Interviews

Joey Cape - Lagwagon 'Playing Better Than We've Ever Played'

Dave Mullins

Dec 11, 2025

8 min read

The 90s saw the explosion of punk rock as a mainstream genre. Hell, not just a genre but an entire movement. Bolstered by its relationship with extreme sports and street fashion, it became a massive deal. Indie record labels like Epitaph, Fat Wreck, and Burning Heart dominated the scene and their major bands were found everywhere from skate videos to locker-room graffiti.

‍Lagwagon fast became one of the biggest names and their records became foundational to whatever the hell skate punk was meant to be. Their 1995 record, Hoss, a real breakthrough, quickly became a fan favourite. Flash forward 30 years and Lagwagon are still kicking ass and making great music. Kicking off with Froth and Fury Festival in Perth they'll be hitting a bunch of shows in Australia playing Hoss in full (plus a few other favourites).

Vocalist Joey Cape was kind enough to sit down with us and chat about their music, the album, and the upcoming tour.

‍It's the 30th anniversary of Hoss. It's also the 30th anniversary of your first Australian tour back in '96, which I think it's really cool. I did manage to watch a couple of videos people took from that show at the Manning Bar and yeah, it was pretty awesome. What do you remember about that first tour?

‍Only that we were on tour with the Victorian band One Inch Punch, you know, and they were just instant friends. And it was a lot of fun. It was a trip, obviously, we hadn't toured there before. A little different because we were in a van and there were some long drives and stuff, which was kind of great, because we got to see more. I think it was just really pleasant. We come from California, from the beaches, so to go somewhere else where the beaches are maybe even more lovely, it was cool. I don't remember much beyond that.

‍No, I get it. It's been a lot of tours between then and now a lot of time. I was reading lots of like old interviews that during your downtime that you wrote a lot of Double Pladinum during that time.

‍Yeah, probably. And I think most of that album was written in the mountains here, though, in the snow. But I might have been, I'm sure I was working on things at the time. I mean, I used to write a lot more on tour. I don't really do that anymore. It's never quite quiet enough anywhere. You never get that isolation that I prefer. So, I don't know. But back then, I think I wrote most of Hoss when we were in Japan and yeah, I probably I did write more about that on the road. Doesn't really work for me now. Who knows? Again, it's so long ago. It's kind of hard to remember these things, but I've been doing these interviews, and we're talking a lot about Hoss and that time period and little things come back to me every time we talk about it.

‍Yeah, I can imagine! Hoss is obviously such a fan favourite album. Which is probably why this tour is happening. Fans love it and a lot of the songs have joined your set list over the years as kind if staples. Did you realize at any point, during the creation of it or when you released it that this album was going to be a success?

‍No, I think I had hopes that people would get it and that because it was more eclectic than the two before it and a little braver. We were branching out a little bit sonically and songwriting wise, I was kind of in this mindset. ‘Okay, cool. Finally, I can just write whatever I want and label's cool’. Everybody's cool. The band was into it. So, it seemed at the time that we were really taking some chances with that record.

Now, funny because in hindsight, you look back on that, and it seems pretty safe.

But it wasn't, yeah? And I had hoped that it would be well received. We were kind of on trajectory at that point. We did okay with the first one, the second one did a little better. And then the third one, there was like, you know, a minor league kind of hype for it. So yeah, I was pleasantly surprised that it was well received and almost most importantly by other bands at the time that I knew that, you know, got to hold me one way or another.

This is prior to cell phones, that kind of thing. But I had a couple of dudes reach out from other bands and say, ‘man, the new record's killer’. And that made me feel great. Yeah, it was fun. It was a good time.

‍That's awesome. Anyone in particular or was it kind of just a vibe at the time?

‍Yeah, the one that I remember the most, because, again, it took some effort to actually do something like that. There weren't that many bands on Fat Wreck Chords, but they would send a CD to every member of every band of any new release. So, there was a camaraderie that existed with the bands on the label. And we all played together and we all knew of each other and stuff. It was a real family then. And so I guess Hoss got sent to a few people.

And I remember specifically Jim Cherry from Strung Out, who was one of the main songwriters in the band way back then. And he took the time to get my number and call me on the landline, you know, and I answered the phone. ‘Hey, it’s Jim Cherry from Strung Out’. I'm like, ‘Oh, hi, Jim’. Weird. He's like, ‘I'm just calling to tell you you're opening up a lot of roads for me as a songwriter. This album is like...’, he gave me this great compliment. And I don't know, it stuck with me. It felt good to hear. I mean, people still do things like that occasionally, but it meant more in a way back then because we were small and it was a small world.

‍That's such a cool story. I love seeing the camaraderie that you get in a punk scene. And I've always felt that Fat Wreck had such wholesome vibes. So that's really sweet, actually.

‍Yeah, it was very nice.

‍A number of these songs, you don't really play live very often, 'Ride the Snake' especially.

‍Right. That's the one.

‍It’s funny, there's a video on YouTube from Manning Bar in '96 and you do play it. It's great. But do you need to do a different type of prep to get into songs that you haven't played in a long time? Or is it kind of the same as any other tour?

‍Well, we've done a few of these album tours, or shows, usually like one offs, but we actually have played Hoss a few times and not even that long ago, within a year, we played a show two nights in L.A. where we did Hoss the first night and the rest of the set. And then the next night, Let’s Talk About Feelings. And that one has the most real estate in general in our setlist.

I mean, sometimes I'll be making a set list, and I'll look at it and say, wow, that's 9 or 10 songs from Hoss. That's too many from one record. But it is that kind of record. And I think over the years, we've played more of that record than we have other records. But 'Ride the Snake' is a great example of a song that we wouldn't put in a set. It's kind of a weird little song. It was sort of doomy, and it was about a very dark subject matter, you know, heroin addiction. And it wasn't meant to be a live song for us. It was just kind of like this cool way to end the record that felt kind of cool at the time. Sometimes it feels a little bit like a drag now because it's not a big climax to the record.

You know, if we're playing the record, the song right before it is 'Razor Burn', which is one of our more popular songs. It really should end right there, but it's all good. You know, I mean, there's songs after it in the set, so works out. But yeah, that's a trap. Oh, maybe it's 'Shaving your Head' right before it. I should remember, but I don't right now. It doesn't matter.

‍It is. I've got it in front of me, so I've got a cheat sheet, haha. ‍

Yeah. I think it goes 'Razor', 'Shaving' and then 'Ride the Snake', if I'm not mistaken. I don't know. I think the first time we ever did an album show, we were resistant for a long time. When bands started doing this stuff, we were like, "okay, that's such an excuse to do another tour''. And then finally, I think we just thought, maybe it'd be fun. Then we did Hoss. The first time we did it was at a little club called the Troubadour in LA. And we played the album. It's fun to do that kind of thing. It's like a listening party, you know? It's like the band and the people that are at the show, we're just having a little listening party. I don't know. I like seeing bands do albums live. I mean, I dig it. If it's an album I really love, it's fun. The only thing that's a drag is some bands do it and they do the songs out of order, which I totally don't get. They just ruin the whole concept right there. You know what I mean?

‍Yeah, for sure. Obviously, Australia is stoked you're coming out here. But you've got this really cool relationship with our country. You know, you've worked with people like Lindsey McDougall, Kye Smith, Laura Mardon on (One Week Records). And you've spent long stretches here while on tour. It's a long way for you to travel and it's such a different place, does it make it easier having these friends and this relationship with our country?

‍For sure. I have a little bit of that feeling in most of the places that we've toured for a long time, but it is special in Australia. It is. I mean, some of my close, close friends, older friends, lived there. And it's just it's really pleasant. I mean, there's not that many cities that we play, so I've got really good mates in each town, so I can, if I wanted to, I could have a nice dinner every night with some friends and catch up.

Maybe not so much going into the punk rock pub after the show anymore as much as I used to.

But there's also a lot of days off when you travel in Australia. It's a trippy tour that way. It's unusual. Sometimes you have a show and a day off and then a show. So, you get a lot of time to do these things. Yeah, it's unique for sure. You know, it's such a beautiful place too. I love it. As long as it's not raining the whole time, which also happens sometimes. When it's raining the whole time, it's not nearly as cool.

‍That can happen. But you're here in January. Yeah, you should be all sweet. It's going to be hot mostly.

‍Yeah. Late January, February, it's going to be boiling. Lots of shorts and sweat. That's all right.

‍I love it. It's going to be a good time. Circling back, kind of, I was reading all these old interviews and current ones as well, I guess. And sorry, I have you at a disadvantage because I wrote all these quotes down, but you've mentioned that you really don't like listening back to your first record these days, you kind of cringe at it a little bit. But it's really easy to be self-critical, especially with stuff you wrote when you're, when you're a kid, essentially. But is there anything you really do like about that record?

‍There's a couple of songs that I really appreciate on the record, but even those cases, I feel like they could have been maybe better realized. We didn't really have a real producer. We had three days for mix and recording. I mean, it was basically just record live for a day and then do some overdubs, like a few, and then mix. It was three days, you know. That's not a record. That's like a live band practice. We can do a little bit of cutting of the tape, but, you know, there's just some stuff on it that could have been better. But there are a couple songs on there that I really like and I kind of wish we could play live.

The truth of the matter is the reason we don't play some of those songs live is I can't sing them anymore. They're just too high. You know, my favourite ones have no room for air... for breathing, and they're just way up here *gestures up high*. Just at 100 miles an hour. When you're young and you don't really get it yet, you don't understand the breathing aspect of singing, you think, ‘yeah, just the more words that I can cram in there' ha-ha. So, yeah, hindsight is 2020 is what they say.

We were young and there's some tunes on there that I think are good. And then there's a couple of really cringe worthy songs on there. There's one song in particular that when I hear, and it's not by choice, just like somehow every 10 years or something, I'll hear somebody playing and I'll hear this one song. And I'm just, "my God, turn that off''. Like, I hate it so much. I hate the lyrics. I hate them. I hate everything about the song. It's it embarrasses me now. And I don't know. Was I just so drunk that I thought it was...? I don't know. It's one of those things. I don't know if I want to be specific, but that's how it is, you know?

‍I mean, it's always like that. I think even, when you spend a lot of time and you really do your best to realize all the things that you want in a record, it's still always going to be a few little regrets here and there. But that schedule works against you. We'd never made a record before. We didn't really know. We'd done some demos. But yeah, that was kind of tough.

‍For me, as a fan, it's such a great album and I've got a couple of songs on there which are hardcore favourites, but it's just cool to your perspective. It's not about dissecting that stuff, more of a curiosity than anything.

‍We play some songs off of that record, and they've been in our set on and off for the history of the band. And in the early days, obviously played a lot off of it. But I think a few years back, I can't even remember. Maybe it was like the 20th anniversary or something. No. Would have been 25th. We tried to play the record. We did one show. We tried to play that record and it wasn't great ha-ha. We didn't quite nail it, you know? So, if, but maybe someday, I don't know, I just have to get surgery or something and maybe I can do it. Or a time machine.

‍Yeah, a time machine, yeah. Easy.

‍There you go. I'm just being lazy.

‍That's it. It's so easy to make excuses. So maybe in another 10 years you can come back out and do that as a tour. And we're sure it'll be stoked.

‍It certainly feels better when you take on something when you can still really get it done. You know, like when we play Hoss or we play Let's Talk About Feelings or Double Platinum or Blaze or any of those records, I mean, we can pretty much nail it. And that feels good. And that's what I want. That's what I want all the time with our band. And we're playing in some ways better than we've ever played. And that's a bizarre kind of thing. I don't know. Things are good.

We did do Trashed a few times, too. We took that on a whole tour. And the weirdest thing happened with that one. We were doing two records. We’d do Hoss one night and we'd do Trashed the next night. I think it was it. But on that tour, when we'd be playing Trashed, and I was watching the audience and be about halfway through the record I felt like there were a bunch of people looking at their phones and they were just kind of not engaged. And I kind of realized something. Sometimes a record's old enough, people don't know it. It was so weird, but it really happened. In particular, it was one show in Boston, I was looking at the audience and at the end of the show backstage, I said to the band, ‘you know, these kids, they don't know that album'. So, we kind of stopped playing it that night. But yeah, I don't know. We're kind of old, ha-ha!

Haha! Hang, which you released in 2014, is absolutely incredible album. It's probably my favourite...

‍Thank you. It's my favourite.

‍When you were writing that, just based on what you're saying, are you thinking about how you're going to be able to perform these songs live? How are you are going to sing them live? Does that become a part of the process?

‍Well, we always learn the songs and get them completely down and then we demo. We have a whole live demo of that record that is the exact same. We actually demoed it in a way that I was able to bring it into a session and then replace all the tracks. We started with drums and then we replaced the bass and replaced the guitar. So, the feel of the record is like, it's kind of a live feel.

There are some sections that I had to kind of quantize and make it so we could have a click because they were too funky. But I'm not a big fan of click tracks in general. It kind of sterilizes music to me. So, we did that with that record. It was an experiment that the guys in my band were like, ‘what are we doing?’ I'm like, ‘trust me, trust me’. Because we were playing those songs and it just felt so good, you know, and we had these live takes basically that were good. If they had sounded great, we could have just released it. But they sounded awful, you know?

So that's the way we did that record. And there's something really special about it. I've done that before with other bands, too. That's a technique that people use sometimes. But before we recorded it, it was already. Collectively we were already in a kind of collaborative space, and unified, and there was a lot of synergy going on with those songs. It was cool. And that's another thing about being in a band. One of the things that you get to do on your first record is that you get to play it on tour for a long time before you record it.

So, the bands will always talk about this. Yeah, the first record, we played those songs for three years and then we got signed and we made the record. And then there's leftovers that go to the second record, maybe even the third in our case, you know, or the fourth.

There are songs from before the band started on Double Pladinum, you know the song 'Choke'? That was one of our first songs. So, we used to have that experience where we could kind of really woodshed the stuff. And later you get into the cycle of just touring, touring, touring. And you’ve got get a record going. But we did do that for years and I always felt like we’d get a month into the first tour and we'd be supporting that record and playing decent amount off it. And within a month it'd be like, ‘oh man, this song's better now’. Like we've kind of worked out the little... you know what I mean? But we didn't feel that way with Hang because we really got it just how we wanted it. We took our time on that one. Couple of years, actually.

‍It shows. I mean what a sound, right?

‍Thank you. I love the way it sounds too. It was the right blend of different studios, you know? I wish everything could go that way. You go, 'oh, let's try something new on the next record’. Duh. I should have just made another great record that we spent a bunch of time on with the same setting. But we didn't do that.

‍That's the beauty of music, though, there's always chance and yeah, it's creativity, you've got to let it flow. And I think sometimes if you push too hard, you're going to end up in the wrong direction anyway. And to make Hang after more than 20 years, when a lot of bands would struggle, after being together that long. You take a good bit of bad. And it's not like Railer isn't a great album, it's just it's hard to follow up Hang.

‍Well, thank you, I appreciate that. That's really good to hear. Not too many people say that about that record. It's funny, though, I think in our band collectively, I think every person thinks Hang is our best record. The sort of the quality and the vibe and the feel of a record.

I think in a weird way, the band is kind of last to know how people are going to react to it. That's one thing that's true.

The second thing that's definitely true is that the longer you've been a band, the more you become sort of a legacy band, which is really what we are. And that's automatic. That means, ‘oh, they got a new record. Yeah. I've got like 4 records by that band that I love. I don't really need a new record’. You know what I mean? That starts happening.

‍And I actually understand that because there's definitely bands that make new records that have been around since I was a kid. And sometimes I feel like, yeah, this record's cool, but this is the same record from like 30 years ago and it's better. I kind of get that mentality of it.

But I think the reason that you make new music is generally selfish. You do it because you want to have new tunes to play. We don't do it very often. Maybe we'll start doing it more. I don't know.

Interview by Dave Mullins @freediver_dave

Lagwagon return to Australia in 2026, celebrating Hoss in full with some stacked 30th anniversary shows, as well as an appearance at Froth and Fury Festival. You can find your suitable ticket here!