Photo by Allen Ralph
Chad Stokes is the frontman of roots rock trio Dispatch and, apparently, a student of American history. Chatting between tour dates, Stokes mentions that he and the rest of the band recently took a field trip to a few Civil War battle sites in Richmond, Virginia. He cites the mid-1800s as his preferred area of study, but that doesn’t mean he’s living in the past. In fact, Dispatch continues to be one of the most politically active bands in the jam scene, speaking out on a regular basis about current issues ranging from criminal justice reform to gun control to immigration policy.
According to Stokes, their forthcoming record Location 13 tackles these present political hurdles as well as his own inner world, balancing themes of personal experience with humanitarianism.
Below Stokes discusses his affinity for Northern California’s Panoramic Studios, his experience performing at a juvenile detention center and the songs that make up Location 13.
Dispatch is sharing a new song every few weeks until you release your new record, Location 13. What inspired that model?
As much as we love to do albums and eventually this will come together into an album, as a fan in today’s climate with so much music, I would be into a band releasing kind of piecemeal like that. With technology these days, the pace of our lives is so fast. So just to give up only a little bit of time seems like a good model in today’s music world. And it’s been kind of fun doing it that way, but it goes against some kind of traditional models.
You recorded parts of this record and your previous one at Panoramic House in Marin County, Calif. Can you talk a little bit about the locale of that studio influenced the record?
It’s funny because the songs were all written on the East Coast, rehearsed in this barn and written in a small cottage in the winter. It was freezing. And I think Brad [Corrigan] from the band was like, “Please can we swing West a little bit?” So I gave in and that studio is so incredible. It’s just magical. This guy built it by hand with old cobblestones from San Francisco streets. He was an old school teacher in the ‘60s and just built this little fortress halfway up the mountain.
And being from the East coast and watching the sunset every day over the Pacific ocean is just totally mesmerizing.
One song in particular is very much influenced by the builder of Panoramic house, right? Can you discuss the process of writing that one?
Yeah, “Came for the Fire.” Before we went to the studio the lyrics weren’t fully formed. We needed another verse. Up to that point, it was basically about me and my wife and the trials and tribulations of our 20 year relationship. We all decided that we needed some more, and I was just so inspired by his story and kind of wondered about this man and his relationship with his wife, building that dream house and the obsession that he must have had. Because that’s the way it feels when you’re in there, it’s so unique that you can’t help but think that this guy was slightly obsessed with this building. You can see hand tools that are still stuck in the grass all rusted away after 40 years that are still there. It almost feels like it was interrupted, like he was almost finished when he ran out of money. So there is that heaviness to it. While it is so magical and whimsical, there is also that dream following mission that can lay everything else to waste.
You mentioned earlier how “Came For The Fire” is partly inspired by you and your wife’s relationship, but the Dispatch sound is usually pretty political. What was the balance on this record between activism and your own personal experience?
It is always a balance. In my early days, especially with State Radio, it was pretty much all political. And then when I did my first solo record, I was finally ready to get more personal with my writing and just my own story of growing up on this small family farm. I think I’ve been a little cagey with my personal stuff, you know from the early days, but have gotten more comfortable with that in days of late. This new batch of songs has “Letter to Lady J” which is probably the most overtly political. It’s written about police brutality and lack of accountability and African American profiling, and how these innocent men and women continue to be victims of this over-use of authority and violence. And so there’s that mixed with “Came for the Fire,” which is relationship stuff.
Onstage, you’re not shy about speaking to the crowd about issues like immigration or mental health or any of these things. How important is it to you to take that time during the show to talk to people?
It’s tricky because sometimes I feel like the best thing to do is just kind of let the music speak for itself. Overall, I think it’s good to say a little something because it gives some more context. I think we take this platform of being onstage very seriously and we want to push certain causes, but we want to do it in a way that’s encouraging dialogue about certain things. Whether that is sexual harassment at shows or in the music industry, or talking about mental illness and depression. And then there’s stuff where we can’t believe our country is doing it, like the separating of kids and their parents on our Southern border. It’s mostly music, but there’s a few times during a show where we might take 20 seconds just to say something.
Your tourmates Nahko and Medicine for the People are politically minded as well. Did you have a chance to hang out with them?
Yeah, we hung out all of the time. We just went to a juvenile detention center in Florida, and played a few songs. We’d been to Pine Ridge Reservation. There’s definitely some overlap.
I think Brad and I both want to be carrying on the folk tradition of playing protest music, talking about things that are out there in the world today that are troubling, and places where our country could do better and injustices.
Playing a juvenile detention center in Florida, how did that come about?
Nahko’s violinist Tim [Snider] had done it before and knew this lady who goes into the prison system once a week and plays hand drums with the kids. There were twelve of us that went. Kind of like a super band: Nahko’s band and all of Dispatch, so it was crazy. The prison system is so fucked up in this country, and it’s just exasperating the problem. It’s not educating or rehabilitating. These kids will come out and they’ve only gotten angrier.
Were you able to lift some spirits?
We played a couple Dispatch tunes and a couple Nahko tunes that seemed appropriate. A lot of the kids were just like, “Who the fuck are these guys?” But there was that every seventh or eighth kid that was really watching. This is crazy, but I don’t think any of them had seen live music before. So it is wild for them to have this motley crew of musicians cruise into their world for the hour.
It’s a very layered and complex issue.
Playing live, are there any new songs that you feel are really getting a response from the crowd?
We’ve been ending all of the shows with “Letter to Lady J” which is a letter to Lady Justice, which isn’t even released yet. It’s the most political and Nahko mentioned how much he loved it and it has this rallying sense to it.
Nahko and Medicine For The People join us, and Raye Zaragoza, who was on this tour, joins us. So it’s just this super band and we all end it with that tune. So that one’s been really good.
Do you want fans to view it as a double album with your previous LP America: Location 12 ?
It’s kind of a double album, but double albums are a little ridiculous in today’s day and age. So it’s more like a sequel.
Currently, there’s no set album release date. Any big plans in the works for a record release show?
We end in Boston on September 21, and then we we’ll have some time off and right around when the album gets released I think we’re gonna do a few shows in the Midwest. So that’s a plan right now and you know, it’s always fun to get the whole team together when there are these releases. Maybe we’ll do like a big party in the barn or something.
Lastly, tell me about the Participation Row you have set up on the tour.
We have a just a little station within each venue that we create every night and it covers a few different causes. HeadCount is there and Reverb is there, helping to green the tour. We have gun safety initiatives and partnerships with the Brady Campaign. We also have a mental wellness area to kind of honor Pete [Francis] who was in our original three, who hasn’t been touring with us this last couple of years.
We’ve been doing some bystander training. At the venues, our friend Kim gives this training that we’ve all been through. Like, “Here are some tools to use when you do see something fucked up happening.” That’s something that this industry has been pretty slow on, at every show there’s shit going down. And we feel really fired up about it: trying to get this industry music industry to get in front of [assault at shows]. I think that makes the whole thing much more fulfilling for Brad and I. It just makes for a more a rounder experience.
