PLAGUE DAD

1. Welcome to All the Cores and More! Would you please introduce yourself, say where you’re from, and provide the readers with a sense of the kind of music you play?

They call me Plague Dad, and I’m from Portland, Maine. I play folk music, I guess, although you can draw a line directly from punk rock to my stuff. One writer called my sound, “Woodie Guthrie, if he grew up on 7” punk rock records and bad decisions.”

2. When did you discover punk rock and why did it speak to you?

I discovered punk rock when it broke in America, although not through the Ramones or any of the stuff that was going on in NYC at CBGB’s back in the day. I found the Sex Pistols and the Clash first, through a kid I went to high school with who was a refugee from Iran when the whole Islamic Revolution/hostage crisis went down. He had a bunch of records and it grabbed me immediately, because I was so sick of what was being played on the radio at that time.

3. Can you give us a little background about your musical journey up to this point?

Well, how much time you got? I started out playing the violin at 8 years old, which was something that was available to me in public school. At the beginning of fourth grade, they had a big, ol’ assembly where all the students were herded into the gym and they demonstrated all the instruments. Fourth graders could play strings, fifth graders could play strings or wind instruments, and sixth graders could play strings, wind or percussion. I wanted to play bass, but I was too short, so I went with the violin. I enjoyed it, and I was good at it, so I kept going all the way up through high school, and I took private lessons from an elderly German woman who taught me a lot. This was all classical training, by the way: Bach, Mozart, Paganini, etc.

After high school I went to the Berklee College of Music to study jazz violin, which was cool. I studied with a guy named Matt Glaser, who went on to do all the fiddle tracks in Ken Burns’s Civil War series. But none of it really grabbed me. I had a hard time connecting emotionally with the jazz and classical stuff. I was still that punk rock kid, and that’s what I wanted to play. So that’s what I did. I picked up a guitar, which I’d always been messing around with, and  I fell in with some other Berklee kids who were from San Francisco, and we put a band together. But the Boston scene in those days was very cliquish, and very competitive. It was hard to get gigs, so eventually the San Francisco guys were like, fuck this, let’s move to SF. So we did. We did much better out there. We had a bass player who slapped and popped it, and we ended up playing a bunch of shows with bands like Primus, Nirvana, the GooGoo Dolls, Mr. Bungle, Alice Donut, Mary’s Danish, the Groovy Ghoulies, and a lot of the SubPop acts that came through town. We even put out a record that went exactly nowhere. Eventually, the band broke up and we all went our separate ways.

I went into journalism, and I was a reporter, columnist and editor at a bunch of different newspapers. Eventually, I met the woman who’s now my wife and we had kids. We moved back to Maine to raise the family. Now that my kids are old enough to do hard time, I’m getting back into the music. When the pandemic hit, like a lot of folks, I lost my job so I went up into the attic where I had a home studio and started writing and recording some songs, which is how the whole Plague Dad thing emerged…As I cast about for a name, that came up because that’s exactly what I was: just another guy trying to raise a family in the teeth of a vicious public health catastrophe…‍I’d send [the songs] around to friends and things just sort of snowballed from there.

4. What have been some of your major musical highlights as Plague Dad thus far?

I got to open for Tommy Stinson, from the Replacements, back in October. That was pretty fucking cool, because the Replacements are one of my favorite bands and primary influences. I’ve put out a couple of 7” records and sold a couple hundred of ‘em, which is pretty fucking cool, too. I’m just thankful that people seem to like what I’m doing and come out to shows.

5. I understand you also write about and cover music—what can you tell us about this?

Yeah, I do. Back in the day, zines, alt weeklies, and local music magazines were a thing, and every city had a handful of publications that covered local music. Hell, Portland had the Portland Phoenix, where Sam Pfeifle wrote some great stuff. All of that is gone now – thanks, tech bros! – so I decided to start doing it myself. I started a blog called ThatPortlandSound, where I write about the stuff that I like, and there’s a lot of stuff on the local scene that I like. I try to keep a tight local focus, but honestly, I write whatever the hell I want. But time is always hard to come by, what with my own music, my family, the day job, and all of the stuff that modern life throws at you on a daily basis.

6. For people outside the area, would you please provide a snapshot of the Portland/Southern Maine punk/alternative/DIY scene and why you think it’s so vibrant?

Geez, that’s a tough one, because there’s so much going on here. There’s a killer hardcore scene. Holy shit, there are so many hardcore bands. There’s a lot of jam bands, too, and a some really good indie rock bands. And there’s a pretty solid folk/bluegrass/country scene, too. There’s a lot going on here.

7. What do you have coming up that we should be keeping an eye out for?

I’ve got a new 7” record out on Residual Waste Records, which is a small label out of Philadelphia. I was out on tour last year in support of my first 7”, which got a decent amount of play on college radio stations, and I met some really cool people in Philly while I was there. There’s a really strong DIY scene there in Philly, by the way. I’ve been back a couple of times, and I’m trying to get down there every two months or so, and hit Washington, DC while I’m in the area. Anyhow, that’s out and it’s limited to 100 copies on colored vinyl. The guy who runs the label, Matthew W. Charles, runs a printing shop down there and he did the covers by hand in his shop, and every record is different. We sold a bunch of ‘em, but there are still a few left. You can get ‘em on my website at: plague.dad.

And I’m putting out a 10” record in December, maybe January. It’s gonna be called The Vagrant, and the cover art was done by this fantastic underground comix artist in the UK named Paul Kortjohn. He’s done an exclusive comic, just for the release, too, and the first 50 copies will come with a copy of that comic. Side A is five tunes I recorded in the studio, and they feature a lead guitar player by the name of The Legendary Rich Gilbert, who was the guitarist in Human Sexual Response, which was a fantastically influential post-punk band out of Boston. He went on to play with Frank Black, and played pedal steel on Uncle Tupelo’s No Depression record. When Darius Rucker (Hootie & the Blowfish), Mike Mills (REM) and the drummer from the Black Crowes put together Howl Owl Howl last year, they asked him to play guitar in their touring band. Anyhow, Rich used to live in Yarmouth, and he’d play at Blue pretty frequently with his wife, Eileen Rose, who’s a fantastically gifted singer, and I got to know him a bit because I’d go to his shows as often as I could. So when I was pulling together this record, I reached out to him to see if he’d play on a track or two, and he said yes! So Side A of that record is five tunes that got the full band treatment in the studio, with some amazing players, and Side B is the the same tunes, but from the solo set from when I opened for Tommy Stinson back in October. I’m wicked proud of it, and I can’t wait for it to come out. It’s gonna be limited to 100 copies on green vinyl.

8. How do you feel that writing about music informs your practice as an artist, if it does?

I don’t know if writing music informs my practice as an artist, so much as it reflects who I am as I move through the world. I try to write songs that tell stories and forge connections.

9. Thanks so much for taking the time to answer my questions! Any shout-outs or last words for the readers?

If any of your readers are still reading at this point, I’m thankful. And I’m thankful to you, as well, for the opportunity to be a part of what you’re doing. In this age of AI-generated crap, genuine human connection is more important than ever, yet harder to come by. The Internet was supposed to unite us; the fact is, exactly the opposite has happened. I refuse to go quietly, and I’m thankful that folks like you are doing what you do. It’s important, and it’s meaningful, and I’m here for it.