Dynamite Boy
This interview with Dynamitie Boy was done in June 2001 and originally appeared in issue 6 of Sink Hole.
When I first heard Dynamitie Boy’s new album “Somewhere In America”, I dismissed them pretty quickly. It’s not that it wasn’t good, because it was. I just thought they were another band trying to sound like Green Day. I almost didn’t go to see them when they rolled into town. I’m glad that I did go, because their live show dispelled every preconceived notion I had about the band. The show was at the Monterey Deli in Sarasota, Florida. I love this club, it’s a great place to see a show, but it could also be humbling for a touring band. There is no stage, the band plays in a corner. There is maybe 100 square feet of floor space. Basically what this means is when the place is full, you can feel it. Dynamite Boy headlined on a bill that included A Buck Short, Wisenheimer and Lucky 7. There were at least 200 kids crammed into to the small club, this was far beyond sardines. It was right around 90 degrees outside and inside it felt 10 times hotter. You couldn’t move, you could barely breathe and when you tried you just got a big whiff of body odor. I’m really not complaining though, I wish every show drew this big a crowd. So anyway, DB took the stage (floor) last, so people were pretty fucking ripe and ready. They immediately started rockin, and ripped the place up. Nevermind that they couldn’t move or breathe either. Sometimes it takes a good crowd to make a show memorable, Dynamite Boy drew a crowd AND they put on one helluva show. Ultimately the show ended prematurely. The bored, ball-busting Sarasota Police made sure of that. You’ve got to crack down on loitering, right? Despite the early curtain, I don’t think anyone left unsatisfied, except maybe the band. The pigs threatened the ‘paddy wagons’ if everybody didn’t leave immediately and that didn’t allow anybody the chance to buy merch-oh well. After the bulk of the crowd was whisked away, and the head count went from 200+ down to about 15, the Deli seemed much cooler, but I was still soaked in sweat from head to toe. The club was getting ready to lock up, so I decided that Dennys might be the safest place to go interview the quartet from Austin, Texas. As soon as the van was loaded, that’s were we went.
Oozing with local pride after the great turnout, I immediately asked Sean to rate Sarasota as a venue location. “We played Sarasota about a year and a half ago at the Light Painter and it was great. We knew that there were kids down here who knew our music and supported the scene, so of course we wanted to come back. Honestly, this is the best show we’ve had all tour so far. We only had one crowd this large and that was in LA where everyone just stands around.”
In case anyone didn’t know, Dynamite Boy has been around for a few years. They have 3 LPs under their belts and tens of thousands of miles on the road. In fact the band has been around longer than any of its current members. “The band started in ‘93 and none of us were in it” explained Sean “They were just a group of friends and they went through a lot of names. I don’t know when they started calling themselves Dynamite Boy. They eventually kicked out their singer, and that is when I joined the band.” “I started playing guitar, too. Then we lost our drummer and Scott joined the band” he continued. “Adrian was the next to join on bass and Danny is the newest member. Our former guitar player Andrew left the band right after we recorded “Finders Keepers” so Danny took his spot.”
The current line-up is working out well for everyone, the proof of that is the fact they toured 8 months out of 12 last year and didn’t kill each other. They are also all dedicated to the band 100%, no outside jobs or side-projects. “We have a pact” says Sean “If your gonna be in the band, it’s gonna be full-time, that way we’re all equally dedicated.” Some bands like the idea of side-projects as a creative vent and a method of trying out new things. Sean disagrees “There’s no saying we can’t try crazy things in this band, who is to say that we couldn’t release a jazz album or something, if thats what we wanted.” Danny added “Besides, after being on the road for 8 months out of the year, do you really want to go home and start a new band?” No, as a matter of fact, they plan on spending any free-time on writing for their next album. They didn’t have any idea of a time frame for it’s release, but they made it clear they didn’t want to wait so long in between albums again.
We paused the interview when the food arrived, restarted, but paused when Sean realized that the requested mayonnaise wasn’t on his burger. “There goes the tip” Sean joked. “It never fails, every time we go to a Dennys, they fuck something up.” Sean’s burger wasn’t the worst, one member of the entourage ordered a veggie burger and they put bacon on it. Well, back to the music issues...
Even though I AM officially a Dynamite Boy fan now, I still couldn’t forget about the Green Day comparisons. I explained what I thought of the album and everybody in the band cracked up laughing. Obviously, they had heard these comparisons before, Sean wasn’t as amused as the rest of the band. “It’s an influence, just a fucking influence”. he said. Then Adrian explained “Green Day is one of the few bands that we all agree on and listen to together, obviously a little bit of the sound and style is gonna come through. Relaxing a little Sean jokes “At least people aren’t calling us Blink 182 rip-offs.” he went on “There’s only 12 notes and there’s only so many ways to put them together. Anytime you think your really clever and you wrote the most original song ever, chances are it’s been done before. Like I said, Green Day is an influence. We have lot’s of others, just some songs sound more like them than others. Besides, Green Day isn’t a bad band to sound like. There’s only so many ways to put 3 chords together and sound good. The bottom line is that we have fun doing what we do and we’re not going to change or cater to our critics.”
As we got further into talking about their sound, the topic of production came up. Specifically producer Cameron Webb. Talk about a match made in heaven...These guys raved about Cameron for about 30 minutes. In the past his studio has worked with bands like Limp Bizkit, Danzig and Lit, and he learned a little from each of those experiences and applied it all to Dynamite Boy. Down to earth, fifth band member, talented, hard-working and genius were all terms they used to describe him during the conversation. The consensus was that Cameron would most definitely be back for next album. I also learned that he played some mean air drums.
After the Green Day question, I made an attempt to win them back. I brought up Warped Tour, and asked if they were doing any of the dates. This was not a good idea, in fact this is a very sore topic with them. “Thanks for bringing that up, dude” said Danny. Sean tried to say it wasn’t a bad topic, but Danny went on “It’s just kind of weird to talk about now, after our show last year we were kind of told that we would be part of this years tour.” He elaborated. “Obviously, we weren’t asked and I really thought we worked hard enough to deserve it, I mean we toured 8 months last year.” Sean attempted damage control, “It’s really not that big a deal, we have an awesome tour planned with The Stryder and Junction 18. We’ll also hook up with River City High, Atom and His Package and Further Seems Forever. The only real problem is trying to route a tour while Warped is going on, I mean you can’t go anywhere near a Warped city right before or after. Everybody’s either saving their money to go, or is broke because they just went.” We continued ripping Warped Tour for about a half an hour. I mean 311 as a headliner, Target as a sponsor? We compared it to Lollapalooza, and basically all spoke with bitterness on it.
Our plates were getting empty and I was determined to find a happy topic to end our conversation on. I took a calculated risk and went with the AC/DC card and it worked like a trump. Sean beamed as he started rattling off his favorite songs and talking about his dreams of meeting Brian Johnson (Sarasota resident). The band covers AC/DC’s classic “TNT” and it has become a bit of a theme song for the Boys. They almost never recorded the tune which appears on Fearless Records “Punk Goes Metal” compilation. “Yeah, another band had already reserved the song, so we were going to do Iron Maiden. It worked out in the end and we got to do it”. said Sean. The song is an Ace in the hole for the band if a crowd isn’t getting into the show. “How can you deny the power of AC/DC?” Sean asked “You really can’t. It’s undeniable. Whether a crowd likes us or not they always respond to that song. I love a crowd like tonight where everyone Oi!s along in the beginning.” “It’s funny, but we never thought that the song would go over this well. We figured that since our audience is mostly teens and the song is from 1974, we thought the kids wouldn’t know it, but everybody does.”
I stopped my tape recorder on a good note, we reflected on some of the funny shit that went on during the night. They assured me that their shows generally are not stopped by the police, they said they’ve never performed in cowboy hats, and Adrian shared some stories on Sean’s legendary temper and his unintentional intimidation. I couldn’t resist throwing out one last question, ‘describe yourselves in 5 words’...Sean and Adrian both asked for permission to use 4 or 6 words(which is not allowed). Fortunately Danny was prepared, “We are rock gods, y’all” he said in a forced southern drawl.
Dinner was over, and we were ready to go. I had made some new friends and saw a great show, The Dynamite Boy’s played their hearts out and enjoyed a good meal AND the waitress got a tip after all. So everyone was happy. It was time to say goodbye, and I was still soaked in sweat. What a night.
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