Warning: This interview contains large amounts of senseless babbling and prattling. It was conducted with Jesse of Lagwagon, during their show on May 31, 1996, at Coney Island High. A good time was had by all.

Jeff (Bungalo): OK, we’ll start off with who’s in the band and ages?

Jesse: I’m Jesse. I’m 21. I’m the bass player. Actually I’m not very sure of everyone else’s ages. Joey, he’s the short guy, he sings. Chris is the really tall guy, and he plays guitar on the right side of the stage. On the left side, Sean plays guitar, and Dave is our new drummer.

Jeff: What is a Lagwagon, is it your tour bus, or something?

Jesse: It was our tour bus, but it died. It became too much of a lag wagon.

George: Was it like the Tilt mobile that flipped? Did it really flip?

Jesse: Yeah.

Jeff: You guys are playing only a few East Coast date. Is there a reason for that?

Jesse: Basically, we only have a little over a month to cover as much of the US as possible. Hopefully we’ll be coming back sometime soon.

Jeff: What’s the deal with Bonanza, and Hoss being on the cover of the new album?

Jesse: Hoss is a Martyr, he’s a legend, he’s a hero, and he’s basically just a great human being and we all love him dearly.

Jeff: Have you ever been to the Bonanza Ranch?

Jesse: I drove by it once. Actually, to tell you the truth I had never watched Bonanza, until this album came out. I figured I had to, because I didn’t want people coming up to me, and asking me what Hoss’ last name is, and I wouldn’t know.
(laughs)

Jeff: That’s good, cause I don’t know a thing about it. On the
cover of the Trashed album there’s a picture of the band playing soccer, and there’s another person in the picture. Who is that?

Jesse: He’s our coach.

Jeff: So you really do play soccer?

Jesse: Yeah, but he quite coaching us, so that he could play guitar for No Use For A Name.

Jeff: Influences?

Jesse: Well, basically for the band it’s mainly just heavy metal: Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Crokus…

George: You like Iron Maiden? They’re my favorite band. I get cracked on by all my friends for listening to them. I just got Power Slave on vinyl, and I’m quite happy. You are the coolest, I’ll never make fun of your band again.

Jesse: What else… Man-O-War… just a lot of heavy metal, and then other stuff like the Descendents, but mostly metal. Personally, it was metal at first, but when I was 15 I saw Gorilla Biscuits and that was like the best show I had ever been to in my life. Then I got really into Operation Ivy. Now Jawbreaker is my favorite band. I listen to a lot of Jawbreaker, the Muffs, Morphine…

George: I really like Morphine. They’ve got that strange bass like the Presidents of the United States.

Jesse: They’re amazing live.

Jeff: Do you feel that you stand for anything? Like in one of your songs, you’re trying to encourage people to vote. You really say a lot of important things in your songs. Do you try to send a message, or are you just a band?

Jesse: When it comes to that, I’d say that we are more of just a band. Some of our songs have messages- some of them are just about personal things. Mainly, anything that we have to say, politically, has been covered by so many bands, that we try to just alright to things that deal with our lives.

Jeff: Yeah, that’s a cool thing. How did you get the deal with Fat Wreck Chords?

Jesse: We recorded our demo about eight months after we had gotten together, and then we broke up. We were all living in Santa Barbara at the time, and our singer move to San Francisco. He ran into Fat Mike in a bar. We had all known Mike, because NoFX had lived in Santa Barbara for a while. We heard that he was starting a label, so we gave him a copy of our demo, and he liked it. Joey called us up, and asked if we wanted to get the band back together, because we had just gotten signed.

Jeff: Do you guys have any music videos or singles planned?

Jesse: We have a music video. It wasn’t really our idea. There’s this guy, Louis, he runs Hopless Records in LA, and he used to direct videos. He just really wanted to do a video for the song Island Of Shame, and basically it was going to cost us ten thousand dollars, and we really didn’t want to do a video in the first place, so we said no thanks. Louis kept asking us, and asking us. Finally, he said that he’d pay for all of the video, and he knew that we would love it, and we could pay him back afterwards, and if we didn’t like it he would keep the rights to it. So we made the video, and we weren’t really that into it, so he just kept the rights to it.

George: Is it on MTV?

Jesse: No, it’s on a video compilation called Cinema Beer Goggles.

George: With NoFX and Guttermouth, or is that the second one.

Jesse: No, we’re on the first one. I think that’s all it’s been on, but Louis may have sent it to some
independent TV station, or something. We didn’t send it to MTV, and even if we did, they probably
wouldn’t even play it.

Jeff: They’d play it like two in the morning.

Jesse: I saw a Guttermouth video at two in the morning.

George: They usually play cool videos late at night. That’s the only time they play ALL’s Million Dollars

Jeff: Million Bucks, not dollars

George: Anyway, last night I got to see the new Metallica video, between cheesy movies, and they were all covered in chocolate fudge, it was really kind of funny. I don’t know if you’re into Metallica or not.

Jesse: Not really, I saw them play, a long time ago. I still like some of their albums, I think Ride The Lightening is a great album.

George: I like Kill ‘Em All.

Jesse: Ever since James Hetfield cut his hair- I can’t handle that.
(laughs)

Jesse: He’s got a flat top now.
George: Have you seen the new video, it’s got Jesus being crucified while they pour chocolate syrup on each other.

Jeff: Would you guys ever sign to a major, or are you happy with FAT?

Jesse: We’re really happy with FAT, FAT’s a great label. I personally don’t have a problem with bands that sign to majors, like I said, Jawbreaker is my favorite band in the world, and they’re signed to Geffen. But I don’t think it’s right for this band. We’ve seen so many bands get screwed over by major labels.

Jeff: You were the first band signed to FAT WRECK CHORDS, weren’t you.

Jesse: Yeah. FAT’s been great, mainly because Fat Mike plays in a band, I guess. He’s really cool.

George: Are you on the FAT WRECK CHORDS’ bowling team?

Jesse: No, I’m not personally, because I can’t bowl. Plus, when we started out I still lived in Santa Barbara, so that was too far away from San Francisco, and I wouldn’t be able to make the commute to bowl. I’m just not good enough.

Jeff: So how’s your hometown, boring, anything special going on.

Jesse: Actually, when I’m in Santa Cruz I try to do as little as possible. After being on tour for a couple of months, it’s just cool to sit at home and hang out with my roommates and girlfriend. I got really sick of Santa Barbara, and that’s kinda why I moved to Santa Cruz. It was a small town, so if something happened to you everybody knew about it. Even people you never met in your life.

George: At least you live in California, all we have over here is the 7-11 and the Livingston Mall.
(laughs)

Jeff: Do you guys feel that there is always room for Taco Bell?

Jesse: Taco Bell is a good thing. When we first started to tour our food budget was only twelve dollars a day to feed six people.

Jeff: You can make it on that.

Jesse: Yeah, we would buy 2 been burritos each. It got us through tours, so it was a good thing.

Jeff: Why did you give only half the lyrics for Trashed?

Jesse: I think part of it was ‘cause Joey was kind of rushed to write out all the lyrics and give them to Fat Wreck Chords, and the other half of the lyrics he either wasn’t happy with them or some of them he didn’t want to print. Some of them he only put a line.

Jeff: Trashed seems like a different album from the first one, and I kind of see the first one and the new one as kind of similar, and the second one seemed a little slower with more melody. Have you noticed that too?

Jesse: Actually, I kind of thought the first two were more similar, and the last one was different.

Jeff: How about a favorite movie- TV show?

Jesse: The only TV shows that I try to watch a lot are the Simpsons and Kids In The Hall, and Mystery Science Theatre, but sometimes they can have a bad episode. Camera Intellegente (?). It’s the most amazing TV show. It’s on right before the Simpsons… on Telemundo. It’s like a Mexico’s funniest home videos, but most of the videos are of people getting injured. My roommates and I watch it all of the time, but they enjoy it more than I do, because at least one of them is fluent in Spanish. The stuff is so violent.
Like in one scene they show this little baby in a carriage flip onto a rock garden. The baby is screaming, and everyone in the audience is laughing. I saw one where the winner won like ten million pesos, and it was for a video of these two little kids, and one of them has this chain of beads, and the older brother took these beads and stuck them in the other brothers butt, and dragged him around. It won the grand prize for the episode.

Jeff: I think I saw a porno movie with beads like that, but that’s another story.

George: I personally like Christina. The girls on the show are really cute.

Jeff: Who writes most of the songs? Is it a group effort, or does someone do the lyrics…
Jesse: Well Joey does all the lyrics, and he writes a lot of the music. Like the basic forms of the music. He’ll come in with a song, and then the rest of us work on our own parts.

Jeff: Will there be a future Lagwagon album?

Jesse: It’s hard to say right now. I think there will be, but I don’t know if I’ll necessarily be recording on it.

Jeff: Coke or Pepsi?

Jesse: I’d have to say Coke.

Jeff: I agree, ‘cause Coke asks you, they don’t demand you to drink, where as Pepsi tells you to drink their stuff.
George: Are you going to see the Sex Pistols?

Jesse: No, the only reunion tour that I have any interest in seeing is the Misfits.

George: I saw them at the Stone Pony. They were so cool. The new lead singer is amazing.

Jesse: Yeah, that’s what I heard.

George: The lead singer has the same range as Danzig, but the best part is the drum set, it’s got these huge spikes. I’ve got to show you the pictures.

Jesse: Isn’t the lead singer some 21 year old kid from the mid west?

George: Actually, I thought it was their next door neighbor. We live around there, so we get to see them at the mall.

Jeff: Yeah, Doyle signs autographs at the local comic book stores.

George: Yeah, but I love the drum set. It’s got these ten foot spikes- you can’t even see the drummer. For all we know there is probably a tape deck back there. The show was great too bad the opening acts were all metal bands.

Jesse: Actually, last time we did a tour in Europe, when we got home we found out that Iron Maiden had played the night before at a tiny little club.

George: The new lead singer was being interviewed on the local radio show. I called up and asked him if he ever met Sid Vicious? He answered (with a bad British accent) “No I never met Sid Vicious, but I met Kevin Costner.” Since I got on the air the station gave me a free copy of their new album. When he found out that the gave me it for free he got all pissed off, and started yelling: “That’s rubbish, you can’t give away my fucking album, you’ve got to sell them- half off, half off.” It was so funny… I love British people. So, you’re not going to see the Sex Pistols?

Jesse: I never really liked the Sex Pistols. When I listened to them I was like 16, and the only reason that I listened to them was because they were the Sex Pistols.

George: I always liked the Ramones better- the Descendents…

Jesse: Now if there was a Descendents reunion

George: All still plays a lot of Descendents songs.

Jeff: Two years ago, Milo jumped on stage ‘cause Chad had like a…

Jesse: Every time we come even near the East Coast someone’s like we saw…

George: Did you ever play City Gardens?

Jesse: Nope.

George: That was a really cool club, but they closed it down, and now it’s like Rock City USA, or something.

Jesse: For some reason we only played in Jersey once. It was a really cool show.

Jeff: Was it at Middlesex County College?

Jesse: Actually we played here twice. I forgot about that one. We also played a really big Straightedge show and everyone hated us.

Jeff: Some of them East Coast sXe bands can get quite violent.

Jesse: We once played a sXe show, and our singer got on stage with a McDonald’s cup full of beer. He yelled out, “This is just a cup full of water, so if you a got some beef with… whoops.” People just hated us.

George: Do you get mad that people say that you sound a lot like every other Fat Wreck Chords band?

Jesse: I do notice a similarity between a lot of the bands, but I don’t think that we sound like a lot of them. No Use For A Name is the stereotypical Fat band, and I don’t think we sound anything like them.

Jeff: Do you have anything else to add?

George: Nope.

Jeff: Not you. The guy we’re interviewing. Do you have anything else to say?

Jesse: Not particularly.