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Cramps


Akron, 1974-2009

The story on the Cramps is well documented elsewhere, as it should. Erick Purkhiser AKA Lux Interior grew up  as part of the NE Ohio generation that listed to the Mad Daddy on the radio, and later watched Ghoulardi on TV. Living in Stow, a suburb between Akron and Kent, you would have figured that he would have played in bands but no one we've talked with has ever confirmed anything. He moved out the California, met his wife and band mate Poison Ivy Rorschach, and they returned to Akron around 1974, where they first started to put together the ideas for the Cramps. Like other like minded NE Ohioians, the Dead Boys and the Rubber CIty Rebels, they had to move to New York City to find a receptive audience.

Many of the Cramps' songs were based on 1950s and 60s records that Lux had found junking in NE Ohio.

Along with Lux, NE Ohio is represented in Cramps history by Clevelanders Miriam Linna (later the co-founder of Norton records) and Nick Knox (formely of the electric eels) taking successive terms as drummer. Knox played drums for the band's prime period starting in 1977 and through the 1980s. Former Pagans guitartist Mike Metoff, dubbed Ike Knox, played live shows as second guitar for a couple years (1983-4).

Lux's younger brother Michael Purkhiser was in the Action - the band from Stow, not the UK mod legends. 

Lux passed away in 2009, Nick Knox passed away in 2018.