The Idiot Savants were a straight forward in your face wall of noise hardcore band. Listing to the Idiot Savants was once described as the equivalent of listening to a washing machine. That's pretty good considering we had just learned to play our instruments and still required an automatic tuning machine to properly tune our guitars. The average set lasted about 15 minutes.

The original band consisted of Joe Clement (Guitar), Carl Miller (vocals), Tim Kelly (Bass) and Tom Miller (drums). Tom's drum kit consisted of a bass drum, snare and a garbage can lid for a symbol. We recorded one live track with this lineup, in the basement of the Eldo house. It was released on the THIS TAPE SUCKS! Compilation that was put out by Tom Miller.

In the summer of '82, After three months of practice and a couple of live gigs, seven songs were recorded at The Island Recording Studio. The evening before the recording session, Tim Kelly broke his wrist in the pit at a show. This made recording rather difficult. I remember Tim getting pissed because I kept fucking up, and he had to keep replaying the same songs over and over while his wrist swelled up more and more. Sean Saley from Starvation Army played drums in the studio for this session. Sean's drumming added a punch to the Idiot Savant sound that never actually existed in any live show. Two of the tracks from this session were released on a compilation album, put out by Paul Z. from the Zero Boys, called THE MASTER TAPE VOL. II.

In the short time that the Idiot Savants existed we played a handful gigs in Akron at The Strand Theater and The Dale. In Cleveland, at the Lakefront and the Pop Shop. A show in South Euclid and a punk showcase night at the Mentor Civic Center.

The two most memorable gigs are the South Euclid show, and the Mentor Civic Center Show.

We opened for Negative Approach in South Euclid. The show ended with a fight with the Brush High School jocks, the idiots had charged the hall assuming that there was only a small amount of people inside. I remember the look of shock on their faces when spiky, skin and Mohawk hair cut punks charged at them from inside the hall. Later after the fight, I went to the local McDonalds for some grub and was assaulted by four more high school jocks. This time, myself and a kid who hit me with a napkin dispenser ended up in jail. He got off, and I had to go to court!

I had setup the Mentor Civic Center show, we played with the Zero Defects and the Urban Mutants. I lied to the Civic Center director and told him that all band members were from Mentor High School. Once the Mutants and Zero Defects showed up the guy new I was lying, but the place had a hundred or so kids in it and the guy didn't want to deal with cancelling the show. Once the show started it was chaos. The Cleveland and Akron punks were slamming and the high school kids were looking on, trying to figure out what this shit was all about. The show was cut short during the Urban Mutants set because some trophies had gotten broken while people were slamming. The manager of the civic center assured me that I would never get away with this crap again! Two weeks later he called me asking if I would setup a show at the Headlands Civic Center since he felt that the Mentor show was a huge success. I never did set one up.

By early '83 the Idiot Savants called it quits. Tim lost interest and later joined Starvation Army. Tom Miller didn't give shit (I don't know that he ever really considered himself a member.). Carl and I started a new band called Positive Violence?
(Joe Clement 1/22/01)