Rob: The Hermano tour is postponed, how exactly did you break your thumb? On a binder at school? That sounds painful.
Dandy: Two days after returning home from the Azkena festival in Victoria, I was still completely exhausted. Man, that show was an absolute blast, but to try to fly to Spain from LA, rehearse for two days, play the show, and then fly home, and all in a total of four days beat my thirty seven year old ass up! The flight and layover time alone came to about 42 hours of that trip. Anyway, after getting home at three AM and then having to go and teach 120 kids at six AM, I just didn�t have time to catch my breath. I came back to a shit load of grading to do, and didn�t get much sleep the next night either. To get to the point, though, we have a machine that puts new covers on hardback books when they get worn out. It�s sort of a heated platform that has a metal gate that clamps the binding against the glue of the pages. In my semi-conscious state, I agreed to help out with refurbishing some of the lit books, and as I was closing the gate on a book I forgot to move my thumb. I even started to flip the lock before I realized there was a vise on my finger! Needless to say, it was painful, but amazingly I didn�t get burned too badly. At first it didn�t feel broken, but after a few minutes it was swollen to about the size of a baseball. It has healed quite a bit over the last week and a half, but there is no way I can put any pressure on the thumb at this point . . . at least not enough to accommodate the way I play by resting my thumb on the pick-up.
Rob: You organized both Hermano and Orquesta del Desierto � what made you do both projects and give us sort of a history of the forming of both groups for the people at the site that don�t know � of both bands.
Dandy: As far as Hermano, I was living in Cincinnati, OH, back in 1998. I remember that summer being one of the most miserably hot and humid times of my life (including the time I spent in Florida). I owned a little demo studio on the outskirts of the city for a couple of years, and had been engineering and producing all kinds of music there. For anyone who knows anything about Cincinnati, or has spent some time living there, that area of the US was and still is one of the most racially divided parts of the nation. Hell, all you have to do is read some of the news reports that have come out of there over the last twenty years to know what I�m talking about.
Anyway, I had been hearing reflections of that social animosity in the music those artists were bringing into my studio, and to walk the streets of Cincinnati on any given night gave a glimpse into the mistrust the different ethnicities of that city have for each other. Eventually, a combination of those things began to inspire a batch of heavy blues music that would become the initial riffs for the Hermano record.
After I got pretty far into writing the material, I called up Steve Earle to see if he would come in and demo out the music with me. It was after I had done those demos that I began to think about calling some more of my favorite performers to see if they wanted to come in and take the demo further. Amazingly, the two guys I sent the demo to and called, Dave Angstrom and John Garcia were immediately into doing the project. Mike Callahan, though, was kind of an accident. I was lucky enough to catch a Disengage show after doing a session one evening, and immediately fell in love with his energy and tone.
To tell you the truth, I never had any intension of doing anything with those songs other than having a personal CDR that I could spin when I wanted to. After finishing up the first four songs, I made ten CDR�s that I just sent to a few friends. Within a month, I had been contacted by a few dozen labels and management companies wanting to take Hermano further. Really, that�s the way it all fell together. I feel really lucky and humbled that things have gone as far as they have with Hermano. It�s certainly way more than I ever expected.
As for Orquesta del Desierto, that project is linked in many ways to the Hermano record. When I finished mixing the Hermano collection back in Cincinnati, I was completely finished with living there. I mean, how long can a person take living in that kind of atmosphere? It was Garcia that lured me out west with the �romance and beauty of the desert.� I came west to do the mastering on the Hermano record, and was lucky enough, again, to be introduced to Mike Riley. Mike is that guy behind the scene out here . . . you know, that guy that has jammed with everyone in the city, helped to engineer or do live sound for everyone, and also owned the recording studio where folks would pop in to work on various projects. He and I instantly hit it off, and I decided to have him help me master �Only a Suggestion.� As it worked out, while working in his studio, I had the honor of being introduced to people like Alfredo Hernandez, Mario Lalli, Emiliano Hernandez, and a whole host of desert musicians. In the off time, we started putting together jam sessions with whoever happened to be in the studio that evening, and slowly I began to piece together another batch of songs...the initial Orquesta riffs.
After a few months of jamming and being influenced by the desert environment, and, man, it is influential, I asked some of the people who had sat in on those jams if they wanted to help me record the tunes I had come up with over the first six months I had been living out there. There were other twists and turns in putting the first Orquesta record together, but that was how it began.
Again, I can�t express completely how humbling it is to have people interested in both projects. I may never have a gold record, or one that ever reaches more than a few thousand folks, but I feel like the luckiest motherfucker on the planet to have been able to work with some of the greatest musicians in the world, to have found the friendships that I have through those projects, and to have been able to put out a couple of records that have created some interest.
Rob: When is the Hermano tour going to continue?
Dandy: After the accident, I immediately contacted our management and asked if it would be possible to postpone the tour until mid-November, but it was just too short notice. The earliest we could configure all of the schedules was December, but we had already booked studio time for the new record then. Man, the toughest thing about Hermano has always been the scheduling. Between Supafuzz, Unida, Orquesta del Desierto, Earshot, Steve Earle working on his solo record, maintaining our day jobs, and trying to find some time to enjoy our families there have never been that many open windows of opportunity for Hermano. That�s just the way it goes with the project, though. Looking ahead, we certainly want to have a new record out before hitting the road. Shit, it has been nearly five years since we were in a studio together! Sitting on five years of unrecorded Hermano material, well, the catalog of songs that we have to track is getting massive. If we want to have a release ready for the next tour, then April became the earliest option. I believe all of the shows that we had to postpone are being rescheduled for April 1 � 18 of next year.
Rob: I hear rumors that there is another Orquesta record coming out...
Dandy: It is being duplicated right now in Europe, and will be on the shelves there on October 27, on Alone Records (the Stone Circle). Unfortunately, due to release scheduling, it won�t be available in the US until January of next year on Meteorcity.
Rob: You have gotten to work with John Garcia and Pete Stahl, both great singers of and respected highly in the Stoner Rock scene...give us some insight on each person, like how is it to work with both of them?
Dandy: I keep coming back to the word �lucky.� I have been truly lucky to have been able to work with both of those guys.
Over the last twenty years or so, I�ve had the opportunity to work with dozens of vocalists, but John Garcia brings more intensity into a session than anyone I�ve ever worked with no matter what instrument they play. I�ve said it before, but John, in my opinion, is the greatest pure rock singer that I�ve heard since the hey-days of Ian Gillan and Deep Purple. There is so much emotion in his delivery that it just drips with passion. Really, though, that�s just a reflection of John himself. If most of us had to carry the mixture of love, fury and sincerity that he carries within himself our heads would probably blow off.
In the same breath, Pete Stahl brings a different kind of intensity. Truly a lyrical and experimental genius, it is my belief that Pete would be the greatest producer in the world if he wanted to apply himself that way. There is a certain avant-garde within him that makes every session one of those occasions where you don�t want to blink for fear of missing something unbelievable. The man has a spirit and sensibility that goes beyond the common experience, and to have that in the studio when tracking a record is amazing.
Rob: For those that don�t know, what are some of the bands that you played with before Hermano?
Dandy: Before Hermano, I had played in numerous bands. The list is really too long to go into, but all of them were truly significant to my musical development. In general, though, I�ve played nearly every kind of music imaginable either in the studio or live, sometimes in great bands with great potential, and other times in terrible bands that just sucked.
Rob: There is a lot of shit talk about Hermano and people from the desert have some issues about you and the bands you produced . . . I know this is probably stirring some shit up but what, if anything, do you have to say about the nay sayers?
Dandy: No, Rob, I�ve got nothing to say to that. What would be the point? I try to stay positive and not sink into the negativity other people have because of other issues in their lives. I�m not the source of those issues. I�m a musician. I write music that is influenced by a number of factors . . . including where I live. I�m a producer. I produce records occasionally. What�s there to take issue with? You don�t like the music? Don�t buy, or download it. You don�t like me? Avoid me. Easy solutions to silly problems.
Rob: Any plans for Orquesta touring?
Dandy: There is nothing more I would like than to do a few live dates with Orquesta del Desierto. Actually, we have had offers to get out and do it from a number of promoters and booking agents, but, and this is going to sound extremely similar to the Hermano situation, there just hasn�t been an open window of opportunity to put it together at this point. In both bands, the same difficulties keep coming up in regard to putting together live performances . . . that being we all have other things that we are involved in, and the schedules are difficult to work out. Right now, we are thinking about doing a few Orquesta shows in southern California at the beginning of December, and we are hoping to do a few weeks in Europe at the beginning of next summer. I know that sounds awfully sporadic and spread out, but the time slots are few to share between my job, my family, Hermano, and Orquesta.
Rob: Anything you would like to say to the community at StonerRock.com?
Dandy: I visit SR.com about once or twice a month just to see what is going on there. Actually, beyond all the rumor mills and pathetically lonely I sometimes see there, there are hundreds of posts that express incredible views and opinions. The best thing about SR.com is that it gives a forum to people who aren�t hungry for what CorporateMusicAmerica (CPA) wants to shove down our throats, and draws people who refuse to be defined by singular and shallow parameters. In a way, SR.com is a salvation for people who want to see in multi-dimension, and those are truly the people that keep the spirit of music alive these days.
Rob: If you weren�t a rocker, what would you most like to be?
Dandy: Hell, exactly what I am now . . . a high school English teacher.
Rob: What was your worst gig and why? What was your best gig and why?
Dandy: Worst Gig: I was hired on to do a show with a band called Splatter back in 1989. During the rehearsals, the singer was extremely calm and sounded great, but when he showed up for the gig he was raging out of the control (pills and booze), screaming at the audience before the gig began that he didn�t need them because he had been signed to Capital Records and that they were nothing to him. I suppose it could have been funny if he wasn�t so damn obnoxious. I lasted about two songs into the show before I simply packed up my gear and left the venue. There were a number of my friends that I had invited to the show, and to this day they continue to tease me about that one.
Best Gig: Man, there are dozens of them. I am going to say that the Azkena show that we just did in September, because that was truly one of the best Hermano shows I�ve been a part of. There are certain nights when the sound is just right and everyone is truly locked in with each other, including the audience. Azkena was one of those shows.
Rob: Top three movies, books, and albums of all time?
Dandy:
Top Three Movies:
Man Bites Dog
Moby Dick (Gregory Peck version)
North by Northwest
Top Three Books: (there are many others)
Black Spring by Henry Miller
Sons and Lovers by D.H. Lawrence
Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Top Three Albums: (very tough question)
�News of the World� Queen
�Zen Arcade� Husker Du
�Diamond Life� Sade
Rob: How often do you surf the net and what do you mostly do online?
Dandy: I�m online every day reading news, looking of quirky facts that pop in my head throughout the day, or doing research for my classes or enjoyment.
Rob: What is your favorite city and venue to play, and why?
Dandy: Of all the places I have played, the Patronaat in Haarlem, Netherlands has to be my favorite. Great sound, great atmosphere, and fun people . . . what more could a musician ask for?
Rob: What is the most rock �n� roll thing you�ve ever done?
Dandy: Not really rock n roll related as far as gigging or tracking, but being a bottler for a clown on the streets of Paris for a couple of months in the winter of �91 and �92. I froze my ass off, but I made damn good money at it.
Rob: What�s the most rock �n� roll thing you�ve ever seen someone else do?
Dandy: I would say that Steve Earle�s strip tease just before our show in Frankfurt last summer has to rank way up there.
Rob: What�s the most painful thing you have ever witnessed at a rock show?
Dandy: Back in 1993, I went to a Bullet Lavolta show in Eindhoven. It was a small club, with maybe 150 folks at the show, but they brought the house down. After the show, the singer, Yukki Gipe, introduced the kids who stuck around to a thing called the �broom game.� The object was to spin around with a broom held above your head while staring at the bristle end directly above you as the people who encircled you counted to ten. After they finished counting, the broom had to be placed on the floor and then jumped over by the person who had been spinning. Obviously, this becomes much more difficult after a dozen beers! The person who went after me, and believe me it is difficult to keep balanced during the jump, went stumbling into a metal radiator . . . head first. There was blood squirting everywhere, and the kid didn�t move for about a half an hour . . . until the paramedics arrived and wheeled him out.
Rob: How old were you when you first realized you wanted to rock?
Dandy: I can�t remember ever having another state of mind.
Rob: What�s the most embarrassing job you�ve ever had?
Dandy: Easy. Stocker at Toys R Us. It wasn�t so much that I was embarrassed of having the job, just that it�s the only job I�ve ever been fired from.
Rob: What�s your favorite ice cream flavor?
Dandy: It�s not so much ice cream, unless you count the cream in the middle, but I would have to say Cream-Cycle.
Rob: If you could date any rock star dead or alive in the world, who would it be? Movie Star?
Dandy: I don�t date, brother. I�m married, and she�s way better than any rock or movie star I can think of.
Rob: What would be the ultimate dream gig of all time line-up be, with your band opening?
Dandy: Hermano opening, Husker Du in the middle, and AC/DC (Bon Scott version) headlining Orquesta opening, Bill Withers in the middle, Sade as the headliner.
Rob: Limit it to three bands (including your own) and where?
Dandy: Are you kidding me? Opening up for those line-ups, it could happen in my living room as far as I�m concerned. It wouldn�t matter as long as I could see the bands and artists that followed us.
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