Dillinger four

Thrasher Magazine, Sept, 2002

NO OFFENSE TO PEOPLE BORN WITHOUT EARS, no offense if you're deaf--but those are the only two valid reasons I take from people who say they don't like Dillinger Four, especially if they've ever hoisted a punk flag. Sure, there are panty-pooper emo kids who're too busy-cross-stitching their mangina (read: "Man Vagina") hairs who don't like 'em, but what do you want to rock out to at the end of the day? Spocktockular soggy-shoe music (from all the crying because their moms didn't give 'em enough money or good touches) or four drunk, powerful fat guys that can rightfully claim one of the best records of the '90s with Midwestern Songs of the Americas? What's got me purely choggled with glee is their pony has more than one stable of tricks. I didn't think it could be done, but they've just pulled the near-impossible and released one of the best new records of the '00s: Situationist Comedy. Fuck, it's simple, just buy one of D4's records. Be transformed. Do it now. Serious. Get in when the getting's good. Then in 1 0 or 20 years you can start all your bitter resentments off with "Back in the day, I saw D4," much like a ragged piece of punk luggage that whines on and on about the Sex Pistols. On second thought, screw that. Crank the stereo, crack a beer, and live like your life's dangling by a thread. Here's the soundtrack...

Retodd

Almost all of your friends think that you're lazy bastards. How did you gain this reputation while puffing out such high-quality music?

St. Patrick: Whereas lots of bands spend upwards of six months on the road or put out a record a year, we've kinda never done that style. That kind of mentality only came around when punk rock--and underground music in general--got huge and you could do it as a living. Most of us had been in bands since before that, so we never slipped into that mindset. We all have jobs. Erik owns a business. Lane just became a doctor. And on top of that, there are a lot of important hot dogs to eat and video games to play, when you get down to it. In the future I think we'll be more active than we have been just because Lane now is done with his school and his practicum. That was always the big thing. But Erik still has a bar and restaurant that he's building a venue in and, actually. I'm going to work there and help book shows. We've got a bunch of things cooking I'm sure from a-far perspective it looks like we're lazy-assed. I just think it's a prejudice against fat people.

What's the most ironic thing that's happened to the band?

On our first seven inch, we had a song that started out with me doing this chant, "Hipster, scenester, you're a flicking brown noser." And now, 10 years later, there are local people who say we're kinda scenesters, But they say it in a nice way. Now we know a lot of people because we've been doing this band for almost 10 years, and inevitably, at least in your own town, you're going to meet anybody who has anything to do with music, At that time, I thought of the terms "hipster" and "scenester" as being really derogatory so I found myself looking back on it and thinking, 'What is a scenester? Someone who's down with the scene?' If that's bad then I'm guilty.

This sounds like a cheesy question, but it's not. Now that you're going to get more exposure from this album and doing an extensive tour, what are you doing to keep it real? What reality checks are the band writing for themselves to make it not business as usual?

Actually, keep it business as usual to be honest with you--our business as usual. Especially with summer tours. Places are trying to outbid each other to have us play We're not used to that, especially considering they tend to be cities we couldn't get shows in four years ago.

You're also making a big effort to not make this a package tour, and instead are picking local bands to open whenever you can.

When I was young you could start a band, have a good time, and eventually if you played around long enough you might actually get to play before Youth of Today or Crimpshrine. It could happen. But now package tours are so common that it isn't even a possibility anymore, In a lot of cities, there're two different show-going worlds: The kids who buy these records and go see package tours and the kids who are into what's going on in their own town and are excited about it. I don't want to be a part of the package-tour thing, it's like the Starbucks of punk. Every town they go to is the same show. Half the fun of touring is seeing bands you've never heard of before. A lot of them are gonna suck, but the few that don't are going to be some of the best shit that you've ever heard.

Are there any other band-wide policies?

We won't play a show if it wasn't one we'd see in the first place. We also get in those debate/arguments about beer for the practice room. It's not all these good guy things. Some of them are also dirty, fat, Midwestern dude arguments. We have a lot of drinking rules. You have to have at least two beers before you play because nobody wants a stiff guy up here bumming the rest of them out. At the same time, if you're too trashed and can't play, you're in the penalty box. You can only have two beers for a couple shows.