 Biography
I met my wife Trish on Labor Day of 1999. We fell in love immediately and were married four months later on January 15th, 2000 at the Graceland Wedding Chapel in Las Vegas, Nevada. At the time I was living in a 3 bedroom apartment in Los Angeles and Trish owned a nice 2 bedroom house up here in Chico. It made a lot more sense for me to move North and so once I’d made the decision to do so I began telling people, semi-jokingly, that I was moving to Northern California where I was going to start a country band. Everyone got a good laugh out of that but then when I got here I proceeded to do just that. I had been playing some folk/country type songs and had a brief set of material. When I was putting the band together the first member was Steve Bragg, who had played drums in Trish’s seminal alternative band “Vomit Launch” back in the late 80’s and early 1990’s. Trish also suggested I recruit John LaPado – a pedal steel guitar player and all around decent human being. I ran into Alan Wood playing bass in a local music store and with those three guys we started gigging around town. Appropriately, our first show was at Duffy’s Tavern. Duffy’s was the first bar I ever visited in Chico, where I met Trish, and to this day is probably my favorite bar in the whole wide world. At some point early on we played a show in the Downtown Plaza along with Danny West and the Lonesome Cowboys. At that point Scott Pressman, who was playing guitar in West’s band, approached us about joining the Asskickers. He would go on to play with the band for the duration of our 5 year ride. In 2001 we released our first album, “The Other Side of Town.” It was a nice little collection of songs, some from L.A., and a whole bunch of others that I wrote while wasting my life working the Colusa Casino and Bingo as a ‘hopper filler.’ Pardon my French, but that place was a shit-hole. However, it provided a tremendous amount of frustration filled inspiration and I ended up dedicating the album to the casino. We found a rabid group of fans in Redding, California, where we played every couple of months. Our song “Trees” was a big hit with a lot of the guys who worked for the forestry service. In 2002 we released our second album, “Home on the Range.” This album represented the band coming together to form our own style of punk-influenced country, or country-influenced punk depending on how you look at it. It was a combination of silly, fun, and anger-driven political songs. We were in the process of recording this album when 911 happened and in the aftermath of that tragedy there were a few cuts on “Home on the Range” that I wasn’t sure about releasing. Then George W. Bush proved himself to be such an undeniable douche-bag that I released them anyway. “Anarchy Redneck Kingdom” and “Back to Zero” really represent the political and economic anger I was feeling at that time. In fact “Back to Zero” is a song about credit card debt and how it would eventually collapse the company. I wrote that in Los Angeles 10 years ago – how’s that for a prophecy? In 2004 we recorded our final album, “Let it Burn.” To me this was far and away our most political and important album. A lot of the silliness of “Home on the Range” was gone. The Bush administration was waging endless war on 2 fronts now, the country was hemorraghing money and blood, and the fear and anger was palpable. Songs like “Anger in My Soul,” “Get Lost,” and “Gasoline” reflected my disillusionment with the administration and the cowardly direction the country had taken. “Patriot” was my attempt to address the hypocrisy of killing in the name of a given God. There were a few fun ones on there as well like “I’m on Fire” and “Redneck King of the Groove.” “Let it Burn” is probably the album I am most proud of. It is also the album that really exhausted me. Mixing was tedious, the artwork came out screwed up, and I feel like it sort of got overlooked in the whole scheme of things. In the reviews people talked about the style but no one even bought up the content. I felt like I was screaming at the top of my lungs and no one was paying any attention. Ultimately I think that was the problem with the Asskickers; I was trying to combine serious political attacks with good-time party music. People only really wanted to pay attention to the good time songs. I don’t blame them – in those days the politics were so sickening that who would want to pay attention to that nonsense? But it became clear to me in 2005 that the band had pretty much run its course. I always sort of had a 5-year, 3-album plan anyway, so I stopped booking gigs and the band faded out of the local music scene in the summer of 2005. It was a great run and I am grateful to everyone who supported the band and came out to the shows. Those will always be some of my fondest musical memories. On a sad note, John LaPado passed away from abdominal cancer in the winter of 2006. John had been battling the disease for years – by the time I arrived in town he’d already had one operation to remove recurrent tumors. He was a great man and it is one of my greatest honors to have had the opportunity to play with him. I am happy that I get to dream about John from time to time. I miss him though – he was one of the most supportive and genuine people I have ever met.
 John LaPado - 1946-2006 |
