Blag Dahlia is best known as the frontman of The Dwarves, a punk band that has built a rabid following over the decades with its raw sound and propensity for the outrageous. Being outrageous is in the nature of this band, going back to 1983. That is when an early version of the band (Sexually Deprived Youth) performed at a high school pep rally (yes, you read that correctly). Since members of The Dwarves were involved, it’s no surprise that this wasn’t the typical high school pep rally. The band hired art models to pose nude with bowls of fruit balanced on their heads. The band members were consequently expelled from the school, but showed that they weren’t going to let that stop them from being the raunchy band that so many have come to know and love.
Dahlia, however, is much more than the frontman of The Dwarves. He is also the author of a novel called Nina. And now he can add country/lounge singer to his repertoire with the release of his new album Introducing Ralph Champagne.
By phone, he discussed the new album, the follow-up novel to Nina, Highland Falls, upcoming Dwarves reissues, and a new Dwarves album that was recorded earlier this year.
Glide Magazine: How did the new album come about?
Blag Dahlia: I had a bunch of songs that had been around. Some of them for years and some of them recently. I got to a point where I couldn’t write anymore if I didn’t get this stuff recorded. I went in with a buddy of mine, Andy Carpenter, who’s a great producer. This was in January 2020, so I must have had a premonition. I’m like, “I’ve got all these songs, 25, 30 songs. Let’s just figure out what tempo these songs are and what key they’re in.” We did that, and we kind of figured out which ones to work on. Then we let it rest. Pretty soon, the pandemic hit. All of a sudden, the usual thing of let’s get a group of people together, learn the songs, rehearse this stuff, it all kind of went out the window. We couldn’t do it that way. I just went in and sang over the demos of my horrible acoustic guitar playing and a click track. I just sang all of these songs. This was maybe by May 2020. Nobody knew what was going to happen.
Everybody was staying at home and it was all just f—ed up. I got in the studio with my buddy and sang all of these songs. From there, I figured out which ones are going to make a record. We boiled it down to that. Then we said, let’s just make this record from the inside out. We’ll start with vocals, then put drums on it, put bass on it, put guitar on it. I’d never made a record that way. It turned out great. It was amazing. Every time a new batch of people got to it, it became cooler. It started with Josh Freese at his house playing drums. Then it started to sound like a record. I had some great players around. Tom Ayers added bass and guitar. All this stuff happened. Before I knew it, I had a record. Josh is such a hero. I even stole this pseudonym Ralph Champagne from him. I just said, “I’m stealing this. It’s going to be my alter ego.” He was very gracious about it. I’ve stolen plenty from Josh at this point. If you’re looking for great drum performances that he barely got paid for, that’s me.
GM: You said you had 25 to 30 songs. Can we expect another album in this vein?
BD: Yes. Absolutely. Some of them are really good songs. The way this album came about, it’s kind of this Americana, retro record. There’s a lot of country and rockabilly elements in it. Some of the other songs are not as much that way. I tried to get some variety on this Ralph Champagne record. It broke down like an outlaw country record, but it’s got some strong lounge overtones. That first single “Lolita, Goodbye”, I don’t know if you saw the video for that yet. It’s very funny and more loungy than country. This album is somewhere between lounge and country.
GM: How different was your approach from making a Dwarves record?
BD: It had to be a lot different. From the Dwarves, you want this sense of anarchy and wildness that you can only get from having the whole group in the room. I go crazy and overdub on it afterwards. We just got done recording a Dwarves record back in February. We recorded 25 songs in two days. That’s how that band does it. We knock it out. We go hard. We kill it. I believe in rehearsing beforehand, and then go in there and kill it. Don’t go into the studio and play your songs 60 times until you get it right. That’s a recipe for boring. If you go in there angry with a bunch of dudes and you have fun and you get high and you make a record – that’s the Dwarves’ thing. Then I sit there and torture it in post-production.
With this record, it was really building from the ground up with all these people and then saying, “Oh, is that what this record is?” With the Dwarves, I know what it is. It’s really dense, hard, fast music that beats the shit out of you. You have to approach it in this way where everything has to be recorded in a sharp, sparkling way. You can’t record the drums like a regular drum kit because by the time you get done piling guitars and sound effects on it, you can’t hear the drums anymore. My drums are heavy and crazy because that’s the only way they’re going to break through. Everything on a Dwarves record is like that: drums, guitar, vocals. Everything is louder than everything else – the old Motorhead thing. You’re cramming it in. With something like Ralph Champagne, there’s more air. It goes slower. There’s more melody and more room for stuff in there. In a way, it makes you freer, but it’s less predictable. I’d listen back and and say, “Wait a minute. That’s me and a piano. That can’t be right.” But that is right and that’s what it’s supposed to sound like. It was a real eye-opener.
I’ve always collected old blues and country, pop records from the 20s and 30s. Old stuff, that’s sort of what I like. I don’t sit around listening to hard rock. I barely listen to music at all. I had it in my head what these cool records are supposed to sound like, but I had never done it. I’d had some side projects that touched on lighter fare, but this record, it was an eye-opener in every way. Just figuring out what the music was, who the group was, what the video was, who the character was. It’s still evolving. It’s exciting to be in your mid-50s when most people are tired and giving up or just doing what they’ve already done and making something new. It’s like, “I can make this whole new character and a whole new sound.” If you’re a Dwarves completist and you’re into it, you know all the records are different. With a lot of punk bands, it’s really hard to tell the difference not only between their records but also the different songs on a record. Making Dwarves records has been challenging. “Let’s make this one garage. Let’s make this one thrash. Let’s make this song experimental. Let’s bring in female vocals on this one.” There’s a lot of variation. But then when the reviews come out, it’s always the same thing. “Here come the Dwarves! They got tits and they’re saying “Fuck you!” That’s about it. People didn’t talk about how intensely different the music was or how much production went into it or any of that. You already know what it’s supposed to be. You know there’s gonna be tits and I’m going to say fuck at some point. Whereas with Ralph Champagne, we had to figure out what it was. People can’t dismiss it as easily. It’s more tongue-in-cheek and subtle. With the Dwarves, a lot of times people didn’t get that we were joking. People didn’t get that it was supposed to be funny. They’d say, “Dude! How can you say that about a woman?” Come on! It’s supposed to be funny.
GM: I enjoyed the subtle wordplay on the Ralph Champagne record.
BD: Thanks! There’s a lot of subtle wordplay with the Dwarves. There’s Shakespearean, there’s Biblical references, and nobody catches it. It goes right by. With Ralph Champagne, you have the chance to see what I do with words. I’m thrilled by it. I haven’t gotten any negative responses. I kind of figured there’d be a certain amount of backlash with people saying, “This is boring. It’s not like the Dwarves” or whatever. I just haven’t heard any of that at all, even from the haters and tolls online. Everybody is like, “Whoa, man! This is great.” You can really listen to this record. I’m gratified. I hope more people from Americana and retro things get a hold of it and enjoy it. We’ll see.
GM: You have a new book (Highland Falls) coming out.
It’s [came] on October 11 through Rare Bird Lit. out in L.A, some new guys I found that do a lot of music books. They did Jerry A’s book and Leftover Crack’s book. But my book is fiction. It’s a follow-up to my last novel. I write transgressive, nasty fiction about a lot of sex and violence. It’s like a Tarantino movie, but in a book. That’s interesting. It lets me explore some other characters. The Dwarves is two-dimensional by design. We didn’t come to beg your indulgence. We’re just going to knock your head off and that’s it. With a book, you’re dealing with characters and people. You have to interpret things. What would a woman say here? What would an old person say here? What would a young person say here? It’s a little bit different. You have to put yourself in some different head spaces that I don’t usually explore. I think the book stand on their own. Some of it’s ludicrous humor and over-the-top stuff. Some of it is just subtle observations of human beings. If you just want to laugh while you’re on the toilet, my books are good for that.
GM: When can we expect the new Dwarves album? And when will the older albums be reissued?
BD: There’s a lot of stuff happening on the Dwarves front. There’s a lot of reissues coming up. We reacquired all the old SubPop stuff: Blood, Guts, and Pussy, Thank Heaven for Little Girls, and Sugarfix. I re-mastered those records and added some tracks that were on 7-inches or compilations around the same time. Then added to the artwork by making these great sleeves that have original 7-inch covers, picture disc covers, and things. I think heads will really dig these. We didn’t make anything worse, but we made everything a little better. You get all those early 90s, definitive punk Dwarves records.
Then you have Come Clean that Epitaph had. That’s a great one and the beginning of the genre-hopping of the modern Dwarves. That will be great. Then there’s a record called Radio Free Dwarves had a European radio broadcast and a bunch of B-sides. Starting in November, Blood, Guts, and Pussy will be reissued. By January or February of next year, all the Dwarves records will be available again. That’s a big thing.
I want to play some Dwarves shows and get people going on some of the older records. I’m about ready to mix the new Dwarves record with Andy Carpenter. We hadn’t recorded since maybe 2016. So we find ourselves in the studio and everyone’s got a bunch of songs. I’m like “Shit, man! We have a double album here.” So we recorded a double album basically in two days. I’ve been working on it for the last six months or so getting it going. My guitar player gets so mad at me. “Just put the damn thing out now!” I’m just so fanatical that I can’t stop tweaking it. That stuff should be out by this time next year. There might be a 10-inch and then a double album. I haven’t decided. There’s a lot of material and I want to get it out there because it’s not filler. It’s like every guy’s best songs. There’s a bunch of cool stuff, everybody from Josh Freese to Nick Oliveri to my new drummer SnuPac, who plays with a thrash band called Get a Grip. So we’ll have some thrash in there. All the same guys: Sgt. Saltpeter, Fresh Prince of Darkness, all these guys that have been with me a long time. I think it’s going to be a really hip record. All the other old punk bands, they made one good album in the 80s, then they got worse and worse. Or they got their 90s comeback album, then they got worse and worse. Dwarves have a lot of songwriters and a lot of cool players. When we get together, we’re still hungry to make a cool record. I have high hopes for it.
GM: What would you be doing if you weren’t making music?
BD: I got the books and stuff. I like broadcasting stuff. I had a podcast for a couple years called Radio Like You Want. I think broadcasting or writing. Anything that involves communication is my thing. Music is what I have the best handle on. It’s where I know the most people and I can get the most amazing performances. Writing and broadcasting, you’re on a tightrope by yourself. I never was very good at jobs. I always got fired. People didn’t really trust me. I always had to to everything myself. Then people would go “This is great!” But when I asked “Can you give me a gig?”, it was like “No! We’re not giving you shit.” Music, and especially punk rock, was the only place that let me in. You gotta get in where you fit in.
