John Varvatos on Reclaiming CBGB’s

I caught up with John Varvatos at a trailer in the back of his store during Fashion Week. Spin magazine was looking for the world’s best unsigned band. Rock celebrities like Perry Farrell and Mick Rock were hanging around. I wrote about the event back then, but I wanted to talk to John find out about him and run this after the hype had receded. John took over the old CBGB's space and made it his Bowery store. This transition has been seen by many as an end of an era. There was much talk of sacrilege and disrespect. John Varvatos has answered those questions by paying homage to the legend. CBGB's was really gone by the time he got it. For many years, it was one of those chickens that keeps running even after its head had been cut off. The punk era that grew out of the place and all the bands that ever played there are honored by his actions. He has saved some of the relics, the graffiti, and the vibe of the legendary club, and now hosts events that rekindle that nostalgia into a new heat. The essence of CBGB's, its DNA, has been cloned, and it's a new creature now -- part venue, part museum, part store, and all rock 'n roll.

Tell me about this event and why you’re hosting it.
It’s something that we came up with a while ago, and we call it “Free the Noise.” And you know when I was growing up, there used to be something called “battle of the bands.” Now the record companies really only want commercial pop bands, or rap, or whatever it is. They’re not looking for true rock ‘n roll bands right now, unless they’re independent labels. And it’s tough for young bands to get out in front of people. It’s tough for them to get on the road; they don’t have the backing. So, since we opened this space, we’ve taken all the profits from this store, and we put them into supporting young music. 100% of the profits go to supporting young music. So we do shows here, the first Thursday of every month ... we do something called “Thursday Night Live.” Free show, guaranteed. We’ll be out the front door, packed to the walls, with free drinks and everything included. And we’re promoting up-and-coming bands. And then we do other shows. We had the New York Dolls play here.

I was talking to one of the guys from Spin magazine, and he was telling me he’s been to all of our shows and loves the space, and I was telling him about the “battle of the bands” concept. He said, “We’re launching this site called SPIN Earth ... it’s a site that young bands, or any band, can upload a video, either a produced video or a live video of their performance ... kind of like the Youtube for music. We should do something together with it.” So we got together and we came up with a concept, and we came up with a name: “Free the Noise.” I called a friend of mine over at Island Records, Mark Didia, in Island Deaf Jam. He was in the meeting for like two minutes. He said, “We’re in. We’re totally in.” We put together this global search for the next great rock ‘n roll band, and we got entries from 32 countries. Hundreds of people, all over the world, are entering this thing. The winner gets a recording deal with Island Deaf Jam, and they get to be in our next ad campaign for our other brand that we do, John Varvatos Star U.S.A. We went through these hundreds of people, we edited it down to about 30, we gave it to all the judges, everybody got it down to ten, and then we had a final run-through of everything. And we actually got it down to four bands, and one of the bands couldn’t make it here because they couldn’t get a visa—they’re out of Lebanon. So we have a band out of Santiago, Chile—they’re called The Hollers. We have a band out of Calgary, Canada. And we have a band from New York City.