Formed in 1974 and gifted with earworm melodies, good looks and a painstaking work ethic, the trio of Jack Lee (guitar, vocals), Peter Case (bass, vocals) and Paul Collins (drums, vocals) wrote, rehearsed and gigged as if their lives depended on it. Not quite punk and dismissive of the description “power pop”, they aimed to cram epic brilliance into effervescent, two-minute songs. When the music industry ignored them, the Nerves opted to make their own luck, pressing their own EP and booking a gruelling nationwide tour that saw them share stages with Devo and the Ramones.
After they split in 1978, a bittersweet coda to their brief career swiftly followed: Parallel Lines, Blondie’s smash-hit third album, opened with a cover version of their song Hanging on the Telephone. Previously a Nerves calling card, the Blondie take seemed to scrub them from history. A Juilliard student with a bohemian upbringing and an overriding love of rock’n’roll, Collins dropped out and headed for the west coast.
Within three days of arriving in San Francisco, he found an ad tacked to the wall of a record store which led him to the enigmatic Jack Lee, a transplant from Sitka, Alaska. Peter Case proved harder to woo. Baling on school at 15 and ditching Buffalo for San Francisco, he played blues and country standards on the street to pay for food.
When Collins came on board, the Nerves were transformed from idea to actuality. It was three people acting as one person, and it was a 24-hour endeavour. There was no on and off.” For all their commitment, it soon became apparent that the Nerves were going nowhere.
With no peers beyond the Flamin’ Groovies and the aloof, leather-clad Crime, the trio saw no future playing to barflies and fist-swinging off-duty servicemen. After Lee recovered from a near-fatal stabbing, the band left for LA. There they rubbed shoulders with scenesters such as Kim Fowley and Rodney Bingenheimer, and organised early shows for punk bands the Germs and the Weirdos.
Unperturbed, the band concocted a national tour in 1977 that spanned 71 days, 39 gigs and 16 cities, during which they connected with the Dead Boys and Cheap Trick, and played a series of dates with the Ramones. I remember sitting at this big wooden table with them after a show, and Dee Dee goes, ‘May I be excused? I have to go to the bathroom.’ It was like he was at the dinner table with his parents!” If the Ramones were a picture of politeness, other soon to be stars were less welcoming.
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