PipemanRadio Interviews Blag of Dwarves About Punk in the Park 2024

0:04 Hey, you have unto censure double fore wow for you young Waume of America. It's time for the Adventures of pipe Man on W four c Y dot com. Vis pompys is number one internet radio station. Here's your host, the. Pipe Man, trailer Trash following me with the perfect gas. Yes, you moved in fast on me. When he was there, she was bumping on the pudop.

0:55 This is pipe Man here on the Adventures pipe Man W four c Y Radio. I'm totally excited about our next guest. We talked a while back and we're talking again because they just played at Punk in the Park in Orlando, which. Is what a killer festival that is. I always love that one every year, but I love that one was an Orlando because I could actually drive to that one. Unfortunately, as everybody knows my listeners, I had to miss that, which I was really bummed about missing this band set. But they are killer no pun intended. So let's welcome to a show Black from the Dwarves.

1:38 How are you, hey, how you feeling? I'm doing all right, doing all right, and so let's just start off. How we was Punk in the Park. Well, always a fun festival to do this one was out in Orlando, so it's just hotter than hell out there. Yeah, and you know you got to kind of contend with the super heat while you're playing. But you know, we had a lot of fun. I mean, I always have a good time in Florida. And then we got to do a gig with Tsol and Daytona and a couple other things around the Dirty South, so I had fun with it. We got to see Joe Queer at his place out in near Atlanta, and we recorded a couple of Queer songs, so that was nice.

2:23 Nice. You know, think about what you're saying about Florida because I live in Florida, and I always wonder how bands like you to have a lot of energy even survive through a set in Florida. Okay, it's kind of easier to do a half hour than forty five minutes. I was sort of glad we had the early set thing going because although maybe it would have cooled down a little bit later, I mean, yeah, you got to kind of figure for the for the for the terrain, you know, and yeah, some of these East Coast summer shows can really debilitate you. But you know, you know, you get energy from the crowd and the people being out there and having fun with it, and you know, you see people singing along and all that, and it just kind of carries you along.

3:15 That it reminds me of Okay, Warp Tour always the last show in August was always in West Palm Beach, which is where near where my studio is. And where I live. Always used to be like, that's insane that you're doing the gig in August in West Palm Beach when you're doing something like Warped Tour where you're touring, it should have been something like it's more in the in the beginning of the tour. You know, well, I never did Warp Tour. We never got invited to that particular set of reindeer games. You know, they kind of get out of that. And so from what I hear, it was not really designed for the comfort or pleasure of bands or crowd. Now it's basically about making the maximum amount of money for a bunch of guys with shoes or something. So I love that you brought up about it.

4:11 I love that you brought that up because I was just talking about this weekend when I was at riot Fest about that and it was like the first year it was a real punk thing, and the rest of it never was. Yeah, most likely. I mean it's you know, punk rock doesn't really replicate to me in any setting except for a little shitty club in the middle of the night. You know, that to me is punk rock like y, you know, going to a festival and paying a shitload of money and buying a big T shirt. I don't know, you know, like I have fun doing that shit now because it's just easier for me and my band and I can be seen by more people, and you know, you can move more merch and get a bigger paycheck.

4:56 I mean, it's great in a lot of ways, but it's just like, none of it has felt like rock and roll to me ever. You know, you know, to me, rock and roll happens in nightclubs in the middle of the night. It's so funny you should say that. Two things on that note is I remember in La. You know, I moved to La in nineteen eighty. I was thirteen years old, and the first club show I went to in La, I was like, I'm never going to a real concert ever again. And that started me like for years, just every Friday and Saturday night going to club shows. To me, that is the best way to do a show for sure.

5:39 Yeah, I mean not just feels right to me, But I guess it's just kind of where you're from and what you grew up doing. Yeah, but for me, you know, standing with a shitload of people and trying to have a big, mass group experience is not really my idea of music. You know. It's got to be intimate, you know, Yeah, I mean, you know, And a lot of the most fun I had with music too as a kid was a new record would come out, you'd go to your friend's house and everybody would listen to it. You know, Like it's so rare now that I ever have an experience of listening to music with anybody. You know, it's just not really done. You know, people watch TV. Music is sort of for your earbuds, or for the background, or for while you're doing the dishes, or while you're falling asleep or whatever. You know, it's for me, the way I grew up, we really loved music, and a new record was a really big deal and everybody didn't have it, and you know, you know, you'd go to their house and listen and you put it on, you'd hear it on the big speakers, and it would sort of mean something to a group of people, you know, And the kind of experiences people have now with music, I think are very private, and you know they're not.

6:57 It's not that same kind of social thing, and so I think it translates to like the big shows, the silliness, you know, it doesn't come from the same kind of intimate thing that I grew up with with music, you. Know, well, yeah, yeah, because like what I grew up with same as you. It's like, first of all, you went by an album. You didn't know what it sounded like unless you went to their live show first. But otherwise it just looked cool and it was an experience you Like you said, you'd get together with your friends, you would play the album over and over again, look at all the artwork, look at all the stuff, and like just totally get into it. Or I would go to club shows in LA and then you would go with the band afterwards to either somebody's house or to Rainbow or someplace or whatever and just party all night long.

7:51 And everybody's like, you know, there's more circle pitting after the show sometimes than during the show. I mean, that whole world of festivals and buses and shit is very back ass word to me too. It's like, oh, so you drive all night so that you can wake up in a parking lot at ten am. M. That sounds really fun, love right? You know, Oh great, your bus driver got a good night's sleep. You know, I don't give a fuck. You know that. The whole thing of that is just mindless to me. It's like, how about after the show we relax and somebody has a party and we listen to some records and we have a conversation. You know, how would that be. It's like, no, you know, everything fits into a commercial realm. You know, like this is the period when people are drinking and we feed them alcohol, and this is the period afterward when you're not commercially viable anymore. So just be sleeping on a bus that's rolling, you know, it's you're not You don't really come into contact with a scene per se, like some of the some of the early experiences I had in Rock and Roll. I would like, you know, go into Seattle for the first time and seeing how they were doing it there, and going to la and seeing how they were doing it. There and you know, uh, going to New York City and seeing how they were doing it there and then kind of hanging out and feeling what the town was like. You know, those are the kind of experiences that are very rare now, you know, because everything, it's everything's kind of been set up for

9:23 maximum profit. And also for all these bands that are very scared of any interaction with their with their fans. I mean, I see it all the time at these festivals. It's like we hide on the bus and then we hide in the backstage, and we go out and say hi to the crowd, and then we go and we hide. We're hiding on the bus. We're scared. I don't know what to do, you know, and you're just like, man, like, why why did you get into rock and roll in the first place? So you know, that night on your bus and talk to your door manager and have your cheerleaders fucking carry your roady cases around. You know, it just none of it really makes a lot of sense to me. Right, you know. And you talk about the scene and it is a scene, and like just recently I was watching I call it like a home movie to me because I experienced it. But the documentary about the OC punk scene with the Cuckoo Nests. You know, it's like you mentioned Tsoil before they were part of that and the Dead Candies, and you know, it was like it was a whole scene and that club was like iconic and the whole you know, that's really to me where American punk should have stayed, you know, and like I remember being a kid and it's like if it played on the radio, it sucks.

10:44 Yeah. Well, I mean new things come and take things place. I think hip hop music really took the place in terms of immediacy of punk rock, you know, and then it sort of blew up. It was more commercially viable in terms of the beat and the kind of background quality to it. You can just put it on without the vocal, and it was very soothing for people, and then it kind of you know, and so that I think a lot of the kind of celebrity thing of rock and roll leached away to hip hop. And you know, rock and roll was also kind of a victim of, you know, how shitty the records were that people were making.

11:26 You know, like if you sit there and make a shitty record every thirteen months, because that's your recording cycle. I mean, I just sat through a lot of really bad punk rock records where it's just like, really, this is your fucking record, Like the people don't feel hungry, and they don't feel like they really give a fuck, and the rest of the people in the band don't really feel like they're trying. A lot of times, it's like one guy that writes everything kind of has the idea. I see that a lot with punk bands, and you know, with my band, it was always more I had good guys playing with me and and people that were interesting and would write a song and something new would come up, and you go, oh, we could try this, you know.

12:07 I think with a lot of bands, they just kind of do what they always did. There's gold in the middle of the road. You do what you do, you know. Yeah, see, like I love like a few years back, I went to this tiki bar in Stuart, Florida, like somewhere nobody really goes, you know, And I went there to go see GBH at a tiki bar, and I'm like, that's the most fun, you know, And I was even I was interviewing Colin and I'm like, so, what, like, you know, being here in Florida goes, well, one night you're playing to a million people in Mesopotamia. Next night you're at a tiki bar in Stewart in Florida. Yeah.

12:48 GBH was always good. I always thought they did a good job at kind of still being a rock and roll band. Yeah. A lot of English guys don't seem to have that. They've got oi oi oi quality, and it's like where is the rock and roll here? Like is anything fun? Or is it just like oh Margaret Thatcher, you know, and you're just like motherfucker. You know. GBH always felt to me a little more like a rock and roll band. You know. There you go. I love it. So we did punk in the park. What else is coming down the pike for you guys that we want people to know about. Well, we're heading out to Australia. So wow, that's how fans out in Australia come see us. We're playing with Me First and the Gimmy Gimmes on October thirtieth through November thirteenth, I think, And you know, of course they're great.

13:39 I mean it's just such a funny, great band, such a creative idea, you know, they're basically I mean the idea is just doing kind of punk rock covers of classic pop songs, but the way they execute it is always so funny and interesting. You know. I just have a great time with that, with that band, I love it. That is gonna be a lot of fun. And in Australia. Have you guys played Australia in the past. Yeah, I mean this will probably be I think the fifth or sixth time we've gone there, but it's been a while, you know. It kind of the pandemic kind of slipped everything down. You know, a lot of places that we used to get to, a lot you just kind of aren't getting to. And you know, yeah, this will be fun to go back to Australia. It always kind of reminds me of earlier America when really a little friendlier and a little I don't know, I always liked Australia.

14:33 Oh that's cool. And what's the scene like in Australia, or at least from the last time out there. I think the Melbourne kind of always had sort of the strongest underground, you know, sort of dwarf friendly thing, but you know, we could always get good stuff going in Sydney, Adelaide, Brisbane, you know, it's I don't know, it's been a while, so we'll see how it goes. You know, I'm thinking the combo of us with with Me First is going to be a fun combination. You get a little bit of hardcore at the beginning and a little more kind of fun, frolic stuff at the end, and it's, uh, you know, I think I think it'll make for a fun show.

15:14 And I agree with you. Their concept is great because I remember back in the day, I always thought some of the coolest punk rock songs were covers where they just took a song like like you're talking about pop song or something you would never expect to be punk, and turn it into punk and I dig it. Yeah, yeah, it works, you know when you do it right. And Spike has such a great sense of humor and such a strong voice, you know, and Spike sang on some of those early kind of pop punk Dwarfs classics like Everybody's Girl and One Time Only and You Got to Burn and stuff like that. You know. It's it's so I've just known Spike for a very long time, and you know, I just think he's a great great singer, always has been there.

15:57 You go and so tell every buddy how they can reach out to you guys. Check out the tour dates, buy your merch because that's so important nowadays, and anything else. Well, we came out with a couple of records just in the last year. You know, you can go to the Dwarves dot com and of course that's got all the merch and records shirts, all that bullshit, and you can check out our video channel a lot of funny videos and stuff like that. But yeah, you know, if you just go to the Dwarves dot com. You know, last year, we made a record called the Dwarves Concept Album came out last November, and that was a very kind of sprawling, big kind of white album kind of thing with twenty songs on it and a lot of different genres hit a lot of styles, everything from garage to hardcore, pop punk to noise, you know, to to you know, retro kind of stuff. And then we had an EP or like a mini LP that came out this year called Keep It Real the Door Keep It Real, and that was cool. It kind of filled in some of the cracks from that record, and so that was sort of our whole COVID era, you know, thirty songs on two records. There was a lot of stuff, and I'm working on another Ralph Champagne record. I make solo record under the name Ralph Champagne, which is a little more you know, retro country, lounge rockability, whatever kind of

17:30 a feel to it. So I'm working on that now and working with a female vocalist, Petra Hayden, who's very talented, and we do a lot of weird you know. She's just such a great She sort of elevates what they call background singing to like a featured performance. She's just so good with like harmonies and things I find, like, you know, songs where I think you need a piano or you need some instrument to out, you just use her voice. And she's so complete, you know. So it's interesting I can kind of sing these songs and get my lyrical slant across, and then her her way of approaching harmony singing is so interesting that it really kind of elevates it, you know. So yeah, you know, these last few years have kind of been like an interesting almost kind of renaissance for me musically. I've been recording a lot and doing a lot of cool shit, you know, and then, of course the industry just collapses more and more and there's fewer and fewer places to play or to sell stuff or to do whatever. But I just keep kind of looking around and going, yeah, but this is a cool song, this is a cool right, I'm just gonna do this, you know. I sort of gotten to the point where I don't know what else to do, you know, I just yeah it.

18:47 So how do they check out your solo stuff? Uh? Well, it's a black value record. It's called Introducing Ralph Champagne. I think the new record, maybe I'll just do Ralph Champagne and have that character take over completely. You know. It's more like a low rent Hugh Hefner kind of guy, you know. But yeah, you can find it all at the Dwarves dot com, you know, I under the merch section. You just go to the LPs and and you can find it there. And I think a lot of people who like different kinds of genres and not just punk will really get a big kick out of that record. It's people hear it. It's a real one to eighty from the Dwarves and from what I usually do. So nice. Yeah, you can you can find those records you know, all the Dwarves records are back in print over the last few years. I got everything in print, and so you know, demand it at your record store or just go to the Doors dot com and buy it, buy it up, you know, but it's out there. You can get the Doors catalog and you can get my solo stuff, and there's some interesting stuff in there. You know. I think I think a lot of punk bands kind of gave up on making interesting records, and we did, you know.

20:00 And I always had great players with me, guys like Nick Oliveri and Josh Freeze and just different guys from different groups that were able to write cool songs and do cool shit. So we really kept it interesting. And you know, we got the new generation with like Snoopak. He's a young drummer guy, but he's also the singer for a thrash band from two songs called the Get a Grip, you know, and so different people coming into the group and keeping it interesting. You know. I love it. And you know it's funny what you mentioned about, you know, with making new music and the fact that you have made two albums in the past year and yet friend of mine, Joe from the Vandals, who I've interviewed several times.

20:48 He said to me once he knew I wouldn't ask this, but he had to do it in the interview because everybody else asks me. He goes, and don't ask me when the Vandals are coming out with a new album and new mus because who wants to hear a fifty some odd year old dude writ in punk rock? Yeah. I mean there's different ways of looking at it. I mean, Joe's an old friend of mine and he's you know, he's an attorney and has all these far flown interests everything from broadcasting to bullfighting, you know, so there's all kinds of reasons why he's not interested in making a record or whatever. And I get it. And they just want to go and headline a fast and make some money and come home. Yeah, you know, for me, I still get a kick out of For me, the most fun part is when you write a song where you get with your friends and you write a song and nobody's heard it yet. You know, it's like, wow, this is cool. And then the next cool part is when you actually produce it and you hear that song and it comes to fruition. I think a lot of punk bands haven't gotten that feeling in a long time, you know, so they and you know, to be fair to people, you know, some people grow up and they you know, they want their family or their job or something else takes over. They're very interested in cat rescue or bringing hilarious hence to Rwanda, you know, and God bless them. You know. For me, it's like I still get a kick out of making a great record, and I still find it to be a challenge and an interesting thing to do. And it was kind of one

22:20 thing when we were like young and relevant and people talked about it and it was like, oh, this is part of Nirvana, No, this is part of Green Day and whatever it was. You know. Now I just sort of let all of that go. I just make records. I don't know why I do it, true art. Yeah, I don't really care about the psychology or philosophy behind it. I let the music speak for itself. And I think just like when I was a kid and I discovered very obscure bands like the thirteenth four Elevators and the Chocolate Watch Band and just you know, the Phantom and you know, hazel As Begins and all these people every day somebody discovers something that I did and they go, oh my god, this is amazing. You know, how come nobody knows this? How come nobody's buying this? How come nobody?

23:14 How come I never can see this band? You know? And it's like, you know, because that's kind of the underground nature of life and of what I do. You know, it's the music scene that me and my friends came up in. You know, I do love it, and like I said, makes you a true musician and true artists in my opinion, because to me, that's the reason to be in music is to have fun, to enjoy it, to be creative all the other stuff. You might as well be a lawyer. Yeah exactly, and I'm not interested. Yeah, there you go. Well you guys rock and I can't wait to see you again. And man, it was great that you were at punkin the Park and thanks.

24:05 To Cameron for throwing us on there and and then have a blast in Australia to have a blast new pipe Man. Thank you for talking to. Me anytime, and thank you for being on the Adventures of pipe Man. You got it, but cheers, cheers, thank you for listening to the Adventures. Of pipe Man. I'm w for c u I Radio