Advertisement

Music

Viletones

THE VILETONES with MAX MCKABE AND THE LIQUOR PIGS, DJ DON PYLE, DJ WADE MACNEIL and others at the Phoenix (410 Sherbourne), Friday (December 13), 8 pm. $26.25. TM.


There have been plenty of Toronto punk bands more commercially successful than the Viletones, but none as legendary and infamous.

Close to 40 years after Steven Leckie first stepped onstage (and immediately chastised the audience for clapping), the frontman is deep into preparations for the final chapter of the project.

“It’s pretty amazing that after all of this I’m living in a church,” he says, laughing as he leads me to his small apartment wallpapered in old newspaper clippings about himself in the basement of a converted former place of worship.

At first glance, Leckie doesn’t look much different from when I met him in the early 90s, when he ran an art gallery and clothing boutique called Fleurs du Mal. His wiry frame is covered with tattoos and scars, his piercing gaze still vaguely intimidating. But as he eases his way downstairs with the help of a cane, you see the toll MS has taken on his body in recent years and why he feels a sense of urgency about putting the band onstage one last time.

“I started getting this deep feeling in September that I needed to bring the Viletones project up to date, and it’s all been falling into place perfectly since then.”

This definitely isn’t a comeback, nor is it a reunion. (Leckie is the only original member.) He is clearly pleased at the way the internet has helped spread the mythical lost Viletones album A Taste Of Honey, and by the photos strangers keep sending him of Viletones tattoos from all over the world. But his drive to perform one last time comes from a more personal place.

“I see the Viletones more like a role in a play, one that keeps changing to stay age-appropriate every time I play it. It’s become to me something like A Streetcar Named Desire, and I’m always Stanley Kowalski. Or maybe more like Apocalypse Now, and I’ve been playing Kurtz from 1976 until now.”

Leckie was only 18 when he started the band, basing it on what he imagined punk to be from reading about it in underground rock magazines. By their third gig, they were already playing NYC, embraced by tastemakers like Lester Bangs.

“The reviews in Manhattan were loaded with what would be called hyperbole up here but which I found very accurate.”

When I first met him, his days of slashing his chest with broken beer bottles onstage were already long over, and he was in the midst of reinventing the Viletones in response to the grunge explosion. If mainstream alternative culture was going to turn punk into long hair, heroin and flannel shirts, Leckie was going to put on a velvet suit, be stone-cold sober and quote Baudelaire.

“I was reacting against the celebration of mediocrity that I felt Toronto was all about at that point. Whatever was on the radio was my enemy. That’s what rock ‘n’ roll is: a war against mediocrity and the enemy of whatever is on the radio. That’s how it started, and that’s how it’s always been.”

This final incarnation will see Leckie reimagining the role once again. He won’t be throwing himself into the pit like Iggy Pop still does, but he also won’t be taking it easy on the crowd.

“What’s your most terrifying memory as a child? I am going to stare the audience down with that disapproving look your father gave you when you really disappointed him.”

benjaminb@nowtoronto.com | @benjaminboles

Advertisement

Exclusive content and events straight to your inbox

Subscribe to our Newsletter

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

By signing up, I agree to receive emails from Now Toronto and to the Privacy Policy and Terms & Conditions.

Recently Posted