Off!’s final act: Punk legend Keith Morris and company go out with a bang onstage and on film
On a recent Sunday morning on the 134 Freeway, singer and punk rock icon Keith Morris was behind the wheel of his Honda, rolling toward a final rehearsal with his band Off! in a Pomona studio. Blasting on his car stereo were songs from “Free LSD,” the quartet’s latest album, so Morris could reacquaint himself with the record’s far-out lyrics of alien invasions and mind control.
As he drove, the recording of nervous guitar riffs and Morris’ panicked vocals roared ominously from the speakers: “Disappeared without a trace/Another world beyond the realm/The flying lights, not of this Earth ... The hour of reckoning’s here!”
The song was “War Above Los Angeles,” a raging highlight from the 2022 album, written by Morris and Off!’s co-founder and guitarist Dimitri Coats. But after months of touring with his other band, the reunited Circle Jerks, Morris needed to clear his head of one band’s setlist and replace it with the other. He would study up on Off! lyrics for another few days before leaving for a final run of shows in Chicago, New York and L.A. before the band officially disbands.
“Those guys, they’re all going to be good,” Morris says confidently of his bandmates in Off! At 68, bearded and with dreadlocks stretching past his knees, the singer has never been busier. “Once we start rehearsing, that’ll help me cough up a lot of that stuff in my head.”
Off! is going on indefinite hiatus after its farewell performance Friday at the Belasco in downtown Los Angeles, but this punk rock swan song comes at a moment of celebration for the hardcore supergroup. That’s because the final shows coincide with the hard-won release of the band’s feature film, also called “Free LSD,” a rock ‘n’ roll science fiction comedy in the tradition of 1984’s “Repo Man.”
Morris stars as the unfulfilled owner of an adult specialty shop, who spends his free time hosting a conspiracy-themed podcast on UFOs, pyramids and Sasquatch. When he falls for a younger woman but can’t perform sexually, he turns to a mysterious doctor who prescribes a drug that not only cures erectile dysfunction but opens his mind to other dimensions. He discovers an alternate plane of existence where he’s the singer in a band at the center of a battle between good and evil extraterrestrials.
The film was written and directed by Coats, and features the band alongside a cast that includes Jack Black and underground music figures David Yow from the Jesus Lizard, Davey Havok from AFI, Chris D. from the Flesh Eaters, Don Bolles from the Germs, late Dead Kennedys drummer DH Peligro, Zander Schloss from the Circle Jerks, and Angelo Moore from Fishbone.
“It’s a real hodgepodge of punk rock royalty,” says Coats, who studied acting at Juilliard before turning to music. “Look, we didn’t make ‘Citizen Kane’ here. It’s a midnight movie. It’s also an expression coming from our scene. It’s from the streets. We prided ourselves using as many of our friends in the music world who had a little bit of acting chops.”
After the Belasco concert (where Off! will be joined by punk rock upstarts Surfbort), the “Free LSD” film has its local premiere at the Nuart Theatre in Santa Monica on Aug. 2, followed by several other screenings across Southern California, all with live Q&As with Coats and Morris. The film is released to major streamers on Aug. 9, with a Blu-ray loaded with bonus features planned for later this year.
“The bottom line for me is that this movie is the greatest artistic, creative adventure that I’ve ever been a part of,” says Morris, speaking in his distinctive rasp. “Honestly, it is my proudest achievement.”
It also marks the end of Off! after a 14-year run, at least in the foreseeable future. The band’s Econoline van has already been sold, and Morris will focus on performing with the Circle Jerks. That first-wave SoCal punk band is more in demand now than at any time since the 1980s, playing bigger rooms and traveling overseas regularly for the first time.
“Dimitri’s idea was that if we’re going out, we might as well go out on a high note,” Morris says of Off!, but adds, “We are going to be open to whatever comes our way. We gotta shut this down for the time being.”
At the rehearsal, Morris unfurls long rolls of paper where he’s written the band’s setlist in big block letters with a marker, and hangs them up in a studio filled with vintage sound equipment. Coats stands with his guitar beside a table covered with his electronic gear, providing a new noisy element to the band’s sound on “Free LSD.”
They’re joined by drummer Mario Rubalcaba and bassist Autry Fulbright II as they rip through the “Free LSD” songs, followed by material from the band’s first three releases. It’s an intense repertoire and they attack the setlist without interruption.
The new album is still rooted in the band’s snarling core sound, which began as throwback to Morris’ days as the founding singer in Black Flag. But the new songs have an added layer of electronics, psychedelic noise and jazzy improvisation to accompany lyrics less self-obsessed than paranoid about alien forces, as Morris warns: “There is another side/We are not alone!”
The plan was to stretch out in new ways and break the usual boundaries of hardcore. “It felt like the future and the past coming together at the same time,” says Coats, who has produced all Off!’s albums. “I said, ‘Come on, dude. Let’s go way outside of our comfort zone for this. Let’s risk making fools of ourselves for the sake of maybe breaking completely new ground. Not only for ourselves, but for this genre that you come from.’”
The album is the band’s first collection of new material since 2014’s “Wasted Years,” and was declared “a frenetic masterpiece” by Mojo magazine, while the online AllMusic guide called it “a gloriously weird triumph.”
The members of Off! met about 20 years ago when Coats’ first band the Burning Brides were signed to V2 Records, where Morris then worked in the A&R department. Coats wasn’t from the punk rock world and didn’t know who Morris was. But the singer was immediately drawn to the Burning Brides song “Glass Slipper,” a driving minimalist rocker that sounded to him like something from his Black Flag days. They became close friends.
“This band in general is a beautiful accident because it started out for years just us hitting it off as friends and going to get meals together, going to record stores,” says Coats. “He’s been in the hospital when my kids have been born. We’re like brothers.”
Morris recruited him to produce the next Circle Jerks album, which would have been their first in 15 years. That project collapsed amid conflict between band members and Coats over his role as producer, and Morris quit to start Off! with the guitarist.
The duo then found the rest of the founding lineup: bassist Steven McDonald and Rubalcaba. They recorded in classic hit-and-run style, echoing first-wave hardcore but with a contemporary fire that made it sound new again. Most songs clocked in at barely a minute in length.
Off! immediately found an audience of excited punks and tastemakers. In a 2010 rave review, Pitchfork declared, “Off! are not just refreshing, but totally necessary.”
The idea for making a movie first came to Coats in 2015. An early attempt ran aground when a Kickstarter fundraising campaign fell short. During an extended period of frustration, as Off! struggled to get the album recorded and a movie funded, the band lost its original rhythm section.
Soon after, Metallica reached out with an invitation to record one of its songs for a high-profile tribute album, “The Metallica Blacklist,” which marked the 30th anniversary of the metal juggernaut’s “Black Album.” Off! chose to record a cover of “Holier Than Thou” and brought on Fulbright (formerly of ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead) and drummer Justin Brown, an accomplished jazz player whose resume included Thundercat and Herbie Hancock.
“He came in not knowing anything about punk rock except Bad Brains, and he had that swing that we loved about Mario,” says Coats. “But he just took the material to a completely different place.” (After Brown was pulled away to other projects last year, Rubalcaba returned to Off!)
Even as the movie plans foundered, Coats recognized that Off! had written an album of songs that promised to push the band into adventurous new territory. And in a meeting with Morris, he suggested that might be enough. They could leave the movie dreams behind.
“And Keith’s eyes welled up with tears, and his voice got real shaky, and he said, ‘Dimitri, we have to make the movie,’” Coats recalls. “And I got chills, and goosebumps, because that’s when I realized that it was just as important to him as it was for me.”
After they completed the album, financing for the film came together. And with a short window available between Circle Jerks tours, “Free LSD” began shooting in the summer of 2022 at locations around Los Angeles with a budget under $1 million. An rough early cut of the film was chosen as the closing movie of last year’s Slamdance Film Festival.
After a final screening Aug. 7 at the Los Feliz 3, Morris will be back on the road with the Circle Jerks, and there are plans for a new album. There may also be future activity with FLAG, his band featuring former Black Flag members Chuck Dukowski, Dez Cadena and Bill Stevenson (with Descendents guitarist Stephen Egerton).
For Coats, he’s learned some things about making and financing independent films and wants to make more. He is starting a film production company with Kurt Kittleson, a veteran film producer who helped him make “Free LSD.” He’s also planning to turn down the volume and record a solo acoustic album.
“I’m really into singer-songwriters who finger pick on acoustic guitar and write sad songs,” says Coats.
Morris turns to him and says, “So you go home and you be depressed with all of your sad songs. Just don’t be a sad sack.”
If there are any mixed feelings about ending Off!, they insist it comes with real satisfaction with what the band has accomplished for its final act.
“It just feels like it’s time. Everybody has bigger and better things to do,” says Coats. “I personally just want to go back to being buddies, the way we started out. That’s always been what’s been most important to me.”
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