Dragstrip Courage

(October 2001)

Dragstrip Courage founders Scott Janovitz and Mike Quinn are looking at each other across our table at The Phoenix Landing, trying to think of an answer. I’ve just asked if they have any war stories about the recording sessions for their latest CD, Actual Space (Curve of the Earth). High-spirited drummer Dave Foy (also of Calendar Girl) snickers and grins at his chicken fingers, half of which he’ll end up giving to newest band member Paul Janovitz (ex-Cold Water Flat). Paul, who didn’t play on the new CD, is unreadable from under his ten-gallon cowboy hat. Finally Scott answers, ”The last song, ‘I Am the Light.’ Quinn said why don’t we bring in little parts of (track one) ‘Where is the Sun’ between verses of ‘I Am the Light’? I said that’s a terrible idea.” 

“And then he tied me up upside down from the pipes and left me there for two days,” adds Quinn. But this, like a lot of the insults these four hurl during this interview, is just harmless repartee. Even when the Janovitz brothers get into a glaring contest over the subject of song inspiration, the vibe is more like Tom and Jerry than like Noel and Liam Gallagher. In other words, all in fun and for comic effect rather than, well, a genuine desire to cause great bodily harm. “We do this all the time. For instance, I hate Dave,” deadpans Scott. “I might not hate others but…well, I hate Quinn. And with Paul…well, I kind of have to live with Paul because he’s my brother, and we’re roommates…” But proof that Dragstrip Courage is not a monarchy is that Quinn’s idea for the song ended up working. And, “I Am the Light” is a standout track on the new CD, this band’s third official release since forming in 1997. The sold-out CD release party at the Lizard Lounge, much like Actual Space itself, was a departure for Dragstrip Courage. Rather than put on a big rock show, label mates Araby played, and two virtuoso guitar players. “The night had a different feel from a regular CD release party,” says Dave. “It was like a social kinda thing. The vibe was really cool.” 

Musically, Dragstrip Courage is constantly evolving, and followers of the band say that they sound completely different from song to song—something that’s equally pleasing and frustrating to Scott. “Sometimes I listen to records of other bands and I say, ‘see, they have a SOUND.’” The last CD was the self-released Echo Rock, which came out two months before Dragstrip Courage played the 2000 WBCN Rumble (they were knocked out in the first round by Big Bad Bollocks). Echo Rock grabbed the attention of fans and critics, but on all accounts was placed firmly into the jangle pop category. Beach Boys comparisons abounded, thanks to the sixties style harmonies, tremolo, and layered keyboards. “It’s not like any of us were ever big Beach Boys fans,” says Scott. “We like the Beach Boys and everything but for people to be saying we sound like the Beach Boys is really weird.” The new disc, by comparison, forays into atmospheric rock operatics in the vein of Pink Floyd, Aphex Twin, or selected REM. Or all three…and more. It’s hard to disagree that Dragstrip Courage changes “sound” from song to song. Quinn isn’t worried, though. “I think the key is when you have songs, you dress them up the way you feel like they’re supposed to be dressed up.”

When a band can openly dissect their music, come clean about infighting, and pick from each other’s plates as frankly as Dragstrip Courage, it’s best to put it out there in their own words. Ladies and gentlemen, Dragstrip Courage…

Noise: How is the new CD doing?

Scott: People are saying Actual Space is a really good song…well, first of all, I was trying to write a Cracker song.

Paul: Really?

Scott: Yeah.

Paul: Cracker.

Scott: Yeah..

Paul: Thank God it didn’t sound like that. I would have left the fuckin’ band, man.

Scott: ANYWAY, if I MAY. I was trying to write a Cracker song but I knew it wouldn’t end up sounding like that, which is what happens to all our songs, which is a good thing. People say it sounds like Pink Floyd. But then we were at WBCN the other day, and Shred said “Oh yeah, that Actual Space is my favorite song, you guys kinda got that Neil Young thing going on.”

Noise: Neil Young?

Quinn: He’s a big influence in that he’s been around forever and we’ve all listen to him.

Paul: Everybody’s an influence. Fugazi is an influence and we don’t sound anything like Fugazi. Every band that you listen to, that you like and admire, in some way or another is an influence.  You don’t set out to write a CRACKER song. Or maybe you DO.

Scott: Let me rephrase. I wasn’t TRYING to write a Cracker song. I had listened to a Cracker song on the radio. “Kerosene Hat.” It’s just cool, when it gets hard it’s like…you can hear the strums of the guitar. THAT’S what I had in mind. So (glaring at Paul) ANYWAY...

Noise: (to Dave and Quinn) This must be hilarious in rehearsal.

Dave: It’s kind of like Oasis Lite.

Noise: Remind me how long you guys have been together?

Dave: Seems like forever.

Scott: Ha ha ha. Because we don’t like each other, right? I get it.

Quinn: I wonder what it’s like to have a funny drummer.

Scott: Getting back to what we were talking about, influences. Just the progression of music over thirty years and people saying we sound like the Beach Boys or Pink Floyd or Neil Young. We might not be directly influenced by the Beach Boys, but by Big Star or The Posies, who were influenced by the Beach Boys. It’s many times removed at this point. Like Paul said, everything is an influence.

Dave: If you sit there and try to analyze it, it kind of scares you because you’re like, “jeez, is THAT what we are?”

Quinn:  If you get to the point where you recognize an influence you get really scared, because you don’t want to sound just like another band, you want to be original. 

Scott: Yeah, and I don’t think we’re trying to be pioneers of some new sound like what Radiohead was trying to do. I love Radiohead, not to disparage anything they do because they’re doing great things, but we just write songs.

Quinn: Write songs and play ‘em.

Noise: Talk about taking songs into the studio.

Quinn: Echo Rock and Actual Space were both recorded on shoestring budgets based on the fact that I engineer at New Alliance Studios. One big plus for Actual Space versus Echo Rock is, I did most of the engineering on Echo Rock and I was a real rookie, and so I made a lot of bad mistakes. Those mistakes did not happen this time. So Actual Space is a better sounding record. We are happy with the tonal quality throughout.

Scott: Also, before we didn’t have a second guitar player. I was the only guitar player then, and I sure am no lead guitar player.

Quinn: We kept the guitars simple before.

Scott: We tried lots of things that didn’t make it, but Actual Space kind of made itself when it needed to. We worked on a lot of songs; we’d worked on a full album’s worth of songs, and a lot of them weren’t working out. Finally we said let’s just take the best, finish them off, and put something out, be done with it. So that’s what we did. We just took the ones that were okay recordings, layered some stuff, some vocals, put a couple of keyboards on, and that was it.

Noise: You seem so zen about it..

Scott: I’m confident about our records. The thing that I’m not confident about is each day, meaning like, where are we going to go from here. What are we going to sound like tomorrow.

Paul: You can’t approach it that way. It’s a natural progression. You just have to work on the material and let it take its natural course. Like I said before, you’re influenced by everything you’ve ever listened to, one way or the other. Even if you do go into it saying, say there’s a song that you heard, a Cracker song for instance, and you really want to write something in that vein, it still comes out sounding like something different. It still sounds like something you wrote. That’s the natural progression.

Scott: You realize that because you have made such a big deal about this Cracker issue…

Noise: Damn, I was so going to try to quickly ask another question right away.

Dave: Before they started fighting again?

Scott:…that it’s definitely going to appear in this article. You have guaranteed that the word Cracker is going to appear in this story. I, by the way, like Cracker, and I’m proud of it.

Noise: So. You guys just released Actual Space, but you’re writing some new songs.

Scott: Yeah, we’re working on a lot of new stuff. Some of it will make it, some of it will not. Paul’s new to the band, we’re still trying to find our sound. It sounds good, it’s solid, it’s there. But there’s a lot of variables. There’s no way to know how it will come out until we’re in the studio doing it, when I say, “let’s try a keyboard here instead of your lead guitar part” and he punches me.

Dave:  That’s what I like about this band, too. Quinn works in a studio and has a lot of ideas. I’m just the drummer, you know what I mean? So when they put all that atmospheric stuff that I wouldn’t think of, it’s really neat.

Quinn: The studio and live performance are two vastly different things. In the studio it’s almost like you have TOO much freedom. You can do whatever you want.

Noise: Can’t that get out of control?

Scott: That’s why Actual Space is an EP and not a full length record. It got totally out of control.

Quinn: There were sixteen songs, and there are seven on this CD.

Noise: Wow. What are you gonna do? Are you going to release them ever?

Quinn: A couple songs might make it later.

Scott: You’ve got to remember that this and Echo Rock and even the EP before that were recorded on very low budgets.  Quinn has some studio time that’s allotted to him because he works there, so a lot of it is just about getting as much done as we can in the allotted time.

Noise: Arguments about what to keep, what to throw away?

Quinn: You have to be somewhat diplomatic about it. If you play with a band and you say no to everybody else’s ideas, you’re really disillusioning everybody else in the band.

Paul: It’s like a marriage. You gotta learn how to deal, to cope with each other’s personalities.

Dave: You can’t just go like, “you suck!” You have to kind of HINT that they suck and maybe it’ll dawn on them…

At the time of this interview, Dragstrip Courage wasn’t sure about when their next show is. Check out www.dragstripcourage.com for show dates, and go see them. That is, if they don’t kill each other before then.