In the late ‘70s the Rubber City Rebels were a jagged young punk band, living amidst the Ohio punk scene spread-out over Cleveland and Akron. It was the scene that birthed Devo, the Dead Boys, the Pagans and Pere Ubu. But the Rebels never quite made it to the iconic level of these other acts, thus for decades their legacy remained something of a punk rock secret.

With the original line-up of Rod Firestone (vocals), Buzz Clic (guitar), Donny Damage (bass), Stix Pelton (drums) and Pete Sake (keyboards) still in-place, the group made its first notable performance in ’77 opening for the Dead Boys at CBGBs.

A year later the Rebels relocated to LA and picked up a new drummer named of Mike Hammer.

After bumpy relationships with Sire and Capitol Records, and a few personnel changes, in 1988 the group dissipated.

Years later, the Rebels reformed for a few one-off shows and some reissues that turned into a full-blown resurgence. The group’s song “Pierce My Brain” appeared on the videogame soundtrack to Tony Hawk’s Underground, and XM radio holds a particular reverence for the Rebels’ songs.

These days Hammer lives in Atlanta, East Point to be exact. On Thursday, he took a break from siphoning water out of his basement after a particularly rainy day to talk about the Rubber City Rebels and their show at The Star Bar this weekend as part of the second annual Fringe Binge.

Chad Radford: You guys are spread out all over the country, does that make it hard to play shows?

Mike Hammer: Whenever we get the chance to play we just sort of meet in an airport somewhere and go. That’s how it’s been since we got back together back in ’99 or 2000. Big chunks of time went by because we were spread so far apart, but we did the reunion show in Akron for the hell of it, and then a show in Cleveland. Then we played out in California and then recorded a few songs. Then a bunch more time went by Rod got a hold of me from his home in North Carolina and said ‘there’s this guy out in Reno, NV who has this thing for Ohio bands and he says he’ll pay for us to record and album!’ So I said count me in. I hadn’t heard what they were writing and I went and did the drum parts and then months later I got my copy of the songs, which I hadn’t heard, and thought ‘hey, this is alright…. That “Pierce My Brain” song is pretty catchy…’

You’re from Akron originally and started playing with the Rubber City Rebels around '77, correct?

Yep. I was only 18 and I didn’t really know about having an original band. The only bands I was aware of were cover bands, or these big arena rock bands. I was into a lot of different stuff, rock and roll and big band stuff. But I just didn’t know how you went about having an original band, and these guys were all into it. They were friends with Devo and the Dead Boys and were writing their own songs and we played CBGBs and it was cool. Once that whole concept sunk in I thought I am never going to play in a cover band, this is how you do it!

There was a lot of really great punk stuff happening in Ohio in the ‘70s…

It’s weird because there were very select few people who were into the new music scene. 20,000 people will say that they saw Michael Jordon’s last jump shot, or whatever. But there were so few people who were into it, and then later, when it becomes a legend, everybody claims they were way into the whole thing. There was some creative stuff going on because no one was really influenced by anything. It was the dawn of being able to put out your own records. People figured out that they could do it and that’s what spawned the Akron music scene.

What was Akron like back then?

In Akron’s heyday it was the Rubber City. All of the major corporations’ headquarters and manufacturing facilities were there. There were all of the polymer geniuses who ended up there and it’s where the rubber industry in this country grew, probably because it was a short rail trip to Detroit. It was a very industrial town, and a lot of those industries have really dwindled.

I think of these regional punk rock scenes as being reactionary to what’s going on there at the time. And I think of Devo and Pere Ubu as being particularly sci-fi or post-apocalyptic kinds of bands. And I have read that Cleveland was a pretty dirty place back then. Lot’s of pollution.. I even remember reading in the Pagans’ vocalist Mike Hudson’s biography that the river that runs through the city was actually on fire?

Yes it burned. There were so many toxins from all of the steel industry along the river dumped into the water that fed into Lake Erie; there was a boating accident once where a boat caught on fire and the fire spread to the surface of the water. It was so polluted with flammable chemicals that the water actually burned.

Were you conscious of what was going with the city and the environment around you when you started playing music and do you think that was an influence on what you wrote?

It was normal life. That was what I saw everyday. In the ‘70s when a lot of the industries started closing and moving to other countries, and when winters can last for 7 or 8 months… Yeah, there is a bleakness to it and I’m sure that has an effect on people to a degree. I also think that one of the reasons why there are so many musicians from Ohio is because it’s cold all the time. You have to find something entertaining to do inside.

I also think that the stars were aligned and a lot of great musicians with connections to New York were there at the time as well, and they used that environment to create something really special that couldn’t have happened anywhere else.

There was a really cool club in Akron called The Bank. It used to be an actual bank. It was a giant old club. The guy who owned the place didn’t know what to do with it. He was trying jazz and everything else. At the time I was playing in a band, called Hammer Damage and we went down there to do a gig. We had been playing in Kent a lot at the time, and so it was a Thursday night and we had about 100 people show up and the club owner came up to us at the end of the night and said ‘your friends drank all of my beer… I have never run out of beer at a show before… You’re definitely playing here again.’ A few weeks later it happened again. I think what happened was that all eyes were on Ohio. Devo was big time and gone, Pere Ubu was big time and gone... Chrissie Hynde... A lot of people started meeting each other and then all of the sudden there were 8 more great bands in Akron and The Bank was filling up every night and the guy who booked the club just said, I’m not booking anything else but new wave. I am the new wave club owner of Akron and it was a golden era.

The Rubber City Rebels play the Fringe Binge at The Star Bar this Saturday night. $10. 10 p.m.

(Photo courtesy of the Rubber City Rebels)