Joey Cape/Lagwagon interview

[ohnotherobot]

Hey everyone. I did a short interview with Joey Cape a couple of days ago for a preview piece for the local magazine/arts newspaper that I write for. Mr. Cape was really quite a gentleman, un-pretentious and down to earth. Ironically enough, talking to him made me nostalgic for when I first saw Lagwagon back in 1995. Anyway, if anyone is interested here is the Q & A version of the interview.

Chrix

Planet S: So talk about your new album, I Think My Older Brother Used To Listen To Lagwagon and your take on the “serious” content of the record.

Joey Cape: I think generally our music has always been serious. We tend to have humorous album covers or a funny cover song just to spring a little levity because as a band we don’t take ourselves that seriously. We don’t want to be seen as pretentious. But the truth is 99% of our music and lyrics are quite melancholic and dark. So it’s funny that on every record they talk about the serious content which makes it feel like I’ve been writing suicide songs forever. We’ve always been critiqued for our music being dark but I always wrote dark lyrics and I’m kind of confused about that.

So how did this album come about despite your solo projects?

I had finished a solo acoustic record that I had been working on for a long time and I didn’t have any new material for Lagwagon. So I ended up submitting this solo record as a demo and I thought we would only use a couple of songs but we ended up using five [the new EP is seven songs]. And my album comes out in October so it’s kind of ironic. But what can you do, Lagwagon is my band.

Is the album title a direct reference to an inside joke?

Absolutely. It’s sort of a homage to other bands who have been around for a long time. It’s actually a direct quote that we stole from over a hundred kids. When you’re on tour and you pull up to a gas station invariably some guy will come up and say ‘hey are you guys in a band,’ and then they will always say something like ‘oh yeah, my older brother used to listen to Lagwagon back in high school.’ We get that a lot. I also don’t know why I just gave the guy a redneck accent. It helps the story I guess. But that’s standard for a lot of bands that have done things the way we have.

So have you played to the same age groups you always have or have your audiences matured along with you?

We’ve always played to the same age groups – the same crowd who has grown up with us. And we still get the kids who have come to check it out because they heard we were ‘old school punk rock.’ There are people at our shows who are yelling songs from the first record album for the whole show.

Do those sorts of people ever make you feel old?

Maybe but I have so many other things that make me feel old. But rock and roll is supposed to be a young mans’ game. I was watching some band – I’m not going to say who it was – and the singer was the same age as me and he was wearing shorts onstage. And he looked so silly, like some old guy trying to look like a little skater kid. And I thought to myself, ‘I’m not wearing shorts onstage anymore.’

But that happens as you get older even though punk rock is supposedly about staying young and being anti-establishment. And playing this kind of music is a good way to stay young. I feel like a little kid as far as what’s going on in my head. It’s just that my body doesn’t always agree with that.

So is there a future for Lagwagon after this?

I can never answer something like that so definitively because with any band it’s so uncertain in the future. Someone in the band might get sick or whatever and then you break up. I don’t know if I want to go through anymore member changes – we barely survived going through that before. I think if anybody quit that would be the end of the band. I don’t make any predictions about our band. But as long as we are still passionate we have every reason to keep going on. And it’s all I know how to do. When I look at the options music is the only thing I know. I’m a lifer.

[cadetapplesauce]

sweet interview. great job!

[slymer]

Old guys don't wear shorts?

[scratchzilla]

or underpants!