The
Doughboys
This article originally appeared in NFH #18 in
the winter of 1990.
"We never have
done well in Southern California", moans John Kastner, singer and guitar
player for Montreal's Doughboys. But I'd say that depends on how you define the
word well...if you mean packing in the houses, well, I'd have to agree that
the previous night's show at the Spirit was pathetic...no more than 20 or so people
there when they came on. But if you mean making some of the most thunderously driving
melodic punk rock ever to come this way, then in my estimation the Doughboys did
very well indeed.
I don't know what it
is about this town that such good bands are totally ignored...it isn't that people
aren't capable of understanding this kind of music, because there isn't that much
distance between the Doughboys and a band like the Buzzcocks, who packed the
Bachannal just a week earlier with what must have been well over 500 people. And at
this stage in life, if you strip the nostalgia value from the Buzzcocks, the
Doughboys put on a vastly more exciting show. Even though Kastner says that he
thought this was the worst show of a tour that began in August and hit 100 cities
when they came here, the band showed a level of energy and enthusiasm that few
groups could have rivaled. Kastner is a leaping dervish as a front man, while bass
player Jonh Bond Head bounces around oddly on the balls of his bare feet and lead
guitar player Jon Cummins wails at his instrument with hair flying like a Kent
Steedman understudy. In the back, the newest Doughboy, Paul Newman, hammers his
drum kit to provide a devastating backbeat to those great tunes. "It's not
that hard when everybody's cool, but shows like last night when nobody's there are
really hard. At this point in the tour it's really hard, because it's not like
you're really having that great a time playing those songs for the hundredth time.
But you've got to bear with it and smile and have a good time, because if you're
not going to have fun it's not worth it really. We had a good time. But we were
lazy as fuck. Usually our band is really chaotic when we play, but last night we
just kind of stood there. But it was OK."
Yeah, and I
understand there was a bit of a breeze when Hurricane Camille came too. I mean, as
I write this, I'm contemplating taking Monday and Tuesday off and driving to
Phoenix to see the Doughboys play a show with Bullet LaVolta, that's how OK it was.
Here's the truth...these guys are brilliant live. It may be that their latest lp on
Enigma has a bit of a production polish to help its appeal to the college type, but
make no mistake about these guys, their roots are punk, and they play harder and
faster than most hardcore bands. Through it all, they maintain a sense of melody,
dynamics, and tightness that is a sight to see.
The members of the
Doughboys have been playing in bands for some time now but their obvious high level
of playing ability hasn't compromised their desire to blast away. Kastner played
with Montreal's hardcore group the Asexuals for about 5 years in the mid eighties,
and the other band members are also veterans of other punk groups. The Doughboys
released their first record themselves in North America in 1987, the fabulous Whatever
lp. For a self released effort it did very well, attracting enough attention to get
licensed in several countries in Europe, where the band has built a good following.
It also got them signed to Enigma, who released this year's Home Again on
their Restless label (see the reviews section). In between there have been some line up
shuffles, with Scott McCullough being replaced by Cummins before recording Home
Again and Paul moving in for Brock Pytel on drums. The drum shift was a major
change for the Doughboys. Unlike many drummers, Brock was an integral part of the
songwriting and singing. Says John: "He was a big part of it for all of us.
And he's still our best friend...he just moved to India. He wasn't into playing
music anymore; he was studying meditation pretty seriously. Paul's been a really
good friend of ours for a long time, so he was a natural progression that works
well. The thing about Brock was he was a good singer, but he wasn't that good of a
drummer live, really. So now with Paul it's like we can pretty well kick ass no
matter what the circumstances just because he's like a really hot drummer. It makes
going on tour a lot easier."
Enigma is one of
those nearly big-time indie labels that seems to put out a millions records, most
of them by bands that end up making very few waves and then disappearing. I asked
John whether he had any worries about this or if he thought there were advantages
to going with a smaller label that would provide more personal attention. "I
think it's up to the band to make themselves stick out", he replies. "If
you're going to work for it you're going to get it, if not then you're just going
to be another one of them and if you're lucky you're lucky and if you're not,
you're not. If you let yourself get into that category, that's cool. But I think
the thing to do is to try to avoid it."
Montreal has never
been a place that I've thought of as a haven for good rock and roll bands, but John
is pretty high on the place. "Montreal is a great city, two million
people", he says. "In the top ten in North America as far as size of
cities go, and yeah, it's a pretty happening place; lots of bands that tour and
great clubs and stuff. It's pretty together. A lot goes on there, a real lot. All
of the bands that tour in America play Montreal, usually. There's lots of great
bands like The Nils, No Rise, Voivod...those are some of the hip bands from
Montreal. The list goes on and on. I'm not into metal that much, but I seem to be
friends with all these Montreal metal bands."
Kastner's earlier
band, the Asexuals, are still playing in Montreal. They've toured the US several times,
and actually came to San Diego twice before, where they played all ages hardcore
shows. John has bad memories of these visits: "Every time I played there in
the past we almost always nearly got the shit beat out of us by these big skinhead guys;
these ex-marine skinhead guys. So I kind of never wanted to go back to San Diego
for that reason alone. We always seem to get fucked in Southern California. We
never get good shows."
But now the band has
found an approach with the energy of hardcore but more melody, and they have moved
well away from the thrash thing. "I stopped listening to that kind of stuff a
while back", says John. "I listen to pop music these days. I'm into the
modern day kind of music, like Big Drill Car or All; that kind of thing, or even
the Subpop stuff I can kind of dig, Mudhoney, Soundgarden, that kind of thing. The
Asexuals were pretty hardcore. It's been a progression from that."
"As you get
older you progress, you know. We all have been playing since 80 and 81 in punk rock
bands, so this is where the progression has come to in 1989. It's still going to
have that hard edge and stuff, but at the same time it's got lots of melody and
that kind of thing too, so I think our sound is the best of both worlds; that heavy
edge but still there's that Saturday, Sunday morning Beatle music, if you know what
I mean."
"My favorite
bands come from Australia. I like the Hard-Ons a lot; I like the Hoodoo Gurus a
lot. The Hard-Ons are really good friends of ours. We played with them in Paris
about five weeks ago, and we played with them in New York three weeks ago. They're
a great band. Really good."
John is also a big
Stiff Little Fingers fan, if you couldn't guess from the records. He didn't see
them on their reunion tour, and says that he thinks it's probably best that he
didn't, as it left him with his faith intact.
For the future, the
Doughboys will be happy to get off the road by mid December and then plan to start
working on their next lp shortly after that. They already have all the songs
written for it, and they are thinking about going to New York to record. The
release date is unfortunately pretty far in the future, since Home Again has
only been out a couple months. I'm looking forward to hearing the band with more of
Kastner's vocals as I thought that although he's a good singer, Brock Pytel's
vocal style tended to make some of the songs too smooth in places where a little
more roughness would've driven them to greatness. Also, getting to hear Newman's
drums on record will be a real kick. Meantime, if you haven't heard Whatever or
Home Again, you ought to be thinking about what you can do to fix that.
