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"We call it 'Gasoline Rock' cus it's high octane,"
says Jai Diablo of the band Dragpipe, the latest group
of raunchy rockers to surface from society's underbelly
and into the public eye. "I think (our music) mixes
the old-school punk rock attitude with a new rock and
roll twist… Kinda like where the nu-metal thing left
off with more of a rock and roll vibe steppin' in."
New Jersey's Dragpipe certainly brings a rough punk
edge to metal riffs that combined will explode in your
face with rage and fiery energy. They are raw and grimy
giving a fierce inner-city street vibe loaded with the
anger and angst of the unfortunate. Their debut album
off Interscope Records entitled, "Music For The Last
Day Of Your Life" is an opus that has a way of agitating
the emotions and rattling the insides live a virus.
Half way through the opening track, "Puller" you'll
become consumed with anger and by the time track #6,
"Simple Minded" rolls around you'll have bruises on
your forehead from slapping it into the brick walls.
Ex-Metallica bassist, Jason Newstead describes Dragpipe's
sound as, "angry music for angry times," and it doesn't
get any more to the point then that.
Dragpipe, who also includes Richie Garcia, Gino DePinto,
Monte and Jeno, come off with a solid sound that is
full and heavy. With 3 guitarists blazing over each
track and a tight and crude back-beat scratching along
with a harsh Rancid-like vibe and an early GNR edge
they have developed a semi-original sound that is fully
charged and explosive, 'Gasoline Rock' is perhaps its
best definition.
 Singer/songwriter
Jai Diablo, a Union City, NJ Native, is the genuine
article, a misunderstood human who, after failing over
and over again, has given up on trying to 'fit-in' with
main stream expectations. Says Diablo, "I never fit
in and those people never understood me or who I was."
Diablo, a quirky imaginative youth, had a rough time
growing up. As a hyperactive boy with ADD and a creative
mind he was quickly dismissed as a 'special case' and
kicked out of school in the 6th grade. "It wasn't like
I was a fighter or anything," explains Diablo, "I was
more like a class-clown who joked around and stuff like
that, kinda like a freak or something. They never got
me and I was never really understood." The young Diablo
was soon sent off to a mental hospital where he would
have to go to school. "I had to go to a school where
there were 2 exists in the classroom and they handcuffed
us to the desks," reminisces the 27 year-old, "everyone
was too wild.. They just gave us a ditto to do for the
day and we didn't really learn anything."
Forced to live in a brutal world of underprivileged,
misunderstood, mentally challenged youths Diablo had
to adapt. As a small, skinny kid he was a target for
bully's and was often picked on and beaten up daily.
"I was getting beat up every day, man. I wasn't a fighter
or a tough guy and I got thrown into these schools with
all these gangs and drugs and shit.. It got me all fucked
up.. I was smoking angel dust at 13 and experimenting
with different drugs and shit," remembers Diablo, "I
was just a creative person who had a creative mind and
I was so misunderstood. Fuck them for telling me that
the way I think is wrong. They really fucked me."
"Music For The last Day Of Your Life," produced by Dave
Sardy (Slayer, NIN, Marilyn Manson, Helmet); captures
the pain, anger and frustration of Diablo's childhood
as well as that in the world in general. The first single,
"Simple Minded" is a hard hitting jam with brutal riffs
and a lyrics that bitch slap a society that reject things
they don't understand. On the surface the song is targeted
mostly at an ignorant society that divides itself into
groups and excludes those who refuse to conform to their
standards, those who think they are better than everyone
else and look down at the people in the rough. But,
it is much more personal than that for Diablo, he target's
the track at those who failed to see the light of his
artistic potential and sent him away. "Those are the
people I wanna kill," fires Diablo whose body is covered
in tattoos, "I'm sick and tired of all these people,
regular people I see in the street too, cus' no matter
where the fuck I go they gotta stare at me just cus'
I'm expressing myself. Those are the simple minded people,
man and I can't stand em'."
Diablo's lyrics reflect the life he lived and the alienation
he felt growing up in an "artless world" that just couldn't
figure him out. "Quest in Time" was written about his
high school years and the obstacles he had to overcome.
He learned to always believe in himself no matter what
people said or thought, he somehow stayed strong and
confident knowing that someday his art would set him
free. Lyrics such as; "In this dirt there is gold/ never
did what I'm told/ therefore I am this victim;" and;
"Now it's time for your hole to be/ filled with this
gold/ and the whole world is the victim;" demonstrate
how Diablo plans to turn the tables on society thus
making the world his victim. "Fuck all those people
who told me that the way I think was wrong," he snaps,
"what do they know."
"Seeds of Change" he says is the most personal track
on the record. "I think those are the most emotional
lyrics, those were really from my heart," says Diablo
with a choke in his tone. "I really dug deep for that
song and when I heard it for the first time in the studio
with Dave (Sardy) I just looked at him and had these
tears in my eyes. If you really listen to that song
and just sit with it and really listen to it I'm sure
it'll have meaning. It's one of those songs I wrote
from the heart." The track seems to speak of his alienation
and how a part of him wished he were a regular person
like everyone else. "I know I'm insane," he says, "I
am, I'm insane. No matter how I look at it I know that
I'm out of my fuckin' mind, just totally intense, totally
crazy."
Diablo also wrote songs while destruction was literally
happening before his eyes. The song "The Cruise" for
example, he wrote while watching the World Trade Center
burn from his own apartment window. "I had a perfect
view," he says, "During that whole 9-11 thing I was
looking right at the Twin Towers and I wrote 'The Cruise"
about how pathetic and horrible my life is and then
I look outside and see all this and said, damn, my little
pathetic life is nothing compared to what's going on
in the Twin Towers right now."
Seeing the 9-11 tragedy effected Diablo and convinced
him that this world was certainly headed for disaster.
He foresees a future filled with war and destruction
one with pain and hurt and tragedy. Dragpipe's album
cover depicts a city in ruins with skyscrapers surrounded
by clouds of smog and dust, pretty much like he witnessed
first-hand on 9-11- The inside jacket of his album shows
pictures of elevator shafts and stairwells all heading
downward to signify that the world is on the decline.
"It's coming, man," he says, "We're living in a time
right now that's really shitty and historical. I mean,
a hundred years from now people will be looking back
at this time period cus' these are pretty intense times."
Although all this may seem as if Diablo is the ultimate
pessimist he does manage to see the gold buried in the
dirt. "Beauty always comes out of destruction," he explains,
"so I think out of all this bad shit that is coming
there will be a lot of beauty and a lot of creativity
and a lot of art… Times like these create intense individuals
and intense art, just look at history."
"Music For The last Day Of Your Life" is a dark album
with dark themes, but underneath the gruff exterior
is a record that speaks out of the times and tells the
tale of a sensitive man who has been rejected by society
and is on a mission to prove them all wrong. Diablo
represents every man and woman who has ever felt judged,
discriminated, misunderstood and hated just because
they're different from the pack. His lyrics cry out
against a stubborn society that institutionalized him,
a world that brought him nothing but pain and people
that will never except him. "I think I'll always be
an outcast," he says, "I think I'll be a 60-year old
pirate. I'll chop off my leg, put a hook on my hand
and a patch over my eye and get a fucking pirate ship.
That's my game plan, to make enough money to buy a fuckin'
pirate ship one day."
For more info on Dragpipe log to: www.dragpipe.com
Don Sill for Crud Magazine© 2002
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