Dead Boy Productions

 

04/25/08
Dan Zig & Rev. Dan

Dead Boy Productions with Jesse Wagner of The Aggrolites

 

Pretty much let’s get into when you guys started. 

The band started six years ago in Los Angeles. Me and Brian, Brian’s our guitarist and Korey is our drummer, we came from a band called the Rhythm Doctors, which was signed to TKO record label, we were an instrumental reggae band, no vocals, nothing. We broke up and ended up being in a lot of different bands. There was another band playing the same kind of style as us at the time called the Vessels, which was our old bass player J., and our organ player Roger. Long story short we got bored, we weren’t doing anything for a long time other than being in different bands that we really weren’t a part of and we decided to put the Aggrolites together just sort of to do local gigs, we just wanted to do it for fun because no one was doing it and then that turned into doing a little tour and that turned into going to Europe and then that turned into buying into it full time, busting our ass and quitting our jobs. 

That was my next question. You guys don’t work day jobs? 

No, I mean, we probably should be working day jobs. We are broke as hell and all that, but I don’t know it kinda takes away from the focus you know what I mean. I don’t know. I lot of times when you have a day job it’s like well…. I can’t do this tour…well why not….because I have to be home to make money and stuff like that….we’d rather live like bums. Maybe when I’m fifty years old and I’m still in the same spot then I’ll be complaining about it, but right now we get to see the world for free and we get to make music and people get to hear it, we get to entertain and do shows and it’s all worth the little money you get for it. 

How did the deal with Hellcat come about? 

The first CD was an independent label, buddies of ours from San Francisco, buddies of ours that we met through the TKO label. With Hellcat when we were in the Rhythm Doctors and TKO signed us they were just kinda coming out, they had too many bands they were signing at the time. Hellcat was interested because we were in LA and Tim Armstrong was there and he came to see us and stuff and they just signed, they had the Slackers on there and all that, so they were interested in us, but they just had too many bands, so we got on the backburner about them signing us, we ended up jumping to TKO putting out that album and then when the Aggrolites started there was already word about the Rhythm Doctor guys and just being local Brian ran into one of the dudes, Chris LaSalle, and told him about the Aggrolites, went into the label land gave them our CD. They liked the fact that we were able to do everything on our own, we weren’t pampered by management or a booking agent, we were an independent band that did it all on our own. They pretty much just had to release our albums and sign us and see how far it could get they liked that and they signed us. We did one song for the Give ‘em the Boot comp and then shortly after that, that worked out well so they signed us. 

Do you guys still do everything yourselves? 

Now we have a manager and a booking agent, just because it gets so hard. When it comes to recording an album we do all the producing and engineering.  All that stuff is on our own. When it comes to touring we’ve had tour managers here and there, but most of the time we manage ourselves, unless you are in Europe where you are going to eleven countries where you don’t speak a word of their languages. Like I said it gets hard, but for the most part yeah we do everything on our own. 

So how long has this record been out now, Reggae Hit LA? 

It came out June 5th, I believe, of last year. 

And how has the reception been? 

It’s been good. The only way to push an album is to go out on the road as much as possible. 

Do you see a lot of people knowing the songs off of it, more people coming to the shows, that type of thing? 

Yeah I have. I think that goes in the lines of being signed to a label that’s pretty popular and Hellcat’s really good at keeping their own little scene of people and once we got signed into that circuit we automatically started getting punk rock fans. Everybody in this band is punk rock at heart. I got into reggae if not through punk rock then through some other type of music so we were always proud. For a long time, and not in any bad way, we were playing in this ska scene for a long time and getting mistaken…..we would be playing gigs like this all the time and once we got signed to Hellcat it was cool because we were going on tour with Dropkick Murphys and playing with the Street Dogs, and Left Alone, and so on and so on and did that solo album for Tim. Actually our new bass player is from Tiger Army. 

When I saw you guys in Victorville, my girlfriend asked me, “Is that who I think it is?” and I said “You know what, it is.” 

We’ve known him, shit, since I was about 17, 18 years old. I was in a band called See Spot with him. 

I didn’t know you were in See Spot!  

Me, Brian, Korey and Geoff. The last time I was here, that was the last time I was at the Barn about 7 or 8 years ago.

Well we grew up in Corona so we were at the Showcase Theatre. 

Oh, right on dude! 

You’re from Rialto? 

I’m from Rialto, born and raised. Well, Fontana and Rialto. That See Spot show was all of us, but Roger and that was when the Aggrolites were starting up. Nah, it was probably about six years ago, because it’s when we were talking about the Aggrolites and we were doing little side practices as the Aggrolites, messing around. People think that bands are so easy, but dude, it’s been like six or seven years. I’ve been doing music since I was 15, touring in bands since I was 16. It takes so much and we’re not even an eighth of the way. I’m very happy with the way things are going. 

I just noticed you guys came off of tour with 311. How did that go? 

Yeah that was cool. It was cool, they were nice guys. When you go on tour with a major, major band like 311, you are just getting paid really small money. You’re there pretty much to steal their fans and that’s what we did. We busted our ass every night, making no money at all, but we played our ass off to win those fans over. It was a great opportunity and it was really nothing you could ever bad mouth about. That’s doing it in my opinion. Playing for that many people or playing for twenty people a night do you know what I mean?