SENSICHAT WITH TEN FOOT POLE'S DENNIS JAGGED

Ten Foot Pole has a superb new album out now on Epitaph called Rev. Every track is great punk rock. The following is my attempt to get into Guitarist and Songwriter Dennis Jagged's head:

"How did Ten Foot Pole come about?"

"About 13 years ago Scott, Steve and I started playing in garages to have some fun. We won a battle of the bands in a roller rink, which was pretty exciting cause the guys in the other bands were about 25 and had long hair, the whole rocker thing, we were psyched. "When we started our name was Scared Straight. People assumed we were a Straight Edge Band....but we weren't. Also, Mystic Records marketed us straight edge (without our consent). We got defined as a Straight Edge Band because of the name so we decided to change the name cause our philosophies are not 'Straight Edge' completely. We have nothing against Straight Edge. We just don't want to be defined as something we're not. "In 1985 Scott started to sing. He used to play drums. We did a tour with Some other 'nardcore' bands (from the Oxnard/Ventura area). We had a great time till our stuff got stolen at a club in Pittsburg, PA called 'The Electric Banana'..that ended that tour."

"What are y'all trying to get across with your music?"

"We don't have a particular platform. All the members are really different. We have different perspectives but we all do it for fun. You can be creative and meet a lot of people and travel. We've been to Europe and stuff. People really help you out with food and places to stay. To go out and connect and be part of a community effort feels good."

"On the Rev album each of you have a symbol by your name. You have a dollar sign by yours, why? Are you the band capitalist?"

"No, no, not at all. The artist who did it just happened to put it there. Actually I think greed and corruption are inevitable in a competition based society. Or is it the other way around? Maybe competition based societies are inevitable when humans are innately greedy and corrupt. Anyway, I guess money is necessary for survival in this world but it is sad if it becomes the ultimate goal."

"Your song 'Closer to Grey' paints a picture of alcoholism. Have you had some experience with that issue?"

"Well, I think everyone has been effected by alcoholic friends or family. I went through a heavy drinking phase, rum and cokes were fairly common. I've decided it's a waste of time. I puked in my sleep and it really scared me, you know the asphyxiation thing....I didn't even remember doing it! I started to forget things. One night I was drunk and people told me I went into some rose bushes and was jumping around. I didn't believe them, but I looked at my legs and they were covered with scratches."

"You wrote a lot of lyrics but don't sing. How does that work out?"

"Very tricky. I have to write stuff Scott feels comfortable singing, still when Scott sings his own lyrics he believes them more and he puts more into it. He's got to believe it to sing it."

"Why don't you sing?"

"I don't like the sound of my voice, it's too mid-rangy, it just doesn't sound appealing."

"What stuff do you guys like to eat?"

"I'm trying to convince the guys to go vegetarian. On tour it was catching on....the others are starting to order their hamburgers without meat. We're pretty big Mexican food fans. It was hard in Germany last January because they don't have Taco Bells or anything cheap, just expensive Mexican food."

"'World's Greatest Dad' sounds like a warning to the naive and a critique of contemporary society. Pretty darn political."

"For me, the songs are personal and the personal is political. One of these personal/political things involves a sense of betrayal that has been annoying me. I was raised with a really rosy view of life and society...I was constantly told that there was a loving God that would provide justice, peace eternal life and love (eventually). The government represents our needs, police are here to protect us and the military is a heroic force. As I faced different realities while growing up (for example being beat up by police), I picked up some healthy skepticism. The hardest thing about accepting a less optimistic philosophy is that it is such a let down from the expectations I had before. For example, it wouldn't be so lonely and depressing to be agnostic if I wasn't told every single day that I had a cool friend in heaven. "The decline in my optimism can be seen in my favorite career choices at different ages. I went from wanting to be a policeman, then fireman, soldier, congressman, attorney, professor, and finally now I am a live sound engineer....basically an unpolitical job....I do sound for whoever pays me regardless of political affiliations. I used to think that I would make some major difference in the world....now I just try to write cool songs and make bands sound good.

"What to y'all do besides TFP?"

"Steve owns a small carpet cleaning company...he sucks rugs. Pete works in an animal hospital taking x-rays of chipmunks who've choked on their nuts (really!). Tony used to be a mailman and now does odd jobs and stuff. He wishes we were a full time, year round band. Like I said, I do the sound company. We did sound for a speech Al Gore gave, we did the Santa Barbara International Jazz Festival. I own a coffee house called the Vampire Lounge - it's about to close though...the rent was too high. Scott plays professional baseball for the White Sox."

"What do you admire in people?"

"Basically the traditional old movie hero type thing. The quiet guy with integrity who rides off into the sunset after helping people out and not even asking for thanks. The Punk Rock thing - not trying to get famous. Have fun. Anti-Mainstream - Anti Fashion"

"Tell me a weird gig story."

"Welllllll, OK. We had some trouble with our shuttle bus in Toledo, so we left our bus at this auto repair place and got another ride to our show. We sold all the T-shirts and stuff we brought so we had to go back to the bus to get some more. Well, the place was closed. It was Sunday I think and we heard they'd have rottweilers there. So we got some pepper spray and hopped the fence. We got our stuff and were getting ready to leave and this longhaired guy came screaming up in a Corvette and tried to grab us through the fence. Then the police came and arrested him! It turns out he was the owner and somebody called him about us and he drove over there at 100 Mph. So we are standing there wearing black leather gloves and jackets (insulation from the dog teeth), and there are 5 police cars around us, one with a flat tire from the chase. But our friend John Stain, a punk rock legend from Toledo, did the old "Jedi mind trick", telling the police that it was just a misunderstanding and it wasn't worth arresting us or doing paperwork. After a few suspicious glances they let us go."

"What would you like to do besides music?"

"I'd like to get into the film industry. Film is our culture's intelligent medium for social normalization. Film is the only big scale art form that says anything about society....the only social dialog. Books, novels use to be the medium but few people read any more."

"What concerns you most right now?"

"I'm worried about the innate sense of good and evil in people. The whole world is collectively based on a need for growth. Human nature seems to say we can't live in harmony. Someone will always screw you over to get ahead."

"Last question. Why are roosters so important to TFP?"

"The artist put them on the cover so we put them on the album. They don't really mean anything though....we don't have a big social statement in mind for them. Oddly some people have commented that they really like that number.

-Ed Slack

Band Photo by Jimmy Hole at the bottom of the 10 foot pole....