On The Record: CHUCK RAGAN

ON THE RECORD: CHUCK RAGAN
By Jon Coen

Chuck Ragan is like one of those “tall tales” you heard as a kid, an exaggerated figure of great American mythology, rife with imagery of babies raised by coyotes, tornadoes tamed by heroines, and 14-foot-tall lumberjacks. A punk rock Paul Bunyan, Ragan is officially known as part of the beautiful duel growling of Gainesville, FL, post-hardcore outfit Hot Water Music, who are legends in their own right. But Ragan’s also a folk singer, a carpenter, an outdoorsman, and creator of the Revival Tour.

His folklore precedes him, kind of like his namesake, Chuck Norris. Chuck Ragan is said to have built a log cabin with a guitar string and a pocketknife. Chuck Ragan once grinded the coping right off the bowl at the Clearwater Skatepark. Chuck Ragan’s beard played eleven shows in a week, without a microphone. Ragan now lives in the mountains of California. With Hot Water Music a part-time band, he’s recently released several solo full-lengths and 7-inches. This spring, he did a U.S. tour with Social Distortion. On nights that Social D was off, he and young UK punkers Sharks set up their own small venue shows. With a chilly wind coming off the Atlantic, EasternSurf.com was able to catch up with Chuck on a boardwalk bench in Asbury Park, NJ.

ESM: Take me through your early years and earliest musical influences.
Chuck Ragan: Well, long story short, I was born in Houston. My father was a professional golfer. My mother is an entertainer, a ventriloquist. With my father’s line of work, we would move around all the time, as he would get different club jobs or coaching jobs at universities. So we went from Texas to Lilburn, GA, to Chattanooga, TN, to Lafayette, LA, down to Sarasota, FL, and then up to Gainesville. Musically, I wasn’t really allowed to listen to rock ‘n’ roll. I had all this gospel, spirit-driven hymns, and bluegrass to listen to. On my mother’s side of the family, they’re all Cajun folks, so there was Cajun music, Zydeco music. And then I found skateboarding. When I really got into riding ramps that turned me on to a whole other animal of music.

I got into a lot of punk rock, speed metal, old hip-hop, whatever those kids were listening to. I was never really allowed to have those records in my house. At an early age, my friends used to make me mixtapes. I’d sneak them in and go to sleep with my headphones on. Then I’d wake up with my Walkman in the trash and the tape strewn out. So it was an ongoing battle [laughs]. Throughout that whole time, I listened to a lot of Credence Clearwater Revival. For some reason, my parents were cool with that and I had a buddy whose father helped us build skateboard ramps. Some of my earliest memories were just skating our little boxes and launch ramps and beating up our knees and backs, and his dad just hammering away, blasting CCR. We would put in our Germs or GBH, and he was cool with it, as long as he got to put his music back in. We would have a day at his house with his mom cooking hot dogs, going from old Metallica to old Chili Peppers to Bad Brains, to CCR, all totally seamless. I think one way or another, that stuff that someone grew up with, whether you fought it or accepted it, that’s going to come out eventually.

ESM: You were just out touring with Social D, and I’m seeing the age range of people going to shows so much wider than it used to be. There used to be a point where people said, “I have this job or a kid, and now I am done with that point of my life.” Seems like people take the spirit of the music they grew up with and carry into their adult lives.
CR: Absolutely, man. I noticed it when we toured with Gaslight Anthem in Europe. Their fan base has broadened dramatically, especially over there. A lot of it is attributed to Bruce going out on stage with them, but aside from that, they’re just a legitimate, awesome rock ‘n’ roll band. And what I noticed at those shows, me and my guys, we’d finish playing, we’d go out to the table and we’d walk around and 70% of the people were over 35, or our age. Social D shows, it’s the same way.

ESM: Social D has been around for 30 years — you expect them to have an older crowd. But Gaslight Anthem’s first full-length came out in 2007.
CR: Right. I think that everything comes full circle. For a long time, or 15 years ago, older folks didn’t bother with it much. It was all the younger generation. I think a lot of it can be tied in with the digital age — how simple and more affordable it is for people to get music. People are getting music that they wouldn’t have the time or the money to run out to the record store to get.

ESM: So, you’re from Florida. Are you familiar with the Country Bear Jamboree at Disney World?
CR: [Laughs] Yeah.

ESM: Was that the inspiration for the Revival Tour?
CR: [Laughs] Wow. You know what? I used to love the Country Bear Jamboree. It could very well be. My folks used to bring us to that all the time. That’s so funny. I haven’t thought about it in years. The whole idea of the Revival Tour has been around for hundreds of years. That’s the way families and communities shared music and in the scene that I grew up in, you never really saw that. We have a passion for playing. But it’s what we do. It’s how we make a living. Just like anything else, if you don’t keep recharging your batteries, pushing yourself and finding diversity, anything, no matter how much you love it, can become stagnant. For us, when it’s the same old show up, load in, sound check, opening band, change over, next band, change over, headliner, it becomes this routine, especially the show itself.

[Chuck points to an Asbury jetty and notes a decent wave with a few people out.]

It’s not only to keep us fired up but also to bring something different to the people, give them their money’s worth. That formula has always worked, but the most special way I’ve ever toured was with the Revival Tour, when you completely sever the lines of who should be an opener and who should be a headliner and just share music together.

ESM: Tell me about bringing the ethic of punk rock to the folk music that you now play. It seems like it’s coming from the same place.
CR: Ethically, there’s no difference whatsoever. I don’t feel any different writing songs now than I did 20 years ago. I feel blessed that I grew up around a solid support group of musicians who showed me a way of writing, living, and breathing music in an honest fashion. And that was using music as a journal, using it as a therapy, as a punching bag. That changed my life. That’s the reason I’ll be writing records for the rest of my life, whether people are listening or not. When I get something on my chest or I just want to tell a story, when I get it out, then I can take that next step. I never even dreamt that I would do this for a living, and now, how many years later, here I am.

ESM: Now that everyone from Hot Water Music is making a living playing music, does that change things from when it was you guys saying, “Well, if this doesn’t work out, tomorrow we go back to banging nails.”
CR: For starters, we’ve been writing, but we’ve been writing separately. We haven’t sat in a room as four of us writing since “The New What Next.” To us, we’ve always kind of gone with the formula that if it feels right and authentic and honest, we’re heading in the right direction. There are people that we grew up with who paved the way for us, showed that music’s not about having your name in lights. It’s not about making a ton of money. It may be there; it may not. You can’t worry about it. You’ve got to just cut yourself open and bleed until it feels good. All of that is pretty much the last thing that comes to our heads.

ESM: Do you guys ever discuss the fact that, in 1999, you were ready to call it quits — and look how much you’ve accomplished since then?
CR: I think about that all the time. When Hot Water decided to take that break, it wasn’t a question. We ran ourselves into the dirt. And we had only been touring for like four years or something. What we didn’t realize is that all we needed was to not be on the road for three-quarters of the year.

ESM: That was a different kind of touring.
CR: Oh, man, talk about, talk about… Once we realized we weren’t having a good time, it was like, “It is way more important to stay friends. Bands come and go. Big deal.” We all stayed up late one night talking and had coffee the next morning and shook hands, hugged each other and said, “OK, let's finish this tour.” And it was tough because we all knew we were going back and we all knew the band was over. But we just gave it our all and tore it up, like it was our last tour.

ESM: What’s your home life like now in California?
CR: My wife and I have a modest little home on an acre in the foothills of the Sierras, called the Western Region in between Sacramento and Lake Tahoe. It’s gorgeous up there, a little town of about 12,000 people. We’re at about 2,400 feet, right below the snowline. We were living in Los Angeles. Hot Water had gone on another hiatus and it was good for work. I went back to carpentry and was writing my own songs, making really good money. My wife was working there in the film industry, but we’re not really cut out for the city at all. We chose this place because we both snowboard. I love to fish and we love the mountains and the outdoors. It’s ideal. We’re constantly putting work into the house and the yard. We have a beautiful chocolate lab named Ella Fitzgerald and she’s just our little girl. We look forward to having children, but we’re just running a little hard right now.

ESM: That time at home must feel pretty important these days.
CR: I couldn’t even tell you, man. Couldn’t even tell you. It’s been tough. We’ve always called this the blessing and the curse. She always managed the tours, and picked up the pieces anytime anyone would drop them. She’s the hardest working, most patient woman that I’ve ever known in my life. And I’m just proud as hell to call her my wife. It’s always walking that fine line, hanging onto the reason why we started doing it in the first place, but still doing it in a way that we’re responsible and loyal to our family members, our nieces and our nephews.

Living this kind of life, it’s really easy to neglect family. You get disconnected really fast. It’s amazing, the time that goes by and the things that you miss — weddings, funerals, births, anniversaries, you name it. That can weigh heavy.

ESM: Since summer is here on the East Coast, let’s finish this off with a good fish story.
CR: All right. I used to live in Florida and the fishing there is insane. To me, it’s the mecca. Me and my buddies had everything from canoes to offshore boats that we had access to. When we used to plan to go fishing, the fishing was so good we would flip a coin, for freshwater or saltwater. I had a really good buddy of mine named Kip Street who came back from fishing Central Florida, a little bit south of Orlando. He put me up when I was going through a really tough time and I helped him build his house. I was living above the cabinet shop, helping him plane wood and sand.

We had this friend we called “Bill The Gill,” and he’s just an old salty Florida dude who had done every kind of fishing. He was the kind of guy that if he called you, you don’t ask any questions. Something was good. So Kip comes back and I asked him “How was it, buddy?” And he just lifted his shirt up and he had a big, red bruise on his belly. He shook his head, walked away saying, “You just need to go down there.” He told me I needed a Calcutta 400 casting reel and an 8.5-foot Flipping Stick and some 20 lb. pee line. “That’s your set up,” he said. “You don’t need anything else except cast nets and some hooks.”

So we run down there to fish this lake that had an Indian name that translated to “walk on the water” or something. We didn’t even go straight to the lake. We went to a different lake before daylight and we’re baiting all of our shiner holes to catch our bait. And we’re loading them up. We have like 300 or 400 hundred shiners in the tank and I’m wondering what we’re gonna do with all this bait.

Papa Bill was just laughing at me, saying, “You just don’t worry about it, boy.”

We finally get to the lake. For Papa Bill, this is a game. He would bring a clicker to count fish. We went from 7:00 a.m. to about 9:30 a.m., and we were fishing, man. And the clicker said 98 largemouth bass. From 10:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., we had caught another 68. And you could only keep three fish if they were 14 inches or smaller and one 21 inches or over. Out of all the fish we caught, we had three keepers and some were up to 13 pounds. It blew me away and spoiled me for life. And I got back and lifted my shirt up and I had a big ol’ red bruise right on my belly.

UPCOMING CHUCK RAGAN TOUR DATES

6/9      Maverick’s…………………………...........………….. Ottawa, ON
6/10    Le Cercle…………………...........……………… Quebec City, QB
6/11    FouFounes Electriqu…………...........……………… Montreal, QB
6/12    The Casbah……………...........……………………… Hamilton, ON
6/13    Rum Runners……………………………...........……. London, ON
6/14    L3 Nightclub……………………...........……… St. Catherines, ON
6/15    El Mocambo………………………………...........…… Toronto, ON
6/16    London Music Hall (Hot Water Music)……...............… London, ON
6/17    PNR D-Tox Rockfest (Hot Water Music)..............… Monticello, QB
6/18    NXNE Opera House (Hot Water Music)…….............. Toronto, ON
6/21    Odeon Events Centre (w/ Dropkick Murphys).......... Saskatoon, SK
6/22    Edmonton Event Center (w/ Dropkick Murphys)……...Edmonton, AB
6/23    McEwan Hall (w/ Dropkick Murphys)………….......... Calgary, AB
6/25    Commodore Ballroom (w/ Dropkick Murphys)……….. Vancouver, BC
6/26    Commodore Ballroom (w/ Dropkick Murphys)……….. Vancouver, BC
6/27    Paramount Theatre (w/ Dropkick Murphys)………….. Seattle, WA
6/28    Roseland Theatre (w/ Dropkick Murphys)……………. Portland, OR
6/29    Warfield Theatre (w/ Dropkick Murphys)……………… San Francisco, CA
8/5      Chez Heinz (Hot Water Music)…………………………. Hanover, GER
8/6      Mini Rock Festival (Hot Water Music)……………Horb Am Neckar, GER
8/7      Batschkapp (Hot Water Music)………………………… Frankfurt, GER
8/8      013 (Hot Water Music)………………………………….. Tilburg, NETH
8/9      Garage (Hot Water Music)……………………………… Saarbrucken, GER
8/10    Club Vaudeville (Hot Water Music)…………………….. Lindau, GER
8/11    Theaterfabrik (Hot Water Music)……………………….. Munich, GER
8/12    Picture On Festival (Hot Water Music)………………… Bliden, Austria
8/13    Punk Rock Holiday (Hot Water Music)………………… Tolmin, Slovenia
8/14    Festa Di Radio Onda D’Urto (Hot Water Music)……… Bescia, Italy
8/16    Druer Kert (Hot Water Music w/ Bouncing Souls)……. Budapest, Hungary

8/17    Röda (Hot Water Music)………………………………… Steyr, Austria
8/18    Musikfestwochen (Hot Water Music)………………….. Winterhur, SWI
8/19    Area 4 Festival (Hot Water Music)……………………. Flughafen, GER
8/20    Alter Stattbanhoff (Hot Water Music)……………….. Schweinfurt, GER
8/21    Highfield Festival (Hot Water Music)…………… .. Grossposna, GER
8/23    Le Nouveau Casino (Hot Water Music)……………….. Paris, France
8/24    De Klinker (Hot Water Music)…………………………… Aarschot, BELG
8/25    Highlight (Hot Water Music)…………………………….. Portsmouth, UK
8/26    Leeds Festival (Hot Water Music)……………………… Leeds, UK
8/27    Oran Mar (Hot Water Music)……………………………. Glasgow, UK
8/28    Reading Festival (Hot Water Music)…………………… Reading, UK
9/27    Academy (Revival Tour)………………………………… Bristol, UK
9/28    Academy 2 (Revival Tour)………………………………. Manchester, UK
9/29    Academy (Revival Tour)…………………………………. Dublin, Ireland
9/30    ABC (Revival Tour)………………………………………. Glasgow, UK
10/1    Northumbria Students Union (Revival Tour)………….. Newcastle, UK
10/2    RockCity (Revival Tour)…………………………………. Nottingham, UK
10/4    Bitterzoet (Revival Tour)……………………………… Amsterdam, NETH
10/5    Gunspan (Revival Tour)………………………………… Hamburg, GER
10/6    Festaal Kreuzberg (Revival Tour)……………………… Berlin, GER
10/7    Arena (Revival Tour)………………………………….. Vienna, AUSTRIA
10/8    Backstage Hall (Revival Tour)………………………….. Munich, GER
10/9    Dynamo (Revival Tour)………………………………….. Zurich, SWI
10/11 Ringkirsche (Revival Tour)…………………………… Wiesbaden, GER
10/12 Gloria (Revival Tour)……………………………………. Cologne, GER
10/13 Skaters Palace (Revival Tour)………………………….. Munster, GER
10/14 Trix (Revival Tour)……………………………………….. Antwerp, BELG
10/15 Shepards Bush (Revival Tour)………………………….. London, UK
10/16 Uni Souls (Revival Tour)………………………………… Cardiff, UK
10/17 TBA (Revival Tour)………………………………………. Portsmouth, UK
10/28 The Fest 10 (Hot Water Music)…………………………. Gainesville, FL