The Dwarves return with a new full-length, JENKEM,arriving
In anticipation of the album, we caught up with band mastermind Blag Dahlia to talk about what we can expect.
JENKEM feels really energized and locked in—not like a legacy act trying to recreate the past, but like a band still having fun pushing buttons and making loud, chaotic records. What excited you most creatively while making this album?
Thanks for noticing! That’s why the Dwarves call ourselves the last punk band—because a lot of times when bands get old, they forget why they started making records in the first place. It’s supposed to be fun! We still all get in the same room and knock it out together so it sounds like a band playing, not a bunch of overdubs looking for a guy to mix it. What excited me most about making the record was just hanging out with my friends, honestly. It’s still a lot of fun to talk shit and make fun of each other and everybody else. JENKEM is the end result of a bunch of pals enjoying themselves making music, who just happen to be rock legends!
One thing that’s always made The Dwarves unique is how you mix humor with genuinely catchy songwriting. Even when the lyrics are outrageous, there’s always real craft underneath it. Do you consciously think about balancing those two sides, or has that just become second nature over the years?
Everyone in this band writes songs, so it leads to an eclectic mix of styles, not just a repeat of what we’ve done before. It can also be tricky trying to make something catchy that’s often super fast with loud guitars. That’s why a lot of thrash and punk and metal records are so humorless, because the melodies that go over those kind of songs are often only one note, with a bald tattooed guy grunting about how alienated he is. I try to have a melody you can sing over an acoustic guitar or whistle when you walk down the street instead of hiding behind loud volume and angst. But sometimes grunting is fun; it really depends on the song and what you’re trying to put across.
People think we’re trying to be outrageous or shock everyone, but to me it’s just having the nuts to record what is actually careening through everybody’s mind all the time—sex, death, violence, profanity, more sex. A lot of artists censor themselves from the start, always trying to make something that won’t offend anyone, or that helps them virtue signal, or that might be a predictable success or whatever. They make us sound like we’re trying to shock people, when really we just want to convey that pure id impulse stuff, not to be background noise for a sports beverage advertisement.
The Dwarves have managed to survive and stay relevant through so many different eras of punk and underground music without ever really sounding like anybody else. Looking back, what do you think has kept the band connected to people for this long?
A lot of it was avoiding, or being ignored by, the music industry. Once you’re not 25 anymore and no record executives are looking to you to put their kids through college, you become a historical artifact. From there, you can make great music until you drop dead, and the only people who notice are the fans that actually like you. We were there for punk, post punk, nu metal, thrash, noise rock, grunge, pop punk, and all the rest, but to stay relevant requires actually liking what you do and keeping your ears open and taking chances and ignoring the haters. Those are hard things to do, especially when musicians get old and sensitive. That’s why being decadent, heartless bastards really came in handy for us sometimes. We just didn’t care that some Hollywood nepo baby, or a disgruntled British tabloid guy, or a social media hipster objected to our music. We didn’t make it for them, we made it for ourselves and the people who liked it and when no one bought our records; we just laughed.
Songs like “We Are the Scene” almost feel like The Dwarves reflecting on your relationship with punk culture after all these years. After decades in underground music, what still inspires or entertains you about the scene?
There is always something new bubbling up. When a young band like the Sik Sik Sicks reaches out to us and wants to play a show, it amazes me, I think, “How did you even hear of this band, let alone enjoy it?” So I wound up writing a duet to do with the singer of that band for the last record, and our fans loved it. Hopefully, there will always be pockets of cool young people coming up pushing the boundaries of what’s new and unearthing the best of what’s old.
“We Are The Scene” is a song that just pushes that idea of, “We really don’t give a fuck who likes this or who buys this or who promotes this; we did this for an audience of one, ourselves. We contain multitudes; we don’t need your love or approval or permission; we decide who’s running the scene. And it’s us!”
Your records have always had this mix of chaos, humor, great hooks, and total unpredictability that younger bands still try to capture. When you hear newer punk or hardcore bands today, do you hear elements of The Dwarves’ influence in ways that surprise you?
I wish I heard more of it! This is where all the marketing and stuff comes up because people are only influenced by what they actually hear, and since so few people ever heard us, we aren’t generally cited as big influences by a lot of bands. I think where our influence came in the most was young bands we played with who said, “Wow, you guys really don’t give a fuck, do you? You’re just doing what you like, and that’s it?” A lot of times they couldn’t believe it, especially the more management and label and agent and lawyer and publicist driven they were. The idea that you could be truly independent and just make a glorious mess onstage and laugh with your friends was really liberating for some bands that played with us. The better ones took up the challenge and ran with it.
This new video “Damned If I Do” is interesting because we had been doing more and more evolutionary things on our records over the last twenty years or so, using session people and producers and different styles and we said this time let’s just do a gut level punch you in the throat punk record which is what most of Jenkem is. Then, out of the blue, I just said, I’m going to write an 80’s style mid-tempo hit song and throw it on this album just to infuriate everyone, and it turned out to be the catchiest track on the record. Then we made this video with a young Hollywood director and hot LA babes and just reveled in the muck of it. This band started as a reaction to ’80’s style mid-tempo hit songs, and now we wound up making one just to piss ourselves off. If that ain’t punk rock, it’s something even better. It’s the Dwarves!
U.S. Dates
06/12 — Austin, TX @ Austin Noise Fest w/ Prong
06/13 — Dallas, TX @ Dusty’s
06/14 — San Francisco, CA @ Bottom of the Hill w/ The Pandoras
Europe & U.K. Dates
06/17 — Barcelona, ES @ Razzmatazz 3
06/18 — Valencia, ES @ 16 Toneladas
06/19 — Vitoria, ES @ Azkena Rock Festival
06/20 — Tours, FR @ Bateau Ivre w/ Eye Hate God (Free Show)
06/21 — Clisson, FR @ Hellfest
06/23 — Utrecht, NL @ DB
06/24 — Düsseldorf, DE @ Pitcher
06/25 — Haarlem, NL @ Patronaat w/ Eye Hate God
06/26 — Ysselstyn, NL @ Jera On Air
06/26 — Deventer, NL @ Burgerweeshuis w/ Truckfighters
06/27 — Hamburg, DE @ Hedi (2 Sets)
06/28 — Berlin, DE @ BiNuu w/ Eye Hate God
06/29 — Regensburg, DE @ Alte Mälzerei w/ Eye Hate God
07/01 — Trutnov, CZ @ Obscene Extreme Festival
07/02 — Brno, CZ @ Kabinet
07/03 — Zabok, HR @ Regenerator
07/04 — Pula, HR @ Monteparadiso w/ Eye Hate God
07/05 — Treviso, IT @ Nomad (Free Show)
07/08 — Athens, GR @ Gazarte Ground Stage
07/09 — Prolsdorf, DE @ Krach am Bach Festival
07/10 — Stuttgart, DE @ Goldmarks
07/11 — Essen, DE @ Don’t Panic
07/12 — Gierle, BE @ Sjock Fest
07/15 — Marseille, FR @ Molotov
07/16 — Bergamo, IT @ Punk Rock Raduno (Free Show)
07/17 — Turin, IT @ Blah Blah
07/18 — Theley, DE @ Backside Festival
Additional U.S. Dates
09/04 — Philadelphia, PA
09/05 — Brooklyn, NY
09/06 — Montague, MA @ RPM Fest
09/11 — Scottsdale, AZ w/ The Exploited, Total Chaos
09/12 — Los Angeles, CA w/ The Exploited, Total Chaos
09/13 — Murrieta, CA w/ Total Chaos
09/16 — Las Vegas, NV w/ Total Chaos
09/17 — Orange County, CA w/ The Exploited, Total Chaos
09/18 — San Francisco, CA w/ The Exploited, Total Chaos
09/20 — Sacramento, CA w/ The Exploited
