With nine studio albums and four EPs under their belts, Lagwagon head back to Australia later this month with a different kind of tour set out.
They've invited Aussie fans to create the ultimate playlist, Lagwagon present the By Request Tour, which does what it says on the tin.Certainly placing the power in the hands of their audience is a different format of show for the legendary California punk rockers, but it's a concept that's already been incredibly successful in North America.
Frontman Joey Cape is looking forward to reliving old songs, and the new, with Aussie fans. "I really love coming there," he says. "There's beaches there, I love that, and I have a lot of dear friends out there I've made over the years. It's always a blast, lots of good food."
It's not just musician friends Joey holds dear over here. "I have to think about it for a minute," Joey admits, "to remember how we met."
Such is the longevity of the band – 34 years in fact – that it does take Joey a minute to recall the who, what, when, how, and why of who his oldest friends in Australia are, and how he and Lagwagon came by them.
Ultimately, he brushes past any attempts at recollection. "You would think I would be an absolute expert at answering questions in interviews, but it's the opposite," he says with a smile.
"The older I get, the more I do it, when people say, 'what are some fun moments in your touring?' I get questions like that, and I go, 'Geez, I dunno!' There are too many! A lot of times you remember things maybe you don't want to remember, it's interesting."
Poor, or reluctant, memory isn't the reason Lagwagon have developed the By Request Tour, mind you. There's a pragmatic reason they're putting the power into the hands of their audience.
"Chris Moses, our dear friend and agent, he was kind of thinking, we don't have a new album, we haven't toured since 2020 – which for a lot of us feels fairly recent, given the pandemic – and I was wondering if there was real purpose in us coming back so soon.
"But the honest truth is, it's nice to make something special out of a tour. And these album tours that a lot of people have been doing for quite some time now, those are getting kind of boring, I think.
"We've done quite a few of them – maybe we could do an album tour, but we've already done that. So we thought of something special to make it more interesting. It's a fun challenge, and the guys in the band like that. It makes it a little less usual or average for us."
Lagwagon are throwing themselves at the mercy of their fans and their personal tastes of the band's catalogue – how the shows will go is anyone's guess, but Joey reckons everyone, band included, will have fun no matter what.
"It's fun because you remember the names of people who ask for things, and when you're shouting out 'Elizabeth Smith', for lack of a better made-up name, 'asked us to play this song', people get stoked.
"On a good level, I think these kind of things make it fun for people; there's a little more synergy."
Lagwagon 2023 Tour Dates
Fri 27 Oct - The Princess Theatre (Brisbane)Sat 28 Oct - Torquay Hotel (Torquay)* sold out
Sun 29 Oct - The Croxton Bandroom (Melbourne)
Wed 1 Nov - The Basement (Canberra)
Fri 3 Nov - Manning Bar (Sydney)
Sat 4 Nov - Schooner Or Later Harbour Cruise (Sydney)* sold out
Sun 5 Nov - Hobart Uni Bar
