Interview: Jon Snodgrass (Drag the River)

Last week I talked to Jon Snodgrass of Drag the River about Punk Rock Bowling, the Revival Tour, Pawn Stars, and more.

You can check out Drag the River’s latest album, Demons (Demos), over on their official website as a pay-what-you-want download, and you can catch them live on May 27^th at the Beauty Bar in Las Vegas with Stephen Egerton and Jackass as part of the Punk Rock Bowling music festival. Tickets for that night are available here.

Emily Matview: I’d like to start by talking about the new album. You guys released Demons (demos) on your website last year. How is the new album coming along?

Jon Snodgrass: Well, you know, sometimes we do it a little different but it’s kind of a standard thing for Drag the River, we have the demos be a whole track, which is the title track on the record. Actually I’ve done that forever, I did it on Armchair Martian Records.

We had these things recorded and we liked them. Like we had 25 songs and there were 10 that we thought were good acoustic songs so we let them live that way. We didn’t really try and make a huge deal out of it but we pressed them in Germany on vinyl. There’s only like 500 of them and I think they’re gone. But we’re about to track here in June. Probably about 4 or 5 of those and a bunch of other ones. So it’s going alright.

Do you plan on releasing the new album yourselves with the “pay-what-you-want” model, or do you have a more traditional release in mind with a label?

I’m not sure. Something that’s sort of interesting that we’re about to do is in May, we’re going to put every one of our albums up. Like one a week through a pay-what-you-want thing. And we’re going to use all that money to fund the recording of our new record. It’s going to be very temporary, but we’re going to let people know. I’m actually glad that you asked a question that let me bring it up. If we do it with a couple different labels we’re just going to license it with them but we’re definitely going to press vinyl in Germany for all of Europe, and here. And there might be download things in there. But we’ll see if we go with a label. Kind of like how we did it last time. We’ll see.

Do you have any surprises in store for the album? Any guest musicians?

There’s going to be a couple surprises on it. Can’t say yet. I don’t want to say it’s going to happen because if I say it’s going to happen then it won’t happen. But it’s going to happen. I’m going to keep my lips sealed for a little bit on that.

The country/punk scene has changed a lot since Drag the River first started. Bands like Lucero are on a major label and more punk kids seem accepting of country influence. How do you feel about that?

Well Lucero was doing it about the same time we were doing it. There definitely were less people breaking it down like that. If you look at any artist that has any kind of longevity, you try and do different stuff. It’s kinda nice to not have to scream over your guitars. So I can see that being appealing to a lot of people. But obviously, it’s still work to us. The funny answer that we would give, like, shit I don’t know how long it’s been, 15 years or something maybe? I would always say that I just like to bring in smaller amps to the club. Less stress to move, you know? When we write a song on the acoustic guitar in a certain key, and that’s how you sing it and that’s where your voice likes to land, it’s nice to not have to think about changing a key to sing it with a rock band. It’s just a natural thing that you wrote it with.

You played some dates on the Revival Tour, correct?

I played the first year and the second year.

How do you feel about that whole scene that is going on? Lots of punk musicians, lots of punk frontmen doing the solo acoustic thing.

I absolutely love the Revival Tour, I mean, I just saw my friend Chuck Ragan a couple of days ago. And he had some exciting news about some new Revival Tour stuff that unfortunately, I probably can’t bring up just yet. But you’ll hear about it pretty soon. You live in Las Vegas, though, correct?

Yeah.

Well you’ll definitely hear about it, because it has to do with you.

That’s awesome!

Yeah, that’s all I’m going to say. There will be a fun show in Las Vegas, one of these days, I can tell you that much. But not any time soon though. Don’t think it’s happening like next month or something because it’s not.

But yeah, we did some fun stuff. I love that thing. The first year, it was pretty easy because I knew everybody on the tour. I mean, I knew Ben [Nichols], I knew Tim [Barry], I knew Austin [Lucas]. I just had recently met Austin but, I knew him. I knew Chuck [Ragan]. I knew Jon Gaunt. Like, I knew all the players that were playing on it. It was great. Todd Beene from Lucero was on it. They’re all actual friends of mine. They’re in my telephone, you know. I can call up and say hello to and text message them when I think of them. Like actual friends.

And then the second year was great too. I just met a lot of great people. Like Jim Ward, Frank Turner, who’s become one of my best buddies and we made a record together too. It’s a good thing. It’s collaborative. It’s just sort of throwing people in there and playing music. Playing music is like play. It’s like “weee.” It’s supposed to be fun. Yeah, Revival Tour is possibly one of my favorite things I’ve ever done.

Speaking of Frank Turner, how did the album Buddies that you made with him come about?

When we were in Little Rock, Arkansas on the Revival Tour, he had said to me, kinda between people playing, “I want to write a song with you tonight, like right after the show.” And I’m like “okay.” And everyone was breaking down on stage and I turned to him and I had my guitar and I was like “well here we go.” The next minute, we had a song written called Big Rock in Little Rock. We wrote it right there and it was pretty easy.

Then, his sister strangely enough lives about 20 minutes away from me and Frank came up to visit and we gave it a shot. We wrote, I went down to his sister’s house and was there for about three or four hours and we had dinner and wrote a bunch of songs and then he came up to my house the next day and we recorded them. It was during that time when we were doing those demos, the Demons record, so some mics were set up. We didn’t put a lot of work into making it sound great, we were just trying to document the songs, but it was a fun thing to listen to and we thought it was worthy of being released.

Moving on to Punk Rock Bowling, have you attended any Punk Rock Bowling events before?

Yeah, we played and I bowled years ago, on the My Records team which is Joey Cape’s label. I can’t remember when that was, maybe the third year? I kind of had been there every two or three years for the first, I don’t know, 8 or 9 years. I haven’t been there for about 3 years, so I’m looking forward to it. It’s a scheduling thing you know? It used to always be a weekend in February. Drag the River would always play Valentine’s Day in California, so we would normally at least stop in for a night and maybe play. But once they changed the month on it sometimes it was harder for us to make it there because we seem to do the same things during the same months in the same parts of the country every year.

You guys are going to be opening for Stephen Egerton (Descendents/ALL) during Punk Rock Bowling.  How did that come about?

Chad [Price] and I sang on those records, so Chad and I are going to sing our songs, and then we’ll probably sing a couple other songs for some people that won’t be able to show up. And then Stephen actually played, I have a new 7” out on Paper + Plastick, and he actually played on the first song with me, and we played that song in Tulsa a couple months ago, so I’ve looked forward to doing that. I’m not really sure who else, I think Joey Cape is going to come out and do his song. He might have people sing that weren’t even on the record.

So lots of surprises

There will be surprises. It will be fun, it will be a good time.

What bands are you looking forward to seeing at Punk Rock Bowling?

Well I want to see my friends The Descendents. And there’s another thing that might happen on Saturday that I’m looking forward to. I’d like to see The Muffs. And you know there’s a bunch of friends playing, the Gimmes are playing, the Dropkick Murphys are playing. I’ll go see my buddies play. That’s what I look forward to. I want to see Timmy Turtle’s band, The Grim. They’re playing.

I haven’t listened to The Grim yet but I have tickets for that day so I will be watching them.

Yeah, that will be good. And what, The Undertones are playing too?

Yeah.

Sweet! Cock Sparrer. Yeah, it’s going to be a good time. I look forward to it.

You’ve played in Vegas twice before, once on February 18, 2005 at the Double Down with Groovie Ghoulies and Jackass, and once on February 7, 2003 at The Rock with Love Me Destroyer. Do have anything memorable from those shows.

Oh yeah, that’s right. Well Love Me Destroyer, I think that was their first show actually. If I remember right, like when they were no longer Pinhead Circus, you know. It was all Pinhead Circus tracks, but David joined the band and they were trying to do something a little bit different and they just wanted to try a new thing and they started playing all brand new songs. Groovie Ghoulies, that’s always a good time. To be honest with you, nothing about those weekends are memorable, because I don’t remember anything! Not that they aren’t worthy of great memories, but you know, the place doesn’t close, the town doesn’t close when you drink all night. And I don’t remember much.

Is there anything else you’re looking forward to doing while you’re here in Vegas?

I want to go to that pawn shop that’s on TV.

The Pawn Stars shop.

I love that show!

Are you going to pawn anything?

I don’t sell my stuff. You know. But I might want to go buy something.

Maybe get on TV?
I don’t need to be on TV, I just see that they get some pretty good things in there. I’m surprised on some of the things people try and sell there. Like, why would you take that to a pawn shop? Somebody wants that. I want those Star Trek glasses. You know, like don’t take that to a pawn shop.

Have you seen anything on there that you really want to buy? Something you’re going to look for when you’re in town?

I saw a The Rat Patrol lunchbox. That was on the TV show, I’d like to have that. It was missing the thermos, but that’s fine. I always took the thermos out anyway just to get more stuff in there.

Who are you listening to now?

Lenny Lashley. You know who that is?

Lenny Lashley’s Gang of One “Viva Rock-n-Roll” Holdfast Records

Yeah, I actually just saw him in March with Street Dogs.

Oh yeah, he’s fantastic. You know that record It’s Crazy that Drag the River put out, his song Leavin’ in the Morning, the first song on it is one of his songs. That’s a cover song of his. He’s a guy we’ve championed for a long time. I’d gotten his 7” but I’d misplaced it and I just found it and put it on two nights ago and I’m stoked. It’s awesome, I love it. His last record that he put out The Lady and the Pistol was awesome. Every song is just so great. So yeah that’s what I’ve been listening to the last couple days. It’s nice to have new songs from someone that you love their music.