Ravagers are the US’s biggest post-apocalyptic rock’n’roll band. I dunno if you happen to realise this, however it’s over, man. The nice guys misplaced.
“I believed it was a cool idea,” says Ravagers important man Alex Hagen from his resort in Spain, the place the band are on tour. “The identify jogged my memory of a seventies exploitation grindhouse film the place the world is over, and there’s simply rabid gangs of loopy folks on the streets. I associated that lots to the neighborhood I lived in in Baltimore after I began the band.”
Finish-of-the-world vibes, lengthy hair, tight pants and ripsaw sleaze guitars, Ravagers have every part you want on your subsequent avenue rumble. Half Hanoi Rocks, half back-alley punk rock marauders, they fashioned a decade in the past after the dissolution of Hagen’s former band the Dwelling Wrecks.
“I’d began attempting to jot down music and I had a pair tunes that I favored,” says Hagen. “I used to be dwelling with Matt Gabs [previously a member of Baltimore sleaze-punk near-legends Fishnet Stalkers, as well as Atlanta rock heroes Biters], who’s within the band now, and I might present him what I used to be engaged on. He would give me suggestions and stuff, and he sort of helped information my songwriting and guitar abilities. It helped me really feel assured sufficient to entrance my very own band, and that’s the place Ravagers began.”
Ravagers hit the bottom working, releasing a spate of EPs and a full-length album, and enjoying each skanky dive bar and punk home within the US. Repeatedly.
“We might simply go on these lengthy excursions throughout the nation with our information,” Hagen remembers. “I used Fb and booked all of the excursions myself. We might celebration lots, made plenty of nice connections, met plenty of cool folks. We had fun, however among the excursions had been exhausting. We might get into fights. We might hate one another in the direction of the tip,” he says with fun. “I’d suppose: ‘Is that this over? Ought to I type a brand new band?’ However the second by no means got here. We simply saved going.”
Ultimately, the US bought hip to Ravagers. Europe got here subsequent. And now there’s new album On The Free. Produced by former Biters frontman Tuk Smith, it sounds sorta like glam-era Japan in the event that they had been Scandinavian action-rockers. Its spotlight is the nihilistic No Tomorrow No Downside, a sneering glam-punk ode to the dangerous instances.
“I felt like: ‘How can it get any worse?’” says Hagen. “You’ll be able to’t do something about it. So that you may as nicely simply exit with a bang.”
Okay, so Baltimore isn’t any Detroit Rock Metropolis, however when Ravagers come to play you’re by no means gonna neglect them.
“That’s one of the best half, man,” Hagen says. “When you already know you’ve received any person over, and you already know the following time you come to that city they’re going to be psyched to fucking see you, man. It’s cool.”
On The Free is out now through Spaghetty City.
