Dishwalla revisits its roots on Juniper Road

Thomas Gerbasi
Jul 28, 2017 · 3 min read
Dishwalla

Timing is everything. Just ask the members of Dishwalla, who had long been wanting to deliver a follow-up to their self-titled fourth album, only to see space and time not eager to play along with such wishes.

“We had all been working on songs for a long time,” said drummer George Pendergast. “It was more a matter of when and where are we gonna do it because we don’t all live in the same place. So it really took a lot of coordinating five different guys’ lives to even make the thing happen. I think there was an expectation that we would and people had asked about it for a long time and we knew that we needed to, but what I’m really surprised at is the reception of it, and I’m very happy about that.”

On Juniper Road, released in May of this year, there are a lot of firsts. It’s the California band’s first album since 2005, the first since reuniting in 2008, and the first with singer Justin Fox. It almost sounds like a new band making its debut, which is a good thing for a group that has been at it since 1993.

“One of the things that we’ve always done is tried to stay musically in shape,” Pendergast said. “I don’t just mean physically, but we’ve always been intrigued by new music and listened to new music. We didn’t get stuck in listening to one kind of thing and we were always turning each other on to new music. We’re still music lovers, we still like playing with our gear like everybody else does and messing around with sounds. The fact that we stay in the mix with what we listen to and what we do outside of our lives in the band helps to keep us relevant.”

Not just relevant, but unlike the band many pigeonholed them as after their biggest hit, “Counting Blue Cars,” invaded the airwaves in 1996.

“It (Juniper Road) is letting you know what our roots are,” Pendergast said. “There was a heck of a lot of AC/DC and The Cult going on in all of our lives as we were growing up. And you might not know that listening to ‘Counting Blue Cars.’”

But Pendergast has no problem playing that song for as long as this band is on the road.

“The blessing has been that it’s allowed us to play to an audience that is gonna come to see that show and hear that song forever,” he said. “And that’s our demographic. ‘Counting Blue Cars’ has been our biggest hit at rock radio, and that rock audience is wonderful because they keep renewing. We just went out on a pretty rock-centric tour and the audiences were really cool and it’s different for us to do a tour that’s specifically like this for a rock crowd. And there’s as many young kids as there are people in our old demographic.”

Not bad for a group that has been able to keep it all together — musically and personally — at a time when many of their peers can’t say the same thing. So what’s the secret?

“This band writes and functions the best when we’re all together,” he said. “We have so much technology, I would guess it’s almost at the highest government level to write songs in front of a computer in each of our own houses. (Laughs) But we just can’t seem to get that together. Yet the second we’re all in a room together and the amps are on, I don’t want to be dramatic, but within minutes, we’re got something. It’s a great, amazing thing.”

Dishwalla plays B.B. King Blues Club & Grill in NYC tonight, July 28. For tickets, click here

KO63 Music

No reviews, just features on the people who make the music - all music. From rock and rap to country and pop, if you listen to it, I'll write about it.

Thomas Gerbasi

Written by

Editorial Director for Zuffa (UFC), Sr. editor for BoxingScene, and writer for Gotham Girls Roller Derby, Boxing News, and The Ring...WOOOO!

KO63 Music

No reviews, just features on the people who make the music - all music. From rock and rap to country and pop, if you listen to it, I'll write about it.

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