Bev Davies weighs in on DOA and Rampage

Top: Randy Rampage and Bev Davies, by Susanne Tabata
Bottom: Randy Rampage (July 6, 1979, in Chicago) by Bev Davies

See my previous post, and see my article in the Georgia Straight, for background: original DOA bassist Randy Rampage has been dismissed from DOA for the third time, shortly before the band's 30th anniversary concert. I wanted to talk to Bev Davies for her views on all this, since she has been witness to DOA's growth from the very beginning.


Bev: I know them, I know Randy really quite well, and I know Joe from a long time ago, and I mean, I've followed the band, and I really care about the band and I care about the music, and care about their position in Canadian history, of bands... but what I feel about it is, you don't pull the van over and dump somebody out and expect to ever come back and find them there again. Life is way too fragile, the world is way too big, to ever think that you can just put someone on a shelf for awhile and then come back and they'll be in the same place again. And part of that I know from my photographs. It was actually an awakening, when I did the 144 photographs of punk in the JEM Gallery, because those people in the photographs stayed really simple. Simple photographs of simple people with simple, simple lives, in my mind - because they were these graphics of people. And I met a lot of those people again after a long time of not seeing them, and their lives were not simple. Things had moved on, people had changed. And I just feel like... Randy - yes, he's out of the band, and it's not the first time it's happened - it's sad.

Allan: Joe makes it sound like it's the last time, as well. It is sad. It's been a sad piece to write...

Bev: I mean, it used to be, "Oh shit, now I've got to get pictures of the new people in the band!" That was, like, about as deep as I ever really got into it. "Oh, Chuck's not in the band? Shit! All those pictures are useless now!" And I don't feel that way anymore, so maybe my relationship with the people has changed, or I've changed, I assume. It isn't about - "Oh, God - I've got to get pictures of the band the way it is now." I mean, I haven't thought of that at all. I've thought of it and wondered why I'm not thinking of that, y'know? Because - wow - I watched Chuck go, I watched Dave join the band, I watched Randy go - I saw all of these changes over the years in DOA.

Allan: Personally, you'd be happier if Randy was playing tonight? I mean, that it's the 30th anniversary show is what really gets me.

Bev: I haven't thought of it that way at all. Now that you point that out - whoa, wow. It's just - whether he ever brings the van around again to pick him up doesn't really matter. I just don't think you dump people out at the side of the road, when they're on the trip.

Allan: Yeah.

Bev: And I guess I am gonna have to get pictures of the new lineup!