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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 twistâ?¦ 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 artâ?¦ 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
© 1998-2002 Sinbad Productions / BallBusterHardMusic.com
No Material, Written, May Be Reproduced Without Permission From SinBad
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