The members of Santa Barbara, California-based Dishwalla know their rock ‘n’ roll…and they know their video games! Since their 1996 debut album, vocalist JR Richards and his motley crew (guitarist Rodney Browning, bassist Scot Alexander, keyboardist Jim Wood and drummer Pete Maloney) has been kicking out the jams for about a decade now, fusing crunchy guitars with pop hook and an alt-rock sensibility. On its new self-titled effort, which was released on March 15th via Orphanage Entertainment/Fontana, the band explored some new emotional territory, teaming with three different renowned producers–Bill Szymczyk (The Eagles, B.B. King), Sylvia Massey (Tool, System of a Down) and Ryan Greene (NOFX, Lag Wagon)–to produce a record that, according to Richards, was “very representative of our whole journey.”
And part of that journey has involved hours upon hours of sitting in the back of the tour bus playing video games. Video games in the bus, games backstage, games at home, games in the studio–whew! These guys game almost as much as they rock. So we thought we’d ask JR a few questions about the gaming and rockin’ to see where he stands on these all-important issues.
Are you guys on tour right now?
We just started a tour. Our record just came out two weeks ago and we played two shows in Southern California and then we go to Japan next week. This’ll be our third or fourth time to Japan.
When you go to Japan, do you get to score all sorts of cool games and technology before it hits America?
It’s interesting. It used to be better 10 years ago. The first time we went over there, I got a mini-disc player before they ever came out here, with all the crazy features on it. But last time we went, last summer, we were checking out stuff and basically now you can get everything here at the same time as you can get it there. There aren't too many things you find that are that unusual. There’s some crazy porn you get there you can’t here, though!
What about bootleg CDs? They used to be everywhere in Japan?
There are still some mom and pop stores where you can find that sort of stuff, but it’s been taken over by all the big corporate record stores that aren’t into that kind of stuff. Japan had some pretty amazing things, like the monitor mixes of Zeppelin on their last tour when they’re all wasted or something.
Do you guys play games on the road? What sort of setup do you have on the tour bus?
We have a PS2 and an Xbox. The Xbox tends to get more use than the Playstation and I prefer the Xbox myself.
Why?
Generally, PS2 is your VHS to your Xbox Beta. There are way more games for Playstation, but they aren’t as interesting. The Xbox games seem like they took more time to maximize the graphics engine and stuff inside there. The quality tends to be better.
Yeah, people forget that Beta actually has much better quality then VHS, but just got phased out.
Right. Sony spends more money marketing the PS2, but personally I think the Xbox is better. But personally I think Macs are better than PCs, so a lot of it's apples and oranges and just depends on what you’re looking for.
What are some of the newer games you’ve been impressed by?
Well, Halo 2 is pretty amazing. We like to play each other and shoot each other on the bus, so that’s a good one. I’m a big Trekkie, so I’m always buying Star Trek games. There’s the new Battlestar Galactica thing that’s going on, so I got that one. The Star Wars games are cool. I’m really into the sub-cultural aspects of those TV show, so I dig checking out the games too.
What about old-school games?
I was an Atari guy for sure. I was also big into Nintendo 64. With Xbox you can go back and buy a lot of the old school games, like six or seven games in one. I love Galaga. I still prefer some of those games on the big arcade machines, because a lot of it has to do with that particular joystick and it’s just not the same at home. There was this one game for the original Nintendo called Rygar. It was one of the earliest first-person shooter games, but it was also fantasy oriented. I’d sit with that one with my bros and play until the late, late night.
So now that games like Halo and Grand Theft Auto have introduced these entire worlds that you can explore, sticking to the plot of the game or not, what is next for video games? Where can they go from here?
I just think they are gonna improve the options that can go in the plot. There will be deeper choices and more interactive stuff you can do. Like Dungeons & Dragons, I used to play that, that kind of idea that you can go off on some crazy, deep tangents.
Find out more about the guys at www.dishwalla.com.
