History Music / TheGerms

[[caption-width-right:300: The lineup as of 2018 from left to right: [[TheSmurfettePrinciple Lorna]] [[PunnyName Doom]], [[AllDrummersAreAnimals Don Bolles]], [[ReplacementScrappy Shane West]] and [[BreakupBreakout Pat Smear]].]]

* AscendedFanboy: Drummer Don Bolles famously drove from Arizona to audition for the band; fortunately for him, he was better than the others who auditioned before him and was hired.

The Germs are a band from UsefulNotes/LosAngeles, California that formed in 1977 after Jan Paul Beahm and Georg Ruthenberg (later dubbed Darby Crash and Pat Smear, respectively) made the decision to form a band after being kicked out of school as "Sophistifuck and the Revlon Spam Queens". They shortened this to The Germs (to represent the germination of an idea) when they realized they couldn't afford to put all of that on a t-shirt. Upon finding a stable lineup of Darby Crash, Pat Smear, Lorna Doom, and Don Bolles, the band started performing semi-regularly in the LA area, and the band's fanbase started to rise, with food fights between band and audience becoming common; as a result, the band was frequently blacklisted from LA clubs, a problem they alleviated by playing as GI (Germs Incognito).

* BiTheWay: Darby was apparently either bisexual and experimented with women but leaned towards men more, or just plain gay, depending on who you ask.

[[caption-width-right:300: The current lineup from left to right: [[TheSmurfettePrinciple Lorna]] [[PunnyName Doom]], [[AllDrummersAreAnimals Don Bolles]], [[ReplacementScrappy Shane West]] and [[BreakupBreakout Pat Smear]].]]

* AerithAndBob: The current lineup. Pat Smear, Lorna Doom, Don Bolles, and...Shane West.

** "Sex Boy" (the B side to the Forming single) is even worse. It's a live recording from an early performance by the band where Darby allegedly covered his body in Red Vines and peanut butter and started running around in the audience, and the noise the audience is making is more audible than the actual performance. A YouTube comment (slightly paraphrased) puts it best:

* AuthorExistenceFailure: Darby Crash died in December 1980 (notably, the day before John Lennon was murdered), and Lorna Doom died in early 2019.

The band released one album - 1979's ''(GI)'', produced by Music/JoanJett - before vocalist Darby Crash died of an intentional heroin overdose on December 7th, 1980, whose death was overshadowed by the murder of Music/JohnLennon a day later. In 2005, the band reunited with Shane West on vocals to mixed reception among the punk community (the most vocal of those who disliked the reunion include [[Music/{{NOFX}} Fat Mike]] and Music/JelloBiafra), and a film featuring Shane as Darby Crash titled ''Film/WhatWeDoIsSecret'' came out in 2008.

* BadassBoast: "Richie Dagger's Crime" is a combination of this, a few lines from a poem called ''Astrid'' Darby had written before the Germs began, and a tribute of sorts to DavidBowie (more specifically, his tendency to switch alter-egos).

* DrivenToSuicide: Darby, via heroin overdose. Fans have multiple theories why he killed himself; according to "Wild-Eyed Boy: The Darby Crash Story", Darby's sexuality played a factor in his suicide (especially with bands with homophobic banter and lyrics like Music/{{Fear}} and the macho jock mentality permeating the scene); ''What We Do is Secret'' mentioned a five year plan for RuleOfDrama and as a DavidBowie shout-out, and there's always the camp that claims he never meant to overdose.

The band released one album - 1979's ''(GI)'', produced by Music/JoanJett - before vocalist Darby Crash died of an intentional heroin overdose on December 7th, 1980, whose death was overshadowed by the murder of Music/JohnLennon a day later. In 2005, the band reunited with Shane West on vocals to mixed reception among the punk community (the most vocal of those who disliked the reunion include [[Music/{{NOFX}} Fat Mike]] and [[Music/DeadKennedys Jello Biafra]]), and a film featuring Shane as Darby Crash titled ''Film/WhatWeDoIsSecret'' came out in 2008.

** Briefly averted by the introduction to "No God", where Pat Smear manages a near-flawless replication of a few seconds of the introduction to "Roundabout" by {{Music/Yes}} (which comes off as surprising, unless you didn't know that "Roundabout" was the first song he'd learned how to play on guitar)...and then the proper song starts; it's much more in line with their usual sloppy ThreeChordsAndTheTruth style.

[[caption-width-right:300: The current lineup from left to right: [[TheSmurfettePrinciple Lorna]] [[PunnyName Doom]], [[AllDrummersAreAnimals Don Bolles]], Shane West and [[BreakupBreakout Pat Smear]].]]

* PunnyName: Lorna Doom and Pat Smear.

The band released one album - 1979's ''(GI)'', produced by Music/JoanJett - before vocalist Darby Crash died of an intentional heroin overdose on December 7th, 1980, who's death was overshadowed by the murder of Music/JohnLennon a day later. In 2005, the band reunited with Shane West on vocals to mixed reception among the punk community, and a film featuring Shane as Darby Crash titled ''Film/WhatWeDoIsSecret'' came out in 2008.

* CatchPhrase: Darby would frequently utter "gimme" as opposed to asking for something. "Gimme a dollar", "Gimme a beer", and "Gimme a ride to the Whiskey", among other variations of that phrase were frequently heard by those in Darby's circle.

* DeadpanSnarker: Darby was this before the end of his life.

** Briefly averted by the introduction to "No God", where Pat Smear surprisingly manages a near-flawless replication of a few seconds of the introduction to "Roundabout" by {{Music/Yes}}... Then the proper song starts and it's much more in line with their usual sloppy ThreeChordsAndTheTruth style.
* DrivenToSuicide: Darby, via heroin overdose. Fans have multiple theories why he killed himself; according to "Wild-Eyed Boy: The Darby Crash Story", Darby's sexuality played a factor in his suicide (especially with bands like Music/{{Fear}} and their macho attitudes permeating the scene); ''What We Do is Secret'' mentioned a five year plan for RuleOfDrama and as a DavidBowie shout-out, and there's always the camp that claims he never meant to overdose.

* WordSaladLyrics: Darby's lyrics would qualify as this.

The band released one album - 1979's ''(GI)'', produced by Music/JoanJett - before vocalist Darby Crash died of an intentional heroin overdose on December 7th, 1980, who's death was overshadowed by the murder of Music/JohnLennon a day later. In 2005, the band reunited with Shane West on vocals to mixed reception among the punk community, and a film featuring Shane as Darby Crash titled ''What We Do is Secret'' came out in 2008.

* SpokenWordInMusic / MusicalColdOpen: "Circle One" begins with someone saying "Ready, aim, fire" before the song begins.

* BrilliantButLazy: Darby and Pat were frequently given these attributes in their days at school. According to the teachers, Darby had started something resembling a cult among the students, and in an attempt to keep them off campus and reverse the "antisocial behavior", they were given straight-A's if they agreed never to return. They did anyway.

* DrivenToSuicide: Darby, via heroin overdose. Fans have multiple theories why he killed himself; according to "Wild-Eyed Boy: The Darby Crash Story", Darby's homosexuality played a factor in his suicide; ''What We Do is Secret'' mentioned a five year plan for RuleOfDrama, and there's always the camp that claims he never meant to overdose.

* InitiationCeremony: Darby would give "true fans" of his band a "Germs Burn". Basically, he burned you with a cigarette on the left wrist, creating a permanent circular scar to represent the band and the ideas behind the band. Despite Darby being dead for over thirty years now, the tradition still exists. You'd just have to find someone that already has a burn that can be traced directly back to Darby in order to get a "proper" burn.

** Surprisingly, at the start of "No God", Pat Smear manages a near-flawless replication of part of the introduction to "Roundabout" by {{Music/Yes}}... Then the proper song starts and it's much more in line with their usual sloppy ThreeChordsAndTheTruth style.

[[caption-width-right:300: The current lineup from left to right: [[TheSmurfettePrinciple Lorna]] [[PunnyName Doom]], [[AllDrummersAreAnimals Don Bolles]], [[ReplacementScrappy Shane West]] and [[BreakupBreakout Pat Smear]].]]

The band released one album - 1979's "(GI)", produced by Music/JoanJett - before vocalist Darby Crash died of an intentional heroin overdose on December 7th, 1980, who's death was overshadowed by the murder of Music/JohnLennon a day later. In 2005, the band reunited with Shane West on vocals to mixed reception among the punk community, and a film featuring Shane as Darby Crash titled ''What We Do is Secret'' came out in 2008.

* BreakupBreakout: This trope applied ''twice'' to guitarist Pat Smear. About a decade after The Germs broke up, {{Nirvana}}'s Kurt Cobain called him up and asked him if he'd like to work with them; he performed with them until Cobain's own suicide in 1994. After that, he went on to play guitar with drummer Dave Grohl in the Foo Fighters, who he continues to perform with to this day.
* [[BrilliantButLazy Brilliant And Completely Apathetic]]: Darby and Pat were frequently given these attributes in their days at school. According to the teachers, Darby had started something resembling a cult among the students, and in an attempt to keep them off campus and reverse the "antisocial behavior", they were given straight-A's if they agreed never to return.
** They did anyway.

* InitiationCeremony: Sort of. Darby would give "true fans" of his band a "Germs Burn". Basically, he burned you with a cigarette on the left wrist, creating a permanent circular scar to represent the band and the ideas behind the band.
** Despite Darby being dead for over thirty years now, the tradition still exists. You'd just have to find someone that already has a burn that can be traced directly back to Darby in order to get a "proper" burn.
* LampshadeHanging: The original single version of Forming ends with Darby ad-libbing a [[SelfDeprecation critique]] of the song itself:
-->You're playing it all wrong. The drums are too slow, the bass is too fast, the chords are wrong, we're makin' the ending too long...[[ScrewThisImOuttaHere I quit]].

* RefugeInAudacity: Darby would fall into this trope every now and then. ''What We Do is Secret'' exaggerates the trope.
* ReplacementScrappy: Shane West is often viewed as this.

* ShortLivedBigImpact: For a band that only existed for three years and never left Los Angeles on tour, they've still got a pretty decent fanbase.
** The reunion, movie, and their performance in ''The Decline of Western Civilization'' helped.

* TitleOnlyChorus: We Must Bleed.

* ThreeChordsAndTheTruth: This came naturally, since The Germs were a punk band. Their recordings usually were rather muddy in quality; Forming was infamously recorded with only two microphones (Darby's and one in the back shared by the rest of the band).

The Germs are a band from Los Angeles, California that formed in 1977 after Jan Paul Beahm and Georg Ruthenberg (later dubbed Darby Crash and Pat Smear, respectively) made the decision to form a band after being kicked out of school as "Sophistifuck and the Revlon Spam Queens". They shortened this to The Germs (to represent the germination of an idea) when they realized they couldn't afford to put all of that on a t-shirt. Upon finding a stable lineup of Darby Crash, Pat Smear, Lorna Doom, and Don Bolles, the band started performing semi-regularly in the LA area, and the band's fanbase started to rise, with food fights between band and audience becoming common; as a result, the band was frequently blacklisted from LA clubs, a problem they alleviated by playing as GI (Germs Incognito).

The band released one album - 1979's "(GI)", produced by Joan Jett - before vocalist Darby Crash died of an intentional heroin overdose on December 7th, 1980, who's death was overshadowed by the murder of JohnLennon a day later. In 2005, the band reunited with Shane West on vocals to mixed reception among the punk community, and a film featuring Shane as Darby Crash titled ''What We Do is Secret'' came out in 2008.

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* TheUnintelligible: Darby, most notably in the ending to We Must Bleed and the entirety of Manimal in studio, but towards the end of Darby's life, Darby would go onstage - for lack of a better term - ''fucked up''. Case in point, The Germs' part in ''The Decline of Western Civilization'', where Darby's warbling groans don't even come close to matching the lyrics onscreen.

* RevolvingDoorLineup: The early days of the band suffered from this trope, with some lineups never even playing in front of an audience before someone quit.

* WordSaladLyrics: Darby's lyrics would qualify as this.