dax riggs (2007 - present)
As a child growing up in Evansville, Indiana, Dax Riggs looked forward to the weekends. His parents were divorced, and Dax lived with his mother, a Jehovah's Witness. Every Saturday Dax headed out with his mother and the rest of the congregation to neighborhoods further and further away to spread the good Word. Dax had the routine down.
'Hello, we're visiting your neighborhood and we'd like to share some info with you about Armageddon. May I come in for a moment?'
Dax's crusading days were cut short at the age of ten, when he stayed up and watched 'The Elephant Man' on HBO.
'Oh, it was really crazy. Up until that moment I believed God was good. My world was turned upside upside-down. I was like, okay, I now know God is bad. I started having all these nightmares that continued for years and years of being chased, and haunted by the Elephant Man.'
No longer comfortable in the home of a Jehovah's Witness, Dax went to live with his more liberal father. Dax was twelve when his father, lured by the oil boom of the early 1980's, moved to Houma, Louisiana. Shortly after arriving in Houma, Dax's father secured work as a cook on an oil platform in the Gulf and boarded a small boat for the forty-mile journey. Dax did his best to adjust.
'I couldn't understand what the fuck anybody was saying. I couldn't even go into Popeye's and order without pointing. I'm still not that good at it.'
Dax found Oak Lawn Terrebonne Parish High School even more difficult than ordering at Popeye's and flunked the seventh grade. He was allowed to enter the eighth on the condition that he passed all courses with a C or better. But halfway through he quit school for good and moved to Florida with a girl.
'Yeah, we just took off to Florida. I was thirteen, she was older. Dropped a lot of acid. Do we have to go into this?' With school out of the way, Dax focused his attention on songwriting. Unfortunately, the relationship didn't last and Dax returned home.
Back in Houma, Dax and three other likeminded friends started the Heavy Metal group Acid Bath. They played anywhere they could around Thibodaux, New Orleans and Houma. They spent the winter of '98 headquartered in an old theater in Morgan City that had even tried screening porn before closing down. It still had electricity and a stage to practice on. When they couldn't find the warm bed of schoolgirls whose parents were out of town, Dax and Mike Sanchez, the lead guitarist, retired to their half of the balcony. Acid Bath signed to the indie label Rotten Records. Of the four tours booked, Acid Bath only completed one.
Plagued by poor communication, drug addiction, and ultimately the death of Audie Pitre, the bass player, Acid Bath called it quits. During their brief existence, Acid Bath sold over 100,000 copies and remains a seminal influence today. You might even remember the deceiving, harmless-happy-clown artwork created by none other than John Wayne Gacy, the Boy Scout scourge. Hey Teacher leaves those kids alone.
By 2000, Dax had outgrown heavy metal and began teaching himself guitar and piano, and started playing out under the name deadboy & the Elephantmen. He went on to spend the next four years auditioning musicians before hooking up with Tessie Brunet and Alex Bergeron.
The trio toured all over the U.S. in support of We Are Night Sky, but after the last show of the tour, Tessie quit the band, citing personal reasons.
On Hallows Eve 2006, in Houma, Louisiana, Dax hooked up with Matt Sweeney (Chavez, Johnny Cash, Superwolf, etc.), who would produce and play a lot of guitar on what would become We Sing Of Only Blood Or Love - but not just yet. Sweeney broke his hand just as those early November sessions at New Orleans' Piety Studios were to begin, resulting in a sad stretch of self-medicated producing with limited musical input. The two reconvened in January 2007 in New York, for a creative spurt spurred by Dax taking in a rehearsal of Sweeney's favorite band, Endless Boogie. Deeming it "a fucking religious experience", Dax promptly asked the band's drummer, Endless Andy MacLeod (White Magic, Bright Black), to play on the record. Winter found Dax, Sweeney and Endless Andy on NYC's Lower East Side arranging, and then in Brooklyn recording a bunch of songs at The Rare Book Room with owner/operator Nicolas Vernhes.
At Nicolas's studio, Dax and crew would complete songs from Piety and material that Aaron Havill had recorded at Dax's home with the latter-day deadboy touring dudes: Alex Bergeron (bass), Adam Clement (drums), Sean Keating (keys) and Lucas Broussard (backing vocals) - as well as additional guitar from T.K. Webb, Dax's gal J.T. Van Zandt and his buddy Bozo Cyclops, piano and keys from Endless Andy's bro Robt. E. Lee, drums by Sweeney's Chavez cohort James Lo on three songs and more... Ultimately it became clear that the new material had taken on a life of its own, becoming the next evolutionary stage of Dax's career beyond the deadboy moniker. And a scant few months later, Dax would post on his myspace page:
"I want to let everyone know that for a variety of reasons I have decided to release my upcoming album We Sing of Only Blood or Love under my name: Dax Riggs.
"I want to thank everyone who supported deadboy & the Elephantmen, it was and will always be more than just a band, it's in my DNA."
That DNA runs deep through the rough hewn "Demon Tied To A Chair," "Didn't Know Yet" and "Radiation Blues," all of which will strike warm familiar notes with the deadboy contingent, though they may be a bit more on the muscular side. Those wading deeper in however are in for some pleasant surprises: Dax's vocals straining to more passionate extremes on "Terrors of Nightlife" and "Ouroboros," the ragtag assortment of musical misfits helping Dax bring some serious glam rave-up to "Living is Suicide" and "I Forgot I Was Alive," a complete curveball cover of Richard Thompson's "Wall Of Death," and, yes, a few more nods to the deadboy faithful in the form of "Scarlett Of Heaven Nor Hell" and "Dog-Headed Whore" before the album collapses upon itself, spent but still mustering the final throes of "dethbryte" (chopped and screwed by Andrew W.K.).
All told, We Sing Of Only Blood Or Love is Dax Riggs stepping out as a markedly grown up deadboy--a work imbued with newfound vitality, intensity and maturity, yet one that still begs anyone's best guess as to where things go from here. deadboy is undead, long live Dax Riggs. We hope.
- Fat Possum Records
