Q&A: Dwarves frontman Blag Dahlia on feminism and keeping punk dangerous

Dwarves frontman Blag Dahlia is not one to mince words. In an era when bands are under increased scrutiny for their lyrics and stage banter, Dahlia is still on the road belting out rapid-fire sleazy punk numbers like “Let’s Fuck” and “Motherfukker,” with the same abandon he had twenty-plus years ago.

With songs generally focused on sex, rampant drug use and violence, the Dwarves are an anomaly in today’s punk scene; a band still interested in provoking crowds, but with the musical chops to back their shtick up.

We caught up with Blag by e-mail while the band were over in Europe to discuss his thoughts on sex, feminism, and of course, Spongebob Squarepants.

The Dwarves will be in Montreal on May 17th as part of Pouzza Fest, for a show alongside party titans Municipal Waste. Single show tickets and three-day passes are available via http://pouzzafest.com/.

You’re well known for being able to get a crowd riled up; has that kind of antagonistic relationship with the audience always been important to you?

When no one knew who we were we needed to rile up the crowd. Now we’re so popular we need to make sure they don’t start a riot and pillage the neighboring towns, setting them aflame and abducting the local womenfolk. The Dwarves inspire mayhem wherever we go.

Has your relationship with crowds changed now that everyone in the audience can film your set from their phone?

The phone stuff is pretty lame, but that’s just how these kooky kids today express themselves. By being tedious! I just imagine an attractive teenage girl masturbating to her phone footage of me singing about vaginas and it makes it alright.

Is punk rock too safe today? How do you manage to still keep Dwarves shows unpredictable?

There have always been middling shite bands that do predictable stuff. And they’re always the most successful! That goes for back in the day, as well as now. There’s gold in the middle of the road.

I just saw Trash Talk for the first time the other day. That was a wild show! There will always be someone to come along and do a killer show and show fools how it’s done. You just don’t always hear about them. Fortunately for you, you’re hearing about the Dwarves!

How close are you to your on-stage, shit-disturber persona?

I’m what you might call ‘moody.’ Some days I’m a real sweetheart, other days I suck. Sometimes I’m a progressive pseudo intellectual, other times I do coke and fuck your sister. It’s a crap shoot with me. (With lots of crap floating in that statement!)

People often label the band as sexist, but you’ve said in interviews that you consider yourself a feminist; what are the people who call out the band missing?

That sex is fun and everybody likes and needs it. Including females, homosexuals, bisexuals, trisexuals, asexuals and not very attractive goat people. If you’re ashamed of yourself then you condemn bands that make you feel uncomfortable. The Dwarves are for all the freaks too, we don’t leave anyone out.

If you happen to be male, white and heterosexual you should still be able to express yourself without apologizing for it. We never have and we never will. We are the best looking band in show business!

You do a lot of production work; what’s your approach when you get into a studio with a band? Is there a defining sound you have in mind each time, or are you more hands-off?

I was lucky, Eric Valentine taught me how to produce. You use everything at your disposal to make them as good as they can be without compromising what makes them good in the first place. You start at the beginning with songs. What key and tempo and structure should they have? You rehearse a band and get stuff right before you record. You try things and make some mistakes trying to get more out of the project.

In other words you do the polar opposite of what every punk rock ‘producer’ I’ve ever met does!

You’re back on Recess Records with The Dwarves Invented Rock & Roll – what makes the label a good fit for the Dwarves?

Eric and I produced FYP way back in the day. I’ve always liked Todd [Congelliere, frontman of FYP, owner of Reccess Records]; he has his own style and he’s writing better songs than ever. He’s one of the great punk rock originals that gets no credit for it.

Sure, Recess forgot to promote our last record (The Dwarves Invented Rock & Roll), but at this point, I love him so much we can’t leave the Recess team. In fact, Todd wrote a bunch of songs for me to sing and we’re going to make a record together soon. Recess also reprinted Young & Good Looking in a deluxe 2 record set and is reissuing Lick It, Free Cocaine and even the Penetration Moon LP.

Also, shouts out to Burger records who do the CD and cassette versions of all that stuff. They make great art and smoke a lot of dope over there!

What was your brief experience on Epitaph like? Did you feel like you had much in common with the bands on the label at that time?

I’ll always love Brett [Gurewitz, Epitaph Records owner] because he gave me a lot of money when he was on drugs. Aside from that, Epitaph totally ignored us until they dropped us.

I was happy they took a chance on us at all, because our records sounded way different than most Epitaph bands at that time, but I’ve known all those bands for a long time (NOFX, Pennywise, Rancid) and they all had a grudging respect for the Dwarves, because we’ve been in it as long as them, but never really appealed to the average punker who was most interested in wearing the same shorts as Fletcher or coloring his hair like Fat Mike, or adopting a UK/Berkeley accent and pretending to be from the street.

In this punk rock game many are called, but few are chosen. And like I said, there’s gold in the middle of the road…

The band has had so many lineup changes over the years, do you have any rituals when bringing someone new in?

Everyone who’s old is new again. All the guys from Blood Guts & Pussy showed up in some form on the newest record, just like they did on Young and Good Looking almost 20 years ago. People leave to get their sanity back, get a job, have a family, but no one really quits or gets fired. It’s a very dysfunctional family of miscreants and freaks.

I’ve been really lucky too, in that all the Dwarves are great songwriters. People think I wrote all those songs, but many of them are written or cowritten by other Dwarves. It takes a lot to play in a band with me, I salute them for putting up with it! I suppose the only ‘ritual’ we have would be accepting the fact that often you’re going to be playing before some band that we’re way way better than!

How did you end up writing a song for Spongebob Squarepants? Were the producers familiar with the band?

I sang “Do The Sponge” on the first season of Spongebob, but the song was written by original Dwarf Sgt. Saltpeter. He’s written a lot of songs for them.

What’s coming up next for you and the Dwarves?

We’re now in Europe, headed to Canada next week. This year we plan to play Blood Guts & Pussy in its entirety at a bunch of US festivals and fuck and suck our way across America. Dwarves forever!

The Dwarves play Montreal’s Pouzza Fest on May 17th at Foufounes Electriques (87 Saint Catherine East). For ticketing options visit http://pouzzafest.com/. For all Dwarves tour dates, head to http://www.thedwarves.com/.