JPG: Yes. I like it a lot for the same reasons I liked the Dead Kenny Gs record.

MD: That one was mixed on an old ‘70s Neve console, so, I’m told. Hopefully, you have a good stereo and crank it loud.

JPG: Well, right now, all I have is a downloaded version I’m playing on computer speakers.

MD: Yeah, well, get the vinyl when it comes out. That’s another I’m really excited about. It’s coming out on vinyl and I can’t wait to hear it. We recorded it in that old studio north of New Orleans. Kansas, Stevie Wonder, Wild Magnolias all recorded there. It’s a classic studio and when you walk in you can feel the ‘70s coming out of the walls. Awesome!

JPG: Connecting a lot of the dots in your music career, you call one of the tunes on the new album “Earl Harvin” (the name of the drummer in Dillon’s previous band, Billy Goat). Why give him a shout out on this record?

MD: Beyond Billy Goat, Earl and I did Black Frames together. We made this record called Solarallergy. Skerik and Brad [Houser] from Dead Kenny Gs are on that record. I think you can download it on iTunes. Matt Chamberlin was busy so we weren’t doing any Critters Buggin’ so we did this band. We did a couple west coast tours and a couple jazz festivals in a year-and-a-half period. Really love that record.

Earl at the time was playing with Air, that band from France. And he brought all these really cool tunes to the Black Frames stuff. It had this real minimalistic…that’s where the concept for the path to Garage A Trois as far as my writing style started with Black Frames as far as the instrumental mallet-driven rock. Earl and I both play marimbas and vibes. Everyone in the band except for Brad would play mallet instruments. And Earl would jump between mallets and drum set. And that band was really cool, as far as the multi-mallet theme in a pretty punk rock fashion. And that [Garage A Trois] song reminded me something about Earl’s personality. We recently released a percussion duo record and did a tour in October of last year. It’s called People Gardens.

So, Earl’s one of my favorite musicians. And, you know, Miles Davis used to call songs by people’s names. I don’t know why he did it but he had songs like “Willie Nelson.” And Earl and I actually performed that [Garage A Trois] tune first on our percussion tour last October. He lives in Berlin now. So, he flew in and we jumped in the van and we drove around and toured for two weeks and it was really fun. Sold a bunch of cds. Earl is still one of my favorite musicians to play with. He lives in Berlin and I live in New Orleans so it’s hard to get together. I told Skerik the story of the song and he said, ‘Call it “Earl Harvin!”’ I was like, ‘Yeah! Perfect!’

JPG: One of the other songs, “Swellage,” reminded me of Carl Stalling and his work with the Warner Brothers cartoons.

MD: That’s cool. Good ears. That’s funny. I think Randall said it had that vibe. It’s like an evil Carl Stalling, Mr. Bungle vibe to my ears. That’s a Marco song. It started off with that simple riff in five. And we just built it in the studio and all these crazy ideas that Randall had. Working with Randall, some engineers they’re like, “That sounds good,” but he’s like, “Marco do this. Go do that.” And it’s a really fast, furious pace and…so that’s a Marco tune that we played on one tour back in September and it came alive in the studio.

JPG: Care to elaborate on the title, Always Be Happy, But Stay Evil ?

MD: Skerik’s daughter, Koko, she’s a little genius. She did the artwork. I think she did that drawing and said, “Always be happy but stay evil.” C’mon that’s just perfect, man. It works on so many levels. We were having a hard time with finding a title for the record, and everything was super-rushed. We were going to call it something else, and then we were like, “What about that drawing that Koko did?” And Skerik pulled it out and I was like, “Yeah! That’s awesome. Let’s call it that.” Koko has helped with the past Dead Kenny Gs albums, I don’t think she did with this last one but I know the first one she had a drawing in there of all of us playing. Skerik paid her minimum child labor requirements. It’s a great way to get artwork for cheap. In this age of union-busting and economic downsizing we figured we’d do our part instead of hiring fancy artists we hiring to do artwork.

JPG: Robert Smith of the Cure did something like that with the band’s 2004 album. I think he used drawings by his nieces and nephews.

MD: That’s the other thing. I used my nephew on that Mike Dillon/Earl Harvin album. He did a great drawing. He was six at the time. I was like, ‘Holy shit! That’s awesome!’

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