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by
Michelle Carr
This
interview was originally published
in the September 11, 1997 Velvet Hammer
souvenir programme.
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Velvet
Hammer:
When did you start your career in burly?
Anton LaVey:
I first started to play the calliope in the circus. The regular
player was a drinker, so they got rid of him and put me on the
calliope. I played the� William Tell Overture”
[the Lone Ranger theme], he played “Good Ol’ Summertime.”
I played with Vic Robbins’ band for the rest of the season.
In the circus you doubled in brass, as they say. If you’re
a ringer or a cage boy, you could also be a concessionaire.
I was able to understudy working the big cage. That’s where
I got my animal training as well. The carnival was the predecessor
to the burlesque world--this all tied together, the psychic,
the hypnotic.... That gave me a good foundation for playing
the girlie shows, my opportunity to play for female dancers.
I also played midway music and worked the sex shows. I actually
started playing for girl shows on the carnival back lot in 1948,
I had a year behind working for the circus, which related in
a way that would prepare you for that sort of thing, thematic
content, the exotic....
Velvet Hammer:
Were you forced into tedious piano lessons as a child?
Anton LaVey:
In those days, everyone had a piano in their living room. I
taught myself how to play by ear. No formal training of any
kind. It was something I learned because I wanted to learn,
not because I had my knuckles rapped. My mother got an old pump
organ. I wanted to play these gut busting things on it.... You
had to pump like hell, you could have had a coronary! Then the
most wonderful thing imaginable, the Hammond organ. It was like
a miracle to be able to draw this music out.
Velvet Hammer:
So you ran away with the circus--very romantic. What prompted
such a bold move? Were your parents very strict, or was it sheer
adventure?
Anton LaVey:
It was a shock to my system, but it was a great experience.
My parents were lenient. My mother believed god was another
word for nature. I took up satanism not out of desperation,
but out of logic. I rebelled, not but because of a religious
or repressive childhood. I wanted to join the French Foreign
Legion [but was too young]. I had been through this horrible
relationship with this girl. It was a classic textbook case
of dealing with a very young, immature girl. It was devastating
for me, so I took off in the spring of㤷 and joined the
circus. I essentially had to leave town. I was considered a
bad influence. There wasn’t much choice. I wanted to get
away anyway, not against parental authority, but from being
a misfit against society. I was a misfit and a maverick when
it came to clothes too. When I was 16 I was wearing zoot suits.
I wouldn’t be seen in a t-shirt. I wanted to look sharp.
You were supposed to look like a G.I. with close-cropped hair,
but my hair was too long for the time, a duck tail in the back,
curled over in the front. I could pass for 25 when I was 16.
It did help me get into the world of burlesque.
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