Interview with Edsel Dope

By Ron Senyo

I have been excited about this opportunity since I first heard that Dope was assembling a reunion tour with all of the classic lineup. This set of guys (Edsel, Racci, Acey, and Virus) have not played together for over a decade and with the release of an album of all new material and the release of a live album the energy and excitement around this band is at heights that they have not been in a long time.

Tonight Dope came out in classic form, opening their set with “Violence” which threw the crowd into a complete frenzy. Edsel clad in all black including his baseball hat kept warning the security that the crowd was going to get rowdy and not to be dicks. He told them to let the fans be unless someone in the crowd was being an asshole, and that person won’t know cause he’s was the asshole.

Edsel, Racci, Acey, and Virus took us on a journey through the years hitting on the classics from all their albums. At one point Edsel exclaimed “ I’m going to play you the stupidest song you’ve ever heard and you’re gonna love it” as the band dove into there version of Dead or Alive‘s “Spin Me Right Round”.

This lineup worked really well together, they were tight and it really seemed as though they were truly enjoying playing with each other. Seeing that makes me hope that this line up sticks together and makes some more great music.

As Edsel had warned it got a little crazy. During their set someone was being that asshole that he had mentioned. It took about five security guards and some help from Motograter’s drummer to forcefully eject this dude. However the antics didn’t end there. One of Dope’s road crew kept making Edsel laugh so much so that Edsel had to block him from his line of sight using his hat just to stop from laughing. At one point, drummer, Racci had his feet up on the drums and was drinking a beer while still playing. Acey somehow managed to get his guitar stuck in the ceiling and at the end of their set where it hung until a crew member grabbed it.

Overall was one of the best Dope shows that I have ever seen and the crowd was pack into the Fishhead Cantiana. I had the privilege of hanging out and asking a few questions to the man himself Edsel who we have been joking around for years about getting this interview done. Today it finally happened.

Empire Extreme: How has the Dope reunion been going thus far, and how that all came about?
Edsel: I thought you weren’t gonna ask me the usual questions? (Both laugh)
(Earlier I told Edsel I like asking odd questions and he was excited and I started off with this one)
Edsel: It’s good! It’s not much different for me man. It’s not like I don’t’ play with theses guys on a regular basis. I play with Virus all the time. I just back from the U.K. with Coal Chamber where Racci played drums and Acey played bass. Nick was on guitar too because Virus was busy. But we hadn’t played since we went to Russia and played that one show. Everybody was available to do this tour. I love these guys but every time we do a tour I think we have a good lineup. It always feels like Dope to me, but I’m not sure when the four of us will be able to do it all again.

Empire: Yeah, cause it’s been a few years since we have seen this lineup together
Edsel: Yeah 12 years.

Empire: How was it playing in Russia?
Edsel: Russia is great! This will be our fourth time there. The fans are great and get really excited about us. It’s just one of those weird anomalies where we have no record label there, no radio, and no support. But the phone rang and they wanted us to come over. They said it was gonna be big over there. We were like OK, we will see. We go over there and the shows were big, the fans knew all the words, and it was fucking crazy. It’s exciting and it’s a place we look forward too.

Empire: How are the fans responding to finally having the new album “Blood Money” come out?
Edsel: Everybody seems to be really excited! I think it’s just a culmination of everything right now and it feels to everybody that we were being procrastinators. There for quite a while I was concentrating on other things, re-prioritizing my life. For so many years the priority was always Dope. I would put out the Dope records and go on tour, and repeat. Then I got to a point in my life where I thought that my life was kind of empty because this was all at that I do. I needed to focus on other things and I needed to mature in different ways that didn’t have to do with the band. I think the fans are getting a lot now, which I think they’re excited about. They just got a live record. They are also getting the first full tour in a very long while. They are also getting Blood Money Part One and all that is coming out in a short amount of time. They seemed stoked about it. They’re going to go out and get it put it in their iPods and then jam to it for a few months.

Empire: I remember when you talked at shows that everybody wants to hear all the old stuff but they complain about not having any new material
Edsel: That’s just me fucking with them (both laugh) and I understand why they want new material. They want new songs from the band that they like and to hear new things that the bands done. But of course they want to come to the shows and hear all the old shit and they always will. I think that anybody who really likes this band and they want a treasure should go get the live album. It’s basically a greatest hits album with 21 of the songs that we all want to hear and it’s recorded really fucking well!

Empire: What was it like doing the videos for every single one of the songs on Group Therapy album?
Edsel: It was a lot of work ! .. and, well… Beyoncé got all the credit for doing that shit first, but I did it 10 years before her! It was cool. It was us trying to do something different. At the time we were in a tough spot in the bands career. Sony had just evaporated on us and the band was really effected. It was really a horrible thing that happened to us. We had so much success with the first record and did so much touring with some of the biggest bands in the world Slipknot, Coal Chamber, Fear Factory, and Static X. The last tour Dope did for the first album was direct support for Kid Rock. That was huge!

For the second record we recorded the album and the label was super excited about it. They loved the songs. But we knew we were coming out swinging hard with the tracks “Die MF Die” and “Take Your Best Shot”. We were going to lay the ground work with those but they ultimately went to radio with “Now or Never”. It was about two months before the record came out the World Trade Center fell. We were with Sony music, a company that had Michael Jackson at the time. They had so much money along with a history of abandoning and running from things when they felt it was a bad look for the company.

After the towers fell, they had this band called Dope with songs like “Die MF Die”… That was it. People don’t realize that this band went from being on the verge of that next level, to doing one tour on the Life album. We had all of our support disappear, management gone, label gone, booking agent gone. No opportunities! When that happens to a band in this business a lot of people don’t understand it either. No one on the outside looks for details, they just go “Oh Dope just got dropped from Sony. Hmm that’s probably damaged goods, we should probably stay away from that.”

Following that it was really hard for the band to even get any shows. We ended up making the Group Therapy record independently and having it sell really poorly because nobody knew it came out. We then spent two years struggling to stay on road and we released the American Apathy record which ultimately sold more than Life despite being released by Sony. That was really our second birth and where the industry took two steps back and said maybe we should let them back in because they withstood all that darkness they must really have fans.

Empire: Since you did a cover of NWA’s “ Fuck the Police” have you heard any feedback from NWA about it?
Edsel: No man. I’ve never met any of those guys unfortunately. I have not had the opportunity to meet them. Not sure if they even know if our version even exists. I have no way of knowing.

Empire: How was it working with Zak Wylde for the track “Addiction” on the No Regrets album?
Edesel: Zak was great. He was super gracious. It was cool. He was able to lay down a bunch of guitar solos for us. I’m kinda of a wizard at manipulating stuff and making it into what I want. The leads that he played, I built them up and put it together how I wanted. Once it had the flow I felt was right I sent it to him. He was like “Dude this is great, I don’t even remember playing it like that”. I said “You didn’t play it like that”. He was like “Ohh”. It was cool he really gave me a lot of good stuff to work with.

Empire: How was it playing ICP’s “Gathering of The Juggalos” I know you have done it a few times?
Edsel: It’s another really cool experience. It’s a very different fan base. It’s very a culty, cool underworld, if you will. They has always reacted positively to us even though we’re a lot heavier than many of the bands there. The Clowns and the Juggalos have seemed to embraced the Dope vibe. I’ve always been grateful for that. I wouldn’t consider myself a Juggalo but I would consider myself a Juggalo supporter. I support their unity and collective vibe.

Empire: If you could bring back any musician from the dead who would you bring back?
Edsel: What would I do with them? (Both laugh)

Empire: Like have them back recording making music and what not.
Edsel: Well, for selfish reasons I would bring back Elvis. He was just a bad mother fucker. I think Prince will be missed the most, because he was so active with writing, not just for himself but other artists. I feel the amount of amazing songs that Prince put into the world is gonna be pretty hard for anybody to beat. Elvis, John Lennon, Prince those guys are untouchable.

Empire: I saw back in the day that you and Ginger Fish (Marilyn Manson, Rob Zombie) had an apartment together?

Edsel: Yeah. Well, me and Ginger were best friends as kids. We lived with each other, we moved across the country together. We are still best friends to this day. I’ve known him for 25 years.

Empire: Any crazy stories with you guys before you both got where you are?
Edsel: I wouldn’t say crazy stories. We were just young kids, 20 year old dudes. Both playing drums, both working shitty jobs. Both talking about how we’re gonna make it. It’s pretty crazy that we both made it, for all intents and purposes in a very different ways. I’m very envious of what Ginger has. Me being a drummer at heart my whole life, but then coming to realizing that with my mentality it was going to be very hard for me to make it and rely on someone else being the [main] guy. That’s one of the main reasons for me transitioning into a singer, guitar player, and leader of a band. Ginger has been part of two of the coolest and most iconic bands ever. He’s on stage playing huge sold out shows every night with pyro and all that stuff. I would love to have Gingers life. But at the same time Ginger looks at me and says “Dude you get to make all the rules and do what you want when you want. It’s your band, you go on tour it’s yours, I’m in Rob Zombie and I love it but it’s Robs.” We have this fun dichotomy between us. I would love to be where he is and he would love to be where I am. But we’re the same dudes and when we hang out together it’s like time has stood still and we’re back in Florida.

Empire: Anything else you want to say to the fans?
Edsel: Hope everybody picks up the new album and gives it a few spins and loves it. Dope is Dope man! We’ve been established for a really long time and the band is going to continue to expand. When you come see Dope we play the classics and we sound like we should sound.

I just do what makes sense in my heart and my soul. I express what’s really true to me and where I’m at in my life. I hope fans of the band are on the same page.

And just like that after 15 years it was finally over and we had our interview with Edsel and hope that in the future it won’t take as long to do another.

About Author

Ron

Ron has keen eye for new talent, a love for the underground, and a tremendous passion for music of any genera. You’ll probably bump into him at a horror convention or some seedy club checking out the next need-to-know band.

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