Lagwagon is a band that has been
careening down the road to recognition,
making very clover and entertaining music
along the way. Everything seems to happen
to them by accident. Take the Cinderella
of how they
LAGWAGON
story
hooked up with their
record
label.
Lagwagon singer
Joey runs into
Fat Mike at the
Nightbreak in San
Francisco. "I heard
you're starting a
label. Here's our
demo." Lagwagon
was on the verge of
breaking up at the
time because they
felt they weren't get-
ting anywhere.
The next day,
Mike calls Joey
back: "Let's make a
record." Leaving a
lucrative house paint-
ing career, Joey
never looked back.
How was Lagwagon
put together?
Chris:
Me and
Shawn have been play-
ing guitar for a long
time, fifteen, sixteen
years. Shawn played in
a band called Lethal
Dose, Joey was also
in that band.
Joey: We were a
metal crossover band
like DRI and Excel;
Lagwagon basically
evolved from a band
called Section 8.
which was the same
kind of trip.
Chris: We were
way into long hair,
ponytails and blazing
guitar solos.
Joey: I played
drums in a punk band
when I was fifteen. I
was terrible. I was also
in a speed metal
band, I'm sorry to say.
Chris: He played the lead guitar. He
was the sold master
Joey: Anyway, the way Lagwagon got put
together. I was living with our old guitar player,
who was in Section B at the time. They were.
having trouble with their singer. This girl broke
up with me, ruined my life, then my band at
the time broke up, and I was just like, "Hey,
man, kick out your singer, I'll be in the band."
So, I sort of snaked my way in. I was recording
their demo. I brought my four-track over. They
weren't happy about how the singer sounded,
so I stole his band. He was going out with the
girl that broke up with me, so I felt it was justi
fied. He had it coming. He took my girl and I
took his band. All's fair in love and bands.
Is he still with her?
Joey: No, she dumped him, too.
Your music seems to be evolving towards
simpler, more cohesive songs.
Joey: We got stuck with a "progressive"
tag, and I kind of bum on it, to tell you the
truth. The new album is more straightforward,
and hopefully our music will get more so. It
takes away from the strength of the song if
you have too many parts going on. What I'm
more into now is trying to put more in each
part, rather than having twenty different
parts in a song.
Talk about your involvement with skating.
Chris: It's just me now that skates. I really
don't like street, just ramps. That way I can
fall and pretty much just hurt my knees. When
I was nineteen, I was living in a house with my
girlfriend and some other friends, and we all
got together and started stealing wood from
construction sites and saving up money to
build a ramp in our backyard. It was a 4 ft high,
16 ft wide mini-ramp. It had 2 inch metal cop-
ing and Masonite on it. It was a nice ramp.
Before that, when I was living at home with my
parents, the only thing I could do was go down
to the ditch, this drainage pipe with really bad
transitions. When I was real young, there was a
skatepark near where we lived called Sparks.
Do you skate on tour?
Chris: On our first tour, we got to skate
Burnside. A few months ago, we drove all the
way from San Diego to Arkansas to play this
show at a barn. We drove two-and-a-half days
to
play in a barn, but it was cool because they
had a ramp. But, for the most part, we try to
avoid skating on tour. We were in Europe.
and Shawn dislocated his arm snowboarding.
Our old drummer also broke his wrist skating
on tour once. So, we made a rule: no board
sports on tour.
Joey: It's a stupid rule; it's not like any-
body can live by it. But, if we're on tour, and
someone gets injured and they can't play,
everyone gets hurt.
Do you like touring?
Joey: It's one of those love/hate things.
Sometimes when you're out, you just want to
be at home. You don't really want to be on
tour anymore. But, as soon as you get home,
maybe for like three hours there's a sense of
relief, but then, all of a sudden, it's like, "Wait
a minute, do we have a show tomorrow? Don't
we have someplace we're supposed to be?"
Kind of like when someone gets out of
prison, they can't function in the real world.
Joey: Yeah, exactly. That's a good analogy.
This is the first time you've played New
York City, right?
Joey: It's the first real show we've had
here. We were scheduled to play here twice
before. The first date was cancelled. The last
time might as well have been cancelled. We
showed up to the club, and they were having
a gay rave night. We were with Youth
Brigade, and we walked up to the door, and
they said, "There are no bands scheduled to
play here tonight." We were really nice about
it and said, "Aw, c'mon, we drove so far." For
some reason, they went for it and let us play.
There were like ten people there. No one)
knew we were playing.
Things were quite different this time,
though, for Lagwagon. The club was packed,
and the Lags tore it up. They actually did
encores, which you never see in New York.
The last song they cheerfully played was
"Stokin' The Neighbors." With that,
Lagwagon drove off into the sunset, leaving
behind big, fat tread marks.
-Morgan Walker
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