interview by j bloomrosen

Backstage at the Warped Tour in New York this past summer, I had the opportunity to do a group interview with the Long Beach Dub All Stars. Opie and two compatriots were present, but since the tape I have of the event is flowing with some other band playing in the background, it’s hard to distinguish who is saying what. For this reason, I’ll attribute it all to the band collectively. They did often pick up thoughts mid-sentence from one another and obviously have been together for years. I also have the feeling that the sum is definitely greater than the parts when talking to these guys. Humorous, drunk, and silly, the guys were a blast to hang out with.

US Music Vault Online: So, are you guys having fun on the tour?

Long Beach Dub All Stars: Yeah, it’s great!

USMV: Where’s the dog? I wanted to take pictures and speak to the dog...

LBDA: He’s over there... he doesn’t like talking.

USMV: You know, some people...

LBDA: He’s actually over there talking to some people that snuck backstage to get in.

USMV: Well, they probably deserve him more then... hey what are you doing? (Opie reaches over and puts a LBDA sticker on my chest) You can’t cover my Pervert shirt!

LBDA: Hey, “World Famous” right?

USMV: OK, it works. I appreciate it.

USMV: So, this is the make-up date for last week’s rained out show. What did you do last week when it was canceled?

LBDA: Oh, we hailed a cab and went into Manhattan to a couple of friends’ bars and then just hung out with a couple of friends we have that live here.

USMV: You guys get to New York often?

LBDA: Yeah, we’ve been out here six or seven times. Some of us stayed here last week and rode motorcycles in the mud all day!

USMV: I wish I could have seen you. I was here in the rain and mud and gladly would have taken some shots of you guys riding. So is this the end of the tour?

LBDA: No, this is the “over the hump period.”

LBDA: And it’s cool, because it’s always different. We never know when we’re gonna play. They don’t really give us an exact stage time, so sometimes we play at 1:30 and sometimes we play at 8:30... I hear there’s something like a coin toss.

USMV: What do you like to do when you’re not performing?

LBDA: We ride dirt bikes and motorcycles, tattoos.

USMV: You mean get tattooed or do them? Are you an artist?

LBDA: I am a tattoo artist.

USMV: You want to work on me today?

LBDA: Today would not be such a good day; we have to go on in a little while. Actually, my friend Paulie is here from Tattoo City and he was going to do some work on Maurice, I think. Did you think you were going to get work from Paul Booth today? There are people who have appointments from four years ago still.

USMV: Who do you guys like touring with?

LBDA: Jurassic Five, Dilated Peoples, NoFx, Good Riddance, and Green Day...

USMV: Man, you’re really politically correct. You practically named the whole line up!

LBDA: Well those are the bands we like.... (putting on a Swedish accent) and a we likea MellinColin from Sveden. Mellon Colin, amellincoliina... (they continued making fun of Melincolin’s name in a heavy Swedish accent.)

USMV: So there’s some sort of beer bong Olympics that goes on?

LBDA: We were basically shut down on the first quarter, and we don’t get a second chance, so we made our own! The Special Olympics! The referee from Suicide Machines thought he could participate AND judge! That’s a conflict of interests. So, after like five beers, the judge made some real blunders. As a result, we had a problem, and we were going to throw him in the lake. We decided to have our own Olympics instead.

USMV: Favorite beer?

LBDA: Actually if I had to have like any beer, I’d say Heineken. He likes cognac. I like expensive vodka too, Chopin, Pearl... five times distilled. I tried one with Jack called Vincent Van Gogh.

USMV: Anything for art, right?

LBDA: They have some of his artwork on the back of the bottle. Kind of 3D art morphed on there.

USMV: OK… Writing music? How do you go about it?

LBDA: It’s pretty much a collective thing. Certain people have ideas and then, like a big mural, everybody kind of comes in at the right time. Everyone knows his position in the band, so if someone wants to go extreme and do some wild shit, we’re down for it. Marshall laid down the foundation for the end of “Like a Dog” on the turntables. So, it’s like, if you have an idea to do something like that, we go on that... you know? Eric’s not going to give us a crappy bass line: he’ll always come up with new ideas.

USMV: So you guys tour on a bus?

LBDA: Two buses for six weeks. One’s more like a kennel! One’s a rolling kennel.

USMV: How do you like touring?

LBDA: Well, we’ve been doing it for three years now, and all three of us have kids, so, it’s hard to be away. But we all have cell phones and e-mail to keep in touch. Anyway, we have to be here to feed them! The way I look at is like this: we’re out here for six weeks making serious money instead of working for six months and making the same kind of cash. Life is cool; it balances.

USMV: What’s next?

LBDA: Japan! We’ll be playing shows with other bands, five shows. We hooked up: I don’t know how we did it. We probably have supporting acts, but I don’t know who they are. We hope they have rattlesnake blood and vodka to drink though! And we’ll get a couple of watches with TVs on them, and some lasers that’ll cut through metal... a fully automatic BB Gun. I won’t actually shoot my eye out, but I’ll shoot the people over there that I don’t really like!

USMV: Favorite spots on the tour so far?

LBDA: I actually love New York. But all these cops walking around makes me nervous, they have no faith in the kids.

The band then disappeared, purportedly to “get ready” for the show. Why did I get the feeling that alcohol was somehow involved in those preparations?