Louisiana based band Dash Rip Rock does just that. For the past 40 years the band, led by founder and guitarist Bill Davis, has been burning up stages across the country and putting out record after record never losing their fast paced, rock and roll sound.
Dash Rip Rock will come to town to perform at The Continental Club on Saturday, March 9 with special guests Speedbuggy USA and Houston’s own rockers The Repeat Offenders.
“Who does anything for 40 years?” asks Davis with a laugh about the band’s longevity. Even though they’ve had their fair share of line up changes in the two decades since they began as a rockabilly party band in Baton Rouge, the band has always been a trio of like minded, hard rocking fellas.
“We’ve probably had 20 people pass through the ranks of the band and they’ve all added an interesting element to the history of the band and it’s funny now that we are sort of rolling again after COVID, I just feel like everybody sort of contributed, even the guys who quit or we had falling outs. We all seem to be friends now.”
Currently Davis is flanked by the duo of Izzy Grisoli on bass and vocals and Wade Hymel on drums and vocals, a conglomeration that is clearly working to maintain the band’s status as cult icons in the cowpunk movement Davis harnessed in the ‘80s.
Last year the band put out Cowpunk, a great representation of their incredible on stage energy and overall eternally youthful sound of the band captured perfectly in the jackhammer zeal of “Let’s Go Fuck In My Truck.”
“The guys are pretty awesome,” says Davis. “There’s been a flurry of activity and it has been kinda nice since the Outlaw Country Cruise and even in New Orleans, there’s been sort of an uptick in what’s been happening with Dash.”
Last month the band performed on the cruise and Davis credits the rise in curiosity to his current lineup as the two players offer just as much electricity as he does on stage pushing Dash Rip Rock back to their rock and roll roots helping to spread the word of mouth about the band great performances.
In 1990, Davis along with John Doe of X, Country Dick Montana of The Beat Farmers and Eric Roscoe Ambel of The Del-Lords, was part of Mojo Nixon’s supergroup. The five recorded Otis in Memphis and helped Nixon finally realize his dream of having a live rock band instead of only being part of a duo, shifting his career trajectory forever.
Davis was on the Outlaw Country Cruise, in which Nixon was highly involved, for his friend’s final performance where he witnessed Nixon, along with his amazing band The Toadliquors, as they put on an unforgettable and vigorous show on the boat’s smallest stage.
They performed on the second night of the weeklong fiesta when sadly Nixon passed away the following day after a cardiac arrest. It was up to Davis that very night to not only perform on that same stage where his friend only 24 hours before had left his heart, soul, sweat and fake snot rockets, but to also inform the crowd of what had transpired that very day.
“It seems like this has been a real sort of dreamy, drawn out sequence that’s just weird,” says Davis of the days since Nixon’s passing. “It was definitely like we were stuck and luckily with a lot of good, sympathetic friends.”
Davis, who in 1995 had been tasked with informing an audience of the sudden passing of Country Dick Montana as well, took the stage with his band and Toadliquor rock and roll piano player extraordinaire and Houston Continental Club owner Pete “Wetdawg” Gordon and broke the heartbreaking news to the anxious crowd.
The band quickly got down to business and did what they do best honoring Nixon with a killer, fast paced set including their unparalleled, punk rock version of “I Saw The Light” which provided an aggressive dose of cathartic mourning for the crowd.
On the final day of the cruise Dash Rip Rock played the largest stage where they invited their friends and Nixon’s battle buddies The Toadliquors and longtime manager Bullethead to take the stage with them and honor their fallen leader.
“Those two gigs are just blurs to me,” describes Davis. “Sometimes when Dash plays we try to play some quieter stuff just to give everybody’s ears a break and let everybody take a breather and I think what happened was we forgot to do that. It was like, lets play every fucked up song that we know that would make Mojo happy as if he is writing our set list”
Their thrilling style and blending of roots rock and punk rock is what made them, along with bands like X, Nixon and The Blasters, leaders in the cowpunk movement of the ‘80s which offered a cleansing of the palette to the overproduced, mainstream sounds of the time.
“They were playing this roots boogie that spoke to your deep, inside feelings of raw emotions but at the same time, they were thinking songs,” he says of his contemporaries. “I think everybody’s goal back in that era of the ‘80s was to make raw music that was super, hyper emotional but then say something that is profound, that’s poetry.”
Though Dash Rip Rock has long been the kind of band that if you know, you know they did flirt with widespread success with their 1995 hit “Let’s Go Smoke Some Pot” a fittingly funny and silly song for the band who clearly doesn’t take themselves too seriously.
“I always felt like I wanted to make art that was unique, distinctive and in my own voice so I think that is what happened to Dash. The closest we got was doing a joke song and that thing took off and it was the craziest fucking thing because we did it as a joke. It was just perfect and it was perfect to be friends with Mojo, Dread Zeppelin and The Dead Milkmen, we were all in the same boat.”
In his typical laid back, “Louisiana AF” style, Davis offers a sincere chuckle at knowing when the crazy ride was over and getting back to playing small clubs with a heart full of gratitude and a continued desire to rock.
“We always tease ourselves about shooting ourselves in the foot,” says Davis of the band’s ability to stay just under the radar. “Our joke in Nashville used to be, you think it’s hard to break into the mainstream, wait until you try to break into the underground,” he laughs.
“You think it’s hard to break into the mainstream, wait until you try to break into the underground.”
Dash Rip Rock are basically incapable of slowing down as it goes against their entire nature. Their music seems to be an elixir of life pumping the listener with hormones that fill them with aggression, joy and lust almost biologically returning one to teenage youth no matter the chronological age.
“That music is the fountain of youth for me,” says Davis of cowpunk and “any sort of fun, joyous expression that’s got heavy guitars behind it.” Watching Davis play guitar is like nothing else as he uses anything he can get his hands on to make new sounds including bottles, another guitar or even chairs.
“It really does fill everybody with emotions when you’re doing something nutty to your guitar,” says Davis who admits that his goal as a player has shifted from being not only fast but now fast and accurate, which he is.
“I’m trying to convey joy. I’m not trying to be brainy or articulate or show that my fingers can move fast. It’s like you’re laughing through your fingers. It’s trying to make the happiness come through.”
Dash Rip Rock will perform with Speedbuggy USA and The Repeat Offenders on Saturday, March 9 at The Continental Club, 3700 Main, 8 p.m, $18-28.
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2024.
