Hector Penalosa is mostly known for being the bassist of The Zeros, but he has also played/plays in numerous bands including the Avengers, the Dragons, F-Word, Baja Bugs, MCM And The Monster, Zeros 77, and has appeared on a ton of albums including the Zeros catalog, Flying Color, and others including several solo albums. He’s always telling me stories whenever I see him, so I decided to have him over to record some of them for history’s sake. After all, he’s been playing since he was a kid and has 6 decades worth of musical experiences to share! We talked for over 3 and a half hours, covering most of his whole career (there’s a lot to cover here!) and we probably could have talked for another 3 hours.
In part 5, we talk more about the Zeros reunion in the mid ’90s, the 2000s, a failed Netflix movie, a documentary being made by an award winning director, and more talk about Bill Bartell (Pat Fear) and his part in Zeros history.
Part 1 is here.
Part 2 is here.
Part 3 is here.
Part 4 is here.
Audio is in the youTube link below, with the transcript below that.
Ted: The Zeros. We’re in the ’90s, mid ’90s now. Did The Zeros tour a lot then?
Hector: No, we didn’t really. Well we did those two European tours in ’95 and ’96, and as soon as we got back from the ’96 tour back to the US, I got a letter, “hey, will you guys come out in ’97 and tour Spain again?” I thought this is getting good, you know? This is getting better and better. I called Robert and he says, “Yeah, let’s do it.” I called Baba. “Yeah, let’s do it.” I called Javier, he goes, “Oh, I don’t want to play in the Zeros anymore because it’s like getting stuck in the past.” I’m like, oh, this guy…
Ted: Well write some new songs!
Hector: It was just an excuse. Because he goes out there with Bill Bartell in ’97. It was a band called Chariot where they put out this record. And I was like, well, that doesn’t make any sense because I guess in Javier’s mind, he thought that, “oh, I’ll reap all of the Zeros efforts and I’ll be the star.”, but it didn’t work out that way because people wanted The Zeros. Especially in Spain. Yeah, there’s definitely hardcore fans there. So then nothing happened. Then in 1999, I had moved back to San Diego.
I was living down here. I left San Francisco in July ’97 and I moved down here and by 1999, I get a call from Javier. He’s like, oh, hey, this German label wants to put out a Zeros CD, and I’m like thinking to myself, I thought he didn’t want to get stuck in the past. What happened? He probably needed the money. Or the advance. So I was like hemming and hawing going, “Do I really want to get involved in this again?” And my friends were like, “Oh, come on, do it! It might be the last thing you do with The Zeros.” All right, let’s get together.
I just started working at Taylor guitars. Baba was living in Scripps Ranch and Robert was, I believe in LA, and Javier was living in LA. I said to Javier, “Well, let’s do this in San Diego because I’m not going to quit my job.” And so him and Robert came down here and we rehearsed and then we went to Richard Blitz studio and recorded the CD. At that time, I think Javier was drinking a lot and he would just sleep his hand over in the control booth on the sofa while we were all doing the work. And Robert and I sort of took over in that sense to get things done. We all got our parts done and then it was Javier’s turn to sing by himself. So he went in the studio on his own and then I don’t know what happened. I wasn’t there. But apparently he was being antagonistic towards Richard Blitz, who I have a lot of respect for. He was a great producer and had a great ear for recording. And eventually Blitz told him and says, “You’re not the first asshole I’ve ever done with in the studio.” (laughs) And then he demanded the tapes and he took off with the tapes. And we had a gig at the Casbah, right after that incident, like the next night. And it was Robert who told me what happened. And then I’m trying to make sense. Talk sense into Javier, you know, in the pink room back there by the pool tables.
And I said “Dude, we’ve got to finish this recording with Richard Blitz. He knows what kind of microphones we use. He knows what kind of EQs we set up. He knows what kind of effects. Everything. Why take it to somebody else?” And Javier says, “Well, the Rolling Stones do it all the time.” And I’m thinking, oh, I see where you’re coming from. You think you’re… but the Rolling Stones can afford that. And they’re not going to just take to whoever, you know. So I was like, oh man. And so yeah, he took off with the tapes and then got them re-mixed somewhere else. And then the CD came out.
And in the process, Bomp was having their 25th anniversary celebration. They wanted all the bands that were ever on Bomp to do this, you know, big concert. And Javier called me up. This is at the end of 1999. He said, “Hey, you know, Bomp wants us to play at the… and blah, blah, blah.” I said, “That’s all great and everything Javier, but I just have a question. You and I have been friends for 20 something years and band members too. Why do you do what you do?” And he hung up on me. And he didn’t talk to me for eight years!
Ted: Oh, wow.
Hector: All I was asking was why do you do what you do? You couldn’t deal with it. And that was it. You know, and I said, okay, I’m cool with it. And then I had already told my brother about all that madness that went on.
Ted: Victor.
Hector: Victor. Yeah. And so what happens? He goes to Germany with the band to promote the CD. And I’m like, oh my God, I’m like, really? I mean, I wouldn’t do that to my brother, but whatever. And I got over it. I was like, okay, whatever. You deal with the craziness. Yeah. And so that’s how that went on.
And then, yeah, all this time went by. And eventually, 2007 comes around. And then Bill Bartell sends me an email and says, you got to go to Spain with The Zeros because Munster Records is going to do like a, like a live concert footage and somewhat of a documentary of The Zeros. “You got to be there” or whatever. And I’m like, why am I the one who has to fix the fuck up side? And I said to him, I’m not really interested, Bill. He goes, no, come on, you got to do it. I guess Bill has something to do with the organizing of that. And so then I said, okay, I’ll tell you what. I said, “I’ll contact Javier and depending on what our conversation ends up being, I’ll make my choice.” And I sent Javier an email. I never heard from him. Then Robert calls me up and he says, “Oh, by the way, yeah, we’re going to go, just so you know, we’re going to go do the documentary. But Steve Rodriguez from the Dragons is going to play.” And it was funny, because I had suggested that to Bill Bartell.
Ted: We were just watching that video.
Hector: I told him, I said, why don’t you guys take Steve, man, you know? And there you go!
Ted: And now you’ve replaced Steve in the Dragons!
Hector: The irony of ironies. Bill was freaking out for a minute, and then he just got over it. And then that was it, you know? But here’s what happened, and I’m pretty sure I’m on point here. They went out there promoting that tour as the original lineup.
Ted: With Steve Rodriguez…
Hector: With my name on the fliers… I got a lot of feedback on social media that said, Hey, they had all you guys’ name on it and you weren’t there. And some people that I had made friends with like in Barcelona in Madrid, they were asking “Where’s Hector?”
Ted: which makes you look bad.
Hector: No, it didn’t make ME look bad, it made THEM look bad because they didn’t deliver the full package. And I have to explain what happened. They realized then that they fucked up because, you know, not only did they fuck up the publicity to the crowd expecting the original lineup, but the club people, the people running the place… the people that are promoters… everybody got affected, right? So yeah, because then what happened was, at the end of 2008, or in the beginning, somewhere in there, after that whole thing went by for a while, I get a call from Baba. He goes, “Javier wants to put the band back together. But Robert and I told him that we won’t do this unless you play.” I’m thinking, okay, I’m pretty sure you guys got your ass chewed up. (laughs)
Ted: And so, so then I said, Okay, I said, that’s fine, you know, I’ve got no bad… no animosity. I mean, if you guys want to do it, let’s do it. “Javier’s going to call you…” you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, That’s okay. Whatever. Whenever. And then I finally got a call from Javier, he says, “Oh, yeah, you’re the last person on my list”… because through AA, you got a call and apologize to people. He saved me for last. (laughs)
Ted: Well, that could be a special deal. Maybe you’re the one you had to apologize most to!
Hector: Probably. And then I said, “It’s all good, man. Whatever’s in the past, is in the past. Let’s just get to work.” End of story, right? And then Maren and I had kind of broken up by then. And then I think she was already involved with Mario. And so, Javier, being Javier, Mr. Snidley Whiplash, thought he was going to get a kick out of it, saying, “Well, what do you think if we would get Mario to manage the band?”, knowing that it might be… And I said, that’s a fucking great idea.
Ted: And Mario did the best.
Hector: Yeah. And it turned out great. The nice thing about it was that Mario and I had a phone conversation, like adults, and I said, “Hey, man, let’s just put everything on the table and be cool about everything.” And he was like, “Yeah, let’s do this.” And everything turned out great. We ended up becoming really, really close because of that. We didn’t fuck around. And I was really, really mad at Javier for fucking everything up for Mario after those two years, because Mario was doing this amazing job at every level of managing the band. Publicity, money, you name it. Everything. And then at the end of 2010, Mario had sent us email saying, “Hey, I’m booking the first quarter of 2011. And I got South by Southwest on the calendar and we’re probably going to rake in 20 grand by April. Guaranteed.” I’m like, “This is amazing.” And what Javier do? “Cancel everything. I’m moving to Austin.” And Mario had never dealt with that side of Javier. I’m flipping out because it was affecting his Requiem Booking. It’s going to make him look bad. And I think Javier was doing it on purpose. It was just horrible.
Ted: Yeah… yeah. Why is it…?
Hector: I don’t know why.
Ted: Is it fear of success?
Hector: (sighs) I don’t know. A little bit. I don’t know, man. Like I’ve told people… it’s the most… it would be a psychiatrist’s dream come true to sit down with Javier and pick his brain, man, you know?
Ted: So we might as well go to jump ahead a little to the Netflix thing. So what was going on? Was that because of Mario booking these gigs where someone saw you from Netflix and said, “Hey, let’s do a movie on you?”
Hector: Oh, yeah, the movie situation.
Ted: Yeah. What did that come about?
Hector: Well, apparently, there was this fellow named Abe Levy, who used to be a skateboard punk rap kid back in his early years. And his favorite band was The Zeros. Abe had, by the time he approached us, had directed two independent films. And then his wife, who’s called Silver Tree, is a producer who worked for HBO and does mini-series for Netflix and stuff. He contacted us and said “We’d love to do a movie of The Zeros, with the script and actors. Not a documentary, but a movie like like the Runaways movie.” And we said, “Okay, well, let’s get together and talk some more.”
So he came down to San Diego and we met downtown at a Mexican restaurant and the four of us were there. We weren’t a band at that moment anymore, but we were interested in this. And we all agreed to go ahead with the plan. He told us, “You guys will have a lot of control over this.” So we all met with him individually and collectively. And when it was Mike’s turn to be with him and talk, I told him right ahead, right away, I said, “You have to contractually lock in Javier somehow. Because he has a tendency to take a shit on projects. And he could do this with this one.” And he said to me, “Why would he do that? This is a movie about him and the band and his music.” I said, “Well you don’t know him like I know him.”
And I was like, just please keep that in mind. Well, he didn’t do it. So he writes the first draft. He sends it to us. We read it. And he told us “You have complete control of this. You can do revisions. I’ll put them in the next draft.” Okay, everybody did that. What’s there to complain about?
Ted: How was the script?
Hector: Well, it was pretty close to… it was a little more, you know, fictional, but still believable in the sense that… I think it opened up with Javier going to the San Diego Sports Arena to see a band. And he runs into Guy Lopez, who was Robert’s little brother (who passed away). And then they start talking about how they’re going to see this band. And then Guy says, “Oh, my brother plays guitar, blah, blah, blah, blah…” you know. And so that was kind of like how it opened up. And then instead of rehearsing in a rehearsal space, in the movie we rehearse in Robert’s parent’s house in a room and then Robert’s older sister, Shane, she has her boyfriend who’s kind of more of a Lynyrd Skynyrd type of guy who’s always trying to put us down because we’re different. You know, in the music thing. So a little bit of tension buildup. But yeah, so there’s… I mean, it wasn’t bad. But there were some points where like I, in my case, when the script focuses on me, it’s like, you know, my mom supposedly asked me, “Oh, so you’re going to start that Beatles band?” (laughs) And I’m like “x that shit out”. That wasn’t the case.
And so I rewrote something different. And he was cool with it. He changed a lot of stuff in there. And so a year and a half had gone by. I get a phone call from Abe Levy. He goes, “Hey, you’re right. Javier doesn’t want to do this anymore.” I was mad, man. I was… dude, come on. You know what that movie would have done for everybody?
Ted: Yeah, because it did a lot for…
Hector: The Germs!
Ted: … Germs and Joan… The Runaways.
Hector: Hell yeah. You know, I mean, it’s no brainer. And so that’s how that ended up. Then three, four years later, I get this e-mail from Javier. “Oh these guys want to make a documentary.” And I’m like, now what? I thought, is this some sort of like consolation prize to himself, realizing that he fucked up the first time around, that now he wants to do this? Because I always think that. Then I was like, I don’t really want to have anything to do with anything because this guy just going to kill it anyway. So why bother?
So I resisted for a long time to be part of it. And by then, Anthony (Ladesich) and Mike (Webber), the guys doing documentary, had already come to San Diego. Interviewed family members, interviewed other people that were, you know, like Tim Mays and the guys from the Loons and all that stuff, Mike Stax, etc. etc. And then finally, Peter Urban, who used to manage us, and lives in Boston, sends me a message and goes, “Hey, man, you really got to think about being part of this. You’re part of this. You’re a big part of this, you got to be involved.” And I thought, okay, you know, it’s Peter and I respect Peter’s opinion. And then I thought, okay. And then Jean Caffeine, who was another another friend of mine who was part of the San Francisco scene too, she’s like, “Hey, man, don’t… don’t… don’t be uncooperative. Just give it a go.”
All right, all right. So then I talked to Mike Webber, the producer, and then I talked to Anthony, the director, and they were really cool. They flew out here and they interviewed me at the store. And then that’s when Anthony said, “You know, I never was sure why The Zeros didn’t get all that attention and popularity like those other punk bands.” And that’s when I told him, “Guess why?” I’m telling you now. And he goes, “oh, I never thought of that.” Then I brought it up. I said, you know, make sure you got this guy under contract, because he could do this to you too. And he goes, “Don’t worry! He already signed the film release and everything.” So, okay, I thought, okay, we’re covered, you know. He goes, I’m not doing this for him. He said, “I’m doing it for everybody.” Okay, I started to like these guys. You know, they were definitely standing their ground. They had already interviewed… they already got up to LA and interviewed Mark Mothersbaugh and Jane Wiedlin and all these other people from the punk scene in LA regarding The Zeros. Then they needed to go to San Francisco and they didn’t know anybody up there. And so I was like, I’ll go up there and I’ll help you guys out, you know. I mean, why wouldn’t I? It’s a documentary about my band, for cryin’ out loud.
So luckily I talked, or rather graciously asked my girlfriend, who has a really big house. I said, can they stay at your place? She goes, yeah, sure, you know. And then she let us borrow her car. Then we all drove out to San Francisco and met up with and got Penelope and Greg from the Avengers on the interview. We got Greg Langston who was a drummer for No Alternative on the interview. We got Kevin Chanelle on the interview. And then the big one was Jello Biafra. I had called him like a week ahead of time about doing the interview. He was really hard to convince at first. He goes “You know, it’s like, I always make these documentaries and they never get finished!” (laughter) It’s like, oh man, don’t jinx it, man! Yeah, he was, he was, I mean, you know, he was just being Jello. I mean, I love the guy. We’ve known each other for a long time and everything, but he finally goes, “okay, all right, we’ll do it.” You know, okay, cool. And that was the big one, you know? That was the one we wanted. Oh we got Ron Greco from Crime too, the bass player. So yeah, so we go… spend the whole day chasing everybody… oh and Vale from Search and Destroy, the punk fanzine. Yeah, he was in it and all these people. And then finally we get to Jello and he was playing hard to get, but once he was there, he was just like a little kitty cat. Totally into it, talking about the band and everything. It was cool.
So we got that done. And then a few months later, I was in Santa Barbara with Laura. We went to the Santa Barbara International Film Festival awards, cause her friend is the president, this lady, Linda. And she was honoring Michelle Yeoh, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. We got invited and we go over there. And then the next day, we’re going to drive back to San Diego from Santa Barbara. And then I get a call in the morning from Anthony goes, “Hey, man, can you hang out in LA for the day? Because Javier was supposed to meet us in LA to do a walkabout and talk about like the Whisky and then go over to where the Starwood used to be, and the Masque, but he totally bailed on us.” And I’m like, oh my God, I said, all right, I’ll see you down there. Okay, let’s go do this. Yeah, so that happened.
And then just at the end of last year, everything seemed to be coming together. And I get a call from Mike Webber. And he goes, he says, “Man, I’m really pissed, you know, because we thought we had everything on paper, including the music, the licensing for the music, when you guys signed that film release. But it turns out that there’s got to be this licensing agreement signed too. And Javier doesn’t want to sign it.” Oh my God. Oh my God. Not again.
Ted: Why does he do this? It could help him so much. He’s his own worst enemy.
Hector: I don’t get it either. So then I said to Mike and Anthony on the phone, I said, “I don’t care how the fuck we’re going to make it work, but we’re going to make it work, man. Because this is bullshit. Not this time. We got to make it happen.” So luckily they got a lawyer and they got this lawyer to look into the whole contract with BOMP and how everything was laid out. And apparently those contracts are so old. Some of us were not even 18 when we signed them, that they really have no validity to a certain extent. And that there’s definitely like loopholes there that you can actually use the music and stuff. Because that was the number one thing.
Ted: You got to have the music.
Hector: Anthony was like, dude, we got to have these songs. And I said, why don’t we do this? Instead of having The Zeros recordings, have like the Muffs “Beat Your Heart Out” play and have Sator’s “Black and White” play? It’d be kind of cool in a way too, to show that these bands were influenced and appreciative of the band. But no, so now it’s going to be with the actual recordings. And Anthony’s flying to England pretty soon because that’s where the editor lives. And they’re going to start doing a lot of things.
Ted: When do you think it’s going to be released?
Hector: I’m hoping by the end of the year. It’s been it’s going on three and a half years now.
Ted: Yeah, you guys showed the trailer during a Zeros 77 show at the Casbah. It looks like a real documentary!
Hector: Anthony’s done a lot of documentaries in the past and he’s gotten awards for his stuff. He’s seasoned for sure.
Ted: And it was also good to see Baba there. He was there.
Hector: Yeah, well, you know, at the Casbah, we wanted him to get up and sit and play maybe the last song, but then he left. C’mon man.
Ted: Yeah, I guess the story was he had some time limit or something.
Hector: He probably didn’t want to get scolded by his boss. (laughs)
Ted: Do you ever think there could be a reunion?
Hector: I, for one, am never against it. And I think Robert would do it too. It’s just Javier who’s the negative force in this whole situation.
Ted: I’ve talked to Lety about it and Victor and everybody. They’re all for it. Everybody who’s playing the other parts in each band. They’re saying, yeah, I’d love to see the reunion.
Hector: Yeah…
Ted: and their jobs are at stake (and they still want to see it).
Hector: I know, right?
Ted: I mean, it tears my heart apart because I’ve known Javier for 30 years now. I just want to see you all together.
Hector: Well, it’s so easy to do, right? Why complicate matters? That’s the question. I’ve always been open to do whatever with the band, regardless of who’s going to do it, you know…
Ted: For the fans, at least.
Hector: and of course, the original lineup would be the best. And that’s why every time I’ve always been, you know, like, okay, let’s do it! No problem. I’m not going to take it personal. But the big question is: what’s the problem here, Javier? What’s bothering you about it? What’s the big deal? You got to get to the root of that behavior. It’s crazy, you know, to be that way. And it’s like, I tell people some people shoot themselves in the foot, he shoots himself in the dick. You know, really, it must hurt. But anyway, so I don’t know, you know, but that’s a big part…
Ted: It has to be a mental thing or something.
Hector: Yeah, definitely. It’s a big part of The Zero’s history. I always tell people that it’s like a roller coaster. It goes up, it goes down, and the thing that I came to notice was that the more attention The Zeros get, the worse HE gets. Something like a catch 22. It’s really weird.
Ted: Yeah. I think it’s a fear of success.
Hector: Could be…
Ted: Look what happened to Kurt Cobain. I mean, he wanted to be successful and, and they did through hard work and stuff like that, and then look what happened.
Hector: But I don’t know. I mean, ultimately, I’ll write my book. I got to wait for people to die, so I don’t get sued for that. (laughter) I’ll call it “A Zero To The Last”. How’s that? Good title, huh? I got it all figured out.
Ted: So I wanted to ask some random stuff if you have time. I got all night. I don’t know about you.
Hector: No rush on my part. I mean, you kick me out when you want.
Ted: We got the reunion. Talked about the Netflix thing and everything, and trying to get back together… What was the first song you ever wrote?
Hector: A song called “Nothing” for The Zeros. When I started playing in that band and Javier had all these songs.. they’re all great songs. And I was like, I want to do that too! And so I wrote a song called “Nothing” about nothing to do, going to school, sitting my room, you know. But told like rebel kid complaints, you know, punk style. And Robert was, you know, coming up with “Sneaking Out” and “Shannon Said”, “Beat Your Heart Out” and stuff. It’s on the Masque (compilation). It’s just a three CD set of Live at the Masque. And I think that song’s on there. The Zeros “Nothing”. It’s on that one. And yeah, it was pretty basic, pretty simple. And then after that, I wrote, I think, “Left To Right”. And then I wrote…
Ted: Was this all Beatles influenced?
Hector: No, it was more the punk scene that was influenced me at that point. Yeah. Totally. And then “Left To Right” is a fast song. “Everything around me seemed to go left to right, right to left”… you know, more of a Dils influence really. And then “They Say That Everything’s All Right”.
Ted: That was really that was a single too.
Hector: Yeah, that was the last thing we would put out in 1980. “Getting Nowhere Fast” on the A-side and “They Say…” on the B-side. And that song was really influenced by a cross section of The Clash and The Avengers. I really like The Clash and their sort of protest songs like “White Riot” and “I’m So Bored With the USA”. And then the Avengers songs like “The American In Me” and “We Are The One” and “Corpus Christi”. They’re just very well thought out songs that make you think. So yeah, what “They Say…” was basically me complaining about politicians telling you all these things and they’re all a bunch of lies in the end, you know? Which is pretty contemporary. It stands.
Ted: What goes around, comes around.
Hector: Yeah, you know, “they said everything’s all right, but we know it’s just a lie. Take a look around you. Ask the people what they see and for sure they’ll tell you that this is not the way that it should be.” So yeah.
Ted: There’s a story that you played “Beat Your Heart Out” eight times in San Francisco. Were you there for that? What was the story?
Hector: That situation was when we did the 1995 tour of Spain and Sweden. In Sweden, Bill Bartell was connected with Mudhoney. And Mark Arm was in Madrid for our show at El Sol. And he actually got up and sang “Wimp” with us. And then Bill hooked us up with Mudhoney because they were doing Lollapalooza tour or something like that. So we got to get on that and play the smaller stages on those. And so I was in San Francisco. I flew down to rehearse. We ended up driving to LA to rehearse. And then we’re supposed to meet up at 12. And for some reason, Javier or Baba changed it to three o’clock and they didn’t tell me about the change. So I’m sitting there in front of the rehearsal room, going where the fuck’s everybody? And then finally they showed up and then we get together. My brother, I decided to take my brother (Victor, who plays in a lot of San Diego bands in addition to being the drummer for the Flamin’ Groovies for awhile and currently plays bass in The Zeros under Javier) as a roadie so he could have the experience. So him and I were there. And then Javier and Baba showed up. Robert was late, really late. So he wasn’t there. I was going to use a bass amplifier that they had there, but it didn’t have the amp head to the speaker cable. So I said to Slim, who was a drummer for Rank ‘n File and then played with Robert years later in El Vez. I said to him, “Hey, man, do you have a cable I could borrow to hook up the bass amp, y?” And then Javier’s like, “I got one!” And I said, OK, cool. And then he goes, “but you can’t use it. ha ha ha”. And I was like, this motherfucker. I said, OK, here we go. So to save an embarrassing moment for him, I walked up to him, got really close up to his ear and I said, “Let’s cut the bullshit and let’s get to work.” And he jumped back like in one of those bad kung fu movies, like a grasshopper. He jumped backwards like sort of from the middle of the room to the wall. Wham! And as soon as he lands, he goes, “You’re the asshole!” To me! I’m standing there going, “Wow, man, that’s crazy.” And I said to Victor, “Let’s get out of here. Let’s go. This is stupid.”
You know, we’re like in our mid 30s, man, you know, and this guy’s still being stupid. I said, no, I’m out of here. I don’t give a shit about the tour or whatever. This is not going to happen here. And so I’m walking away… It’s always been good cop, bad cop with Baba and Javier. Then Baba was running behind me and goes, “What are you doing? What are you doing? Where are you going?” I said, dude, it’s like, how old are we, man? It’s like, what is this bullshit? And then Baba goes, “Well, just go talk to him.” And it’s another thing I said, why does everybody else have to go talk to him when he’s the one causing problems here? It’s just nuts, dude. I’m out of here. I’ll see you later.
And we left. Then they got Kevin (Chenelle; Baba’s brother) to play that tour. So then they go play at the Palace and Bill Bartell’s obviously has a lot of responsibility towards Mudhoney for getting the connection for their Lollapalooza tour. And when he sees that Kevin’s playing bass, he fucking got really mad. Robert told me, he says, he couldn’t believe that you weren’t there. So he started getting on Javier about it. And Javier, his way of dealing, he got super drunk. So he got really drunk. They had to practically carry him out of the Palace. And they were supposed to drive first thing in the morning to San Francisco, Kevin, Baba and Javier. And they’re playing at the Filmore with Mudhoney and Javier said that he would fly out there and meet them. So they dropped him off and they drove up. And that was the very day that I was flying back from San Diego to San Francisco.
I remember I got home. My answering service had three, four messages from Baba. And it said, “Get your guitar. Come down to the Filmore as soon as you can.” And I’m like, what’s going on? What’s going on? So I get down there. I get in and I just missed the set that they played. He goes “Did you see what happened? You see what happened?” I said, no, Baba, I don’t know what happened. And Robert couldn’t play that gig because he was doing El Vez that day somewhere else. So it was just Baba and Kevin and Mark Arm onstage. So I said, no, what happened? “We played ‘Beat Your Heart Out’ like eight times in a row. And we did it in different styles.”
Ted: Oh, that’s kind of cool!
Hector: And I said, “Well, where’s Javier?” “Oh, he didn’t… he didn’t show up.” I’m like, what the fuck, dude? You’re playing the Filmore with Mudhoney and you’re not showing up? Come on. Yeah. So that’s why they did it eight times like that. Not because they were trying to be funny, but because they were in an emergency situation. And it became this thing like, “oh, it’s so cool”, but the reality is a whole other thing. But yeah. So yeah, it was just another mess up.
Ted: I had no idea Bill Bartell had such a connection to the Zeros.
Hector: We owe Bill Bartell our left and right nuts because he did a lot for us. Believe me. He did a lot for us. And I always will be grateful to him. Because he got us connected with the European tours through Munster Records and Spain, and what have you… and Sweden. And then he got us the connection with Mudhoney. He was always helping us out.
Ted: Have you seen that documentary about him?
Hector: No, I want to.
Ted: Me too.
Hector: I want to. I think Robert is interviewed in that. But I’m not sure. But yeah. Then he passed away in 2013, right? They had a memorial at Cafe Nela in LA. I remember I contacted Baba and Robert. Robert was in Seattle, I think, living in Seattle, but I contacted Robert and Javier. I sent them texts. I said, “Hey man, you guys want to go up there? I’m going to go up there, you know, and pay my respects.” Crickets, man. Nothing. And I thought, dude. Really? This guy did so much for us and that’s it? Oh man. It was disappointing. So yeah, I went up there and then there’s Susie Secret, right? She was the woman that organized the tours in Italy for us in 2010 who was really close to Bill. I mean, she flies all the way from Rome, right? Come on. Anyway, so yeah, that was disappointing for me, man. Cause yeah, the guy did a lot, a lot for us.
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