Nearly 25 years after octopi-armed drums powerhouse Damon Che shitted out a boatload of underground-defining movements including, math-rock, post-jazz, post-rock and prog-metal with his brainy all-instrumental band Don Caballero, the Pittsburgh outlier remains one ballsy force to be reckoned with.Over the course of seven pioneering records starting with For Respect in 1993, Che has piloted Don Cab with aplomb, along with a revolving door membership that has counted Ian Williams (Battles), Eric Emm (Tanlines), and Jon Fine (Bitch Magnet) as cohorts. But as Don Cab reaped legendary status and undying cred for its Touch & Go label output throughout the 90’s, it was Che’s who-gives-a-fuck ‘tude that earned the ire of the indiesphere when he reformed his own band—minus Williams and Emm—with all new members. The sacrilege!That new incarnation of Don Cab unleashed a pair of criminally underrated long players (2003’s World Class Listening Problem and 08’s Punkgasm) and a live record (2012’s Gangbanged With A Headache, and Live). The latter two being, arguably, the greatest album titles in history concocted by a dude whose catalog is marked by hilariously verbose song names (see “I’m Goofballs for Bozzo Jazz” or “You Drink A Lot Of Coffee For A Teenager”).While fresh meat has been in short supply since Punkgasm, we can take comfort in knowing Henry Owings of Chunklet Magazine fame unearthed from his treasure trove Don Cab’s earliest-known studio recording, all the way back from December of 1991. Another Che titled zinger, Five Pairs of Crazy Pants. Wear’em: Early Caballero collects a chunk of the behemoth mathy riffers that would later appear on 93’s landmark For Respect and various odds and ends. It portends the “classic Don Cab lineup”—Che, guitarist Mike Banfield and bassist Patrick Morris—as an ascending trio of forward thinkers on the cusp of Amerindie domination.We called Che at him home in Pittsburgh to shoot the shit about his band’s history and future endeavors.Noisey: So, Henry’s Chunklet empire is releasing Don Caballero’s earliest-known studio recording, along with the band’s second live show as an additional download with the record. Have you heard it yet? Are you happy with it?
Damon Che: Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard it. I was never thrilled with the radio sessions from day one. But I understand in hindsight how it’s going to be a fun thing for passionate hardcore fans. And I always liked the live show. In fact, two of those tracks Henry’s already put out on a seven-inch way, way back in the day with a fanzine. In a sense, the one record’s not completely unreleased, actually—two of the tracks have been technically released before.What comes to mind now about those recordings? It’s been nearly 25 years.
Yeah, it’s been a long time. What comes to mind immediately when I listen to it, and it’s what I didn’t like about it before, is that I didn’t know how to tune my snare drum back then and didn’t use a very good style or type of drum batter head for the snare drum. I think it was some weird kind of canvas, muffled up drumhead. And I think I had pinstripes on the toms. And as I learned how to breathe behind the trap set over time, those things loosened up and you stopped using dreadful, flat, 70’s pop kind of a drum head with no ring. You end up with a breathing, jazzy texture. You want it to really resonate. And when you’re young and goofy, you slap whatever the cheapest thing at the music store is without thinking about it too much. So that comes to mind, but then that’s all about the growing pains so whatever.
I’m gonna say like 23 I think? 22, maybe.When did you actually start playing the drums?
I didn’t get my first kit until I was 14 believe it or not.Oh, wow.
But I dicked around in the school band and things, you know. Around age eleven or twelve is when I started getting excited about rock and roll, and realizing the drums kit was the thing I was probably gonna play best.What were you listening to back then?
Kiss. It’s what every kid was listening to if they were eleven years old in 1979. It was just the way it was.How did you ultimately hook up with the original Don Cab lineup, the trio, with Mike (Banfield) and Patrick (Morris)? Were those dudes childhood friends?
Patrick wasn’t a childhood friend but he was definitely a youth friend. Mike I had known through his previous band Slag and he moved back to San Francisco and was bicycle messengering and really didn’t like it, and I could see why he wouldn’t like something like that in a city like San Francisco, with all the hills. He came back and said “Do you want to do something?” And I think it was August of 91, we crashed into a rehearsal space and just started seeing what was going to happen. Only weeks later, we recruited Pat into the thing.If you want to talk about early Don Caballero, here’s a really important detail.Shoot.
We never felt like we were ready to do anything, but the opportunities kept popping up, and we couldn’t pass them up. We didn’t feel like we were a band yet at all. We originally we had to have a good lead singer, and maybe get another guitar player that knew how to play solos a little better than Mike did. But then all these opportunities kept presenting themselves and you couldn’t pass that up. So before we knew it, we were shoved out onto the stage as a three-piece instrumental underground sort of prog band. It’s how history made it happen.Were you okay with that?
Well we had to be, you couldn’t pass up the opportunity. If somebody said “Hey. Do you wanna open up for Head of David,” “Hey do you wanna open up for Tar?” We’re not gonna say no, we weren’t gonna say no to any of those things. There was half of us saying, “Well, we’re not ready, we’re not a band yet, we don’t have a singer yet, our songs are really just sketches.” And all of the sudden you’re riding the magic carpet and that’s pretty much how it goes. We’re sitting there thinking “Well, we’re not really a band yet, I mean we have these things we play in a rehearsal space,” but you couldn’t say no. And so the next thing we knew we were doing anything we could do, and that’s what we were. It’s pretty much captured in the two things Henry’s putting out, for the most part.That was a quick turnaround because the band came together in August of ‘91 and the sessions Henry is putting out is from December of ’91 and those songs were fully realized.
Yeah. Very. The live show is the second performance we ever played.Did you write all of those songs or was it a collaborative effort?
Well, as far as I know nobody else wrote them.When did you come up with the Don Caballero name? Did you have that name in August of ‘91?
Nope, no. We were throwing names like pasta at a wall. I even asked my dad, “What do you think about the name Don Caballero?” He says “Horrible. Don’t use that one.” And that’s not why we picked it, it’s because everyone in the band liked it, and it was the best name we could come up with.You sing in Thee Speaking Canaries and you’ve sung on the more recent Don Cab stuff. Did you want to be a singer/drummer?
The vocals on the newest Don Cab record are a pure result of us not giving a fuck what anyone thinks and just wanting to do what we want to do. It wasn’t a conscious decision to say “Let’s have a Don Caballero record with vocals for the very first time.” It wasn’t like that; it wasn’t a conscious decision. It was just like “This is what we’re gonna do, this is what we’re liking, we’re liking how it turns out.” We recorded it, didn’t hear anything wrong with how it turned out. So yeah, there’s a little bit of vocal instrumentation on the last record. And I can’t make any promises for future prospects either.But did you want vocals on early Don Cab records?
We did, but it always got scratched. There was a song on For Respect that was gonna have vocals but I did a horrible job on them. We didn’t even have to take a vote, I just said “If you guys want to can the vocals I completely understand,” and they said “Yeah, we want to can the vocals,” and that’s just how it went.How would you say that original trio compares to the different lineups over the years?
I try not to compare any of the lineups, to be honest, because otherwise I’m then expected to justify all this other kind of stuff. Everyone has a different aesthetic opinion on what’s proper and what’s unproper when it comes to what is a band, and what isn’t a band. I like to think of it as like….Well, all the record labels I’ve worked with. A lot of changes over the years, every last one of them. Now should they have to change the name of their record label because of that? With a lot of these purists when they feel very heartstrung-attached to a band and a bass player can’t be in the band anymore, to some purist fans that group of musicians or artists is expected to change their name into something new. I understand that, I personally don’t prefer to participate in that. Hence, now that you mention it, I don’t think I’ve ever compared any one Don Cab lineup to another.Oh, yeah?
In my own mind I don’t think I have, now that you bring it up.Speaking of labels, this live record Henry’s putting out is from ‘91 and For Respect was released in in ’93. How did the deal with Touch and Go come about?
We were gonna put out For Respect with Steve Snyder, who put out one of our earlier singles and that was the plan. But then Touch and Go became very interested and we didn’t want to let poor Steve down too hard but I think we made the right choice.
I did indeed.Awesome. For Respecthad song titles but on the shorter side. Did you start giving more thought to song names after that first record?
I think it’s evident in the progression. And not every zinger is always mine. Some of the song titles on American Don were actually Eric Emm’s and they’re some pretty good ones. That’s how they go to where they got to be. He had some real zingers. They’re not all mine, most of them are, but not all mine. And getting back to vocals on the last Don Cab record…they’re not all mine either. A lot of those songs are Gene and Jason singing.On Punkgasm?
There’s only one I sing all the way through, and there’s one I sing a brief intro. Anything else is Jean or Jason. So it’s not all about me.You had Punkgasm in 2008 followed by a live record, Gangbanged With A Headache, and Live in 2012. What’s the state of Don Caballero now?
I love vinyl. I still passionately spin wax on the highest end gear I can get my hands on. And I was almost thinking what we should probably start doing now—since vinyl is still what it always has been but in a way more special than it ever has been—in terms of just the homogenized process digital world we live in. I was thinking it would be a good time for us to just put out singles on 12”. And then when we get enough of them together, we could put them on a full-length release that could be Singles Breaking Up, Volume 2.Rad idea.
That’s the only real idea I have. I have music kicking around in my head but we all have schedules now and employment situations. We’re talking about families and wives and home lives and things now that were never in the picture in the first twenty years, and it is now. And I can’t make any promises…but what do they say in Mad Max? “Don’t write off the goose until you see the box go in the hole?” (laughs)Totally. So you don’t have time to tour anymore?
If we did another record, there’s no a reason why we couldn’t do a week or two long, one coast another coast week at a time kind of a thing.Like the weekend trips some bands are doing now.
Oh, that’s always been a popular thing when you’re a part time band—make the most of your weekends.Is the record that’s coming out on Chunklet stirring up any energy for you to get it going?
I’m gonna have to give you a TBA on that one. We’ll see.Brad Cohan has a punkgasm every day when he wakes up, which also might be why he's not on Twitter.--How Watching '90210' for Six Hours a Day Shaped Harvey Milk Bassist Stephen Tanner's Solo Project, Music BluesMeet Rat Fist, the DIY Garage Project from No Age's Randy Randall and Pissed Jeans' Sean McGuiness That's Here to Save Our SoulsThe Soft Pink Truth: Not the Queer Satanic Weird Al Yankovic
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Damon Che: Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard it. I was never thrilled with the radio sessions from day one. But I understand in hindsight how it’s going to be a fun thing for passionate hardcore fans. And I always liked the live show. In fact, two of those tracks Henry’s already put out on a seven-inch way, way back in the day with a fanzine. In a sense, the one record’s not completely unreleased, actually—two of the tracks have been technically released before.
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Yeah, it’s been a long time. What comes to mind immediately when I listen to it, and it’s what I didn’t like about it before, is that I didn’t know how to tune my snare drum back then and didn’t use a very good style or type of drum batter head for the snare drum. I think it was some weird kind of canvas, muffled up drumhead. And I think I had pinstripes on the toms. And as I learned how to breathe behind the trap set over time, those things loosened up and you stopped using dreadful, flat, 70’s pop kind of a drum head with no ring. You end up with a breathing, jazzy texture. You want it to really resonate. And when you’re young and goofy, you slap whatever the cheapest thing at the music store is without thinking about it too much. So that comes to mind, but then that’s all about the growing pains so whatever.
How old were you in 1991?
I’m gonna say like 23 I think? 22, maybe.When did you actually start playing the drums?
I didn’t get my first kit until I was 14 believe it or not.Oh, wow.
But I dicked around in the school band and things, you know. Around age eleven or twelve is when I started getting excited about rock and roll, and realizing the drums kit was the thing I was probably gonna play best.What were you listening to back then?
Kiss. It’s what every kid was listening to if they were eleven years old in 1979. It was just the way it was.
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Patrick wasn’t a childhood friend but he was definitely a youth friend. Mike I had known through his previous band Slag and he moved back to San Francisco and was bicycle messengering and really didn’t like it, and I could see why he wouldn’t like something like that in a city like San Francisco, with all the hills. He came back and said “Do you want to do something?” And I think it was August of 91, we crashed into a rehearsal space and just started seeing what was going to happen. Only weeks later, we recruited Pat into the thing.If you want to talk about early Don Caballero, here’s a really important detail.Shoot.
We never felt like we were ready to do anything, but the opportunities kept popping up, and we couldn’t pass them up. We didn’t feel like we were a band yet at all. We originally we had to have a good lead singer, and maybe get another guitar player that knew how to play solos a little better than Mike did. But then all these opportunities kept presenting themselves and you couldn’t pass that up. So before we knew it, we were shoved out onto the stage as a three-piece instrumental underground sort of prog band. It’s how history made it happen.Were you okay with that?
Well we had to be, you couldn’t pass up the opportunity. If somebody said “Hey. Do you wanna open up for Head of David,” “Hey do you wanna open up for Tar?” We’re not gonna say no, we weren’t gonna say no to any of those things. There was half of us saying, “Well, we’re not ready, we’re not a band yet, we don’t have a singer yet, our songs are really just sketches.” And all of the sudden you’re riding the magic carpet and that’s pretty much how it goes. We’re sitting there thinking “Well, we’re not really a band yet, I mean we have these things we play in a rehearsal space,” but you couldn’t say no. And so the next thing we knew we were doing anything we could do, and that’s what we were. It’s pretty much captured in the two things Henry’s putting out, for the most part.
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Yeah. Very. The live show is the second performance we ever played.Did you write all of those songs or was it a collaborative effort?
Well, as far as I know nobody else wrote them.When did you come up with the Don Caballero name? Did you have that name in August of ‘91?
Nope, no. We were throwing names like pasta at a wall. I even asked my dad, “What do you think about the name Don Caballero?” He says “Horrible. Don’t use that one.” And that’s not why we picked it, it’s because everyone in the band liked it, and it was the best name we could come up with.You sing in Thee Speaking Canaries and you’ve sung on the more recent Don Cab stuff. Did you want to be a singer/drummer?
The vocals on the newest Don Cab record are a pure result of us not giving a fuck what anyone thinks and just wanting to do what we want to do. It wasn’t a conscious decision to say “Let’s have a Don Caballero record with vocals for the very first time.” It wasn’t like that; it wasn’t a conscious decision. It was just like “This is what we’re gonna do, this is what we’re liking, we’re liking how it turns out.” We recorded it, didn’t hear anything wrong with how it turned out. So yeah, there’s a little bit of vocal instrumentation on the last record. And I can’t make any promises for future prospects either.
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We did, but it always got scratched. There was a song on For Respect that was gonna have vocals but I did a horrible job on them. We didn’t even have to take a vote, I just said “If you guys want to can the vocals I completely understand,” and they said “Yeah, we want to can the vocals,” and that’s just how it went.How would you say that original trio compares to the different lineups over the years?
I try not to compare any of the lineups, to be honest, because otherwise I’m then expected to justify all this other kind of stuff. Everyone has a different aesthetic opinion on what’s proper and what’s unproper when it comes to what is a band, and what isn’t a band. I like to think of it as like….Well, all the record labels I’ve worked with. A lot of changes over the years, every last one of them. Now should they have to change the name of their record label because of that? With a lot of these purists when they feel very heartstrung-attached to a band and a bass player can’t be in the band anymore, to some purist fans that group of musicians or artists is expected to change their name into something new. I understand that, I personally don’t prefer to participate in that. Hence, now that you mention it, I don’t think I’ve ever compared any one Don Cab lineup to another.Oh, yeah?
In my own mind I don’t think I have, now that you bring it up.
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We were gonna put out For Respect with Steve Snyder, who put out one of our earlier singles and that was the plan. But then Touch and Go became very interested and we didn’t want to let poor Steve down too hard but I think we made the right choice.
Yes, Touch and Go put out the bulk of your records. Don Cab is also infamous for its song titles and what not. Did you name “Five Pairs Of Crazy Pants. Wear ‘Em” and the live document “Lookit Them Elly May Wrists Go” that comes with it?
I did indeed.Awesome. For Respecthad song titles but on the shorter side. Did you start giving more thought to song names after that first record?
I think it’s evident in the progression. And not every zinger is always mine. Some of the song titles on American Don were actually Eric Emm’s and they’re some pretty good ones. That’s how they go to where they got to be. He had some real zingers. They’re not all mine, most of them are, but not all mine. And getting back to vocals on the last Don Cab record…they’re not all mine either. A lot of those songs are Gene and Jason singing.On Punkgasm?
There’s only one I sing all the way through, and there’s one I sing a brief intro. Anything else is Jean or Jason. So it’s not all about me.You had Punkgasm in 2008 followed by a live record, Gangbanged With A Headache, and Live in 2012. What’s the state of Don Caballero now?
I love vinyl. I still passionately spin wax on the highest end gear I can get my hands on. And I was almost thinking what we should probably start doing now—since vinyl is still what it always has been but in a way more special than it ever has been—in terms of just the homogenized process digital world we live in. I was thinking it would be a good time for us to just put out singles on 12”. And then when we get enough of them together, we could put them on a full-length release that could be Singles Breaking Up, Volume 2.
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That’s the only real idea I have. I have music kicking around in my head but we all have schedules now and employment situations. We’re talking about families and wives and home lives and things now that were never in the picture in the first twenty years, and it is now. And I can’t make any promises…but what do they say in Mad Max? “Don’t write off the goose until you see the box go in the hole?” (laughs)Totally. So you don’t have time to tour anymore?
If we did another record, there’s no a reason why we couldn’t do a week or two long, one coast another coast week at a time kind of a thing.Like the weekend trips some bands are doing now.
Oh, that’s always been a popular thing when you’re a part time band—make the most of your weekends.Is the record that’s coming out on Chunklet stirring up any energy for you to get it going?
I’m gonna have to give you a TBA on that one. We’ll see.Brad Cohan has a punkgasm every day when he wakes up, which also might be why he's not on Twitter.--How Watching '90210' for Six Hours a Day Shaped Harvey Milk Bassist Stephen Tanner's Solo Project, Music BluesMeet Rat Fist, the DIY Garage Project from No Age's Randy Randall and Pissed Jeans' Sean McGuiness That's Here to Save Our SoulsThe Soft Pink Truth: Not the Queer Satanic Weird Al Yankovic