During a call that lasted an hour, I was able to catch up with Sublime’s Miguel Happoldt to discuss his band, Perro Bravo, and the 4/20/15 premiere of their new music video on The Pier that also pays homage to the late Ikey and Aaron Owens. Plus, they have a Bay area tour from April 23rd – 25th.
Perro Bravo, a 3-piece reggae-rock group out of Long Beach, CA that consists of Miguel Happoldt on guitar/vocals, ex-falling idol Greg Lowther on drums and Mike Long on bass.
The group teamed up with The Pier’s own Jeff Pliskin of Raised Fist Propaganda to shoot the music video for their song “4 On The Floor”. The video was shot in Sunset Beach, a neighboring community of Long Beach that Miguel refers to as his second home and a place where his good friend Brad Nowell lived and surfed.
The music video shows the great day and the life of the band starting off with the group rehearsing at the Compound Studio in Long Beach before heading to Mothers Bar in Sunset to shoot the group performing a live gig. Miguel explained: “There’s a little bar down in Sunset called Mothers that we’ve been going to for 30 years and it’s like an old banged up beach-shack. The main part of the video is shot at the Compound Studio in Long Beach, a studio where Ikey Owens use to record a lot, a long with myself and Marshall Goodman.”
[Related: Rest In Peace Isaiah Ikey Owens]
Isaiah ‘Ikey’ Owens was an amazing producer and keyboardist who passed away on Oct. 14th, 2014 while on tour with Jack White. Ikey played with Long Beach Dub All Stars, and contributed music for Sublime, Reel Big Fish, among others. Ikey’s brother and guitarist Aaron Owens, who was in Hepcat and founded the band Pocket Lent with Ikey, would later pass away on March 26th, 2015. Miguel had lasting ties with writing and producing music with both brothers and brought them together last year for the Skunk Records 25th Anniversary shows.
“I’m glad I made those two jam together,” reflects Miguel. “They loved each other as brothers, but it was hard to get them to jam together. They were just both musical forces of nature, you know what I mean? I have a lot of good music from Ikey and a lot of good music from Aaron. Aaron was working on an album, so we’re going to finish that. Everybody wants to pitch in, all the Hepcat guys, just an all-star cast of characters. Ikey’s solo album is coming out on Thirdman Records, Jack White’s label.”
Miguel went on to explain how he worked with Aaron Owens recently on the forthcoming Slightly Stoopid record with a song that features G. Love which looks to make the new Stoopid record. The song is titled “Everyday Life”.
In addition to projects with finishing Aaron Owens album, producing 3 new Slightly Stoopid songs (one of which expected to make the new album), Miguel is also looking to release a new Perro Bravo album and yes, it will be featured on iTunes. He’s expected to finally put all 3 Perro Bravo albums on iTunes, possibly as soon as this summer.
“I wanted to try and do Vinyl only, but it turns out, and you’re never going to believe this, all of the distributors wont take the vinyl until it’s on iTunes. There’s no distributor that will take my records, so if it’s on iTunes they’ll take it.”
There’s a song on Perro Bravo’s last album titled “The Neighbor Hoods” that he remixed with Slightly Stoopid’s engineer J Wiz. The song features Kyle McDonald of Stoopid with the addition of hip-hop vocalist, Philieano. Jeff, of Raised Fist Propaganda, also shot a music video for that song that includes appearances by Kyle McDonald and Miles Doughty of Slightly Stoopid, in addition to Opie Ortiz. That video will be released following the 4/20/15 video premiere of “4 On The Floor”.
With everything going on, Miguel plans to take his band out of town to the Bay area for an extended weekend, starting Thursday April 23rd, performing the Atrium, which is the front room to The Catalyst. Friday, they’ll be at The Red Hat in Concord before playing the Make-Out room in San Francisco, making this their second trip to the city.
“The Catalyst is my favorite venue in the world, hands down. I wish we were in the big room at the Catalyst, that venue is great! When Sublime first started out, the dream was to play the Catalyst,” Miguel acknowledged. He continued on by saying: “Anytime we play San Francisco, it’s a hard one because of the whole Brad thing, for me,” referring to Brad Nowell’s untimely passing in 1996.
Miguel did gush about the bay area, saying “San Francisco is the music town, it always has been and probably always be. NOFX got big there, plus all the hippy bands. Punk was big there before LA. It’s like people go there to live a nice life around the art and fun shit and that energy comes 
through.”
When I asked Miguel if there were plans to perform any covers, Miguel immediately started playing on guitar, over the phone, covering “Just Another Crowd” by Operation Ivy. He went on to explain that: “Perro Bravo always cater something in the set to where we are. If we’re going to San Francisco, we’re going to try and play some Grateful Dead or the Dead Kennedys. The covers we do are geographically specific. The people who get it, go crazy because they understand what we’re saying.” Living in Denver, CO I had to ask Miguel what they would play out here and he immediately starts jamming over the phone, covering Joe Walsh‘s “Rocky Mountain Way” which was awesome!
If you’re in the bay area, make a point to get out of your house and into one of the 3 venues to catch Perro Bravo live. Make a point to get there before 8:00pm to reassure you don’t miss their set. Stay tuned for more updates as they’re made and come back on April 20th, 2015 to view the Video Premiere of “4 On The Floor”.
Upcoming Dates:
April 23rd @ The Catalyst. Santa Cruz, CA
April 24th @ Red Hat. Concord, CA
April 25th @ The Make-Out Room. San Francisco, CA
Related Links:
Perro Bravo Website
Perro Bravo Facebook
Perro Bravo Bandcamp
Article By: Mike Patti
Photos By: David Norris
Watch: Perro Bravo – “Ready Fe Rock” (ft. Philieano)
