Back On The Wagon

Since forming in 1990 in Santa Barbara, Lagwagon have had a long and distinguished career. They were the first band signed to NOFX singer “Fat” Mike Burkett's then-fledgling Fat Wreck Chords label, releasing their first full-length, Duh, in 1992 and following it up with Trashed in 1994, which cemented their reputation as one of the burgeoning punk-pop revival's brightest lights.

The band released a further five albums between 1995 and 2005, as well as 2008 EP, I Think My Older Brother Used To Listen To Lagwagon, their most-recent release. Over the past few years, Cape has undertaken the arduous task of going through the vaults to compile expanded reissues of Lagwagon's first five albums, and when asked why he chose to re-release the back catalogue instead of putting together a 'best of', Cape is quick to answer.

“The reason we did it is because I, personally – and I can also speak for the band here – I'm not a fan of the anthologies or the 'greatest hits'-type records. They do the job of burying the deep cuts from the early records and in the digital world they create a one-stop place for someone who's discovering the band to go and just check out only the songs deemed worthy of being on that record, and in doing that they sort of bury the history of the band, and every record has a time stamp, you know? It represents an era and a period of that band's existence and evolution. If I love a band I cherish all the records, I like to celebrate the different periods of the band. It depends on the mood I'm in and what band it is, whether it be The Ramones or David Bowie.

“This was a really nice way to celebrate the early period of the band when we were really prolific and we had a lot of extra material and also maintaining the integrity of those earlier releases and dealing with the releases that have the most to benefit from such a process. If you were to take an MP3 player and it's shuffling songs, like when an old punk song comes on you can hardly hear it compared to modern records. So we were able to bring them up to a competitive, more realistic volume in today's world, but we were also able to master specifically for vinyl and specifically for CD in the case of some of those early records where they were only mastered for one.” 

Cape admits to have had moments of self-doubt when compiling the re-releases, and he credits Fat Wreck Chords label manager and close friend Chad Williams with giving him the confidence to include some of the more rough-hewn material.

“I felt like he was kind of the fact-checker and also the cool-checker. When I would say, 'I don't know my man, I don't know if we can put this outtake out' or whatever, he was like, 'C'mon man, it represents you, you've just got to go for it, you've got to get it all out there. It's where you were and what you were doing.' He made me gutsy enough to realise the better way to go was quantity, so people could hear everything we've done. We didn't put everything on there; there were a few things that were just bad,” he laughs. “But we put almost everything on there. I'm proud of it; I really liked what we did with that.”

Cape – who's also playing some solo shows in Australia prior to be joined by his bandmates for the tour proper – admits that when Lagwagon started out more than 20 years ago, he didn't expect the band to still be touring this many years down the track.

“But let me be clear, we don't make much of a living off of our band anymore,” he admits frankly. “If we tour constantly we make an okay living, but bands like us don't sell much of any records anymore. Everybody in the band has another job… my other jobs are the other six bands I play in. But yeah, I never thought we'd be doing it this long. I think the people that are in bands and early on have these ideas like 'we're going to be together forever' are much more unrealistic than we've been about it. I'm just waiting for the other shoe to drop, so to speak. I always thought that we were just lucky. Every time we make a new record, or go out on tour, I still get this weird feeling like, 'Oh cool, we're doing this again.' It's surprising to me.”

Cape also reveals that after their current touring commitments are over, Lagwagon plan to return to record their first full-length since 2005's Resolve.

“We do, and it's been a long time, mostly due to the fact that I didn't know what the identity of the band was. As a songwriter I sort of take my time and everyone is cool with it because we don't want to do anything that we're not proud of, so sometimes we take five years to make a record; it's just the way it is in this band. I have to wake up one day and say, 'Oh yeah, that's what we're supposed to do next' and then we'll all start to work together. We've got a few tours lined up and when they're over, towards the end of the year, we're going to jump into a room together and start hashing it out, see what I have and see if it's good, see if it's enough.”

On a more sombre note, one of Cape's dearest friends, No Use For a Name frontman Tony Sly, died earlier this year. As Cape explains, he was one of the last people to see Sly alive and is still shocked by his friend's sudden passing.

“I was on tour with him the day before on the east coast in the States and we just wrapped it up and I was going to continue on with this friend of mine named Jon Snodgrass to do a few more shows. Tony flew home and he passed away as soon as he got home. He made it home but that's the day that he died; so I'd literally just dropped him off at the airport, went and played a show in Florida and was at my friend's house asleep when the phone rang. It's tremendously tragic.”

Cape says he and his bandmates have discussed the possibility of performing a No Use For a Name song on their Australian tour to pay homage to Sly.

“Well, we've talked a lot about doing one of his songs with Lagwagon and I think we will. We're having a bit of a tough time coming to agreement on which song to do – it's difficult because we all like the band a lot and everybody has different songs they'd like to play.”