“Everybody normal hated you,” recalls Donnie Sharp.

Sharp was frontman for The Knockabouts, an early ’80s Huntsville band believed to have been first significant punk-rock group in Alabama.

“It was a lot of pressure," Sharp continues, "on you to even be a punk rocker at that time. Anytime you went out of the house or went anywhere you literally had to be ready to fight. That’s all there was to it.”

In 2019, punk has been a significant mainstream cultural influence for a long time now. From this aggressive, underground-forged music’s mark on radio rock and pop, to its edgy look’s impact on fashion, to widespread use of the word “punk” in everyday language, to the existence of a Hot Topic at your local shopping mall. In 1981 Alabama though, when Sharp was getting The Knockabouts together, punk was part outsider-art, part spite-magnet.

Even if punk music's minimalism and rough edges aren't to your liking, there's a good chance some rock music you love was influenced by it - whether that's classic Rolling Stones songs like "Shattered" and "Respectable," Guns N' Roses' classic debut album "Appetite for Destruction" or Nirvana's multi-platinum grunge.

Michael Kilpatrick saw The Knockabouts play shows at places like the UAH campus and a local VFM. Kilpatrick, then a Grissom High School student, says, “I can’t imagine more than 20 people in the whole city even knew what punk rock was, much less listened to it. Occasionally a band would come through like Cheap Trick or Billy Idol, but beyond that, when you told people you liked punk rock in 1983, it was like telling them you had three heads. Seriously.” Back then Kilpatrick was ordering records by punk bands like X, Fear and Minutemen from ads in the back of fanzines like Trouser Press. Thirty years later he got a chance to become a touring member of X.

A 1980 Lee High School grad, Sharp was listening to bands like Alice Cooper and Aerosmith before he got into punk. His earliest exposures to punk rock included seeing TV news segments on the Sex Pistols. “It was considered so vile. Shock stuff,” Sharp says. " I thought if it’s bothering them this much it’s something that I ought to like."

Sex Pistols, known for snarling songs like “God Save The Queen,” and Ramones, purveyors of high-speed rock like “Blitzkrieg Bop,” were the first punk bands whose records Sharp heard. The Dead Boys were another early turn-on for him.

"To me it was cool because it was different than anything else," Sharp says. "By the time you got into the mid '70s, you had a lot of music that was more like recital-oriented or very elitist, like the progressive-rock type stuff. But if you went back further that wasn't what rock & roll was at all. It was a lot rawer. And you could actually dance to it, and it was a lot more fun than 10-minute doped-out type songs." He also liked the fact punk bands didn't put tracks on their albums obviously meant to be "the radio song."

Sharp says he didn't have a rough childhood or high school experience. Still, he felt like an outsider. "The things I was interested in weren't things that typical people that played football and liked REO Speedwagon were into. My mind was never there. I was always way into the underground of anything."

After he graduated, he became interested in a more primitive and violent strain of punk known as hardcore, popularized by bands like Black Flag. These bands were typically more intense and less flamboyant than '70s punk musicians.

In 1981, Sharp connected with younger musicians who were still in high school. Drummer Greg Skalka “ended up being the heart” of The Knockabouts, Sharp says. Early on, Steve Tallyn was The Knockabouts’ bassist and Rusty Jackson their guitarist. Eventually the band’s lineup shifted to include bassist Randy Sanders.

The Knockabouts’ first gig took place in the basement of a Stapp Drive home in Sharp’s neighborhood. They played a couple Ramones and Pistols covers, and Sharp says he knocked out cold a guy who got in his face onstage.

Huntsville bars wanted cover bands playing mainstream rock hits and didn’t want anything to do with a punk band. So, The Knockabouts would do shows at places like Fantasia’s Disco, which hosted a “new wave night,” or at University of Alabama in Huntsville’s Springfest concert. Audiences at The Knockabout’s Huntsville shows were mainly comprised of the band’s schoolmates who lived in their neighborhood. “They had the combat boots and homemade shirts,” Sharp says. “You knew who was who.”

Sharp says at Knockabouts shows, local police would sometimes hassle the band, search cars and once even surrounded a gig. " The whole thing with the police with punk rockers or the hardcore thing in the early '80s, it was a constant thing," he says. And feeling hate from mainstream local musicians, Sharp says he "hated them right back."

In June 1983, The Knockabouts recorded a set of their material at local studio Sound Cell. The Knockabouts issued a cassette titled “On Suffering Remembered,” an eight-song fireball. Highlights include caroming, corrosive and blacktop-cracking tracks like “Aimless Youth,” “Sick Society” and “Freedom Fighter.” “I don’t think we had very many songs much over a minute long,” Sharp says.

After Sharp submitted a cassette, The Knockabouts landed signature song “Where’s My Vietnam?” on 1983 compilation album “Barricaded Suspects,” also featuring tracks from bands like Peace Corpse and Suburban Mutilation, issued by Toxic Shock, a label then based in Pomona, Calif.

Ken Sanderson grew up in Auburn a big punk fan. Sanderson later played a key role at Auburn University’s college radio station, where he was ahead of the curve on bands like Green Day and even helped host a Green Day performance at an Auburn house show. Eventually, Sanderson moved to San Francisco and became part of that city’s vibrant and influential punk scene, even booking iconic venue 924 Gilman Street. There in San Francisco, Sanderson founded the label Prank Records, which reissued “On Suffering Remembered” on seven-inch vinyl around 1996.

“I really like fast hardcore music, that’s the music for me, and The Knockabouts are a really good band of that genre,” Sanderson says. “They’re a band I feel competes with any bands of that time.”

Sanderson believes The Knockabouts were indeed Alabama's first punk band, followed by the sludgy, Stooges-type Birmingham band GNP. Kilpatrick was also aware of a Huntsville group called Dead Pigeons, Mobile band Vomit Spots and a Montgomery combo called the Ducky Boys. "A lot of people will claim a lot of things," Kilpatrick says. "People will say that they were there, on the ground floor. The only person who was there was Donnie Sharp. I know because I saw it with my own eyes."

During the ’80s, Sharp was interviewed by noted underground magazine Maximum Rocknroll. He also connected, through mail ordering records, with legendary Misfits singer Glenn Danzig. “In those days,” Sharp says, “you met people by writing. You ordered stuff from them, they write back. I wrote back and forth with Glenn because I liked The Misfits a lot and was ordering stuff from him. It was basically him boxing it up and sending it. We kind of were pen pals for a little while. This was before Glenn was such a phenomenon. The stuff people say about him about being a jerk, I never saw that at all - he was always really nice to me. I can only imagine what it’s like to be someone like that, with people wanting to get something out of them the whole time.”

The Misfits were a special band to Sharp because they combined hardcore punk with another of his loves, horror movies. Today, Sharp’s body is tattooed with images of horror icons like Michael Myers, Leatherface and Creature from the Black Lagoon. He says he’s watched the original “Dawn of The Dead” a hundred times or more. In his Knockabouts days, Sharp’s hair was relatively short and spiked on top. During this interview, taking place inside a glass-walled AL.com conference room, Sharp’s jet-black, now long hair is pulled back into a ponytail.

The Knockabouts also played Birmingham frequently, including a show at the Eclectic Theatre opening for Danzig's then-current band Samhain (at Danzig's request), and Atlanta a few times, at venues like Metroplex.

By 1986, The Knockabouts had built up a cache of about 50 or so original songs. But they'd undergone a few lineup changes. And around this time, metal musicians were appropriating hardcore punk aesthetics, which left Sharp cold. "I like metal and all, but at the time it was just these bonehead musicians who weren't getting anywhere so they're just going to play fast. That was all they thought we were doing without catching there's a whole lot going on here besides that. These were the same people that were wanting to beat me up a year or two ago. And now you're coming to shows? So, I just got out of it."

Around 1987, Sharp formed another edgy local band, Monster God.

In 2013, he and local guitarist Russ Langston co-founded The Go-Go Killers, a band whose sound can evoke Jerry Lee Lewis gone glam-punk. Kilpatrick joined on drums in 2015. Onstage now, Sharp often wears black gloves and shades. Well into his 50s, he still owns the frontman thing in a way few people do these days.

"Donnie’s vocal range has become much richer and varied with time," Kilpatrick says. "With the Knockabouts, it was more of just a scary bloodcurdling scream-type thing, but that perfectly suited the sound of that band. In The Go-Go Killers, Sharp has channeled the growl of Howlin’ Wolf, the resonant hiccup of Charlie Feathers. As far as performing, Sharp is exactly the same performer as the day I first saw him in April 1983. Totally unhinged. He just loses his total being in the moment."

Sharp wanted Go-Go Killers "to be fun and easy and not so serious." Nnburned by the hassle, pressure and hate punk rockers felt in the '80s, that's much easier to do now, he says.

Sharp feels Nirvana’s early ’90s mega-success was a game-changer for punk and the people who play and listen to it. “Suddenly, people were more accepting of these people on the peripheral of society that didn’t fit anywhere else.” That said, he wasn’t thrilled when bands like Green Day, Rancid and AFI started making big bucks in the ’90s. “You’re just s----y versions of these old bands that never made a dime. Why aren’t The Dead Kennedy’s rich? It took me a long time to get over that. Because money was never something you were shooting for. You just wanted to express yourself.”

In 2015, Sharp agreed to a one-off Knockabouts reunion at local brewery Straight to Ale. Sanderson is a big enough fan he traveled to Huntsville specifically for the gig. "They were so great at the reunion," Sanderson. "I'm so glad I flew out there. It was awesome."

The Go-Go Killer’s have issued several albums of songs with titles like “Sex Killer,” “Haunted by Ghosts & Taunted by Demons” and “Werewolves in Heels.” In March, the band issued the covers album “13,” containing a baker’s dozen tracks by the likes of Hasil Adkins, Hound Dog Taylor, The Cramps and Link Wray. “All I’m doing now is writing on my tombstone,” Sharp says. “I’m not going to be around that much longer. I’m old. I wanted to at least leave some breadcrumbs for people to discover.”

Sharp maintains a day job but prefers not to discuss it in interviews. Despite his wild stage persona and vocals, in-person offstage he's much different. Kilpatrick says, "Sharp is a very caring and kind man. He’s been married over 30 years, and he’s raised a beautiful family with his wife Cindy. Sharp also quietly does a lot of work encouraging the younger bands around us. He's the best guy to have on your side, for sure."

In 2018, respected British rock/metal magazine Kerrang published a “United States of Punk” feature highlighting their choices for the best punk band from all 50 states. The Knockabouts were selected to represent Alabama. “The band genuinely channels the rage of acts like Black Flag and Fear,” the accompanying Kerrang blurb reads, “but do so with of the sneering slacker malaise that bands like Green Day later cashed in on. Tracks like ‘Where’s My Vietnam?’ and ‘Aimless Youth’ express panic over living in the rural wasteland of a punk-hostile state.”

Kerrang also notes, “The Knockabouts were Alabama’s first entry into the punk and hardcore scene.”

Despite that kind of recognition, Sharp is humble about opening the door for hundreds if not thousands of Alabama punk bands that followed in The Knockabouts’ footsteps.

"I just did what was in my heart. I don't think I'm any big deal or important at all. If it wasn't me it would've been somebody else."

Then he adds, “It just happened to be me.”

The Go-Go Killers will perform at a 9 p.m. May 25 benefit/tribute show for the late local drummer Mike Horgan, at Lowe Mill’s Studio 150, address 2211 Seminole Drive. Admission is free but a $10 donation for Horgan’s family is appreciated. Other bands on the bill include ThunderKrotch, Casket Kids and Property. More info: gogokillers.com