This interview feels special to me on several counts. First, I caught up with Wayne Barrett during what he says is his farewell tour under the Slaughter and the Dogs banner, closing exactly 50 years of this seminal punk outfit’s history. Second, Wayne chose to play the band’s final dates in my adopted homeland, Italy – a country he feels a special connection to (the band’s last album even bore an Italian title).
Third, it’s December, and with my birthday approaching, I’m reminded of the gift I received on my fifteenth: a record called Punk – A World History Vol. 3, which ranks high among the albums that shaped my taste in music. Part of a dodgy bootleg compilation series, it introduced me to a handful of ‘second-tier’ – but actually more enjoyable – figures of the original punk wave, such as The Boys, Chelsea, and of course Slaughter and the Dogs, who remain among my all-time favourites. Sitting somewhere at the intersection of bootboy, glam and punk, they were in some ways the perfect band.
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Creases Like Knives 