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So
Reggie and the Full Effect is on their first full tour and
I had a chance to speak with the man behind the wig and
mustache, the ever so debonair James Dewees. Keyboardist
for the Get Up Kids, drummer for the hibernating Coalesce,
and frontman for Reggie and the Full Effect. He’s an extremely
friendly and humorous person who enjoys tacos and chili
dogs so if you ever get a chance to talk to him, I’m sure
he’ll be more than willing to spend some time with you.
| SDP: How has the tour
been going so far? JD: It’s been amazing, it’s been better than I expected so far. SDP: So why invent Paco? JD: I don’t know. I drew Paco on a driver’s license, and I wrote Paco on there, so that’s how Paco came about. Then I had a wig one day and put on a mustache… SDP: Electrical tape right? |
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SDP: So what happened to the cassette only E.P.?
JD: It’s still in the process. It’s a whole bunch of unreleased demo version of songs that never came out.
SDP: What happened to all the footage shot from the first tour?
JD: We got robbed, and they stole the video camera and all of the footage like a month after we got home. We had a day off and my wife Megan and I bought a house and we were coming home from watching Zoolander, my friend Mike has copies of it so we might get it. They’re actually supposed to send us a camera on this tour and we’ll be coming out with a DVD.
SDP: Everyone’s coming out with a DVD now.
JD: Well ours is going to be funny, I get to do skits and and all the fun stuff.
SDP: That will be hilarious, so I saw you on IMX you looked so nervous.
JD: It was weird to be on TV, they were all “come up” they were so over the top they were all “so tell me about this…” even when the cameras weren’t on they were still “acting.”
SDP: Did they even know about the band?
JD: Yeah that Steve guy knows everything, he actually e-mails me still, and I went up and did something else for him. We might be doing some stuff based around my character.
SDP: The Paco hour!!! Who came up with the concept for the video?
JD: It was me, yeah I wrote it and called the video people at Vagrant and they were all “That’s awesome!” we had no money to make the video, you know it’s Reggie so they don’t give me any money. This girl made the costumes, she made doubles but they’re really fragile.
SDP: So no cameo on the new New Amsterdams this time?
JD: I almost did, I just didn’t have time. While [Matt’s] doing that, I was busy working on the new Coalesce album.
SDP: Oh so there’s going to be a new album?
JD: We might do it under a different name, it might be “bucket of blood” or it might be Coalesce we don’t know.
SDP: Speaking of Coalesce, how was the reunion tour?
JD: Oh the San Diego show was horrible, the guy didn’t even start flyering until the day of the show, other than that it was great it was the first tour that Coalesce had ever completed across the United States.
SDP: Since the Vagrant has the split series; why not release the Fluxuation/Common Denominator split on that?
JD: Well we’re talking about doing a 5 song EP or 5 songs each. I haven’t gotten around to it; I’ve been busy with the Get Up Kids and all that stuff.
SDP: So are the members always going to be rotating?
JD: Yeah pretty much we’ll be going out in the fall with the Alkaline Trio.
SDP: Anything cool coming out on vinyl?
JD: We’re talking about limited edition stuff only on vinyl, like Greatest Hits is coming back out on Vagrant; I was having trouble with Second Nature. So it will come out with like 7 new songs. We’re talking about doing a Vagrant Christmas album. Like a 4 song EP with Chris Carrabba and Matt Skiba doing like “Black Christmas.” It’s just a big group of friends having fun together.
SDP: So since the New Amsterdams seems to be a growing old band for Matt, do you see Reggie as that for you?
JD: Reggie is like the staying young band, it allows me to be me, and I don’t think I’m that weird. It’s got everything on there, pop-punk, techno; it’s like listening to 4 different CDs at once. It’s just something I thought would be more entertaining for kids and for me.
SDP: So how is the new Get Up Kids sounding?
JD: It’s like all of the records combined into one record, I’ve been playing it for everyone on the bus and they’re freaking out, it’s got a little bit of everything on it. There’s really really fast songs like Four Minute Mile and there’s some slower more ambient stuff like On A Wire, I’m always impressed by Matt, I don’t get to hear it until I hear him sing and then I have to learn it so I can do the backups.
SDP: So how’s Megan?
Megan: I’m fantastic!
SDP: How does it feel being James’ wife?
Megan: The question should be how does James feel being my husband?
SDP: So have kids been bringing you tacos?
JD: Oh no, they always say they will but they don’t. I didn’t eat dinner for a reason… Where are the tacos? I try to entertain everyone. I wanna do something
that has an impact. I’m gonna make sure they get their money’s worth.
SDP: So you picked up a keyboard player for this tour?
JD: Yeah Amanda, this is her first band, her first show was at Surf and Skate in New Jersey.
SDP: Are you a part owner of the Black Lodge?
JD: Yeah all of the Get Up Kids are part owners, we just laid down new hardwood floors actually now I know about routing tiles. We’re booked solid all the time.
SDP: So how well is On A Wire selling?
JD: I don’t know about 100,000 I guess.
SDP: What do you think of our scene getting picked up?
JD: I think it’s going to ruin it.
SDP: But we always come back stronger.
JD: Yeah we will but so many bands will just get ruined by major labels, kind of getting lost in the shuffle, some labels are good. You can only have so many of the same types of bands before it all starts blending together. It’s going to take a band like Brand New, their new record is amazing, this record completely blows you away moving away from a pop punk band to writing a really solid rock record. It’s going to take bands like that to really make it be a stand out thing and not just what Hot Topic can sell you as. Not just a backpack wearing, heart pounding, buttons everywhere because that’s what will get it over saturated and that’s what’s going to kill the scene. We weren’t the ones that started it, but we definitely helped, it’s cool for us to see how it is now. And we don’t want to sound like the wise old man telling everyone what to do but it’s like “Be careful what you sign” and “Watch out for this, you don’t want to sign away what you do, you know you might not make a dime and may not be able to release anything anymore, you’ll be eaten up and spit out", that’s what they do and that’s how they make money. I think what you’re going to see is bands just doing everything themselves, I mean pro tools isn’t that hard to do. They can learn distro, and then they realize that you can make money off this and you can just learn it all yourself. That’s how it all started anyway, the basement labels, and the basement distros, that’s what will keep the scene alive
SDP: Any last words on anything?
JD: Relax kids, have some fun, eat some candy. Smile every once in a while, it only takes two muscles to smile and a thousand to frown…
Megan: Oh god that is so cheesy…
JD: But it’s true!!!
http://www.reggieandthefulleffect.com
http://www.vagrant.com
Strung Out interview conducted 6/28/02 by Jay Ponce.
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