Patrick Hans “Pat” Albert, an important figure in establishing the Nashville rock scene that flourished in the 1980s, died Sunday, Dec. 3, after a short battle with cancer. The longtime local musician and master motorcycle mechanic had moved to Auburn, Ky. Visitation is today, Dec. 5, from 5-7 p.m. at the Williamson Memorial Funeral Home in Franklin, and from noon-1 p.m. before services on Wednesday, Dec. 6. Williamson Memorial’s website has additional details, including directions for making a donation in lieu of flowers.
Decades before Nashville became known nationally and internationally for top-grade rock and punk bands, Albert co-founded the hardcore outfit Committee for Public Safety. As he described it to Tracy Moore in her exhaustive 2006 cover story on our city's Reagan-era rock, Music City was not exactly hospitable to its nascent punk scene. “Back then,” he said, “if you saw a guy walking down the street with a mohawk or a leather jacket, you’d pick him up before some Lynyrd Skynyrd fan hit him with a beer bottle.”
All the same, the up-and-coming rockers were passionate about their work. “We’re just telling the truth, and people just don’t want to hear it ’cause they’re scared,” Albert told the rock scene newsletter Nashville Intelligence Report before CPS’ debut gig in 1982. “The people here, their musical taste is what they’ve learned from their older brothers.” As reported in a 1984 guide to the music scene published by the Vanderbilt student mag Versus, CPS broke up in 1983, but their presence played a big role in convincing iconic bands like Black Flag and Minor Threat to add Nashville to their itineraries. Nashville80sRock.net's music archive includes a couple of CPS recordings, including a live bootleg from a 1983 benefit show titled 41 Minutes of Fury.
Another of Albert’s many contributions to the scene was playing second guitar in Dead Boys guitarist Cheetah Chrome’s band when the high-profile punk moved to Nashville in the 1990s. “I’ve got the best band in town,” Chrome told William Tyler in a 2001 interview. “I’ve got a guitar player on bass and a guitar player on drums. The only bass player in the band plays guitar!”
Another of Albert’s longtime friends and bandmates is Scene staffer Matt Bach, who kindly offered this remembrance.
Pat Albert was a living legend in my world when I first met him in the late ’90s. He had played in the band Committee for Public Safety which I'd heard about from so many people. They played with many of the famous hardcore bands of the day, and I was already in awe of the guy before we even met.Pat played in a band we had in the mid-’90s called Trauma Team, with Laurel Parton on vocals and guitar and John Hudson on guitar. He was such a great bass player, and did it with ease. Not many folks can do that. It didn't hurt that he took double-bass lessons from Edgar Meyer at the Blair School of Music.
It was during this time that Pat regaled me with stories about partying with Henry Rollins (then of Black Flag) in a room I'd eventually live in at one of the storied Compton Houses. Or when he almost picked a fight with a pre-muscled Rollins. Did Pat have a problem with Henry? Hard to say! Or when he played keyboards with Wayne Kramer of the MC5 here in Nashville for a brief time. There were so many stories — you really wish you'd been a fly on the wall to see it all. One of my favorite stories happened after I'd met him, when he and I tried to pull a motorcycle into a third-story apartment using a heavy chain. Not sure how we did it, but we did! As many people know, Pat was a master motorcycle mechanic, and this was a job he was doing for a friend. I'll never forget the smell of our apartment after that, with an entire motorcycle broken down and covering every square inch of the space. That was just crazy. But Pat had a little of that in him, too.
Another of those stories included our mutual friend and idol Cheetah Chrome. I'm truly not sure how it happened, but one minute we're at my house, and the next minute we're downtown hanging with Cheetah, Sylvain Sylvain and Johnny Ramone. Just incredible, and it was all because of Pat's wit, personality and mega-talent. Pat was responsible for my getting to really experience the music I loved as a youngster and meeting the folks who played it. We eventually joined Cheetah's band for a couple of years, which was a blast! I played drums, Pat played guitar and Andy Zachary played bass.
All the anecdotes and history show a common thread that ran throughout Pat's life: That of being a nice, charming person and having a beautiful intellect. He could make friends with anyone, and he also commanded their respect. Pat loved to discuss revolutions — French, Spanish, American, etc. I was lucky to end up with all of his books about those topics and more. I would say his books generally focused on the down-trodden and underdogs of society. Pat related to these folks, and perhaps saw himself that way. I think I learned more about culture and its shifting dynamics than I could ever hope to read in a book. Pat was a true genius in ways that had nothing to do with music. This made him all the more special to me.
Pat was good friends with two of my other bandmates who passed away recently, Dave Cloud and Paul Booker. As weird as it sounds, I see them as the triumvirate of true rock ’n’ roll. These guys paved the way for "outsider" bands in Nashville, and, sadly, many of the younger bands today have no clue. Nashville wasn't a hospitable place to anyone who did something different. But these three, along with many others, persevered and made their mark. I have the utmost respect for them.
At the risk of using the oft-used cliché about the band in the sky, I must say that Pat has two friends waiting for him to start that band. Perhaps they can get Keith Moon to play drums. The Who was Pat's lifeline for many years. Perhaps my fondest memory of all was falling asleep to the The Who Live at the Isle of Wight for seven days in a row. Pat and I had come to an agreement that this was one of the greatest rock records ever made. I had to wear earplugs to actually get sleep, but it made so so happy to have this bond with Pat and to see him dancing around the room to "Heaven and Hell" as I drifted off to sleep. I love you so much Pat — there will never be another person like you in this world. You changed and challenged the hearts and minds of so many people, and you will be remembered rightfully for this. Rest in peace, my rock ’n’ roll brother.
