Motif Interviews Joey Cape of Lagwagon
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Motif Interviews Joey Cape of Lagwagon Believe it or not, there is a distinct relationship between folk music and punk rock. Once you go past the differences in amplification, the styles share a lot of similarities. Some of the best folk and punk songs have socially and politically significant lyrics about genuine life experiences. Most punk and folk songs have the infamous three-chord structure and both genres have the ability to strike a nerve. Folk artists such as the late Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan and Billy Bragg have as much musical gusto as punks like the late Joe Strummer, Jello Biafra and Laura Jean Grace. Over the past few years, a lot of contemporary punk rock artists made the shift to the singer-songwriter folk route when in their solo material. One of those artists who’ll be performing at The Parlour on Tuesday, September 29, is Joey Cape, who is the frontman for the Goleta, California, punk rock band Lagwagon. Cape and I had a chat about his opinion on the relationship between folk and punk, Fat Wreck Chords celebrating their 25th anniversary, the story behind his latest solo album Stitch Puppy and when fans can expect the next Lagwagon album to come out. Rob Duguay (Motif): With musicians like yourself, Lenny Lashley from Darkbuster & Chuck Ragan from Hot Water Music doing folky singer-songwriter material, what in your opinion is the relationship between punk and folk music? Joey Cape: Punk rock traditionally has had chord progressions that are very similar to folk songs. Folk songs a lot of the time are somewhat political in their lyrics, so I think there is a very strong connection. Certain folk music sometimes may have been a little bit more of a hippie thing, kind of leaning toward that. Otherwise I think song structure wise it’s very similar. I think the main reason that’s what ends up happening is because musicians I know, whether they were in a band or not, always started writing a song with an acoustic guitar. There’s not many people I know who wrote music on an electric guitar through an amplifier. It’s something that generally people like myself have done their entire lives, so it’s just a natural progression to eventually play some shows because you get comfortable with it after a while. It’s some kind of rite of passage as well; as a songwriter it’s one of the scariest things you can do and one day you’ll have to try it. I held out for a decade, at least, until I did my first solo show in 2008. I was terrified even though I’d been touring for years and years; there’s something really scary about being on stage by yourself and playing songs. It’s very naked compared to being up there with your gang. I think that’s the reason why there are so many people who have done it. It’s not really that new, but it feels like a new thing. People have done it for ages and so many people are doing it now, maybe because musicians are touring a lot more than they used to. With the decline in record sales, I think people are on the road more often. RD: That’s an interesting way to look at it. JC: I love it, I just like doing it. I do it because I like it, I like being on tour and it’s very complementary to the things I do because it’s so different. It goes both ways. RD: With people going on tour more often, you can just take your acoustic guitar and go play a few shows and make a little bit of money. JC: It’s great. When I first started doing it, I would get an offer to go play somewhere and I would still be in the mindset that I had all these people to concur with. I would have to make sure that we could put together a crew and the band could go. It then occurred to me that all I had to do was grab my acoustic guitar, my backpack and go out the door. RD: Just simple. JC: I got my car and it’s too easy. It’s really fun, there’s definitely a personal element to it as well. It’s more like playing a campfire than it is playing a concert. It’s less theater and more synergy than band shows are in many ways, so it’s really a lot of fun. RD: Last month, punk label Fat Wreck Chords did a tour celebrating 25 years of the label’s existence. Lagwagon was part of the tour with obviously NOFX (due to frontman & bassist Fat Mike running the label), with Swingin’ Utters, Strung Out and many others. How was the tour? What has kept Lagwagon and yourself affiliated with Fat Wreck Chords for over 20 years? JC: Tour was great, as with any tour you tend to tour with bands that you either like as people, you like as a band or both. In our case it’s almost always both due to us being pretty picky about the bands we go on tour with because it makes it way more enjoyable. This was automatically a tour full of old friends, and full of bands that we really like. For us it was just a great time, it was kind of like a big party every day. So many people that we’ve known for so many years — I would say the only negative is that it was too short. It was really only about two weeks and I would have liked that tour to have been about two months. It was just so much fun. When it comes to being part of Fat [Wreck Chords] for all these years, it’s pretty simple. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. We’ve had the greatest relationship with our label, they’ve always been completely honest. I live I San Francisco where Fat [Wreck Chords] is, in the very beginning I was like their trash boy. It was shipping and receiving, but I called myself the trash boy when I got mad. I’ve known them forever and everyone who has worked there is a really close friend of mine, these are the people I go to the pubs with and I go out to the shows with and have drinks. It’s a great family that really has no flaws; our relationship with them is completely transparent. They don’t ask us to do anything that we don’t want to do. We’ve had total freedom, they’ve treated us well, they’ve always been completely honest and they’ve taken care of us. I have seen horror stories with other bands and their relationships with labels. We’re so lucky; we’ve never had to deal with any of that drama and that’s all because of Fat [Wreck Chords]. It’s also the way they’ve done business, they’re just good people who care about what they do. I consider myself to be one of those very fortunate people who is involved with, in my opinion, the best independent record label that has ever existed. I really believe that, I’m not biased, it’s just based on objective information. It’s just that they’re great. RD: It’s awesome that you’ve had the luxury of having such a long lasting relationship with an independent label where so many other people have gone through the trials and tribulations of dealing with crappy shiesters who happen to run a record label. JC: The old story always had to do with bands getting shelved. They’d get signed for options and then the label wouldn’t recognize the option that they held. Then there would be this whole hold-up for the band’s next release and it would be complete nonsense on the label’s part. RD: A few weeks ago you released your third solo album, Stitch Puppy. The cover of the album has you bald and wearing a suit with a red bow tie while being painted in green with black x’s over your eyes. What inspired the idea for the album cover and how long did it take to get the paint off? JC: My daughter and wife make dolls and they paint, I always have a ton of art projects going on at my house all the time. They made this doll for me, Stitch Puppy, which was made and designed by my daughter. From my understanding it was based on those Victorian mourning dolls, which were made by everyone during that time period who lost someone in order to help with the grieving process. I think it’s really lovely and my daughter made this doll for me. It wasn’t long after some things happened in my life that weighed pretty heavy on me and I think they knew. They made this really amazing doll and the doll is also pictured inside on the back of the album. It’s a possession of mine that I prize more than anything else I own, I really love it. It has a look about it that it’s been through a lot and it looks like it’s held together by wounds. I like the idea of having a muse for songwriting and I originally thought I would name the album Stitch Puppy and put the doll on the cover, but then I thought it would be cool to embody the doll, make a video and do a photo shoot.