by JOHNSON CUMMINS

Dwarves singer Blag Dahlia could be described as slightly cocky, especially when it comes to attracting the fairer sex. He lets me know that competition for taking this “devilishly handsome” singer home for the night is fierce, but offers this little tidbit for the ladies who want to bag the Blag. “A definite bonus would be if they are young and more importantly have braces,” explains Dahlia over the phone from San Francisco. “Another important thing for me is that the girl has a sense of humour. I’m looking for a girl who will laugh when I take my clothes off.” (Add your own cheap laff track here.)

Blag and his cohorts of chaos have been wooing the ladies now for almost 20 years and don’t intend to stop anytime soon. The Dwarves are probably more famous for their early shows, playing for about 10 minutes before destroying their equipment and revelling in the ensuing violence. The last time they played Montreal, on the 2001 Punkarama tour, the Dwarves surprised everybody by playing a 45-minute set of blistering punk rawk with nary a broken string. “Now that we are getting paid so much money, it’s hard for us to come out and wreck everything after 10 minutes. I don’t really like to pull that trick anymore because I like to get paid the money. For us, it’s like turning the expectations around. No one expects us to do a full set, so we do a full set. We try and confound expectations and be interesting while most punk bands are just set up to go on and on and do the same thing they have always done and just be as boring and predictable as they can be. I’m not about appealing to these boring punkers so I can sell more T-shirts.”

Morally debased Dwarves fans can rejoice, however—the Dwarves still occasionally revisit their past. Upon hearing rumours that they were going to get thrown off the recent Motörhead tour, they destroyed their equipment after 10 minutes at the House of Blues. “Those decrepit old men are all on speed and they’re control freaks. They think that because we are the support act, we need to take orders from them and that’s not how we do things in the Dwarves. I really like Motörhead’s music a lot, but if you are going to tell me I can’t go backstage or use the bathroom—I told them quite categorically to fuck off and they didn’t like that.”

Despite the added set lengths and a slightly more professional approach, Dahlia insists that the violence that seems to follow most of their shows is still a big part of the picture. A show in London, Ontario, had Dahlia hospitalized when he smashed a beer bottle in a fan’s hand before the fan retorted by taking the remnants of the bottle and slashing the singer’s throat.

“What can I say? Violence is fun. For me it’s a big part of the rock ’n’ roll experience, and with us, violence is always right around the corner.”

With Maximum RNR and the Riptides at
la Sala Rossa on Saturday, June 14, 9pm, $15

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