For the Love of Music

Written and Photographed by Rhyan Paul

Rudi Action Protrudi, is an American rock musician, songwriter, record producer, artist, and actor best known as the lead vocalist and frontman of the garage band the Fuzztones. Reckless Correspondent Rhyan Paul met up with Rudio in Valencia, Spain for a beer before their concert at 16 Toneledas, where they discussed touring, vinyl, and being a band for 45 years.

Valencia, Spain

Hi Rudi! Second day of the Spanish tour, welcome back to Valencia – as always for you guys its back-to-back concerts across the Peninsula. Would you have it any other way though?

Hey Rhyan, great to catch up! Yeah, I wouldn't mind a day off in between gigs. That'd be nice. You know, we don't ever really get a chance to explore the cities. We just basically go to the hotel, then we go to the sound check, then we go to a restaurant, then we do the gig and then we go home, you know? So, we don't really see that much. If I did have to change anything, it would be couple days off between gigs to go sightseeing.

I know it’s only day two of the tour, but how's it all going so far?

Real good, it always is. Spain is one of our biggest audiences and out most dedicated. Yeah, so very, very good. Well, I mean, we only did one show so far, but we almost always sell out the venues, so I'm expecting it to be great tonight here in Valencia. It’s our third visit to 16 Toneladas and we love the venue.

I had to do some math today, because I cannot believe it’s nearly 45 years since you started the Fuzztones. When you first started out, did you ever imagine that you would become known as the pioneers of the garage band movement, multiple album releases, world tours and 45 years later still doing it as passionately?

No! It's funny, when I started out, we started out basically as a joke. My band was “Tina Peel” up until the beginning of 1980 and just for fun we decided to become our own opening act, so we called it the “Fabulous Fuzz Tones”. If we weren't taking it seriously at all, we had some outrageous psychedelic outfits made-up in lime green and bright orange fake fur, and very loud Paisley clothes because “Tina Peel” was very loud. So, we dressed very loud very campy, and we learned a set of classic garage stuff. We kind of figured everybody would know it. Stuff that had been a hit in the 60’s. Like” I Had Too Much To Dream”, “Pushing Too Hard”, “Gloria”.

The thing is, it went over really well and at that time we were getting very sick of “Tina Peel” because people never seem to get it. We had a coked-up manager who was trying to make us more commercially acceptable; we had a big record label following us around who was trying to get us to be more commercial and it wasn't fun anymore. So, we did the Fuzztones part as fun and then we decided the audience really liked it and we were getting off on the music.

The very first “Fuzztones” band was 1979. We hadn’t broken up “Tina Peel” yet and we only did two shows. By 1980 we decided we've had enough of “Tina Peel” and we formed the “Fuzztones”, we dropped the “Fabulous and took it seriously.

We started adding some lesser-known material, but mostly stills covers an there was a reason for that. It was because the people in the band had never played garage music. If you've never played garage music, you're certainly not going to be able to write garage music. My idea was. - OK, let's play covers and get the style down and we're comfortable with the style that we can progress to writing. So that’s what we did!

The first line up of the “Fuzztones” was a four piece for two years. We don't really have any recorded tracks other than there's two songs that were cut live at CBGB's that were on the Snake Oil album. If you want to hear that line up of the band, that's where you can hear it.

We were pretty good an after two years we got really good. People started to notice us and then our bass player quit, which happened with “Tina Peel”. We had the same problem every time we started to really make headway; the bass player would quit, and we have to go try to find someone else and go all the way back to ground zero and start again and this was a reoccurring theme. I got fed up and I said, “fuck this!” and I broke up the band in 1982.

Well, it just so happened that Michael Jay, the bass player for “Lysergic Emanations” and Alon his friend who played lead guitar for “Lysergic Emanations”, they happened to see one of our last shows and as a very last-ditch attempt before I broke up the band I put an advert in the “Village Voice” looking for a bass player.

Michael called me, said, “I'm your guy”. So I got kind of excited, because he was familiar. I mean, you have to understand, in New York in 1982 or 1980 even more, no one had a clue what we were doing. No clue. And we would audition people, and we get people that look like the Grateful Dead or a junkie! Yeah, we had lot of junkies would come down! No one could play. No one had a clue, no one looked right, it was really a dead end.

So, when Michael came, he didn't look right either. I mean he definitely had a 60s vibe, but he was dressed all in his Carnaby Street stuff with a little English cap on and little Roger McGuinness glasses. I thought, who's this fruitcake? He played and sounded good – he had a Vox Bass, but I still had reservations, and he was a little bit bossy, started telling us what we should be doing, and I don't take well to that. So I broke up the band and I joined a rockabilly band that I liked that is in New York. But as soon as I joined, the drummer left! So we got Ira Elliott who turned out to be “Lysergic Emanations” drummer.

But then the band changed their music, and they weren't doing this hardcore rockabilly sound that I joined for. So I didn’t like that! Meanwhile, Michael J was harassing me all the time. Calling me on the phone, coming to the gigs, saying “You must reform the ‘Fuzztones’”. He was a real pain in the ass, but then one day he said the right thing. “I got a guitar player, and he's got a Rickenbacker Guitar and a Vox Amp”. OK, I wanted to hear this, because you have realised nobody had this stuff. I mean when the “Fuzztones” started, you couldn't even buy a fuzz-box. They were antiques. They didn't make fuzz-boxes. They made heavy metal pedals, but no fuzz-boxes.

He came down soon as we started playing, it sounded like the “Lysergic Emanations” line up, so we reformed and that lineup of the band stayed together until 1986 - then we broke up again!

It’s a reoccurring thing and in the 44 years we've been together, we probably went through 17 lineups. The current lineup have been together for 8 years and everyone gets along very well, we're all very tight friends. We have played together all over Europe, Japan, Mexico and South America. We get along really good, everybody is so professional and none of the addiction problems that we've had in the past, the ego problems that we've had in the past, girl problems, we don't have any of that. So yeah, we're all really happy! I'm pretty sure this this band stay together until the end!

You released your last studio album in 2022, “Encore” and in 2023 you released the live album “Live At The Dive ‘85” Anything new coming in 2025?

Yes, but not as the “Fuzztones”! I have been working on a solo album that I started during the lockdown when there was no one to play with, I got really inspired. I wrote 13 new songs and almost all of them are recorded. I play all the instruments except for the drums, which Marco plays. I don't have a record deal yet, but I'm certain I will, and it be released on vinyl and digital in about 6 months.

Interesting you mention releasing on vinyl - its making such a comeback, a very expensive comeback! Are you as fan of physical releases?

That was the whole idea, convince everybody into giving away their albums and CD’s and then bring back vinyl as a trend and everybody fell for it. I have a huge record collection, and I never got rid of any of it. Every piece of vinyl you own has a memory attached to it. Also, you can't beat the 12-inch artwork. That's one thing that CDs never had. You have to the record store and dig through the record boxes - that’s where the fun is!

When I was younger, I used to save up some money, go to the store and look for an album that had cool cover. I had no idea what it was going sound like, and I took a chance, thinking” If this music sounds anything like how cool the cover is, - it’s going to be fucking cool!” Like “The Velvet Underground” - all it said was Andy Warhol and there was a yellow banana cover, and I got that in 1966, the year it came out – amazing piece of vinyl!

Looking back, what was the “Fuzztones” most memorable concert?

I can’t pick just one! There's been so many - performing “Screaming Jay Hawkins” was a very big one. We filled in for the Ramones at the Elixir Festival in 1985 and we were playing with really big name acts - “Depeche Mode”, “The Clash” and “Midnight Oil” and the major French magazine at the time said that we were the revelation of the festival. It was televised on TV – so that was very big! Playing the “Rock Palace” Germanys rock TV show that was really big. We also played in front of 20,000 people at a Belgium festival with “The Mission” – those guys were really cocky and really deprecating towards us. So we blew them off the stage really hardcore and when they went on the stage afterwards, they only got through three songs. The audience was pelting them with mud and yelling “Fuzztones” so that was really memorable! The singer stormed off saying “You're all the bunch of fucking wankers!” I enjoyed that!!

What sets the “Fuzztones” apart from other Garage Rock bands?

We're better! We are the best rock'n'roll band that's out there now - in my opinion, but there's lots of things, there's lots of things. There are loads of garage bands and a lot of them are very good, but they are not like the “Fuzztones” because they tend to copy instead of interpreting - which is very big difference. When we do a cover song, we make it our own because we have a specific style and I like to equate it with bands like “The Rolling Stones” or “The Beatles”, the way they do a cover you know immediately it was them. When I do write a song. I have not been prolific in the past because I was very hard on myself. The originals must be as good as the covers or else what's the purpose? After doing this for so long, I find songwriting easy now and I'm writing a whole lot more than I used to.

Who has been your biggest influences?

Vocally, I'd say Jim Morrison and Jerry Lee Lewis. Jim for his crooning style and Jerry Lee for his phrasing. Guitar wise Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Link Wray – which is funny because none of them are garage!

What advice would you give to up-and-coming Garage Bands?

I would say do it for the love of music and don't expect anything to come out of it other than enjoyment. If you get more than it's icing on the cake. But if you're not enjoying what you're doing, then forget it. First, the audience knows and second of all, garage isn't like modern day pop or rap, It's not a formula. It's a raw form of music that if you play it in a formula way - and some people do - everybody can tell right away. It's like immediately, oh, that’s a cliché. You must throw in surprises.

We have never shied away from a challenge and covered really unpredictable artists. Frank Sinatra, Bobby Darin. Black Oak, Arkansas. No other garage band would do that because they would be so afraid of what the purists would say, but we made those songs into Garage Songs. We covered “New York, New York”, We covered “Lord Have Mercy On My Soul” by “Black Oak” and made it sound like the “13th Floor Elevators”. There's a. There's a talent, to be able to adapt a song and change it - you know, really change it! We did a “Ramone” song and made it sound like the “Electric Punes!”

Rudi – its been great catching up with you and looking forward to seeing you guys here again in 2025 celebrating 45 years of the “Fuzztones”!

Thanks Rhyan, it’s gonna be a great year and we are looking forward to it!