photo by Ben Semisch
by Michael Todd
At the beginning of his freshman year of high school, Garrett Dale was given an ultimatum: Play football or play punk rock.
And as it happens, the first football game that year fell on the same night as an Against All Authority concert at the Green Door in Oklahoma City, Dale's adopted hometown. "Adopted" because he had spent the better part of his childhood moving to and from far-flung countries such as Spain and England. From an early age, Dale was an Air Force brat who learned to love traveling.
"I had a choice when I was younger," Dale says. "I could keep either keep playing sports or I could play guitar. … It was an easy decision."
Now eight years into his tenure as guitarist and vocalist with Red City Radio, Dale has no other plans than to tour and play music. He treasures the connections he's made with his band and its friends — "no such thing as fans, there's only friends." Among those relationships, Hear Nebraska's Director Andrew Norman spent part of 2010 managing the band on an East Coast tour.
Partly because of that friendship, Red City Radio is returning to Omaha this Thursday to play an HN Presents concert at Brothers Lounge with The Ridgways. To preview the show, Dale checked in as Red City Radio was pulling into Fort Wayne, Ind. In the interview below, he describes the community built at the recent punk rock mecca of Fest, the convalescent powers of Gatorade and glue, and how bad breath is uniquely Nebraskan.
Hear Nebraska: I wanted to start by extending my congratulations for Titles being the top Punknews album for October.
Garrett Dale: Thank you so much.
HN: Definitely. What does an accolade like that mean to you and the band?
GD: It just makes us happy that people are listening to it and supporting it. And we’re always very happy to see that people are into it, as long as we keep our gratitude higher than our expectations. Yeah, it’s really great seeing that. It’s nice to know that people are supporting us, voting on Punknews and stuff like that.
HN: It’s clear you’ve developed a strong following. Tell me how you and the band try to grow your fanbase.
GD: You know, we keep doing what we’re doing. We go on tours with other bands, play markets we’ve never played before, markets we have played before. Just constantly try to get more homies after the show. That’s what every band tries to do, just play a little bit more diverse shows. We try to do our best to invite everybody to come hang.
HN: You’ve been known as a musician who connects with his audience on- and offstage. Why is that important to you?
GD: If I write a song and someone connects, we have something in common. There’s no such thing as fans, there’s only friends. I’m always interested in people’s lives. I care for people. It makes me happy to know other people are happy.
HN: And Fest was just a couple weeks ago. For someone like me who hasn’t yet made the trip, what is that community like?
GD: It’s like a big family reunion. A lot of people have said that before. A majority of our favorite bands and a majority of our favorite people we’ve encountered throughout the world all seem to gravitate toward Florida for one weekend. It’s so great.
It’s a little overwhelming. I wish I could hang out with everybody a little bit more. It’s the one time of the year where we all get to hang out, get lunch and go see our favorite bands.
"We Are the Sons of Woody Guthrie" by Red City Radio | HN Live from Hear Nebraska on Vimeo.
HN: Now, I’d like to dig into a song from Titles. First, tell me a little about the dream that led to the song “Joy Comes with the Morning.”
GD: I don’t want to get too in-depth about what the song's about necessarily. It’s always a bummer when people listen to, for example, there are songs that I'll listen to, and I'll think, "Oh, this is the song meaning for sure, and I really love it."
Then I’ll ask the artist who wrote it, and they'll tell me a completely different meaning. It almost sometimes changes the opinion that I had previously. There wasn’t any specific dreams that I had. Those aren't meant to be taken extremely literally. It's more of a daydream, more of a thought. The song's pretty much about an awesome day.
HN: I hear you love country music. How does that relate to punk rock?
GD: It seems like more people in punk rock like country music. I don't know how it relates to punk rock. That’s just what I grew up listening to, because it’s where we’re from, Oklahoma. Dallas is from rural Nebraska.
It’s just good music: Conway Twitty’s good. Bluegrass is good music. Punk rock’s good music, too. We like what we like. We listen to a lot of funk, country, rap, reggae: everything that’s good. We don’t listen to dubstep.
HN: Fair enough. You mentioned your upbringing. Tell me the story of how you started playing music.
GD: I’ve always been a huge fan of music, since I was a little kid. My mom and dad would joke with me about it. I moved around a lot when I was younger, I was an Air Force brat. So we lived in Spain, we lived in England, all these different places.
When we moved to Oklahoma when I was younger, my older brother wanted to play guitar, so I wanted to play guitar. He died down after I got better than him (laughs), very older brother of him. I just never stopped. I always wanted to travel and do it. Traveling has always been a part of my history as a human. Music was always natural to me. It’s what I wanted to do, and something I felt I was pretty good at.
I had a choice when I was younger. I could keep either keep playing sports or I could play guitar. Freshman year of high school, the first football game was the same night as an Against All Authority show at the Green Door in Oklahoma City. It was an easy decision.
HN: Were you on the team for that football game?
GD: I quit to go to shows and play music, and to focus on that.
HN: Did you quit right before that show?
GD: I played sports in middle school, and I was also playing guitar, but I just saw that lineup, and I thought I would rather go see musicians perform that get any perks I would get playing sports. I realized at a young age, and now unfortunately I don’t want to do anything but tour and play music. But I leave from touring to play music. If not, I’d be in a pretty depressive state.
HN: Has your upbringing helped you on the road? Are you better at traveling than the rest of the band?
GD: I’m by no means better at anything. Traveling with other dudes takes time and effort. You have to really care about other people’s space and what makes them happy, what irritates them.
Luckily enough, we’ve been traveling in a group together, most of us, for eight years now. It’s easy for us, but it doesn’t matter if I was going to jump in a van with another group of dudes, it’s easy. You miss the stuff back home, I miss my girl a lot.
You miss a lot of things. For example, I just missed my brother’s birthday. That totally bummed me out. But it’s just a part of the gig. I’d rather miss things than lose the traveling part. It’s a lot of fun to be in a different city the next day, to have a connection with people, to see people face-to-face.
HN: As you’ve toured for those eight years, as you’ve come to get to know Dallas, is there anything about his personality that you would call uniquely Nebraskan?
GD: His breath smells. That’s one thing. Sometimes he drinks a Miller High Life, and when you drop an olive in it, you call it a Nebraska martini. I think that and his Red Green Show references are pretty Nebraskan.
HN: Is The Red Green Show not national?
GD: It’s not. We don’t get The Red Green Show in Oklahoma.
HN: Huh. Well, to follow up a silly show, here’s a silly question. How are you recovering from the end of your new music video (shown above)?
GD: Well, I’ll tell you what. The end of the music video hurt a lot. It took a long time for us to heal, maybe a day or so.
HN: Oh, man. One day is quick recovery.
GD: Yeah, it definitely took quite a bit of Gatorade and glue. But we’re alive, we’re good now. Paul’s arm falls off every once in awhile, but we’ll sew it back on.
HN: Good to hear. Now, switching to a more serious question, what has Red City Radio not accomplished yet that has always been one of the band’s ultimate goals?
GD: I’d probably say a Grammy or at least an MTV European award. Actually, a Nickelodeon award would be pretty cool, too. Yeah, I’m going to go with a Nickelodeon award. Wouldn’t it be cool to get slimed?
HN: I didn’t know they still did that.
GD: I don’t necessarily watch Nickelodeon all the time, but surely, that’s not something they just gave up on, right?
HN: I hope not. And for a final question, [HN Director] Andy [Norman] wanted to know: How many pairs of dirty socks have you left behind on people’s couches?
GD: That’s fucking hilarious. I haven’t left any socks on this tour. I do that sometimes. When socks get really gross, especially at a friend’s house, I’ll just leave them somewhere hidden because I’m a bad friend. On this tour, especially right now, it’s freezing cold. So I really need to keep ahold of these socks.
Michael Todd is Hear Nebraska’s managing editor. He leaves things like entire suitcases in places like Slovakia. Reach him at michaeltodd@hearnebraska.org.