This is definitely not one of my more insightful interviews. Truth be told, I was not the biggest Lagwagon fan in 1996. Other than NoFX, I found most of the Fat Wreck Chord bands to be generic and yes, I really thought they all sounded the same. My buddy Jeff, however, was a huge Lagwagon fan and begged me for weeks to try and get tickets to see them at Coney Island High.
Not only did I pull it off, but I scored an interview with founding bassist Jesse Buglione and surprised Jeff with the news as we pulled up to the venue. That bad part was that because it was a surprise, Jeff had no questions prepared and I was too disinterested in the band to come up with any. Jeff did his best and the below interview is the end result of an hour-long chat with Jesse.
On a separate note, Jesse mentions flippantly during the interview that he wouldn’t be in the band much longer. He actually lasted another 14 years with Lagwagon and quit in 2010 to spend more time with his son.
This interview was originally published in Life In A Bungalo #6 circa Winter 1996
Warning: This interview contains large amounts of senseless babbling and prattling. It was conducted with Jesse of Lagwagon during their show on May 31, 1996 at Coney Island High. A good time was had by all.
Jeff: Let’s start off with who’s in the band and ages?
Jesse: I’m Jesse. I’m 21. I’m the bass player. Actually, I’m not very sure of everyone else’s ages. Joey, he’s the short guy, he sings. Chris is the really tall guy, and he plays guitar on the right side of the stage. On the left side, Sean plays guitar, and Dave is our new drummer.
Jeff: What happened to Derek, your old drummer?
Jesse: Um, we have a lot of stories.
Jeff: Really?
Jesse: We’ve got some really good lies about it. (laughs)
George: You guys liked him a lot, I guess.
Jeff: We’ll just put down creative differences.
Jesse: Well, basically, he just took up a new hobby.
Jeff: Would you care to inform us?
George: Some sort of Stone Temple Pilots’ situation? (laughs)
Jeff: OK, We’ll leave it at that. What is a Lagwagon? Is it your tour bus or something?
Jesse: It was our tour bus but it died. It became too much of a lag wagon.
Jeff: You guys are playing only a few East Coast date. Is there a reason for that?
Jesse: Basically, we only have a little over a month to cover as much of the U.S. as possible. Hopefully, we’ll be coming back sometime soon.
Jeff: What’s the deal with Bonanza, and Hoss being on the cover of the new album?
Jesse: Hoss is a martyr, he’s a legend, he’s a hero and he’s just a great human being and we all love him dearly.
Jeff: Have you ever been to the Bonanza Ranch?
Jesse: I drove by it once. To tell you the truth, I never watched Bonanza until this album came out. I figured I had to because I didn’t want people coming up to me and asking me what Hoss’ last name is, and I wouldn’t know. (laughs)
Jeff: On the cover of the Trashed album there’s a picture of the band playing soccer, and there’s another person in the picture. Who is that?
Jesse: He’s our coach.
Jeff: So you really do play soccer?
Jesse: Yeah, but he quit coaching us so that he could play guitar for No Use For A Name.
Jeff: What are your influences?
Jesse: For the band, it’s mainly just heavy metal — Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Krokus, Manowar. Personally, it was metal at first, but when I was 15 I saw Gorilla Biscuits and that was like the best show I had ever been to in my life. Then I got really into Operation Ivy. Now Jawbreaker is my favorite band. I listen to a lot of Jawbreaker, the Muffs, Morphine…
George: I really like Morphine. They’ve got that strange bass like the Presidents of the United States.
Jesse: They’re amazing live.
Jeff: Do you feel that you stand for anything? Like in one of your songs, you’re trying to encourage people to vote. Do you try to send a message to kids?
Jesse: Some of our songs have messages — some of them are just about personal things. Mainly, anything that we have to say, politically, has been covered by so many bands that we try to just relate to things that deal with our lives.
Jeff: How did you get the deal with Fat Wreck Chords?
Jesse: We recorded our demo about eight months after we had gotten together and then we broke up. We were all living in Santa Barbara at the time and our singer moved to San Francisco. He ran into Fat Mike in a bar. We had all known Mike because NoFX had lived in Santa Barbara for a while. We heard that he was starting a label, so we gave him a copy of our demo and he liked it. Joey called us up and asked if we wanted to get the band back together because we had just gotten signed.
Jeff: Do you guys have any music videos or singles planned?
Jesse: We have a music video. It wasn’t really our idea. There’s this guy, Louis, he runs Hopeless Records in LA and he used to direct videos. He really wanted to do a video for the song “Island of Shame,” and it was going to cost us ten thousand dollars, and we really didn’t want to do a video in the first place, so we said “no thanks.” Louis kept asking us and asking us. Finally he said that he’d pay for all of the video and he knew that we would love it and we could pay him back afterwards. If we didn’t like it, he would keep the rights to it. So we made the video and we weren’t really that into it, so he just kept the rights to it.
George: Is it on MTV?
Jesse: No, it’s on a video compilation called Cinema Beer Goggles.
George: With NoFX and Guttermouth, or is that the second one?
Jesse: No, we’re on the first one. I think that’s all it’s been on, but Louis may have sent it to some independent TV station, or something. We didn’t send it to MTV, and even if we did, they probably
wouldn’t play it.
Jeff: They’d play it like two in the morning.
Jesse: I saw a Guttermouth video at two in the morning.
George: They usually play cool videos late at night. That’s the only time they play ALL’s “Million
Dollars.”
Jeff: “Million Bucks,” not dollars.
George: Anyway, last night I got to see the new Metallica video, between cheesy movies, and they were all covered in chocolate fudge. It was really kind of funny. I don’t know if you’re into Metallica or not.
Jesse: Not really. I saw them play a long time ago. I still like some of their albums, I think Ride The Lightening is a great album.
George: I like Kill ‘Em All.
Jesse: Ever since James Hetfield cut his hair I can’t handle that. (laughs)
Jesse: He’s got a flat top now.
George: Have you seen the new video? It’s got Jesus being crucified while they pour chocolate syrup on each other.
Jeff: Would you guys ever sign to a major or are you happy with FAT?
Jesse: We’re really happy with FAT. FAT’s a great label. I personally don’t have a problem with bands that sign to majors. Like I said, Jawbreaker is my favorite band in the world and they’re signed to Geffen. But I don’t think it’s right for this band. We’ve seen so many bands get screwed over by major labels.
Jeff: You were the first band signed to FAT, weren’t you.
Jesse: Yeah. FAT’s been great, mainly because Fat Mike plays in a band, I guess. He’s really cool.
George: Are you on the Fat Wreck Chords bowling team?
Jesse: No, I’m not personally because I can’t bowl. Plus, when we started out I still lived in Santa Barbara, so that was too far away from San Francisco, and I wouldn’t be able to make the commute to bowl. I’m just not good enough.
Jeff: How’s your hometown, boring, anything special going on?
Jesse: Actually, when I’m in Santa Cruz I try to do as little as possible. After being on tour for a couple of months, it’s just cool to sit at home and hang out with my roommates and girlfriend. I got really sick of Santa Barbara and that’s kinda why I moved to Santa Cruz. It was a small town, so if something happened to you, everybody knew about it. Even people you never met in your life.
George: At least you live in California. All we have over here is the 7-11 and the Livingston Mall.
Jeff: Do you guys feel that there is always room for Taco Bell?
Jesse: Taco Bell is a good thing. When we first started to tour our food budget was only twelve dollars a day to feed six people.
Jeff: You can survive on that?
Jesse: Yeah, we would buy two bean burritos each. It got us through tours, so it was a good thing.
Jeff: Why did you give only half the lyrics for Trashed?
Jesse: I think part of it was ‘cause Joey was kind of rushed to write out all the lyrics and give them to Fat Wreck Chords. The other half of the lyrics he either wasn’t happy with or he didn’t want to print. Some of them he only included a line.
Jeff: How about a favorite movie or TV show?
Jesse: The only TV shows that I try to watch a lot are the Simpsons, Kids In The Hall and Mystery Science Theatre, but sometimes they can have a bad episode. Camera Intellegente (?). It’s the most amazing TV show. It’s on right before the Simpsons on Telemundo. It’s like a Mexico’s funniest home videos, but most of the videos are of people getting injured. My roommates and I watch it all of the time, but they enjoy it more than I do, because at least one of them is fluent in Spanish. The stuff is so violent. Like in one scene, they show this little baby in a carriage flip onto a rock garden. The baby is screaming and everyone in the audience is laughing. I saw one where the winner won like ten million pesos, and it was for a video of these two little kids, and one of them has this chain of beads. The older brother took these beads and stuck them in the other brother’s butt and dragged him around. It won the grand prize for the episode.
Jeff: I think I saw a porno movie with beads like that, but that’s another story.
George: Who writes most of the songs? Is it a group effort or does someone write the lyrics and someone else writes the music?
Jesse: Joey does all the lyrics and he writes a lot of the music — the basic forms of the music. He’ll come in with a song and then the rest of us work on our own parts.
Jeff: Will there be a new Lagwagon album?
Jesse: It’s hard to say right now. I think there will be but I don’t know if I’ll necessarily be recording on it.
Jeff: Coke or Pepsi?
Jesse: I’d have to say Coke.
Jeff: I agree, because Coke asks you, they don’t demand you to drink, whereas Pepsi tells you to drink their stuff.
George: Are you going to see the Sex Pistols?
Jesse: No, the only reunion tour that I have any interest in seeing is the Misfits.
George: I saw them at the Stone Pony. They were so cool. The new lead singer is amazing.
Jesse: Yeah, that’s what I heard.
George: The lead singer has the same range as Danzig, but the best part is the drum set. It’s got these huge spikes. I’ve got to show you the pictures.
Jesse: Isn’t the lead singer some 21 year old kid from the midwest?
George: Actually, I thought it was their next door neighbor. We live around there, so we get to see them at the mall.
Jeff: Yeah, Doyle signs autographs at the local comic book stores.
George: Back to the drum set. It’s got these 10-foot spikes — you can’t even see the drummer. For all we know there is probably a tape deck back there. The show was great. Too bad the opening acts were all metal bands.
Jesse: Actually, the last time we did a tour in Europe, when we got home we found out that Iron Maiden had played the night before at a tiny little club.
George: The new lead singer was being interviewed on the local radio show. I called up and asked him if he ever met Sid Vicious? He answered (with a bad British accent) “No, I never met Sid Vicious, but I met Kevin Costner.” Since I got on the air the station gave me a free copy of their new album. When he found out that they gave me it for free, he got all pissed off and started yelling, “That’s rubbish, you can’t give away my fucking album, you’ve got to sell them — half off, half off.” It was so funny… I love British people. So, you’re not going to see the Sex Pistols?
Jesse: I never really liked the Sex Pistols. When I listened to them I was like 16 and the only reason that I listened to them was because they were the Sex Pistols.
George: I always liked the Ramones better. What about the Descendents?
Jesse: Now if there was a Descendents reunion…
George: ALL still plays a lot of Descendents’ songs.
Jeff: Two years ago, Milo jumped on stage because Chad had like a …
Jesse: Every time we come even near the East Coast someone’s like, I was at that show.
George: Did you ever play City Gardens?
Jesse: Nope. For some reason we only played in Jersey once. It was a really cool show.
Jeff: Was it at Middlesex County College?
Jesse: Actually we played here twice. I forgot about that one. We also played a really big straightedge show and everyone hated us.
Jeff: Some of them East Coast straightedge bands can get quite violent.
Jesse: We once played a straightedge show and our singer got on stage with a McDonald’s cup full of beer. He yelled out, “This is just a cup full of water, so if you a got some beef with… whoops.” People just hated us.
George: Do you get mad that people say that you sound a lot like every other Fat Wreck Chords band?
Jesse: I do notice a similarity between a lot of the bands but I don’t think that we sound like a lot of them. No Use For A Name is the stereotypical FAT band, and I don’t think we sound anything like them.
