Empire of None
In 1984, the D.C. punk scene was on life support. Then a record by an unknown British band arrived, altering the course of the American underground forever.
A version of this article first appeared in The Guardian, November 22, 2023
If, like me, you a) lived for music and b) came of age in the ‘80s, you might remember a certain ritual. Late at night—possibly aided by inebriants of some sort—you and your friends would gather around a turntable and take turns spinning records.
These listening parties reached their apex—for me at least—around 1989, in a group house called “The Embassy,” so named for the tenancy of my roommates Tim’s and James’ band, The Nation of Ulysses, a ferocious group of suit-wearing sharpies who played like their shoes were on fire. Which, on at least one occasion, they actually were. But that’s another story.
These sessions weren’t mere dance parties. The point was to blow each others’ minds, and there was a catch: The records had to be so obscure the others had never heard of them. In Washington, D.C., where I grew up, that wasn’t hard. The punk scene was vibrant and diverse enough that the record collections of two music-obsessed kids might have little to no crossover in terms of local bands.
Those wee-hours listening parties were how I first heard Washington’s great “lost” bands: Rites of Spring, 9353, Gray Matter. None of them was actually “lost,” of course; everyone else seemed to have seen them, known them, or—like James—been related to them. But Empire was different; they weren’t local, though they inspired such fierce loyalty they might as well have been.
I don’t remember the night James—or whoever—played me Empire’s album, Expensive Sound. But I’ll never forget the moment the needle dropped. An ominous and magisterial guitar figure blasted out of the speakers, striding like a conquistador over some windswept desert. If that desert happened to be on an alien moon.
The music was haunting, chantlike, and deceptively simple; I was hooked. But that first track—also named “Empire”—was an instrumental; when the vocals finally arrived, during the second cut, I was taken aback. Unadorned by effects and devoid of affectation, they weren’t “good”—not in the conventional sense—but they were arresting. What I heard was the voice of a guileless young person trying to find his way in the world.
The lyrics were almost painfully vulnerable, but embedded within them was a hard kernel of self-knowing, an underdog confidence that spoke to the part of me that yearned to stand up and be counted. To belong.
I’m beginning to ask myself
What I’d do
What I’d say if I were you
Stand out strong,
In a crowd
Do anything, and then live it down
All these things.
I had to know more.
The problem was that there was nearly nothing to be known. I studied the cover: an odd, die-cut jacket that looked like an anonymous 12” dance record. Reading the scant credits, I recognized a couple of names from Generation X—now that perked up my ears—plus some French-sounding guy I’d never heard of on bass. So…who were they? And why was everyone in the D.C. scene so obsessed with them?
It would take me years to find out, years in which—at least in my mind—the legend of Empire only grew, even as it faded seemingly everywhere else. But when I finally unravelled the story, it got even stranger. From a critical and commercial standpoint, Empire was a complete failure. Their lone, quixotic album was utterly derided in the music press, and so far as I could tell they never developed much of a following outside Washington, D.C.
And yet, against all odds, that record crossed the Atlantic and found fertile ground in my hometown—and seemingly only there—where it ended up inspiring some of the greatest music ever to emerge from the American underground: Fugazi, Henry Rollins, and lesser-known (but locally revered) bands such as Rain and One Last Wish.
Roundly ignored at the time, Expensive Sound is now hailed as one of the great “lost” post-punk records, a masterpiece of clarity and restraint that in moments recalls another forgotten masterpiece, Talk Talk’s Spirit of Eden.
Eventually, I’d learn how it all happened. What I didn’t realize was that in doing so, I’d be giving a gift of sorts back to its creator.
I first heard Generation X in 1985, when the drummer of my first band, the abysmally named “Red Square,” played me their scorching debut. That album drilled a hole right through my chest: The sound was pure adrenaline, as bracing and sharp as the early Who but set to a blitheringly fast backbeat. I recognized Billy Idol, of course, but it wasn’t the vocals that got my attention: It was the guitarist and the drummer. They sounded like they were strapped together with razor wire, and their musical rapport put the hairs on the back of my neck on edge. Even the slower songs—like the made-for-Broadway “Kiss Me Deadly”—crackled and hissed with electric current.
By that time, Idol was already a household name, though his cocksure bravado always left me cold. The following year, bassist Tony James’s execrable Sigue Sigue Sputnik would hit the charts with “Love Missile F1-11.” But what about the other two, guitarist Bob “Derwood” Andrews and drummer Mark Laff? In those days, tracking down obscure music meant knowing someone who knew someone, and back then I hardly knew anyone.
Now, at least, I had the internet to help. A couple of keystrokes brought me to Derwood’s Instagram and Bandcamp pages. (So much for my detective skills.) Through a mutual acquaintance, I learned that he lived in the desert outside Joshua Tree, the perfect setting for an aging gunslinger. But from the moment I finally reached him by phone, I saw he wasn’t inclined to play to expectations:
“So Derwood, how did you end up becoming Obi Wan-Kenobi?”
There was an uncomfortably long silence, and I wondered if I’d said something untoward.
“What’s that?…I’m probably one of the few people who’ve never seen a frame of Star Wars.”
When I explained who the lightsaber-wielding hermit was, Derwood chuckled. “The only thing I know about Star Wars is that just as we were coming out as a band, they came out with The Empire Strikes Back. And it was like…aw, seriously? Thanks a lot!”
While Derwood never toppled a corrupt galactic empire, his musical career doesn’t lack for drama. Over the course of the next 90 minutes or so, he traced his story for me, beginning with his being plucked from teenaged hard-rock outfit Paradox by a talent-spotting Billy Idol to his ignominious exit from Generation X, three blurry years later.
For all their promise and native charisma, Generation X was built on a rickety foundation. If Idol and James were the songwriters and strategists, Derwood and Laff—just 17 and 18, respectively—were the hired help. By 1979’s album Valley of the Dolls, the power imbalance had become untenable. According to Derwood, Idol, James, and producer Ian Hunter found Laff’s skills wanting:
“Mark was replaced on the recording of Valley of the Dolls. I thought that was just the most hurtful thing you could do to a musician. ‘Look you’re still in the band, but we don’t want you to do the record. But here’s the good news: You get to pick the drummer of your choice!’”
Laff, deeply chastened, chose Clive Bunker of Jethro Tull as his stand-in. Ironically, the band used both drummers on the LP:
“What ended up happening is that they mic’ed up both kits and they both ended up playing. Which is just ridiculous. And insulting. So that just made me think no one in the leadership role knew what the fuck they were doing.”
Upon its release, Valley of the Dolls was excoriated by the U.K. music press for its bloated, neo-glam take on punk. Simultaneously, Idol’s and James’s controlling tendencies kicked into high gear. They denied the other two any input on songwriting, and pressured Derwood not to do interviews or reveal his love of “dinosaur” bands such as Deep Purple. And so, faced with what seemed an impossible situation, he only did what made sense: He bailed.
“I don’t mean to sound dramatic, but I was really at the end of my rope. I actually went out on my motorcycle one night, drunk, hoping to have a deadly accident. My brain wasn’t fully formed; I’m not suggesting that was a good idea. As soon as someone cut me off, I was chasing them down, shouting at them. And really wanting to live!”
Now Derwood found there was something to live for. Freed from an oppressive work situation, he began tuning to a new sound, largely eschewing his formidable guitar heroics for a simpler, more elegant approach. Soon he had a partner: A month after Derwood fled Generation X, Laff followed suit.
Derwood and Laff’s musical rapport had always been fruitful, even startling; not coincidentally, their tight eighth-note chugs had been a major influence on Washington, D.C.’s nascent hardcore scene. Now, picking up on the direction they’d explored in the final stages of Generation X, the two pared back even further:
“We came up with a whole different way of working with Generation X; I’m not sure the other two liked or appreciated it. So we took the kind of one-string riffs we were doing and made it even more spacious and minimalist.
“We were gonna be an instrumental band; I would be like Hank Marvin, who I loved. But then I started to hear lyrics and vocal melodies in my head. I wasn’t inspired particularly to sing; it was the lesser of two evils, and saved me having to teach a stranger what was in my head. Plus, at that point, I had had it with singers.”
Through mutual friends, Derwood and Laff found mild-mannered bassist Simon Bernal. The newly minted trio set up and rehearsed in Bernal’s parents’ kitchen:
“Until the neighbors got up a petition to ban us. Which was fair enough.”
By August of 1980, they’d worked up enough songs to record an album and begin playing out.
That’s when everything fell apart.
At a time when New Romanticism, Synth-Pop, and the New Wave of British Heavy Metal were all ascendant, Empire’s minimalist sound couldn’t have been more out of step. And Andrews, by his own admission, made for an unlikely frontperson:
“I wanted to push myself to feel uncomfortable; I always have. [But] an audience can tell when you’re shy or uncomfortable, and it makes them feel the same.”
The following April, Empire’s lone single—Hot Seat / All These Things—was released on a tiny indie label, followed a month later by the full-length Expensive Sound. Pressed into the graphic design role, Andrews opted for an unorthodox die-cut jacket with little identifying information:
“I was just really naive, a little bit embarrassed. I didn’t even put my name down as the singer!”
Things went from bad to worse. The music press, drawing on their antipathy towards Generation X, competed to outdo each other in raw snark. “Would you like to hear a review?” Derwood asked, then disappeared into his house to fetch a clipping.
“This is by Alan Jones in Melody Maker, God bless ‘im:
‘Erstwhile Generation X pretty boys Mark Laff and Bob Andrews are the chaps behind this magnificently forgettable escapade. The song has what might be described as a limited impact, but at least Andrews gets to run through an exhaustive repertoire of guitar clichés.’”
Worse was to come. Frustrated by Simon Bernal’s lack of commitment, Andrews sacked him after a mere four gigs. Derwood recalls:
“I said to him: ‘Simon, we’re gonna have to let you go, mate.’ And he said: ‘Well okay, at least I didn’t give it 100%. If I did, I’d be really upset.’ I was like…What?!? That’s why you’re being fired!!! I’m glad you’re not upset!’ He was a very meek guy, lovely really, like a teddy bear, so you couldn’t really be angry.”
The band shambled on through a series of lineup changes—including a stint with bassist Ian Woodcock of Eater—but to little avail. Their talent and their punk pedigree notwithstanding, it appeared the sun had truly set on Empire.
That’s when something truly remarkable happened. The band, so maligned at home, managed to send a seed of sorts all the way across the Atlantic. It landed in Washington, D.C., where the punk scene was on life support.
A few years prior, the city’s fierce and uncompromising brand of hardcore punk—Minor Threat, The Faith, Void, et al—had put D.C. on the map. But with crucial bands quitting and shows becoming increasingly violent, hardcore’s aggressive stance appeared to be a dead end. As Ian MacKaye told me:
"The Faith breaking up was a huge deal. And the scene just…it kind of sucked. It was depressing, a lot of people bailing. We had these meetings about ‘what are we gonna do?’"
During this time period, Skip Groff—the owner of Yesterday and Today records and a crucial, if undersung figure in the punk scene—made regular record-buying trips to London. After he returned from one with a copy of Empire’s 7” in hand, scenesters such as Chris Bald and Michael Hampton of Embrace took note. Whether it was the band’s minimalist approach or the unguarded vulnerability of the vocals and lyrics, the record sent ripples through the tight-knit punk community. Says Hampton today:
“I remember Skip goof-singing “Dancing With Myself” over the chorus of “Hot Seat”. About a year later I was perusing the import 45’s at the Georgetown Record And Tape Ltd. and found a dog-eared copy [of the 7”] in the remainder bin for 50 cents. I played the shit out of it for everyone that sat around my bedroom listening to records, a surprisingly large group of people. It’s still a huge record for me and I do take inspiration from the sonics and the guitar playing on it to this day.”
But the needle truly dropped a year or so later, when a promo copy of Expensive Sound turned up in a short-lived suburban record shop. During his one and only visit there, Guy Picciotto struck gold:
"It looked so minimal I wasn't sure it was a legitimate release, but it had the songs from the single on it and some cool Xeroxed promo sheets inside so I took a chance. I went straight to Dischord House and we put it on. The minute we heard the first song we were just totally blown away; from there everyone was on the hunt for the album.”
It’s possible there were no better hands for the album to fall into. Picciotto’s band at the time, Rites of Spring, melded emotional catharsis to a blistering punk backdrop; today, their album is hailed by many as the ground zero of emo. By the time he joined Fugazi, two years later, Picciotto had so absorbed Expensive Sound it was difficult to even recognize its impact. Revisiting the music today, he says:
“I listened to it for a long time with Kathi [Wilcox of Bikini Kill, Picciotto’s spouse], and I was trying to hear the influence. She’s like: ‘What are you talking about? This sounds like Fugazi!’ And suddenly for the first time I was able to hear it. It really had much more direct influence than I’d thought. It was so part of my sinew, you know?"
Expensive Sound has had that effect on many musicians—among them Johnny Marr of The Smiths and John Squire of The Stone Roses—who resonate with the yearning and directness captured in its grooves. I pointed this out to Derwood, who’d heard rumors of the record’s impact over the years. But while the album is often credited as being a great “lost” guitar album, I pointed out that the lyrics and their delivery are just as crucial. When I asked what was behind them, Derwood responded:
“What inspired the material lyrically was a 20-year-old trying to make sense of the world and admit my crippling self-doubt.”
That struck a chord. Like Derwood, I’d been hamstrung by insecurity as a young person. Like him, I’d enjoyed brief moments of acclaim but felt empty and aimless afterwards. And like him, I’d wondered if I even had a place in the world.
I thought back to that one desperate night I pulled my motorcycle out from in front of The Embassy and raced down Park Road. By the time I hit the bottom of the downslope I was doing ninety miles per hour. I remember the lampposts flashing by, the feeling of wanting it all just to end. Yet some part of me clung to the slim hope that something better lay ahead. I let the bike coast to a stop and turned back for home.
I didn’t say that out loud. Instead, what I told him was:
“The record sounds to me like a very conscious decision to go inwards and make this music that’s really personal. And I need to tell you: It ended up touching a lot of people thousands of miles away and many years later.”
I wasn’t sure how this would land, but Derwood responded immediately:
“Which…if I heard you saying that, I would immediately think you were talking about someone really fucking cool I’d never heard of!”
I sensed Derwood’s not the gushy sort, but I couldn’t help but detect the faintest tinge of wonder in his voice. Expensive Sound was his moonshot, his bid to free himself by facing his deepest fears. That it was so ignored at the time only sweetens its belated triumph; forty years later, the album is still blowing eardrums and minds.
These days, Derwood may keep a low profile but he’s far from idle. Earlier this year, he released Derwood and the Rat, a collaboration with Rat Scabies of The Damned that was conceived as Empire’s follow-up album. Recalling a younger self so desperate for autonomy, he expresses both wonder and a quiet pride:
“That album was the first eleven songs I ever wrote. I felt like I’d broken out of a horrible situation which was doing me in, mentally. It was very optimistic and exciting, and I think somehow that vibe came across in the recording.”
It did. Expensive Sound—reissued no fewer than four times, including last year—is a lost album no more. Find it and hear for yourself.