Brian Baker spent much of the ’80s in the DIY punk world, playing in the seminal straight-edge D.C. hardcore act Minor Threat and later the Meatmen and Dag Nasty. But by 1988 the guitarist was living in L.A. and looking for his next musical act. A chance encounter at a Hollywood 7-Eleven with guitarist Chris Gates, an alumnus of Austin, Texas, punk mainstays Big Boys, led to an invitation from Gates to join his latest project, the sleazy, boogie biker-rock outfit Junkyard. The group had just signed a deal with Geffen Records and were poised to record their debut album, Junkyard, with Tom Werman. Today Baker plays lead guitar with punk legends Bad Religion.
It was awesome. All of a sudden I was in a band on a major label about to record their debut LP. That was just like, “Fuck! Here we are!” I think I was making a couple hundred dollars a week and I was … it was not exactly the gravy train, but to me, it was just this insane new world. I’d never seen anything like it. You’re at a top-of-the-line studio in Los Angeles with this hit maker. You’re hitting a buzzer and a gate’s opening. I mean, fuck. You’re driving your four-dollar car and you’re parking it next to your producer’s Porsche. And “What do you want for lunch? We’re getting sushi.” I mean, what the fuck? The equipment and the scale of it, I’d never seen anything like it. It was the big leagues.
I was really just doing my thing and excited to be there. I didn’t feel under pressure to perform or this is all going to be ripped away from me. I really wasn’t thinking like that. I wouldn’t call it cocky but I was like, I know what I’m fucking doing. And by the way, I have blond bleached hair and I’m twenty-one. I’m kicking ass. I’m wearing too much jewelry. I’m dating the receptionist, I just met her. I have access to a woman without a mohawk.
The vest was not a costume. We wore those vests all day. That was it. It’s like, “You’re in the band, here’s your vest.” It was real. We lived in a shitty house in the back part of Hollywood, and Chris and Clay [Anthony, bass] and Pat [Muzingo, drums] were definitely into drugs. David [Roach, vocals] and I were basically more drunks who would take drugs if they were there. But we weren’t really drug guys. I think the lifestyle fed into the band, particularly our live show. We were just fucking way not slick. We were very, very angular and sloppy. Not pro. Well, that’s a bad way to characterize it. But it was definitely, like, anything can happen. It was chaotic.
We were like a cred band. It’s proving that the label has vision and is doing something interesting. Like, “Look, we’ve got this!” It showed the breadth of knowledge of the genius A&R staff to be able to find these plucky ex–punk rockers who were doing this thing that isn’t really a standard thing. Junkyard was kind of an outlier. It wasn’t a Whisky or Roxy band. We were running this other separate program.
I’d been in a van for seven years, basically. I mean, Chris and I, more than anybody else, really had done that. We had slept on the floor of the fucking apartment with vermin and ten other dudes in sleeping bags. We had run out of gas in the van three thousand miles from home. We’d done all of this shit, hard. And the bus is an entirely different thing. You’re not driving. You’re drunk. You have a bed. You have something to show women that you matter. So this was just like … amazing. You want to pinch yourself. Is this really happening still?
We weren’t really a “We’re going to the titty bar” band. As a matter of fact, we had a tour manager who kept trying to get us to go to the titty bar. We called him “Titty Bar.” I don’t even remember his fucking name. It was just Titty Bar. Even back then, I’m like, “I really don’t think human trafficking is that sexy.” I’m not saying we never went to one, but again, it wasn’t really … there was still some punk going on in us, I think. And we just were taking the ride in our own way. But I get it—you’re in Kansas and you’ve played their biggest non-shed venue. And you’re done and you’re young and you’re drunk. Of course you’re going to go to the titty bar because it’s like, “All hail the musicians!” So it’s continuing your show. The glow is still on and you’re eating up all of this. You want it all.
Back then, going gold was the gauge of whether you got to open the next door. I don’t know what we were, but I think we kind of petered out at, like, three hundred thousand copies, which is now amazing to think about. We just didn’t quite get there. And a lot of bands did. A lot of terrible bands. Like Danger Danger. I mean, fuck. Fuck. What are we doing out here?
I went to work at a pool hall and a rehearsal studio where Weezer and the Goo Goo Dolls practiced. I was a people person. I was friends with all these people. I was still kind of in the mix and I was thought of as a pretty good guitar player. I was keeping the brand alive. I also formed a band called Careless that sounded a lot like the Goo Goo Dolls and later Replacements and stuff that I liked to listen to. Even throughout this Junkyard thing, I didn’t sit around listening to Bang Tango. I liked good music. So I put together a bunch of local guys who had all almost made it, who were really good players, and we made this band that was okay. It was almost good enough, but wasn’t.