When we spoke with Miguel Happoldt back in April, he made no mention of releasing a new album anytime soon, but sometimes the mindset changes as him and his band Perro Bravo crashed the month of July with the release of their 10 track album 3 On The Tree. See what Miguel told us in a recent call about this sudden release…
The album includes tributes to Joe Strummer, a Sublime cover and features guest keyboardists by Roger Rivas (of The Aggrolites), Ed Kampwirth and the late Ikey Owens.
“I just wanted to bring back an album that sounds sort of raw,” explains Miguel. “Kind of like Slightly Stoopid’s ‘Longest Barrel Ride’ for example, where its produced pretty well, but it still just sounds like 3 guys jamming who can show up and play that shit in your living room and when they’d show up, it’d sound exactly like the album. It’s produced, but not over-produced. We can play this whole record live.”
Miguel went on to explain that the core of this album is the three members, the 3 on the tree with Miguel on guitar/vocals, Greg “Mudd” Lowther on drums and Mike Long on bass.
“The thing I like about the record, my favorite thing, is it’s the first record where it’s just the 3 of us. There’s keyboards but there’s no guest drums or anything like that. It’s just Mike Long, Mudd and myself. So that’s cool cause it really just sounds like us.”
The album includes the authentic formula mix of Surf, Punk, Dub, and Rock. The latter is best heard on the second track with the song “Let’s Rock Again” which was dedicated to the late Joe Strummer. Miguel was inspired to write the song after watching what he describes as his favorite rock documentary of the same title about the final days of Joe Strummer. “This is for Uncle Joe for showing us the road to take and where it goes.”
With cover art painted and designed by longtime Sublime artist Opie Ortiz, when I asked Miguel why the sudden release of the album, he shared that: “If I don’t get this record out, I’m going to be miserable. You got to have deadlines, Brad Nowell was a big deadline dude! He was like, ‘Mike, Rock & Roll was born from Deadlines!'”
Another feature on the album includes Jamin of San Diego’s Thicker Than Thieves who Miguel has known for years through a long time friend as he explains that: “Jamin was actually part of Troy (Nowell)’s crew, Brads Wife. They grew up together. That’s how we know Jamin and that’s where that friendship began and we’ve just stayed friends all of these years.” The song Jamin is featured on is the dub heavy reggae jammer titled “Electric Remix.”
Most notably on this record is that Miguel did include a cover, or as I like to think of it as a sequel, to “I Dont Care Too Much For Reggae Dub” off of Sublime’s sophomore album, Robbin The Hood, aptly titling this new version, “Still Don’t Care Too Much Dub”. If you recall, the original song included samples of people talking about music and saying they don’t care too much for reggae. It turns out that was audio from footage shot for Sublime’s “STP” music video that a friend of the band, Greg Abramson, recorded. Greg then gave it to Brad Nowell who put the audio onto cassette so he could manipulate it with a boombox, sort of like a DJ, on the original version of the song.
“I found the actual tape that Brad used to manipulate all the bums talking and Brad only used part of it. There’s all these other parts and I thought I had to use this, so we went ahead and recorded it,” says Miguel. “We ended up doing a 22minute version of it, which was cool, but we scaled it down for the album… We thought, if we’re going to cover Sublime, let’s cover the absolute most pinnacle most obscure alien song we ever did.”
You can purchase Perro Bravo’s new album 3 On The Tree by clicking HERE!
Upcoming Shows:
August 8th @ City Fest. Hillcrest, San Diego (4pm & all ages)
August 15th @ Dipiazzas w/Roger Rivas. Long Beach, CA (9pm & all ages)
Perro Bravo – 3 On The Tree Track List:
1.) 4 On The Floor
2.) Let’s Rock Again
3.) Haunted Panga
4.) Same Thing
5.) In Time
6.) Electric Remix (ft. Jamin of Thicker Than Thieves)
7.) As The Sun Sets In The West
8.) Born In ’69
9.) Still Don’t Care Too Much Dub
10.) They Get Along
Related Links:
Perro Bravo Website
Perro Bravo Facebook
Article By: Mike Patti
Photo By: Josh Coffman
Watch: Perro Bravo – “4 On The Floor”
The video was shot by Jeff Pliskin of Raised Fist Propaganda out in Sunset Beach, CA a neighboring community of Long Beach that guitarist/vocalist and former Sublime member, Miguel Happoldt 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 rehearsing at the Compound Studio in Long Beach before heading to Mothers Bar in Sunset, 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”. Enjoy the song and video…
Perro Bravo – 4 on the Floor from Raised Fist Propaganda on Vimeo.