the election in November.<\/p>\n “Trump doesn\u2019t scare me the way he scares other people. I don\u2019t think he\u2019s the right choice, but no matter who you put in there it\u2019s going to be horrible. I choose just to not pay attention to it and write music,” he affirms.<\/p>\n “I\u2019m certainly not going to lose a friend over who they vote for. That seems to be the most ridiculous thing in the world. If someone votes for Trump, great, it doesn\u2019t matter to me. I vote Independent anyway.”<\/p>\n Instead, Sean says the album aims to re-create the experience he and Alfie had in their teens, when buying an album, taking it home and listening to it, felt like a real event.<\/p>\n “The world just seemed so much more intriguing when we were growing up – you went out and picked up an album and it was so exciting,” he explains.<\/p>\n “The old Alice Cooper<\/strong> albums were my favourite, you always felt like you were in some kind of haunted mansion. It was the same with old Elton John<\/strong> records, The Beatles<\/strong> records, Pink Floyd<\/strong>‘s Dark Side of the Moon<\/strong><\/em> – they all had a kind of personality to them, whereas a lot of the records nowadays, it\u2019s like turn on the tape machine, bang out the same song 10 different ways and call it an album.”<\/p>\n Though this high concept approach, might seem anathema to fans of the pair’s work in DI, Sean argues he and Alfie approach writing and recording with the true punk spirit of “no rules” and “anything goes”.<\/p>\n “We produced and engineered this record ourselves and we left a lot of stuff in there that an engineer might take out. There\u2019s a lot of hiss, there\u2019s feedback, amps buzzing, that we just left in there like the old albums did, because you couldn\u2019t get rid of it back then.<\/p>\n “We were a little concerned, because we don\u2019t consider ourselves to be professional engineers, but we knew what we wanted it to sound like and it just came alive and we\u2019re both really happy with it.”<\/p>\n So what’s the over-arching story behind the record?<\/p>\n “If you were watching this as a play,” Sean explains in his relaxed So-Cal drawl. “It starts with All The Lonely Souls<\/em><\/strong> – that would be some non-Earthly beings looking down on a world that\u2019s now destroyed.<\/p>\n “That\u2019s the beginning of the story – fade into a group of people missing friends who have passed on and when they go to a seance they end up on this journey that takes you through the whole record.<\/p>\n “At the end – I don\u2019t know if I\u2019m giving too much away here – they find that they\u2019ve been on hold all this whole time. So all of the stories you just came through are imaginary and planted there by the people at the beginning who saved the world from destruction.”<\/p>\n While Sean and Alfie write all the songs between them, they are quick to acknowledge the contribution of Paul and Rat, who lay down their parts with little or no guidance or instruction.<\/p>\n “In Professor and the Madman everyone does what they feel that song needs and then we just mix it. No-one really dictates what the song is supposed to sound like,” Sean explains.<\/p>\n “We usually have an idea of what to expect from Paul and Rat, but when they don\u2019t do what we\u2019re expecting it\u2019s even better.<\/p>\n “We don\u2019t over-produce because there\u2019s a spirit to the first take. And if there\u2019s a couple of flubs – we just leave \u2018em in. We use digital recording as a necessity because it\u2019s easier to send to Paul and Rat, but we don\u2019t spend much time editing stuff out.”<\/p>\n Paul Gray’s bouncing bass is particularly to the fore on the new record.<\/p>\n The Cardiff-based former UFO<\/strong> and Eddie and the Hot Rods<\/strong> musician, is clearly no believer in the old adage that a bassist’s doing a good job when you don’t notice them.<\/p>\n “Paul is basically a lead bassist,” Sean enthuses. “He’s never been a rhythm section guy.<\/p>\n “He plays perfectly with Rat, \u2018cos they come from that same old school style – they basically fuse jazz with rock. We write our songs with them in mind, so it makes it easier for them to just go off and do whatever they want to do. Again, we don’t dictate to them.”<\/p>\n Not that Rat, who’s put drums on every PATM album so far, is exactly welcoming of direction.<\/p>\n “He does exactly what he’s gonna do and he’s funny about it,” Sean says. “He’s like: ‘Do you<\/em> wanna play my drums?’<\/p>\n “We look at it this way – we\u2019re lucky enough to have them and we sought after them, so why would we say \u2018Hey you\u2019re doing it wrong’?”<\/p>\n Rat’s induction into PATM is attributed to “dumb luck”.<\/p>\n Sean and and Alfie were playing covers at a reunion show in Costa Mesa and Rat, who was friendly with another of the musicians performing that night happened to be in the audience.<\/p>\n “Smash It Up <\/em><\/strong>was actually in our set. So I asked him: ‘Do you wanna come up and play? We play it right – we won’t make an ass out of ya,’ says Sean smiling at the memory.<\/p>\n “He got up there and this is how we connected, just a total fluke.”<\/p>\n Rat ended up going into the studio with the pair and drumming on Devil\u2019s Bargain <\/em><\/strong>off the band’s Elixir Vol I: Good Evening Sir! <\/strong><\/em>album.<\/p>\n And just like like that, the duo became a trio, with other musicians guesting on bass until Paul became a full time member.<\/p>\n Alfie, who also featured in notable punk outfit The Adolescents<\/strong>, was out of music for a number of years before eventually hooking up again with Sean.<\/p>\n A scientist, whose recent work involves the creation of gravitation waves, he’s a maths professor at Cal State in Fullerton.<\/p>\n The band’s name is a nod to his career and also to the novel\u00a0The Professor and The Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/a> by Simon <\/strong>Winchester<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Sean’s also carved out a successful second career in real estate, meaning the pair are lucky enough to have no financial constraints on their creative freedom.<\/p>\n “We’re not doing this for the money,” Sean affirms. “This is for art. This is for something to be remembered.”<\/p>\n It’s a far cry from their DI days when the pair began to feel constrained by hardcore punk’s back to basics approach.<\/p>\n “Back in the day when Alfie and I played in DI together we would talk about doing an album like this. But we were super limited with DI, simply because the record company wouldn\u2019t allow us to try anything outside of the punk rock form. It was \u2018We want another Johnny\u2019s Got A Problem<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/a> or Stick To Your Guns<\/span><\/a><\/em><\/strong>\u2019.”<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Sean became increasingly disenchanted with the harcore scene around ’91-’92 as things grew more regimented and violent.<\/p>\n “Punk as I remember it was an outlet to be an individual. With all our friends you didn\u2019t need a leather jacket and spiky hair to be a punk. We were kind of the rejects who didn\u2019t fit in with the kind of cliques that were around.<\/p>\n “I really started to notice when I started touring that punk was just becoming an excuse to be an asshole. There was a lot of hate that I saw that didn\u2019t exist in my punk world.”<\/p>\n He started to fall out of love with the the type of music he was playing.<\/p>\n “With hardcore everything\u2019s gotta be a hundred miles an hour – The Damned\u2019s stuff wasn\u2019t that fast, The Sex Pistols weren\u2019t that fast, The Clash weren\u2019t a fast band.<\/p>\n “It just got faster and harder and louder and the music got worse and worse as it went on. And punk rock albums today don\u2019t even resemble punk rock to me.”<\/p>\n What began as movement to celebrate individuality, became more uniform as it was swallowed up by the mainstream.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/essentiallypop.com\/epop\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/ProfMman-Seance.jpg?resize=640%2C640&ssl=1\")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/essentiallypop.com\/epop\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/PTM-SeanAlfie4-JohnGilhooley.jpg?resize=640%2C426&ssl=1\")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/essentiallypop.com\/epop\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/GrayElliott_SamWells.jpg?resize=640%2C423&ssl=1\")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/essentiallypop.com\/epop\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/Rat-Scabies-3.jpg?resize=640%2C659&ssl=1\")