MDC

Posted Mar 23, 2007, by Andrew Ridley.



BS - what's your name and what do you do?
Dave - my names dave dictor and I am the singer of MDC, ive always been the singer of MDC and im on the only singer of MDC, i write all of the songs, words mostly, but some of the music as well. I have been doing this now since 79 80, and that's what I do. I also book the band, which is an enormous task. I also set up a lot of the merch. Help design it.

BS - how's everything going for you then?
Dave - its going really great, we did forty two gigs over the spring, when we played here, and we came back here in fall for wasted fest, and well have done 85 gigs in north america when we finish up in a week. umm, feeling healthy wealthy and pretty fun! we've got all the original members of MDC here on this tour, Mikey Offender Donaldson, on the first album in 81 and ron holst on guitar and Al Schvitz. and it feels really good to be with old friends and making it happen.

BS - what other bands have you been apart of?
Dave - me? I have been in the submissives, which is i did an album with tom pag of poison Idea, mikey is famous for the offenders, and he played with DRI for an album and a couple of tours, ron basically has been in MDC, and AL's basically been in MDC, they've picked up and played with the F Ups in San Francisco, and they've played with a lot of people for like three weeks or a month, but not really a full on project.

BS - Where is the band originally from?
Dave - We are originally from austin texas, 79, 80 we came out of that scene, and then we moved to san Francisco in 82 and we lived there till like 94 95 and the band kind of split up, and then I moved to Portland and did the submissives, and just took a time out and got back to it. We pretty much got back together in 2000, started practicing, went to Brazil, went to Europe three times.

BS - What are the musical influences?
Dave - ohh! mess load of musical influences! that's one of those dynamic questions, of course the dead kennedys and black flag and CRASS! musically and lyrically very much in the punk vien of things. but music has effected me my whole life, and im old enough to have had AM radio playing odis redding and the beatles and my mom bought me my first beatles single, I want to hold your hand and yeah yeah yeah, and every year a new beatles album came out, and just very very influenced by that and then I just fell into a lot of things, like willie nelson for a while in the early mid 70s and kind of moved to austin tx with that, and then kind of fell into punk, there was a punk club a few blocks from where we lived. and we were hanging out, out front and just kind of realized it was very vibrant and cool and fun to get into, and I was always kind of politically oriented and I just fell into that.

BS - You would say your music is politically oriented?
Dave - yeah Id say that is very true, corporate death burger, multi-death corporations, the new album which is Magnus Dominus Corpus, id say a lot ... a high percentage of our songs are politically motivated. I just named a few topics there, you know, corporate death burger which is all about fast food, third world, and just cruelty to the animals involved. You know .. we have a new album Magnus Dominus Corpus and we have a song called destroy the planet, which is just about where the planet is headed with the greediness of our society and the people that are running society, George bush and all about earning money and if the polar bears get wiped out, and smog, green house emissions, the poles melt, and .. it seems like its not their big worry, they are just there to make money for their profit holders.

BS - What was the name of the new album?
Dave - Magnus Dominus Corpus.

BS - Have you had a good response to it so far?
Dave - the new album .. we have sold about 5000 so far, its not gigantic, its not distributed monstrously its on joey's label. Our first album still sells more than our first album, which is weird how it goes, Im very very grateful that it does sell so much, but you do want people to enjoy your new stuff. Im happy to be alive and making music, 24 ... 25 years into the punk rock scene. people still come up and ask us to play shows, so im very fortunate.

random drunk girl - ::noise::

Dave - Hii ....

random drunk girl - ::gurgles a bit:: your so gorgeous

Dave - so what else do i do? ... well im a special ed teacher, im trained as a special ed teacher I work at a school, i haven't done it in a year and a half ...

random drunk girl - ::more noises::

Dave - lets interview her .. so what do you do?

random drunk girl - 12 12, love rock n roll ... ::random noise:: ::raspberries:: ::burps::

Dave - ok ... don't break the tape recorder ....

BS - ok, we've got to move a lil bit now ...
Dave - you asked about the new album and how's it doing and selling and im just lucky to be alive.

BS - Do you have any thoughts on wasted being cancelled?
Dave - wasted being cancelled ... its really sad we are standing next to some british folks who bought tickets and here they are tonight, its tricky when you do business and try to make magic happen with music and idealism, and i really like the wasted concerts and I know that darren and jenny are decent people, they are not corporate scum bags. and its sad that they tried to pull it off and it didn't happen. and it forced us to find a good gig, a couple gigs for the time we were supposed to do that, we were on tour for the band, so its a lot worse for people that had airline tickets and all that.

BS - a lot of money down the drain.
Dave - yeah, its good for the economy of Los Angeles.

BS - I don't know about that one.
Dave - Yeah i don't either.

BS - thank you guys for coming out and still playing tonight.
Dave - its fun you know, and once you sing for something, its hard to go back and not sing for something.

Any thank yous or anything like that?
Dave - umm ... just be true, be blue, just enjoy life, just treat people the way you want to be treated, and hopefully there will be a future, and if an asteroid hits us in between or something else goes wrong, just enjoy the time you have.

BS - what is your website?
Dave - www.MDC-rock.com is my guitar players, im also on www.myspace.com/MDC its kind of a sounding board, its got my email on it, and i blog different columns and writing and things.

BS - How many different things does MDC stand for?
Dave - Many different things. Its ever growing, I never say there is oohh 14 of them, and now there is 15 of them. It depends on different things, sometimes well be mad dixon and the confederates ... moms delicious cookies, but we started out millions of dead cops, that's the first one.

BS - anything else you want to say?
Dave - Just enjoy life.

BS - thanks a lot.