Down and Outlaws -- Uncut

Down and Outlaws, view from the back patio at El Rio. All photos by Joo-Joo Ashworth.

"Last Sunday, El Rio hosted a night of good old fashioned rock and roll. I’m talking about loud, guitar-driven, blues-inspired tunes that ring more sinister than indie rock and more pensive than punk. Surrounded by friends and friendly Sunday night bar goers, the San Francisco-based outfit Down and Outlaws roamed the venue, waiting for its headlining set of the night. With time to kill, and the opening acts Foli and Cab 20 sound checking their instruments, I sat down with the four guys of Down and Outlaws—vocalist and guitarist Peter Danzig, bassist Chris Danzig, drummer Jason Jones and lead guitarist Kyle Luck—to talk about their sound, influences, future plans and David Bowie." To read the whole article, head over to the eventseekr blog! Or just CLICK HERE.

My first version of the article was just over 3500 words, mostly due to the fact that my conversation with Peter, Chris, Jason and Kyle was filled with a lot of nonsense--endearing nonsense, the kind that tells me these guys would be easy to hang out with, but nonsense none the less. If I had my way, I wouldn't have cut a single word of the interview. (This is why we have editors: no one would have taken the time to read such a long article!) That being said, most of what I had to cut was solid gold, including this little excerpt about the man, the myth, the legend, David Bowie:

Jason: He transforms into an eagle and flies away.

Kyle: He comes back once every full moon--

Chris: --and delivers you a hit song.

Peter: He lives on the moon.

Kyle: That’s his house, right?

Peter: He actually writes inside the moon

Kyle: He wrote the moon! Sorry we’re getting off topic.

Peter: He wrote, what’s the fucking book?

Chris: Goodnight Moon!

Peter: He wrote goodnight moon.

Down and Outlaws has begun to lay down tracks for its debut EP, which will hopefully be out by the end of the year. Keep an eye on the band's facebook page for updates on the record and upcoming show dates.

Read the rest of the interview after the jump!

I know you guys just got together this past July. Tell me a little about how it happened.

Peter: Me and Chris were in a band before hand, and then we met Kyle. He wasn’t in a band, his band had broken up. So we started jamming. And we all knew Jason and had no idea he played the drums and found out he did, so it kind of just worked out.

Jason: I’m in another band called Romancer, that is way more awesome and umm… ((laughter))

Kyle: He’s the front man, guitar player, singer.

Jason: If there was a fight between sound we would swallow up Down and Outlaws.

Kyle: Yeah and spit us out like infant fish.

Jason: All you would hear was Kyle’s barrel roll solos as he fell into the pond. So I did that and then I—Romancer played a couple shows with their old band—no no we were sitting around at the park one day and he was like, “Oh, we’re looking for a drummer,” and I was like, “I’m a drummer.”

Kyle: You appreciated me having bullet bourbon in my backpack.

Peter: Exactly.

Jason: So we’re all friends and have known each other for a while. So it’s a really solid, easy thing. No awkwardness.

Are you guys all from the Bay Area?

Peter: Yeah.

Kyle: Santa Cruz.

Close enough.

Jason: Sacramento… I call the bay my home.

Kyle: Yeah I definitely refer to San Francisco as my home now for sure. Peter and Chris are from Orinda too.

Welcome! ((Bassist Chris Danzig joins us)) Peter I know we talked about this a little bit before but why “Down and Outlaws”?

Peter: We wanted to find a name that more or less capsulated our vibe. And we wanted it to be semi-witty, and we all kind of felt down and out at the time. We felt like the only way to do it was to be outlaws and play in a rock band. So, yeah.

Chris: It’s easy to remember but it’s not stupid or punny, unnecessarily, so it’s not a joke name but it’s not overly serious. Esoterically speaking.

Peter: We thought people would remember the name.

Jason: And the sound is very fitting. The edginess fits in really well with “Down and Outlaws,” kind of bluesy, western kind of vibe sometimes.

Speaking of bluesy stuff, I want to talk about your sound for a bit. When you were little what was your band, a band that you really loved, and right now what’s the band you guys get inspiration from or try to emulate on stage?

Kyle: Skynyrd! ((laughter))

Peter: I grew up just listening to classics. Classic rock and roll. Tom Petty, Skynyrd—all the classic.

Chris: Tom Petty is my diety.

Peter: I’m just speaking for me. It could be different for everybody, but right now one of my favorite bands is Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, more of the psychedelic bands. But that’s me.

Kyle: I have a fairly large metal background so for me its guys like Dimebag and Zakk Wylde.

Jason: Slash.

Kyle: Yeah Slash, actually is a big one. I like Slash a lot.

Jason: He’s not real Kyle. He doesn’t exist.

Kyle: My biggest influence for guitar playing is probably Mike McCready from Pearl Jam, and coinciding with that is Jerry Cantrell from Alice in Chains. But as of right now I’m listening to a lot of—I’ll just open Pandora and do the Black Rebel Motorcycle Club Pandora and just listen to those style bands like that kind of, the Pack AD is another really good band that’s kind of like the Black Keys gone wrong.

Jason: When I was a lad my father would only put on classical music, I listened to a lot of symphonies and orchestras and then when I would live with my mom its was 90’s R&B and hip hop. Then when I discovered rock music I think Deftones were one of the first bands I heard and have had a huge influence on everything I that I do since. But I go through a lot of phases: Deftones, Bush— ((laughter))

Kyle: I think everyone had a bush phase.

Jason: I went through my Blink 182 phase, you know, The Gambit. But right now, obviously we’re all gonna be friends with black rebel. But I am really digging the last Girls record. It’s really good. Their entire catalog is really good but the last one was super above and beyond what I expected. That’s a constant like, “Fuck, I wish I could write a song like that”

Chris: A happy inspiration. With me, Tom Petty is my favorite musician probably ever, but not for bass necessarily. For bass it’s Led Zeppelin, John Paul Jones, When I first heard the beginning of “Whole Lotta Love,” I was like five. My life changed for probably the worst.

Peter: You had no idea what that song meant. ((laughter))

Chris: I was like five, my dad played it on a cassette—“Oh my god it’s loud!!!” I also really like Robert 

DeLeo from the Stone Temple Pilots. What else do I listen to? Decemberists. I actually listen to a lot of 

really mellow folky stuff like Bob Dylan, Tom Waits.

Peter: Barbara Streisand. For sure. She’s up there.

Jason: Can’t forget about Bowie. I mean Bowie’s written every song in the world.

Peter: Yeah David Bowie’s actually wrote every song ever. Ever.

Jason: Actually our entire set is a—

Peter: Is a cover set.

Kyle: We’re just a David Bowie cover band.

Oh great, I was hoping something like that would happen.

Jason: Yeah.

Peter: Yup.

Jason: It’s impossible to get out from underneath his shadow.

Peter: The Girls’ record you were talking about was actually written by David Bowie.

Jason: Yeah he oversaw. He produced it. He’s a chameleon. He transforms into an eagle and flies away.

Kyle: He comes back once every full moon.

Chris: And delivers you a hit song.

Peter: He lives on the moon.

Kyle: Yeah. That’s his house, right?

Peter: He actually writes inside the moon.

Kyle: He wrote the moon! Sorry we’re getting off topic.

Peter: He wrote, what’s that fucking book?

Chris: Goodnight moon!

Peter: He wrote goodnight moon!

After a few minutes of Bowie legends, we focused back on Down and Outlaws.

Speaking of songwriting, you guys all write songs. I read on your Facebook that you’re a band of four songwriters. So can you talk about your songwriting process? Is it always different? Or does someone take over the lyric? Does everyone have a say?

Chris: I’d say it’s always different is the short answer.

Peter: Yeah. Sometimes one person brings the majority of it to the table and then we fill it out. Other times we all just kind of jam a song out and write lyrics accordingly.

Kyle: We’ve got this new song called “Backwards from the Dead,” that literally started from, I think Jason started playing the drum beat, Peter just started—

Peter: We just started playing E chords.

Kyle: Yeah literally just started playing one chord and now I think it might be our strongest song because we all four wrote it.

Jason: Going forward it’s going to be more of that, more of a collective hive mind kind of idea where. Since we all understand the aesthetic we’re going for now, its really easy for us to kind of weed out things that are too much, unnecessary or just not quite up to snuff. It’s a lot easier for us to kind of come in, I mean the fact that we’re all super comfortable with each other is already really cool, so we just come in and just play and then its like, “Oh whoa remember that, that was good! That was good. Let’s work on that for a little bit.” So this next batch of songs are gonna be more of everyone’s input, rather than “Kyle wrote this, he wrote that…”

Chris: Also I mean, we had our first gig at the end of July and we didn’t even have Jason on board until earlier that month so the first couple of songs we wrote

Peter: Jason hadn’t even been a part of the band yet.

Chris: It wasn’t even a band. One of Peter’s, one of yours (Kyle’s) I think

Peter: were just kind of there.

Chris: We already started messing with them (songs) while we were still trying to figure out who was gonna play drums. But now that Jason’s on board we have sort of the complete set. The process is different. One of the next songs we’re gonna probably start writing or finishing is one that Jason showed us last week.

Kyle: Jason’s kind of like the secret weapon. It’s like you have a lot of band’s that’s like—I can imagine something like Nickelback would be a good example—they either has someone writing their songs for them—

Peter: David Bowie wrote Nickleback.

Chris: No he didn’t. He refused.

Peter: He spit them out.

Kyle: —Kroeger walks in and is like, “Here’s the song guys.” But with us it’s like, “Oh I’ve got literally a riff.” And Jason’s like, “Oh I know where to go with that.”

Jason: How many pairs of leather pants do you think that guy owns?

Peter: And they all don’t have a crotch.

Chris: Jason’s a musician. He knows music. He doesn’t just bang on pots and pans. And he can sing like a motherfucker. We’re trying to get him a microphone.

Kyle: It’s great being in a band with four songwriters versus one.

Jason: And I’m in another band. Romancer. We’re awesome. ((laughter))

Peter: Oh yeah, David Bowie.

Chris: The title of this articles gonna be, “David Bowie and Other Band.”

Jason: He handed me all the Romancer songs and I was like, “No Bowie, I’m not gonna sing your songs. I’m gonna do my own stuff.” And he was like, “You’re a dead man.” So I’ve just been dodging assassins and hit men.

That’s very brave of you.

Chris: Major Toms been coming after you.

So you guys are about to record an EP.

Peter: Yeah we’re actually recording this Sunday. So hopefully if all goes well it will be out by our Bottom of the Hill show at the end of December. On the 27^th.

Is that your next show as of now?

Peter: We have one of the 20^th of December.

Chris: The next one that is officially confirmed is New Years at 50 Mason.

Kyle: Hotel Utah on the 20^th.  Acoustic show.

Chris: The one of New Years is gonna be really cool. We’re playing with Zodiac Death Valley.

Oh nice! I’ve talked to Nic from Zodiac Death Valley about maybe covering one of their shows.

Chris: Yeah it’s at the same place. I can let you know hopefully next week, Bottom of the Hill on December 27^th. With a band from LA.

Well you guys are all from the Bay Area so tell me something special that’s happening in the San Francisco music scene right now. Why is this place happening right now?

Peter: Sleepy Sun is happening. I don’t know, there are tons of good bands. It’s a blessing and a curse because it’s so saturated. So it’s a lot harder for people to pay attention because everyone sees so many bands. But that’s cool because there are so many other things to feed off of.

Jason: I think there’s more of a community than there was three years ago. I think in the last three years bands have been more friendly. Everyone’s making friends and everyone’s playing shows together. You start seeing the same people at shows.

Chris: I think it’s also cool because I feel like in LA you have an “LA sound,” whatever that means. That’s kind of what does well there. But here its really kind of all over the place you’ve got a lot of garage stuff, you got some very psychedelic sounding like Zodiac Death Valley, you have us which is sort of none of those exactly, its more bluesy, then you have Brother Pacific which is very country. So you might play a show with any and all of those kinds of things and its okay, people aren’t gonna go, “Oh eff those guys, they’re like not playing rock they’re playing country.” If you’re good, you’re good. People aren’t gonna say, “You’re not a san Francisco band.”

Jason: In my opinion there’s a void. There’s still something missing. Speaking only for myself, it takes more than just the throwing together of chords and a simple drum beat to make a band good. I think that a lot of shit that’s going on right now is essentially that. I don’t wanna say that anyone’s not working hard on things or whatever, but for my own personal taste I haven’t really had any band quench my musical thirst in several years out of this town. And I think there’s, I think as saturated as it is there’s still one area that can very much be capitalized on. I don’t know how or by who but I know that for myself, as a musician and as someone who loves music, I’m not satisfied with what I hear going on in San Francisco.

So you’re just waiting for something, almost.

Jason: I’m either going to do it myself or ((laughter))

Chris: We’re here to fill that void! ((laughter))