Day After Day #268: White Punks on Dope

Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).

White Punks on Dope (1975)

If you only know the Tubes from their early '80s AOR hits like "She's a Beauty" or "Talk to Ya Later," you're missing out on the wonderful insanity of the band in the '70s. 

The band was formed in San Francisco in 1972 by members of two Phoenix bands who had moved there: the Beans (Bill Spooner, Rick Anderson, Vince Welnick and Bob McIntosh) and the Red, White and Blues Band (Prairie Prince, Roger Steen and David Killingsworth). They also added their roadie, John "Fee" Waybill, to the band as a vocalist. In those early years, they combined art and glam rock.

The Beans had already experimented with conceptual rock shows including costumes and props and carried that over to the Tubes. The band played around the Bay Area for a few years with little success before scoring an opening spot for Led Zeppelin in 1973. The Tubes went all out, with Waybill dressing as an early version of his character Quay Lewd, throwing fake cocaine (flour) and pills (candy) at the crowd. 

They eventually scored a deal with A&M and went to work recording their debut album with producer Al Kooper. The album came out in June 1975, featuring "What Do You Want from Life?" and "Mondo Bondage," but the final track became the band's signature song. "White Punks on Dope" satirizes the bratty kids of the rich and famous.

"Teenage had a race for the night time/Spent my cash on every high I could find/Wasted time in every school in L.A./Getting loose, I didn't care what the kids say/We're white punks on dope/Mom and Dad moved to Hollywood/Hang myself when I get enough rope/Can't clean up, though I know I should/White punks on dope/White punks on dope."

The song didn't chart in the U.S. (although it did hit #28 in the U.K.) because of its controversial nature, but it became an anthem with rock fans and would get played on FM rock stations. The Tubes would close out shows with it, as Waybill played Quay Lewd, a British rock star whacked out on drugs, wearing 2-foot-tall platform shoes, a feather boa and a long blonde wig. Choreographer Kenny Ortega would design crazy scenarios for every show, including explosions, smoke, chainsaws and assorted characters and scantily clad dancers. 

"I go crazy 'cause my folks are so fucking rich/Have to score when I get that rich white punk itch/Sounds real classy, living in a chateau/So lonely, all the other kids will never know/We're white punks on dope/Mom and Dad moved to Hollywood/Hang myself when I get enough rope/Can't clean up, though I know I should/White punks on dope/White punks on dope."

The song features tons of extra elements, including a gang chorus (featuring just about everyone in the studio building, including the Eagles' Glenn Frey), various sound effects, a flushing toilet at the end and a Japanese TV voiceover.

The band's stage show featured a lot of comedic elements and in 1975, the band was offered spots on Saturday Night with Howard Cosell and NBC's Saturday Night (which later became Saturday Night Live), but the Tubes' manager wanted the band to play several songs and was turned down. The band continued making wild, conceptual albums and outrageous and expensive stage shows through the rest of the decade, until it was dropped by A&M. 

The band signed with Capitol and started to tone down their stage shows and make more accessible music. This new approach showed up on 1981's The Completion Backward Principle, which featured the radio hit "Talk to Ya Later" and the top 40 hit "Don't Want to Wait Anymore," a ballad sung by Spooner. "She's a Beauty" was on the band's 1983 album Outside Inside and went top 10. Waybill released a solo album in 1984, appeared as on-camera talent for MTV's Video Music Awards and began writing songs for other artists with Richard Marx; he left the band in 1986. 

The Tubes kept going with different singers and had numerous lineup changes, including Vince Welnick leaving to join the Grateful Dead. Waybill rejoined the band in 1993. The band continues to tour, although they haven't released a new album since 1996.