Lagwagon Announce New Album; Stream New Song

Fat Wreck Chords and longstanding California punk band Lagwagon are excited to announce RAILER, the band’s ninth full-length album due out on Friday, October 4 (pre-order). As frontman Joey Cape explains, ‘railer’ is “a funny word from childhood that means ‘silly bad’, like lame” and it captures the sense of throwback that flows through the new album’s 12 songs. That idea of looking to the past was inspired after Cape came up with “Bubble,” RAILER’s first single as well as first song he wrote for the album, and he then just took that idea and ran with it.

“The idea of that song was to embrace and appreciate what you have,” explains Cape, “I really specifically tried to make it feel and sound like an old Lagwagon song, so I borrowed a lot from early records for it. And then from there, I just kept thinking that the rules have to be that ‘RAILER’ feels like something Lagwagon might have done in the old days. I wanted to see what would happen if I didn’t overthink things and I just tried to write a record as quickly as possible without losing the quality I expect from myself as a songwriter.”

Lagwagon has also announced its fall North American co-headlining tour with label mates Face to Face. Beginning on September 27 in Tacoma, WA, the month-long tour will extend through October 27 and hit major markets such as Detroit, MI, Brooklyn, NY, Chicago, IL, Boston, MA, Atlanta, GA and more. Supports for the tour will include H20, MakeWar and Destroy Boys, and tickets will go on sale this Friday, August 2 at Noon local time. A full listing of dates can be found below with more information on Lagwagon’s Facebook page HERE.

Unlike the last few Lagwagon albums, RAILER was written in an incredibly condensed period of time, in an attempt to capture the spirit of the band’s early days. And it worked. While songs like “Stealing Light,” “Dangerous Animal” and “Dark Matter” bristle with a raw, ragged and pure energy that’s unusual for any band to have after almost 30 years of existence, these tracks also directly hearken back to the band’s early days.

“There’s only so much one person or a group of people can do before they start to develop characteristics that become common to them,” says Cape in typically philosophical fashion, “and I think you have to be comfortable with that. And I am. I like my band and what we’ve done and I’m okay with the fact that we have our strengths and we have our limitations. I know what it is that we do well and if we stay true to that, there’s something that comes out of that that is truly original, because you’re being true to who you really are.”

At the same time RAILER, produced by Cameron Webb (Alkaline Trio, Motörhead), accurately and honestly reflects who Lagwagon are in 2019, both lyrically and musically. While it sounds like these songs could have been written by a band 20 years younger, RAILER, as a collection, presents itself as youthful but jaded, frantic but exhausted, visceral yet cerebral.

The idea of struggling to get by alongside an overwhelming sense of existential chaos and angst is a common thread throughout RAILER, in the bouncy desperation of “Jini,” the Bertrand Russell-inspired “The Suffering,” the breakneck despair of “Parable” and even in the carefree nostalgia of “Bubble” and its unflinching celebration of the band’s early days of “beer for pay” and the “roach-ridden pads” they used to crash at. Life has moved on in the three decades since Lagwagon started, but it’s not something the band – guitarists Chris Rest and Chris Flippin, drummer Dave Raun and bassist Joe Raposo – have entirely left behind either.

Additionally, Cape doesn’t necessarily expect people to extract his specific philosophies from each of these songs, but they’re certainly present for the listener to seek out if they want to. At the same time, just as with Lagwagon’s earliest songs, RAILER’s songs are there to be listened to and enjoyed, to take you back to simpler times. It’s no coincidence, then, that RAILER ends with a frantic punk rock cover of Journey’s “Faithfully.” Back in their earlier days, Lagwagon’s albums often used to include cover songs, but the band hasn’t recorded one for a long time, until now. And, with this record, Lagwagon has come full-circle and rediscovered the purest version of who they’ve always been as a band. Not that that feeling was ever really lost in the first place, of course.

“I wouldn’t say ‘lost’,” confirms Cape, “but you evolve. Evolution is a journey within yourself. You go on this journey and it takes you wherever it takes you, there are multiple people along the way that you meet who have different ideas than you and as you grow, you get into different things along the way. I don’t know if you ever completely lose the sense of where you came from, but you definitely evolve away from it over time. But the thing is, it’s always there.”