Band Proflie on a Musician Who Recorded a Song With 15 F Bombs in 1 Min. Segment

The man who once recorded a song with 24 uses of the word “f**k” says he isn’t really very angry.

Dave McWane, lead singer for the Boston ska band Big D and the Kids Table, may have achieved his greatest success by trashing Los Angeles elitists in the song “LAX,” (sample lyrics: “F**k your f**king attitudes, how can you be so f**king rude?”) but he has since simmered down.

For example, in a 2002 interview, McWane took many shots at various musical institutions: “All that Chump Rock on MTV sucks and all those LA manufactured bands can eat my bum… and Linkin Park… all those R&B girls who go Ooo HEEYyy la la dum dum… and Alicia Keys really sucks.”

When asked about Linkin Park in 2007, he said simply, “I don’t listen to their music, but I saw some specials on them on VH-1, and they seem like nice guys.”

But what about their music? Don’t you just hate it?

“I do not listen to their music.”

Why not? Because you hate it?

“There is no word of hate in the way I listen to their music. This music we’re listening to now [hardcore band playing in the background], I don’t listen to it, but that doesn’t mean I hate it. That guy right there, we’re not friends, but I don’t hate him.”

Clearly, this is not the same person who recorded fifteen f bombs in a one-minute segment of his most popular song. So what has changed between 2002, the year of “LAX”’s release, and now?

Big D has gone from being a group of poor, pissed-off punks, who had gotten by taking leftovers from restaurants and furniture from roadside trash to being one of the most respected bands among the small, but loyal, punk-ska underground. Their first album, Shot By Lammi, a 1997 split with pop-punkers Drexel, was good enough that Asian Man Records offered them a contract to record Good Luck in 1999.

Good Luck, as in, “Good luck with not forgetting who you are, even though it seems you have to.” “Good luck not getting caught up… in this life where we have to fall in place and take a menial position that never meant anything to us in the first place.” “Good luck in being happy when you sit to review your life.”

The members of Big D did not need much luck in reviewing how they lived their life. Music was their life. Ever since listening to Operation Ivy, the punk-ska revolutionaries that included Tim Armstrong and Matt Freeman in their pre-Rancid days, McWane knew he wanted to be a musician. He originally got into music when his father bought him a drum set because the un-athletic Dave needed something to occupy his time.

But while they might have been living the dream, playing music they loved for fans that loved them, they weren’t making much money. And they were mad at those bands that were.

On the Stomp Record’s website, the band said, “In a time when Punk music is selling out faster then Pop music, it's hard to be in a band and understand how the public likes what it likes, or understand all the fucking politics these "indie" labels impose. There is a formula to music now, and when I was younger I never would have thought that so may musicians would give up experimenting in song writing just to pump out these Pepsi/Coke songs that have been written 100 times over. So, we had a choice - we could sellout like everyone else and maybe make a buck, or record an album that we liked and continue to be poor. Well, we’re still poor…”

They spent two years homeless. They were playing 200 shows each year just to support themselves. Their hard work eventually paid off with a coveted spot on the 2002 Warped Tour.

After failing to make the tour in the past, they got some help from Mike Park, owner of Asian Man Records. Park pleaded with tour organizer Kevin Lyman to let them on the tour, and Lyman was so impressed with their d.i.y. efforts that he has let them come back year-after-year.

“We played on the smallest, crappiest stage,” McWane said, “Kevin saw how hard we worked, putting up fliers and posters and everything. Every day, we just busted our ass. He decided those guys have a good work ethic, so they’re coming back.”
In large part due to the Warped Tour, they have been able to increase their popularity to a level where they don’t have to tour 200 days a year.

But, they still do.

“After a while, touring becomes all you know,” McWane explains, “Like when a zookeeper goes into his job, and he’s been doing it for eleven years, that’s his trade.”

McWane doesn’t think he can keep touring as long as Keith Richards, per se—“Keith Richards is a lucky man. I’d like to keep going, if I’m still making money.”—but he says he will continue to play music with friends no matter what.

So now that Big D has reached a level where they can pay their own rent, buy their own food, and don’t need to rely on hotels for their soap and towels, is that why Dave McWane isn’t angry anymore? Is that why he balked at my every attempt to get him to spew hatred toward his displeasures? No, McWane says it’s simpler.

“I was 24 when I wrote the song,” McWane explains, “I don’t think at any age, you stop feeling the emotion of dislike, but different things become important to you. I would say that family and politics have become more important to me, rather than running my mouth about Linkin Park, a bunch of guys who have a job.”

He may not feel it is important anymore to write a song completely trashing another group of people, but when he gets onstage, and starts with that opening line—“Hey, elitists in L.A.”—and the crowd starts moshing, and he jumps in the air, you can see it. He might not say it in the interviews, but he still finds pleasure in it on stage. He still has a little bit of anger left.

 

Re: Band Proflie on a Musician Who Recorded a Song With 15 F Bombs in 1 Min. Seg

FA -

Thanks for posting. One quick thought here. I actually like your thread title a little more than your opening line as it now stands.


The man who once recorded a song with 24 uses of the word “f**k” says he isn’t really very angry.

becomes

The man who once dropped 24 F-bombs in a single song says he isn't angry. Any more.

A little punchier. And avoid the word "really" if you can - it sort of swims around in sentences without helping anything.