Spunk Volcano and The Eruptions EP

Over the last couple of years many punk fans have been brushing up against Dirt Box Disco and coming away with a smile on their faces.

It’s a natural reaction, and you would be hard pushed to read a less than glowing review of the bands albums, or their shows.

The main issue the band probably have – and it’s a good one - is keeping up with demand for fresh material, but to assuage our withdrawal symptoms here we have Spunk Volcano, and his aptly monikered Eruptions, dropping a five track EP on us that will very easily carry the fans over to the next studio outing from Dirt Box Disco.

Best of all though is that it’s not just more of the same as some would expect, but a glorious racket of pop infused rock that’s standing tall on its own two feet.

Imagine for a second that Spunk has stuffed The Dickies, The Ramones, Buzzcocks, Twisted Sister, and even grebo heroes Zodiac Mindwarp and the Love Reaction, into a blender and then chugged back the contents as the rest of the band shout “down it, down it, down it” at him.

Once the last drop slips past his tonsils he spins around in his underpants and with a roar he changes from spunk volcano lower case punk rocker to the upper case SPUNK VOLCANO KING OF CARTOON PUNK supercharged with the heroes of the past.

In some alternate universe kids are probably watching that television show right now, and it’s a world I want to grow up in.

Every Saturday morning would be filled with a day-glo cartoon where Spunk fights evil with his trusty sidekicks armed with nothing more than a leer and a punky song to throw at them.

It would be brilliant wouldn't it, and in these five tracks we have the perfect soundtrack to it.

Close my eyes and I'm nearly there. 

)

Misfits/Goldblade/Dirt Box Disco - ABC - 05.04/13 (Glasgow)

Well Dirt Box Disco are certainly not going to be the warm up band for long.

It's been a while since I seen a support band effortlessly provide all the highlights for a night, but they did it in grand style.

I'm sure there were those who chose to sit in bars watching the clock and timing their drinking to coincide with missing the support acts, as there always are, but if those self same people woke up this morning and thought that their nights entertainment didn't quite hit the spot then all they had to do was turn up early enough, and instead they could have claimed they had seen their next favourite band.

It's very obvious to me that within Dirt Box Disco is a solid rock and roll skeleton that's been padded out with a larger than life persona.

They are a party machine that just keeps giving.

If someone made a movie about The Ramones competing with the Dead Boys in a Kiss pinball machine tournament, and the prize was spending a night drinking tequila with Satan himself, then every party scene would feature a Dirt Box Disco song as the backing track.

Yep. They're that bad ass....and fun.

There's a headlining tour later in the year and I would recommend that everyone exercise their right to party hard and do it with the Dirt Box Disco boys.

Goldblade are sliding into a rut.

If you haven't seen them before then I am sure that the high octane rock and roll with a punk edge will hit all the right buttons, but I have seen them before, and more than once to.

While some acts have a sound that has a timeless quality to it, and it's a style that shouldn't be messed with, I am personally gagging for Goldblade to break loose a bit and kick off the chains.

I'm sure some will take that as a negative, and that's fine, but what I really mean is that this is a band that could pretty much do as they want musically and I just want to see them stretch those musical muscles.

Maybe I just want to reboot them back to the 'Black Elvis' days then wind them up and see where they go with it.

The Misfits now seem to attract people who want to then bemoan how shit they are.

This makes absolutely no sense to me at all.

Why spend the money to go to a show with the intent not to enjoy it?

Here we have Jerry Only still carrying the name on, and he's giving it his all.

That's laudable.

Okay the sound was a horrible dirge of a throbbing noise, but for every single bit of the show that made me cringe there was another that made me smile.

A big part of it is that a Misfits gig to an extent is like a family gathering.

Jerry gets that, and plays to it.

When he is pointing into the crowd he isn't just randomly doing it. He is in fact picking out a fan and for a second making real contact with them.

There's kids who will not care at all that this isn't a line up with Danzig or Doyle in it.

For them this is The Misfits and and they are right.

It is.

It's their Misfits.

Should we cut them some slack for this though?

I'm going with yes, because while the music maybe isn't turning every single person on in the audience I really can't find it in myself to knock a band who give so much to their fans.

When all three of them finish a set that was relentlessly driven, and must be physically punishing to an extent, the last thing that would be expected is that within seconds they are down into the crowd to sing autographs and pose for pictures.

There's no expensive meet or greet option when you by the ticket.

They just inclusively make themselves available to everyone.

That's something pretty special right there.

I guess we really are 138 after all.

Dirt Box Disco

It's really all still a bit of a joke explains 'Spunk Volcano'.

It started that way with the first gig. We all wore dresses and we were all in different bands and we were having a laugh.

This is all just, and then he loosely waves his arm about to express the gigs, the supporting of The Misfits and such .....and then he looks at WEAB.I.AM to take over.

The interview continues in this vain.

It's like a wrestling tag team.

One starts answering while the other finishes.

There's a solid connection between them that I'm going to assume extends to the rest of the band to.

For all the theatrics and downplaying of being serious this is a real band in every sense of the word.

There's the gang mentality that The Ramones and the Clash had, but also an 'I don't want to grow up' attitude that's keeping their feet on the ground.

I mention a couple of times about the response that the Rebellion set of last year drew.

How people who had no previous knowledge of them had returned home claiming that they were the best act of the festival, and this praise bounces off them, sort of skitters over the surface and fails to get any traction.

SV- We had no idea what it would be like. None of us had ever even been to the festival before.

We drove up on the day and arrived and then the nerves kicked in when we seen the size of the hall we were playing in. We just did the gig and at one point I looked up and it was just a sea of people and...well it's not what we expected.

WEAB - One of the band who shall remain nameless was crying after it.

Really? Do you think that was just the adrenaline crash?

WEAB - That's it. You do the show and then it all gets processed after it.

When they are asked if this stepping away from accepting plaudits is partially down to an idea that if they do then they may jinx any future success they laugh and side step it again.

SV - We are a good band and there's a lot of work goes into it, but there's no real plan.

WEAB – The idea is just to have a good time. Dress up and enjoy it.

The good news is that with the second album still to get an official release the third is well on it's way to being written.

WEAB - Spunk does all the work. He's the main songwriter.

SV – I had a moment when I was writing 'People Made of Paper' and the nerves kicked in about matching 'Legend', but you have to shake them loose and get on with it.

After we had done 'Legend' we had asked Stu of STP what was next? Would we be doing another release?

He was straight in saying yes.

That's was good.

I write the songs with the idea of what we would all do so when I take them to the rest of the band there's rarely any problems.

A benevolent dictator?

WEAB – No (Laughing) we sometimes don't go with one thing or another.

Spunk – I write the songs with an idea in my head on how everyone in the bands wants them to sound so when I give him the songs and wait for him to say something and usually he says it's fine.

When it's put to them that the material is strong enough to carry the band without the theatrics being needed it is the one subject that they are equally as passionate about.

Spunk – Look at us. Without that dressing up would we have grabbed the same attention?

From the start it's been there anyway. I love superheroes and wrestling and everyone else brings their part to it in dressing up.

WEAB - With millimetres of make up I can be someone else. I've got the best job in the world when I put it on.

We didn't plan it out. We don't really plan anything. This is how the band started and it's the just the continuation of it

We're a couple of fat guys having fun. That's part of it to. Who would want to see a skinny guy in a baby grow anyway?

They are right though.

Apart from Slipknot fans who would want to see a skinny guy in a baby grow?

In a time when image is everything they have stumbled into providing one, and like the best bands who use theatrics, from Cooper to Kiss, they will ultimately be judged on the music and that alone.

Thankfully from witnessing them in full flow live I can attest that the Trauma-esque characterizations re the icing on a cake rather than a distraction designed to disguise a lack lustre clutch of songs.

When it comes to covering touring Spunk is still processing it.

Spunk – Both of us have jobs and kids so we are still moving from the playing a date here and there to taking on doing a run like this.

It's a bit of a culture shock.

WEAB – You have an idea in your head about what it will be like.......

Spunk...and it's not.

Travelling for hours and then playing for half an hour.

We were about an hour outside Glasgow and I was wondering how I was going to do it tonight, but then you just plough through it.

WEAB - ...and there's the difference in the sizes of the stages.

Spunk - I like the small venues and getting out there in people faces to push for a reaction and get a sing a long started, but with this you have to approach it differently and it's a learning process for us.

WEAB – It's good though. I don't think any of us thought we would be on tour with Goldblade and The Misfits.

It's not something you think about.

Spunk – They are all good guys. I was in the elevator with Jerry and he had this bench thing for doing sit ups and I asked him if he was getting some reps in.

he said he was and I said I was thinking that I might to and then laughed and said fuck that I'd rather have a pie.

He was cackling and saying 'you're a funny guy, you're a funny guy'.

He's alright.

Everyone has been.

Over all it's been good and meeting new fans is good.

WEAB – We always head to the merch table after a show. It's not just a good business thing, but it's great to meet people.

Spunk – Best bit is when people don't recognize me without the mask on and asj for a photo with WEAB and get me to take it with their phone or camera.

It's sort of obligatory to end an interview by asking what's next, but Dirt Box Disco are a bit too busy just taking it all in to think about that.

There's a headlining tour, and album launch and another to record to record all loosely planned out, and I think that in the near future they are going to look up from the work and wonder where it all went right.

Did I mention they were feckin excellent live?

No.

Well take it from me. They were.

Record label.   Website  Facebook  Merch

Legend Review       People Made of Paper Review

Dirt Box Disco - People Made of Paper

There's some words that people seem intent in carving in stone.

Punk is dead are but three of them.

Of course punk isn't dead though.

What happened was that the original premise was co opted by the leather and studs crew in the early eighties and the wider perception of what punk is was misinterpreted.

Well that's my take on it.

No longer was it a celebration of tearing up the rule book with anarchic glee, but instead it was about writing new rules.

The punk police had arrived to join the party and it was the start of a downward slide.

I guess the easiest way to show the divide between what it was, and what it became, is to go out of an evening and visit a gig.

Those like The Damned, The Stooges and The Stranglers to name a few can still fill the larger venues.

Now where are the others who redefined what the general public thought of as punk rock though?

Playing pubs to eighty people if they are still together is the answer.

Thankfully the original premises pulse never weakened to the point that punk left the building.

Instead some clung onto it, and as with Dirt Box Disco, refused to let that final nail be hammered into the coffin.

With their debut album they shook things up a fair bit and delivered a fun filled manifesto of intent, but I doubt anyone was ready to commit to thinking that their next release would be one that blew the roof off.

Personally I thought that we would have seen an incremental improvement, an improvement that would continue over a few albums until finally we got to immerse ourselves in a release that that would be a fat free work of raw passion that levelled the competition.

Who would have thought that they would have delivered it so early with 'People Made of Paper'.

In punky parlance this is the dogs bollocks innit?

With their tongues firmly in their cheeks they're wearing a huge shit eating grin and with each track daring us to not to love them.

I heard them once described as a punk rock Steel Panther and I can see where that comes from from, but I would still disagree.

Steel Panther are an excellent parody of a scene, whereas Dirt Box Disco are no parody.

Instead they are a full on punk band who have a sense of humour.

Fuck smashing the system when there's a party over there that can be crashed.

This album is actually a joyous celebration of doing what the fuck you want, and that's as punk as you can get.

People Made of Paper is the album that delivers the middle fingered salute at all the po faced punters out there who think they are different because they are still clinging onto their membership of a club that is as mainstream and unbending as all the shite that they allegedly hate.

I bloody love it and if you give it half a chance then I suspect so will you.

They are out on tour with The Misfits in the UK soon.

Best get there early and see the best band of the night is all I'll say about that.

Facebook  Website  Bandcamp  Record Label

Dirt Box Disco - Legends

As mad as a box of frogs who have participated in too many hallucinogenic drug trials they may be, but Dirt Box Disco are no mere novelty act.

Underneath the greasepaint, and behind the post apocalyptic graphic novel imagery, is a band who can write and delivery material that given half a chance would put the majority of punk and rock media darlings that magazines like Kerrang promote firmly into the shade.

If this was a movie then they're the band playing on the radio as the anti hero barrels down a highway littered with burnt out vehicles as he leaves the ruins of a city in the rear view mirror.

Remember when My Chemical Romance released Danger Days and mixed some Mad Max. Jamie Hewlett and glam trash punk rock together?

Well while most punks wont have a clue what I'm talking about, I was actually very impressed with that, but this might have been the album they were really reaching for.

If that album was the foreplay, but this is the money shot.

'Legends' is Dirt Box Disco channeling the spirit of Turbonegro in a Clockwork Orange bar covering the UK Subs in a suburb of the City of Oz with amps whose lowest setting is eleven........and then they burst into the next song and you're transported somewhere else, somewhere that Twisted Sister are professionally arm wrestling with Sigue Sigue Sputnik as the Ramones look on.

Every song is a phasers set on stun party.

'Legends' indeed.

STP Records

Band Website.