Interview: Pacific Dub

By Juan Barragan

Recently, USD Radio’s Juan Barragan spoke with Colton Place, Bryce Klemer, and Ryan Naglich, three of the members of Pacific Dub. Pacific Dub, or PDub, is a Reggae-Rock band hailing from the surf capital of the United States, Huntington Beach, California, and they talked about their current tour and upcoming album.

Juan Barragan: You guys have headlined a bunch of shows around the country, what was the experience overall? Was it what you guys expected?

PDub: Yea Absolutely! It was a blast! We think it was way better than we expected actually. We had a lot of fans in every state; it was an overwhelming experience to be able to go places that we have never even been before and still be able to have friends and people there that enjoyed our music. That was probably the biggest gain of the whole tour; just knowing that we have a lot of fans in different places.

Ryan Naglich: One of my highest points is just playing a show in a state that we have never been in, and having fans sing our lyrics. That got to me on stage, I thought it was great.

Juan Barragan: Where did you see that happen?

PDub: We saw that happen in St. Louis, Missouri, Chicago; there wasn’t one show where there wasn’t a group of people singing. For our second nationwide tour it was very positive, it was a blessing. It was a positive increase in our fan base. Tomorrows Bad Seeds was very hospitable on the whole tour. We played some shows with Passafire and those guys were amazing as well. The whole thing was just positive!

 

Juan Barragan: For this tour, is there anything you guys would have done differently?
Bryce Klemer: I wish we had a better guitar case. (Laughs)
Ryan Naglich: That’s definitely going to change.
Colton Place: As far as we are concerned, our whole motto goes, “Progress, not perfection.” That’s what we strive for. We’ve been progressing as much as we like to do, so I don’t think we’d do anything differently.

Juan Barragan: Awesome! So while you guys are driving city to city, you guys spend countless hours on the road. What do you guys do with that time?
PDub: When the people are sleeping, **** (Explicit) gets weird. (Laughs)
Ryan Naglich: I know I like to read books and expand the mind a little bit.
PDub: We all like to read and play air drums, and video games. We’ll do anything that you can think of to keep our minds occupied so that we don’t go insane, because it gets weird after a couple of days in the van.

Juan Barragan: Of course, it’s a lot of miles to drive.
Bryce Klemer: We did a 20 hour drive the other day.

Juan Barragan: That’s brutal! All right, so imagine you can fill up any venue in the country. Which one would you pick?
PDub: (In unison) Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Colorado. It is an outdoor amphitheatre and it holds 15-20 thousand people. It’s like a canyon almost. You talk to most bands, and that’s the most cliché answer they will give, because once they play there they tell you it’s their favorite venue.

Juan Barragan: How many times have you guys played there?
PDub: Never! We’ve never played there. That is like a dream venue for us.

Juan Barragan: You guys have toured with bands like The Dirty Heads and Iration; if you guys could pick any other band to tour with, which band would it be?
PDub: Incubus, 311, or the Red Hot Chili Peppers; those three.
Bryce Klemer: Or Sublime… with Rome.
Ryan Naglich: I’m going to say one more: No Doubt!
PDub: No Doubt would be so sick! I think those five bands would be awesome to tour with. There are so many more though, we couldn’t name them all. You’d have to give us like an hour. Also, (Laughs) Britney Spears, J Beebs… awful!

Juan Barragan: You guys have an album that is expected to come out in the summer. Should fans expect a shift in musical direction or are you guys sticking with the successful Reggae-Rock combination?
PDub: I think we are progressing as a band. As song writers, we are just more into progressing as music writers. It’s a funny thing because you never plan to change your sound as a band. The more you mature, the more you travel, the more influences you gain on the road.
Ryan Naglich: I think all fans that listen to our music when the record comes out are going to like it. It’s going to be a progression. It’s going to be something that a lot of people have not heard before, and that’ll be a good thing.
Colton Place: We are trying to stay as true as we can to the Reggae-Rock roots. This genre is very tight-knit and has a very close group of people. We are always going to be Pacific Dub; we are always going to be PDub and whether we have more rock, this or that, we are going to progress the way we progress and we just hope the fans enjoy every bit of it, because we are having a blast playing the music for them.

Juan Barragan: So far the crowd has enjoyed it! With this new album coming out, obviously the goal of any band is to sell albums. How do you guys feel about the whole music piracy thing?
Colton Chase: (Laughs) Dude, I download music still. As long as people are listening to our music, this is not the 90’s. We are not going to get signed to a label and sell a million records tomorrow. We are going to have to put in our work no matter what, so all we want is a positive increase in our fan base and have more people join us at shows; we like anything that gets our music out. If they download it off of iTunes then great. We have an amazing following with fans that do nothing but download everything off of iTunes. They’ll go buy the CD in person and they’ll still download it off of iTunes. If you’re going to download it, then all we’ll say is thanks for listening to our music. That’s how we feel.

Juan Barragan: Awesome! Now for the final question, it’s a bit of a random one… what’s the most awkward show you’ve played?
Bryce Klemer: We were playing the O.C. Tavern…
Ryan Naglich: No, I have to honestly say that the most awkward show I’ve played is… (Hesitates) I can’t say it, no offense… Solvang, CA, (Laughs) that one restaurant in Solvang, California.
PDub: To give a background, Solvang, California is where our singer, Colton, is from. It’s a little Dutch town. No, it’s more of like a Danish town, 30 minutes north of Santa Barbara. It was a lot of older people, 50 and above. There weren’t a lot of people. It was just people eating dinner and enjoying wine in a nice restaurant. Then we come in with our reggae and rock and we were stoked about it.

Juan Barragan: Were they ready for it?
PDub: (Laughs) No! They were ready for smooth jazz. Towards the end they started enjoying the instruments. I think it definitely had to do with some of the wine that they were drinking. But they definitely enjoyed the performance at the end. It was a cool show but it was kind of awkward because everyone was kind of predominantly in the age range of between 30 and 40.

Juan Barragan: (Laughs) That’s great! Thank you guys very much for doing this interview tonight! Good luck with your two last shows of this tour. I can’t wait to hear the new album when it drops in the summer.