DAVE SMALLEY
What was originally supposed to be an interview with Dave Smalley about his new band, Down By Law, and his reflections on a decade in punk rock became, for awhile, anyway, a DYS interview, as that band's bassist, Jon Anastas, sat in for awhile. Mike Gitter (Freelance writer, former XXX 'zine publisher and vocalist for Grin and Apology) and roadie Gentleman Jim (ex-Crucial Youth) also contributed various comments. For the uninitiated, Dave's current band, in which he sings and plays guitar, follows stints with DYS, Dag Nasty and All. The festivities took place at the Middle East...SV: Since this is the 10th anniversary punk rock nostalgia issue, let's go back to the good old days, I guess. How did you get into punk rock, in the first place?
Dave: I gew up in DC and, actually, my friend Eric Neil, who's about 5 minutes from getting his doctorate at Harvard, his brother was good friends with the Feelies. That was when they were just barely a band and he got into it and he got me into it and he marched me down to the store and made me buy the first Clash record and Richard Hell and The Voidoids and Plastic Bertrand and the first Ramones record, so I just got into it there. Then I remember I first got into hardcore because Danny Ingram, who drummed for DC Youth Brigade, Mad Parade and a whole bunch of other bands, worked at a record store called Orpheus in Georgetown and I was in there and I was just some scrawny little punk kid and he looked big and punk and I thought he looked cool and I say, hey, what shold I get. He gave me the Teen Idles single, that had just come out that day and said "get this" and I bought it with pennies and dimes and nickels and it was great.
SV: Then you came to school up here.
Dave: I came to school up here but, everyday, in interviews and when I meet people, they think I'm from Boston. No one knows I'm from DC, except for the people from Boston and DC, because, really, this is where I started growing up musically.
SV: Now, Jon, I'm going to embarrass you. You were in that band Decadence, right? Did Decadence ever play live?
Jon: I think 4 times. At a skating rink show in Cambridge with Jerry's Kids.
SV: Are you giong to still take credit for writing the song "Slam"? (from the "Boston, Not LA" compilation)
Jon: No. I wish I could at this point. I'd be making a lot of money in MTV royalties.
SV: So how did Decadence evolve into DYS?
Jon: It didn't evolve at all. I was sort of the only carryover, with the classic story about how DYS was built on a lie. Dave and I were each looking to put a hardcore band together and he claimed he had a drummer and I claimed I had a guitar player and he had a drummer who couldn't drum. Dave or I could drum better than he could and I had a guitar player who wanted to play Van Halen covers and so both of them went by the wayside, very quickly. We used to practice at the Media Workshop. We had about 2 practices there and we went through a number of different members. Strange members. Chris Noles, who was part of the Braintree crew, played guitar for like 2 practices.
Dave: Colum Leckie, who was a very good friend of mine, was the original drummer for those 2 practices, before we all agreed it was not to be.
Jon: I don't know where we found our original guitar player, but then he found Dave Collins, who was actually the first person who had a lot of musical ability.
Dave: And Steve.
Jon: I don't remember where we found Steve.
Dave: We got Steve through an ad in the Phoenix. He was a twisted man.
Jon: He was a twisted one. We had a good time. We probably would have evolved into more of a Sonic Youth kind of band if Steve had stayed. He was into weird tunings and noise stuff and then he left. It was sort of a drinking thing, the drinking and the not drinking.
Dave: He thought we were totally crazy...
Jon: For not drinking.
Dave: And for how fast we wanted to play.
Jon: And we were crewing for SSD at the time and so was Andy Strachan and I think Al Barile is responsible for telling Andy he should audition for us. My biggest regret about DYS is that we grew up musically in public. Probably we could of who we hung out with and who we knew and the scene being the size that it was, we probably played out before we should have.
Dave: No, I don't regret the early shows. I regret the later shows.
Jon: Well, I regret those, too, but for a bunch of different reasons.
Dave: I think DYS was a very great early hardcore straight-edge band. I think we're one of the best ones. Like Minor Threat has kind of a cult of personality about it because of Ian and they were one of the most brilliant bands.
(interruption, as Dave's wife shows up. Meantime, Gentleman Jim keeps us entertained with this anecdote)
Jim: This pertains to "Slam." Fred Schneider from the B-52s is from the area of New Jersey where I'm from. I was in a band, we were friends with his younger brother Chris, who is slightly tecched in the head. He heard "Slam," thought it was very uncool and played it for Fred Schneider, who, apparently, is also tecched in the head, lost his mind and was planning on suing Modern Method Records and Decadence for some weird libel thing because they mentioned the concept of "ripping his Rock Lobster shirt." (laughs) Fred Schneider was very bummed out that you would suggest something so negative about the Rock Lobster shirt.
Jon: What people missed about that entire song was that it was tongue in cheek. It was lost. By the way, the song was written by Jonathan Roberts (of Stranglehold).
SV: OK, so now that we know that little fact.
Dave: If I had a dollar for every time Jon turned red over that song.
Jon: If I had a dollar for every time MTV played that song. That's "The Secret Life Of A Slam Dance," that promo.
Dave: But as I was saying, DYS was a great band. I have no regrets about it. Minor Threat was a great band, but they don't have the cult of the straight-edge band about them that DYS and SSD do.
SV: You really think that?
Dave: They do. They're known as a straight-edge band but, like, there aren't kids who dress up like Ian MacKaye did, cause Ian kind of dressed like a skater, but there are lots of kids all over the world, really, who dress like DYS used to dress. I think that's a tribute to that band and I'm glad about that because we really were a band that stood for that side of life and I don't have any regrets about that.
SV: Don't you think that's kind of living in the past, though, for a lot of these kids?
Dave: Yes, but, by the same token, everybody has to grow up and go through stuff and experience it for themselves. We just played with a band yesterday and on their single, they have a drawing of my tattoo and there's a lot of ways you can look at that but, for me, is that we've kept the same set of values that guided us then. Obviously, as you get older, you might do things a little less stringently, like I won't want to knock beers out of people's hands anymore (laughter), but I still don't drink, I still don't do drugs and I try and guide my life by a positive ethic, as you do.
SV: Well, you haven't talked to me for the last few years, but thanks!
Dave: No, but you're still doing Suburban Voice and you're still working at a very cool record store and you're married to a very wonderful girl. You're still motivated. We might not realize it even now, sometimes, but all that stuff was so much a part of all of our blood that we're still, in some ways, living by those guidelines that we set up 10 years ago and that's really a good thing.
Jon: That's true. It took me a couple of years to realize that but I think in the last couple years, I've realized that again, more than ever before, that those were the times of my life that I found everything that I stand for. I don't drink at all and it's sometimes uncomfortable or embarrassing in a business situation, where it seems strange to people, but I realize that it's something that's really important to me.
SV: Really? Even in era of the "new sobriety"?
Jon: Even in the era of the new sobriety. Advertising people want to go out and drink and I realize that I'm not happy with myself as a person if I'm not living by those values that I adopted when I was 16 years old.
SV: I guess I feel the same way. I think my ideals have gotten a little more practical the last few years but, basically, I guess I've lived my life the way I want to. I don't feel ashamed of anything I'm doing.
Dave: Yeah, and you're never going to be the kind of guy who, for instance, runs a record store that rips kids off. You would never put out a fanzine that did aritcles encouraging people to hurt other people. Just little things that sound odd when you say them in isolation, but it's an attitude and all of that kind of comes from that era. It's not just DYS or SSD, it's all the bands.
SV: It's definitely something that sticks with you.
Dave: I've come up with a new theory, also. Anyone who's 25 and over and still involved in music is in it for life. That's my theory. If you're still interested in music and alternative stuff and you're over 25, chances are you'll be connected with music for the rest of your life.
Jon: I wonder if the classic rock stations, 20 years from now, will play punk rock.
Dave: That would scare me.
SV: So Jon, you're not really involved with music, anymore, are you?
Jon: At this point, I'm not actively involved in music. I agree with Dave, completely. I think it's in my blood. Sometimes, it's very difficult for me to see live music because it makes me want to play it so badly, but I've chosen a certain path in life where there isn't a lot of time for music, but it's something I'd like to do very much.
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| PHOTO: MIKE GITTER (1985) |
Jon: I still buy far too many CD's. You know, Jon's 41 now! (laughter).
SV: Are you the big 30 yet?
Dave: No, I'm twentysomething, as I like to put it. I'm a lost generation. (actually, I hate to tattle, but Jon's 27 and Dave's probably 29--AL)
SV: You said you had some regrets about DYS towards the end.
Dave: Yeah, I think both of us do. The thing was, in a way, DYS and SSD were very ahead of their time, musically, because we were playing metal before metal became big.
Jon: We were playing grunge.
SV: It's like I told Springa, that they would have been on Sub Pop if they'd done it 6 years later. I guess the same would have gone for you guys.
Dave: Yeah, and especially Springa's vocals would have been perfect for a Sub Pop album. So, we were ahead of our time, which was good, but it was bad because it was very easy to get carried away with it and I went down to New York to meet a guy from Elektra. And, now, I've stated openly, in any circumstance in which it comes up, be it to a record label or in an interview, that I'm happy being on an independent label. I don't want to be on Elektra Records. I mean, if they gave me a million dollars and complete creative control, I could give a lot of money to Epitaph, I could give a lot to charity and buy my wife a nice house. Whatever. But my ideals have gelled to the point where I know now what I'm doing and what I want to do and, towards the end, we were just unsure if we were a punk band or a metal band, whether we wanted to sign with a major label. But, by the same token, we were doing stuff that no one else was doing, which was good.
Jon: I think, to Dave's credit, the lyrical focus never really shifted. I mean, it shifted in sort of an overt way from talking about x's on your hand to the whole struggle of the individual and I give Dave credit for that, but the lyrical center didn't move, regardless of what the music was.
Dave: A lot of it is we just got better at our instruments. We learned to play. That's what Jon meant about growing up in public.
Jon: In the punk movement, you get, for better or worse, a lot of exposure very quickly, sometimes when you're not ready for it.
SV: So what happened with DYS?
Dave: I graduated from school and DYS was a troubled band. We didn't know if we were metal or punk. The punk ideals were still there but we were, musically, becoming metal and everyone was confused and I just thought it was better that we didn't exist, anymore.
Jon: We had broken into these strange splinters.
Dave: It was me and Jon, Andy and Ross.
Jon: Dave Collins left and he was replaced by Chris Foley from SSD, which actually worked out. Do you remember the day we broke up?
Dave: I don't remember it now.
Jon: We had planned a Canadian tour and we were shooting a video in Canada, in a club, the day after we played and some typical DYS boneheaded thing happened. A show fell through and the van fell through and I think it was the last straw. We had a meeting at Charlie's in Kenmore Square, and it had been after a number of things. The van had just fallen through, Elektra had basically said to us there's no such thing as crossover, so be a metal band, be a punk band, but you can't be both.
Dave: Yeah, if you be a metal band, we'll sign you. If you be a punk band, we won't. If you stay in the middle, you're losing out both ways.
Jon: We had had song writing problems. We had only written two songs in the last year because we had these three sub-goups in the band and everyone would nix each other's songs. Andy and Ross would nix our songs, we would nix their songs and Collins would nix everybody's songs.
Dave: Collins' favorite phrase was "That's fuckin' stupid!" And, in hindsight, Dave, you were right.
Jon: We weren't writing, we couldn't tour, we were looking to get signed and we'd just had the biggest disappointment of our career, but we'd always gotten along personally and I just remember falling apart at Charlie's. We'd sort of had a big directional fight. Dave and I had sort of said, "you guys have put a cap on what we can do and how far we can go and do we want to be another Boston band that plays clubs forever and slowly plays smaller and smaller clubs."
Dave: Or would we turn totally into a metal band, which I never wanted and my punk instincts would never let me do.
Jon: So I think you and I sort of made the decision, but I remember vividly.
Gitter: What's the difference between being a metal aspirant in 1985 and a punk rock carrerist aspirant in 1993?
Dave: We weren't metal aspirants, though. That's the whole thing.
Gitter: I mean, they're both very success-oriented.
Dave: Not really. Are you kidding? Are you serious? No way. I mean, if I wanted to be success-oriented, I could be in a lot different kinds of music and I could be singing a lot differently than I am. I could be doing a lot of things differently than I am. I mean, I want to be successful at what I do, but not the point that it dictates what I do. The fact that I'm making a living at being a musician now is against the odds.
Jon: I don't think he means you. I think he means in general.
Gitter: I think the climates are real similar, right now.
Jon: I think he's saying now, everybody wants to be Nirvana, like in 1985, everybody wanted to be Metallica.
Dave: Is that what you're saying?
Gitter: Yeah.
Dave: That's a great analogy.
Gitter: The times are very analogous and congruent.
Dave: That's true. Although DYS and SSD were a little before that whole wave of bands trying to become metal bands.
Jon: As you change eras and I bow out, I just want to say one thing. I want to state and also to thank Dave for never losing his vision as long as I've known him. I think all through DYS and then staying friends with him since that point, there are few people who have taken a set of values and not adopted them blindly, but thought about them and saw them through and stuck with them.
(talk turns to Dag Nasty and Brian Baker)
SV: So why did Brian Baker go from playing in The 400 (his REM-styled pop band after Minor Threat) to punk rock, again, with Dag Nasty.
Dave: You'd have to ask Brian. To sum up Brian, he's a very good guy who, because he's talented, has many different opportunities. He has explored far too many of them but his values and his core have really always been there but he just variates, a lot. And a lot of people who now say, "Oh, Brian Baker joined Junkyard so he sucks," well, Brian Baker did a lot for every person who knows anything about hardcore music. He was in Minor Threat and Dag Nasty, arguably two of the most influential bands. It's real easy to put him down but, believe me, I know him very well. He's a very good person and he does still, almost in spite of himself, really believe in all of the things he's always believed in. I would like to say one thing about Dag Nasty. That's a very special band and a very special time of music. Kind of like the highlight of musical playing for a lot of people and the beginning of a new consciousness for a lot of people. That whole era of DC music and I was really happy about it because I was back home. I love Boston, Boston will always be my second home, but DC is where I gew up, so I was home and I was in a band that was really sucessful. That and the first Down By Law record are my two favorite records that I've ever done. And the new lineup of Down By Law I'm very excited about because, in many ways, it reminds me of the feeling I had in Dag Nasty. There's a kind of excitement to it that I haven't felt--not to put down All or the early lineup of Down By Law--this just has something similar to that.
SV: With All, was it just the grind of recording and touring that you got tired of?
Dave: Yeah. I was in All for a little over a year and we were on the road for about 9 months out of that year and anyone who knows those guys will tell you they're great human beings, they're my friends for life but they are road tough and I was not, yet. Now I feel like I am. This is also more my band. That was Billy's band. He's a tough cookie. He's earned his punk rock general stars. We were toward the end of my third 2 month tour, as well as a few one month tours and I remember I was outside a laundromat with Bill, in some godforsaken town, getting ready to get back in the van for another all-night drive and he said, "you're not going to stay in the group, are you?" and I said no.
SV: How'd you hook up with those guys, in the first place?
Dave: Mike Gitter, actually. I knew Bill from Dag Nasty and DYS, 'cause DYS had played with Black Flag and Dag Nasty had played with the Descentednt. Then, I quit Dag Nasty, 'cause I had a chance to go to college. I went to Israel for a year and while I was over there, somebody sent me "Wig Out At Denko's" and as soon as I heard it, I felt this tightness in my chest because I knew that should have been me. So Gitter called me up and I told him how I was feeling and he said Bill Stevenson's looking for a singer because Milo's leaving the Descendents and they're going to change the name and can I have him call you? Bill called me long distance from LA to Jerusalem about 20 times. The bill was like $700!
SV: So tell me about Down By Law. It was originally you and the Chemical People.
Dave: Yep. It was a project band, actually. I left All and I thought I was going to be done with music and then I said I've got these few really nice songs I wrote that I like and, actually, I always wanted to do a cover of "Best Friends." So me and Naz started to jam together and then Ed came in and Jamie Pina came in and it was all of the Chemical People. And somebody, I think it was Jim from Jersey Beat, said, "there's a match made in hell. The Joan Of Arc of emo-core with the princes of hardcore porn" or something like that and I always thought that was great. But it was a lot of fun and Jamie actually did record the first record and then he left. Right after he left, Chris joined, while we were still doing the mixing of the album. Then it was even more part-time, because it was Chemical People and Clawhammer and Down By Law and Down By Law always took a third seat and I was still trying to go to college too, at the time.
SV: Did you finally finish?
Dave: No. And I've pretty much resigned myself especially now that it's full-time. Anyway, we went to Europe, came back and recorded a second record and realized it was really too much to keep on with three bands. So I called Mark, who I knew. Mark used to be in That's It. He's from DC. Pat (Hoed) was a friend of Dave Naz's and he's an amazing bass-player. He used to be in the Nip Drivers and Left Insane. He's also in Brujeria.
SV: How did the Dag Nasty reunion album come about?
Dave: That really honestly was what it said on the inside of the album. I was over at Brian's house and he was playing me all these songs that he could never obviously play in Junkyard and I really loved them. He and I have always clicked musically and I started writing some words and some vocal melodies and some extra parts and he really liked what I was doing and in two weks we wrote a record and Colin and Roger came out and we recorded it. That was it. It was nice because there was no pressure of ever getting back together. There's some talk of that always, even among us, but I'm in Down By Law and that's what I love to do.
SV: The other thing I wanted to ask about was that book you wrote. Why didn't it ever come out?
Dave: Because I read it about 3 years after it was done. Jill Heath wanted to put it out and I read it and it was just not me anymore. Parts of it are really good but parts of it are really dumb, now. I just thought it was best to let that lie. In fact, some people wanted to put it out so badly that I had to have my lawyer in LA call them and threaten to sue them, which I hate to do. That and the time with Curtis, over the re-release of the second DYS album. If you notice on the vinyl, now it says it's a reissue. The way he did it, originally, it didn't say that. It looked like a brand new record. Kids were going to buy it thinking it was a new DYS record and I didn't want that. One thing that punk music is about, hopefully, is some sort of integrity. That's why you're different from Rolling Stone. You're a lot more honest. That's why we're different from the Rolling Stones. Besides the fact that both of us have far less money than those organizations. Independent music is about caring and honesty and taking care of people who believe in what you're doing and I didn't want it to be a dishonest thing.
SV: I always thought it was about selling t-shirts!
Dave: (laughs) It seems like it. It's really funny. In Trenton, the other night, we sold thousands of dollars worth of merchandise and that's great, but I would be doing this if not one person bought our records or got our t-shirts. I do it not for any other reason than because I love it and I stay on Epitaph Records rather than all these silly major labels. There's a lot to be learned, as Bad Religion has actually helped teach me, by sticking to your guns in terms of your profession. Bad Religion, if you notice, has never signed and they could very easily sign any day they wanted, but they don't and part of that is they just don't believe that's the way for them to do things, right now. The point is they've done it for 10 years, staying true to what they've learned.
SV: So why are we punk rock lifers?
Dave: It's in our blood and it's a good thing to have. I think of myself looking back when I'm 70 and I say, "what will I think of what I did?" I really believe that if you stand up for certain things and you believe in certain things, then you keep doing them. That's a noble thing to do. Not that I'm noble, but it's the way you should try to live your life, whatever your goal is...
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