Pre-Samoans In 1969 the Saunders/Blayk siblings cut a 14-song high school
garage rock album, ''I'm a Roadrunner Motherfucka'', in their hometown of
Little Rock, under a twice-used local band name, the Rockin' Blewz. The album went unissued until the late 1990s. Mike Saunders briefly played in an early backing lineup for 1950s rockabilly cult artist
Ray Campi during 1975, before moving back to Arkansas for two years (pursuant to a second college degree). Bassist Homer had played in 1977
Masque-era band Jesus Prick, and drummer Vockeroth was a veteran of the
Pasadena "backyard kegger party" cover band circuit (which also spawned
Van Halen). During 1978, both Turner and Mike Saunders played with rock critic
Richard Meltzer in the Los Angeles punk band
VOM, which issued a posthumous five-song
EP,
Live at Surf City, on
White Noise Records in early summer 1978. Patrick "P.J." Galligan was formerly a member of heavy metal band
Cirith Ungol. Galligan died from throat cancer in 2014.
Original lineup The first Angry Samoans gig was on October 30, 1978, opening for
Roky Erickson and the Aliens in
Richmond, California. Erickson was sick and did not make the show (Aliens band members covered for his lead vocals) but remained a lifelong friend and inspiration to Turner. The next night, the Samoans played an "all-LA bill" at the
Mabuhay Gardens in
San Francisco, opening for Shock and
the Zeros. The Samoans' first release,
Inside My Brain, featuring P.J. Galligan on lead guitar as a replacement for Bonze Blayk, was one of the earliest
hardcore punk albums to come out of the 1980s LA punk rock scene. Between this recording and second album
Back from Samoa, the band released a four-song EP as "The Queer Pills", allegedly using the pseudonym for the EP to get airtime on
Rodney Bingenheimer's KROQ radio program. Their 14-song, 17-minute hardcore album,
Back from Samoa, released in 1982, featured lyrics with such themes as the trendiness of poking your eyes out ("Lights Out"), anthropomorphizing
Adolf Hitler's penis ("They Saved Hitler's Cock"), and dissing your father ("My Old Man's a Fatso"), sung over heavily distorted guitars and early LA/
OC hardcore drum beats. In the mid-1980s, the Angry Samoans added guitarist Steve Drojensky, and returned to their roots in mid-1960s American
garage rock (they had long cited bands such as
the Velvet Underground, the
13th Floor Elevators and
Shadows of Knight as among their musical influences). The next two releases recorded during 1986–87, the
Yesterday Started Tomorrow EP and
STP Not LSD, were largely in this neo-1960s
garage/
psych style.
"Get Off the Air" controversy In late January 1979, Mike Saunders, Turner and Homer wrote an infamous song about longtime LA/Hollywood scenemaker and
KROQ-FM DJ
Rodney Bingenheimer, titled "Get Off the Air". When the song was included on the band's first record,
Inside My Brain, the Samoans were blacklisted at the
Starwood, the
Whisky a Go Go, and other clubs in the Hollywood/LA area from mid-1980 through late 1982, seemingly due to Bingenheimer's strong influence within the LA/Hollywood club scene.
Member changes and other projects Homer left at the end of 1988 and formed
the Mooseheart Faith Stellar Groove Band with Larry Robinson, formerly of 1970s teen pop-soul band
Apollo. In 2005, Homer formed free-jazz band the Hollywood Squaretet with comedian/drummer Larry "Copcar" Scarano, formerly of ''
Comedy's Dirtiest Dozen'' (HBO), and the 1960s New York rock band, the Bougalieu. Turner left in early 1992, releasing an album,
Santa Fe, in 1993 with the Mistaken, which featured guitarist Sean O'Brien (formerly of
Come), bassist Heath Siefert (formerly of
Backbiter) and drummers Elizabyth Burtis and Kelly Callan (formerly of
Wednesday Week). Turner's next band, the Blood Drained Cows, issued two albums, and occasionally features autoharp player Billy Angel (née Miller) from the Aliens. During the mid- to late 1980s, Mike Saunders moonlighted in several electric/acoustic two-guitar duos (no rhythm section) such as the Clash Brothers (with Bob Fagan), the Sons of Mellencamp (with Turner), and the Gizmo Brothers (with Kenne Highland), performing at various small clubs during that period in San Francisco, LA/OC, and even
Boston (with Krazee Ken Highland from the Gizmos and Hopelessly Obscure).
Recent activity The Angry Samoans have continued from the late 1980s onward with Mike Saunders, original drummer Vockeroth and a wide variety of other individuals. They have performed mainly along the
West Coast, aside from occasional out-of-state weekend trips and three short, successful tours of mainland Europe in 2003, 2007 and 2008. In 2010, they performed on the Legends Stage on four dates of the
Vans Warped Tour. Gregg Turner has toured in October 2019 with the Oblivians as a solo act, in anticipation of a re-release of the Angry Samoans discography. Mike Saunders stopped performing with Angry Samoans in 2016. Drummer Bill Vockeroth has continued touring with a variety of additional members performing guitar, bass and vocals. Vockeroth previously used the name "Angry Samoan" to indicate the band contained only one original member, but has since changed to billing his version of the band as "Angry Samoans" as of 2025. == Discography ==