From Punk To Polygamy, Part 1

Me in 1988

In my recent interview on the "Year of Polygamy" podcast, Lindsay Hansen Park asked me briefly my history as a teen in the punk movement, as she thought it was an interesting aside about me.  She asked me if I thought that this interest in counter-culture movements might have contributed in any way to my embracing such an unconventional lifestyle like Mormon fundamentalism.  I mentioned that it indeed has.  There was a time when I tried to re-write myself, but, the older I get, the more I realize that punk - and other movements - helped to shape me and have made me who I am today.  I am grateful for that and have learned to embrace that part of me.  She has asked me to give a presentation at the Arizona Sunstone Symposium this March called "From Punk To Polygamy: The Story of a Mormon Fundamentalist".  I am sure that she will want me to focus more on the "Mormon fundamentalist" part than the "punk", but I thought I would write a little about that part of my life.

I grew up in Southern Utah in the late '70s.  Back then, the only thing that they played on the radio was country music.  In the home, my dad had a huge record collection he had amassed on his mission in Mexico, so we listened to rancheras and mariachi music.  Around 1979, at the age of 9, I started listening every Sunday to Casey Kasem's "American Top 40" on a portable radio.  It changed my world.  The first time I heard "Back in Black" by AC/DC, I sat transfixed, staring at the radio,  I had never heard anything like it.  It seemed almost forbidden.  From then on, I was listening to everything I could from that era - The Police, Blondie, Rod Stewart, Styx.  This was the stuff that I listened to.

In 1982, our family moved from Utah to Casa Grande, Arizona, a small town on the outskirts of Phoenix.  For a kid from rural Utah, this was a huge change.  It was '82, and I was the only kid in school still wearing bell bottoms.  I had older brothers in high school, and they made friends in the local LDS ward.  I remember, after Mutual, going to my parents' shop after hours with my older brothers and their friends to listen to heavy metal music on a record player - Rush, Ozzy, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest.  And so I became a metalhead.

Me in the center with friends from Texas, 1986

My older brother, like my dad, had a huge record collection.  His tastes became diverse, and he ranged from the conventional into more obscure bands - Motorhead, Testament, Voivod, Venom, Slayer, and Metallica.  We were listening to "Kill 'Em All" before anyone really even knew who Metallica was.  I remember some conflict between my dad and brother over the record collection and my dad throwing out some of the records that he perceived to be satanic.

And because these bands were influenced by hardcore punk, we started exploring that music - or rather, my brother started exploring, and I listened to whatever he listened to - Black Flag, Dead Kennedys, JFA, Junior Acheivment, Reagan Youth, Fear, Crass.  My brother moved on with metal, but I stuck to punk.  I was in junior high at the time, and the only other kid in the school who listened to punk was a kid named Matt who had just moved from Chicago.  I started going to his house, and we developed a love for horror films and art, fantasy fiction like H.P. Lovecraft, obscure metal and punk.  He introduced me to music like 45 Grave, Christian Death, The Effigies, and SNFU - pretty heavy stuff for some junior high kids.

The summer before I started high school, my oldest brother came home from college with a bag full of cassettes that I raided when he wasn't around.  That bag of cassettes - filled with what was then called "college music" also changed my life - XTC, INXS, R.E.M., The Cure, Depeche Mode, and New Order.  I started adding this music to my repertoire.

The Baron, me, & Matt in Round Rock, Texas, 1986

Once I got to high school, I learned that the people who listened to this kind of music were a minority.  Yes, we were close to metropolitan Phoenix, but this was still Arizona.  We were in a town dominated by cowboys and ranchers.  Anything underground was foreign and weird to them.  They made fun of us and our music.  In reaction, we changed our appearance and looked more garish - shaved our heads, used lots of hairspray, wore lipstick and eyeliner, tore our jeans, wore tees that reflected our musical tastes, wore combat boots, wore black.  One of the things that marked my generation that still persists today - we hate anything mainstream, and we embrace anything artistic, obscure, or indie.  We couldn't even drink Bud or smoke Marlboros like our cowboy counterparts - it had to be foreign beers and clove cigarettes.  Not only was our taste in music off the mainstream, but our choice in movies - "Eraserhead", "Blue Velvet", "A Clockwork Orange". This clique in Casa Grande, Arizona became very close and tight knit.  The cowboys called us "mods", albeit incorrectly.  Many of us to this day still maintain close contact through social media.  We have that shared experience of living in a small cow town, but bonding over our love of underground music.

Me & Melissa before a rave, 1990

For instance, there was Melisa, someone who made a great impact on me.  She was so cosmopolitan and "with it" that she was ahead of the times before anyone else.  For instance, she liked Madonna before anyone had even heard of her.  My youngest brother nicknamed her the "Black Widow" because of her affinity for wearing black.  We met because, at the beginning of my sophomore year, I was wearing a DIY, homemade Exploited shirt, and it drew her attention.  We started talking about music, and her knowledge was considerable.  She turned me on to Arizona's first alternative radio program coming out of Tucson on Sunday nights in 1985.  She introduced me to the music of The Smiths, The Jam, Style Council, and Siouxsie & the Banshees.  My friend from junior high, Matt, had moved outside of Austin, Texas, and continued to be instrumental in introducing new music to me, mostly gothic stuff, like Cocteau Twins, who remains to this day my all-time favorite band, as well as Dead Can Dance, This Mortal Coil, Bauhaus, and Clan of Xymox, stuff that I am still very much into.

The Domes

So, what did we do for fun?  These usually included forays into Phoenix were there was a readily available nightlife.  My older brother played in thrash metal band called Pedifile that was fairly well known locally.  While attending his shows, I got to see and meet members of the underground metal scene like members of Metallica, King Diamond, Fates Warning, and Sacred Reich, as well as honing my skills in the mosh pit (chipped my tooth).  There were a few alternative clubs that we would attend in Phoenix and Tempe - Prisms, Out of Water, Six Feet Under.  But mostly, we hung around town, throwing parties at homes or in the desert, blasting our music into the desert sky,  One of our favorite locations were a set of abandoned domes in the middle of the desert.  We simply called them "The Domes", and they were an eerie set of buildings with concrete floors, our laughter echoing off the walls.  They are heavily tagged now, but I was one of the first people to spray-paint graffiti on the walls - poetry about vampires.  The Domes are still in the desert and occasionally make online lists about haunted places in the U.S., although one has collapsed in recent weeks.

By the end of the '80s, people like us had banded into a cohesive movement.  120 Minutes was the show we all watched on MTV every Sunday night to watch videos from Husker Du or Peter Murphy to keep up on the latest music.  Arizona had its own alternative station with its smooth-voiced host, Jonathan L, who organized Q-Fest, the first alternative festival in the nation, before Lollapalooza.  (I attended the second Q-Fest). I feel lucky to have been part of this scene before it got big.

Me & my Valentine, Andi in 1987

So how did  my parents view all of this?  With remarkable tolerance.  My parents always knew that I marched to the beat of my own proverbial drum, and they did little to suppress my creative side.  The most "oppression" that I got was my dad making me cut my hair a couple of times.  Remember: all of this time, I was an active LDS kid, passing sacrament every Sunday.  In fact, some of the kids in my ward were in my "clique".  I was very careful about not too out of hand.  I was good at wiping off the eyeliner or lipstick or eyeliner before I got home from school, or taming my hair.  I was kind of a wild kid, and I am lucky I didn't get thrown into jail.  I remember being called a "punk kid" by a Chandler police officer and thrown down onto the hood of a car, being threatened with arrest.  The officer didn't arrest me, but let me go, and I went home shaken, my parents not even aware of the details.  By all accounts, I should either be in jail, rehab, or dead by now.  I can't account for having turned out okay.

So, why did I do it?  I moved from Southern Utah to a town with a lot of money, a lot of rich ranchers.  My family was never well-off.  We wore clothes from K-Mart.  We didn't have name brands - Polo, Reebok, Izod.  Everything in the '80s was about the brand.  If you couldn't afford to wear the brand, if you wore the imitation, you were made fun of.  I tried really hard to fit in my freshman year.  They never accepted me, and so I rebelled.  I started wearing combat boots and ripped jeans.  I would save my lunch money and buy the ugliest shirts from the '60s that I could find  from the thrift stores.  Then something surprising happened - in purposefully trying not to fit in, I became somewhat popular.  People knew me for having a unique style, and I guess it resonated with some.

I also started learning to think for myself at this time.  I became very interested in Marxist philosophy and read "The Communist Manifesto".  I became interested in the punk DIY ethic and anarchy.  I read underground, political 'zines, and even published one issue for our school, which was a lot of work before word processors.  I spoke like a revolutionary.  My girlfriend Andi and I got nominated for king and queen of the Christmas Ball.  I refused to participate, because I rejected popularity contests only to find Andi kind of mad at me.  I didn't take into account what she wanted.

So, all of this prepared me for life as a Mormon polygamist.  During this time, my dad was making an active effort to teach us more about the old Mormon doctrines of plural marriage and United Order.  I will continue the story tomorrow about my journey into Mormon fundamentalism and how music was a part of this.