Friday 25 August, 2000
Sonny Barger: Hell To Pay
Sonny Barger is one of the key international Hell's Angel figures. Now in his 60's, Barger has spent over 40 years as a figurehead of the Hells Angels in America. In fact, in 1957 he set up one of the first 'chapters', as individual clubs are called. His autobiography, Hell's Angel: The Life and Times of Sonny Barger and the Hell's Angels Motorcycle Club, has recently been released. Outlook's Philippa Budgen, caught up with the man who Hunter S Thompson immortalised as the 'Maximum Leader'.
Across the world the name Sonny Barger instills fear and awe amongst hard hearted Hell's Angels. He is the ultimate hell raiser, and makes no disguise of the fact that he uses violence to command respect. Barger is the modern day Butch Cassidy or Billy the Kid. He is an icon, not only amongst his own, but also for those who still believe in the 1960s image of the Easy Rider; the motorcycle rebel intent on freedom, whatever the cost.
His tough exterior bares testimony to his hard life and image. Having lost his vocal chords to, smoking induced, throat cancer 18 years ago, Barger speaks with a demoniac rasp. His arms covered in tattoos and trademark black leather jacket, complete with death head patches, have become the uniform of hell's messengers. Those who truly believe that they were born to be wild.
Background to Barger
Barger was certainly born to fight. His mother abandoned him when he was four months old, leaving him to be raised by his sister and drunken father. He was in frequent trouble as a boy, attending school on rare occassions so as to pick a fight and at the age of 16 he was finally expelled for hitting a teacher with a baseball bat.
In 1955 he forged his birth certificate and joined the army. He liked the masculinity of his surroundings and for the first time recognised the need for order. However, after 18 months his true age was revealed and he was discharged without ever seeing combat.
Army surplus motorbikes were cheap and Barger, like many others, took to the road in search of freedom. Inspired by Marlon Brando in The Wild One, Barger joined a bike club called the Oakland Panthers. Realising that they were only weekend riders, he soon formed his own group, the Oakland Hell's Angels, and made regular contact with other clubs across California and later the world. Of that time he has written:
'I needed a second family. I wanted a group less interested in a wife and 2.5 kids...and more interested in riding, drag-racing and raising hell.'
Order of the Angels
Barger ran his chapter with a military precision and under his leadership the Hell's Angels became notorious. Being part of a gang made it easier for the Angels to play to their media fuelled audience and the bikers revelled in their new outlaw status. Barger writes:
'The way we were depicted, we were like Vikings on acid, raping our way across sunny California on motorcycles forged in the furnaces of hell.'
It would seem that Hell's Angels were a law unto themselves, but amongst members strict rules applied. Touching another member's woman (or 'old lady') was, and still is, prohibited, fines are payable if you miss a meeting of the chapter, there can be no fighting amongst members and even smoking at chapter meeting is frowned upon.
Loyalty amongst members remains fierce, something which Barger clearly outlines in his book:
'[A motorcycle run] is a real show of power and solidarity when you're a Hell's Angel. It's being free and getting away from everything. Angels don't go on runs looking for trouble; we go to ride our bikes and to have a good time together.'
They may not set out with trouble in mind, but over the years trouble has certainly rode pillion with many of them. In the 1960s tales of mayhem, violence and accusations of rape filled the newspapers and the Hell's Angels became truly scary. Something that proved true at a Rolling Stones concert at Altamont Speedway in 1969.
Altamont, 1969
Barger recalls how at a meeting of the Angels, a San Francisco 'hipster' told them that there would be a Rolling Stones concert with free beer for the Angels if they provided the security. As the sun went down at Altamont the crowd were getting restless, fights broke out and the Angels beat the crowd with pool cues. A black fan, Meredith Hunter, became frightened and fired a shot into the air, he was later found stabbed to death.
Rolling Stones guitarist, Keith Richard, recalls how the Hell's Angels 'were out of it on bad acid and cheap wine and they were just looking for trouble. Somebody knocked their bikes over and the next minute this black kid got scared, pulls a gun and they did him.'
However, in his book Barger has a different recollection of the event. He claims that the Stones deliberately came on stage late so that the crowd would be crazed. When the fighting began, the Angels defended themselves and the band decided that they wouldn't play. Already angered by the disrespect shown to the Angels, Barger recalls how he persuaded Keith Richard to play on:
'I stood next to him and stuck my pistol into his side and told him to start playing his guitar or he was dead.'
Regrets
Believing that a man is formed by a stint in the army and a spell in prison, it comes as no surprise that Barger has spent 13 years behind bars. By the 1970s he was addicted to cocaine and was supporting his habit by dealing heroin. He was arrested and acquitted of a drug-related triple murder in 1972, but was later sentenced for drug dealing. In the 1980s he was again sentenced, this time for conspiring to blow up a rival gangs clubhouse.
| 'The way we were depicted, we were like Vikings on acid, raping our way across sunny California on motorcycles forged in the furnaces of hell.' | |
Following his release from prison, Barger decided to move to Phoenix. He now lives with his third wife, Noel, and his stepdaughter, Sarrah. He runs a motorcycle repair shop and admits that the proceeds from the sale of his book will pay for Sarrah to go to a private school.
To an outsider it would appear that the wild man has become tame. However there is plenty of fight left in the old Angel. Barger claims that if he had his life to live again the only things that he would change would be his smoking and drug taking. When he was diagnosed with cancer and given just two weeks to live over twenty years ago, did he really have no regrets?
'I certainly did. I was working out how I could go get a gun and go and kill everybody I didn't like before I died. It didn't happen and I didn't die, so I really lucked out... there are a lot of people in this world who need to be killed.' |
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| Barger the menace |
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Author Hunter S Thompson rode with the Angels in the mid 1960s. In his book Thompson describes Barger:
'He gave the orders and the others carried them out... there is a steely, thoughtful quality about Barger. He has a restraint that leads outsiders to feel that they can reason with him, but there is also a quiet menace, an egocentric fanaticism tempered by years at the helm of outcasts.'
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| Death's Head Litigation |
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| Like many groups the Hell's Angels have their own insignia. The trade mark Death's Head was patented in 1972 and when a Canadian writer, Yves Lavigne, used the emblem on the cover of his book a few years later, the Angels sued and bankrupt the book's publisher. |
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