There have been tons of Ramones imitators and rip-offs coming through the scene since well, forever(the worthless Riverdales come to mind) What sets these dudes apart is their distinct 50's feel, which translates just as well in their live show as it does their recordings. They definitely wear the Ramones influence on their sleeves, complete with matching Chuck Taylors and Dickies jackets, but The Digglers are not just another Ramones copy band as some have dismissed them. With smooth back-up harmonies and a Sun Records-esque rhythm to their songs, they deserve a little more credit.

To celebrate the release of their second EP Rock and Roll: Part Deux! they spent the holidays on the road, over nearly 14 days, doing what they do best: partying and showing kids a good time, and playing some kick ass rock shows. They pulled through town to play with friends and local drunk-rock legends Drunken Tourists, and I got time for a few questions the morning after at a local choke & puke with guitarist Anthony (Ant). Intense and opinionated and a very cool guy, it made for a very fun interview. (***THE MOMENT THAT CEMENTED MY LOVE FOR THIS BAND: He walked in wearing the same beer-soaked jeans and Cheap Trick t-shirt from the show the night before, ordered an OJ and dumped the contents of a flask into it. "Looks like someone else is driving the first leg" he said with a smile and ordered a giant stack of pancakes. And awaaaaaaaay we go.)

Q: WE'LL START WITH THE MOST OVER-USED QUESTION IN ANY INTERVIEW: WHO ARE YOUR BIGGEST INFLUENCES?
A: We're not some band combining eight different styles to find the next big sound or anything. The reviewers who've said our stuff sounds like The Ramones meets the oldies, or some variation of that, hit it right on. If you want to get more specific, pretty much all of the 70's era punk rock, Ramones, Gen X, Clash, Cock Sparrer, also some power pop stuff like Weston and Dawson High, and just plain rock and roll. We listen to a lot of the Hellacopters and MC5 and Radio Birdman and stuff like that. And the oldies too, I don't think there's a day that goes by on the road we don't listen to Dion or Jerry Lee Lewis or something like that.

Q: YOU HAVE A GREAT GUITAR SOUND ON YOUR RECORDS, WHAT GEAR ARE YOU PLAYING RIGHT NOW?
A: Live I alternate guitars, either a '86 Fender Telecaster or '69 Fender Mustang Reissue through a Marshall half-stack tube amp with a Harmonix Big Muff pedal. Everything on the last two EP's has been through the Telecaster though. I get that compliment a lot about having a nice guitar sound, when both of my guitars and the amp I picked up at pawn shops for next to nothing, and I'm really a mediocre player. It's power chords all the way, we have one song that has a guitar solo in it and we usually don't play that one live because I'll fuck up the solo. It took me at least six tries to nail it on the record.

Q: WHAT'S MORE IMPORTANT TO YOU WHEN YOU'RE ON TOUR: HAVING THE CROWD REALLY LIKE YOUR BAND, OR HAVING THEM SPEND A TON OF MONEY ON YOUR MERCH?
A: Both I guess. We're not working musicians, we all have jobs or go to college, and we tour during school breaks and in the summer and stuff like that, which is why we only ever tour for like 10 days or 2 weeks at a time. If we make enough money to chip in for gas, food, some booze, a hotel room once in awhile so we don't have to sleep in the van every night, and take a little bit home to help pay rent and bills, we're happy. For a band like ours who's still very much DIY, with a little help from some little labels and distros, it's just fucking awesome to be 1000 miles away from home and have a bunch of people you've never met before wanna hang out with you because they liked your band. The first time we played a return show in a venue a few states away and there were a bunch of kids who came back to see us, and were singing our songs back to us, that was awesome, we didn't care if we sold any merch that night. We usually do pretty well with merch on the road though, so it all seems to work out. We trade a lot with other bands to get new music and stuff too.

Q: HOW MANY TIMES HAVE YOU ACTUALLY SEEN BOOGIE NIGHTS?
A: Only like two or three times. We didn't pick the name because we were obsessed with the movie or anything. We wanted a name that started with "The" and had a 50's feel to it but everything we thought of was either taken, or just sounded stupid. One night we were watching Boogie Nights after band practice, and Alan sat up and yelled "The Digglers! That's it! That's our name!" It just sort of stuck because we couldn't think of anything better. But yeah, none of us like have the movie memorized or anything, and sometimes kids at shows will come up to us and quote lines from it, and we're just like, "What?" They'll look at us like we're retarded and just be like, "Dude, it's from Boogie Nights! How can you not know that?"

Q: WHAT'S THE BEST PART OF THE INDIE MUSIC SCENE?
A: Being 19 and able to drink pretty much wherever we go just because I'm in a band is fucking cool. Uh oh, Johnny Law will probably come and arrest me now. So uh yea, being able to meet and play shows with the bands you listen to is awesome. Between the last two tours we've played with The Gotohells, Turbo AC's, Fay Wray, Ashtray Babyhead, and some others that we listen to in our van on a regular basis. That's pretty fucking cool. The Gotohells let us drink with them in their van after a show in Lancaster. We also played in Syracuse last year the same night as the Queers, at another venue about five miles away. Nobody came to our show, why the hell would they when the Queers are in town the same night? So afterward we went to that show, we missed their set but we gave one of our CD's to Joe Queer. He listened to it in his disc-man and told us it was pretty good, then invited us to have our asses kicked by him in three straight games of pool. How many kids who listen to Lit or any of those other gay-assed bands on the radio can say they got to hang out with their heroes?

Q: AND THE WORST PART(OF THE INDIE MUSIC SCENE)?
A: Probably when whatever the current trend is dictates how bookers do their shows. Like right now everyone's all caught up in this new breed of emo crap, and a band like ours gets stuck in the opening slot on a show full of those bands sometimes. On the last tour we opened for The Promise Ring and Joan of Arc. Those are good bands and are two big names, but where in the hell does a punk rock band fit on that bill? We don't, and that's why that crowd fucking hated us. And I mean HATED us, and I didn't think emo kids were supposed to hate, just get all sad and cry. A few of them even lectured us about drinking during our set, we just didn't fit in there at all. It doesn't happen too often but when it does it makes for a shitty night. And sometimes when that's happened to us in the past, we've had to bust the booker's balls to pay us what he said he would.

Q: SPEAKING OF WHICH, HOW ARE YOU GUYS HOLDING UP PLAYING YOUR STYLE IN THE WAKE OF ALL THINGS EMO?
A: (Laughing) Not too bad I guess. Thankfully there are plenty of bookers out there who still book bands like ours, and people still dig the style. It's funny though, emo's another style that's been around for years, like Cap'n Jazz and Christie Front Drive and Mineral were playing that stuff like 10 years ago, and even smaller bands like the Jazz June and Mid Carson July, I was going to their shows when I was like 14. It's just the next underground thing to go mainstream and radio friendly, and now every douchebag who's ever been dumped picked up a guitar and started whining about it. I'm all for singing songs about girls, obviously, but man do it with some dignity. In a few years when the craze dies out and girls stop digging the whole "he's so sensitive, he's like one of the girls" routine, those guys are gonna be really embarassed, looking at pictures of themselves all emo, styling their hair and shit. Probably how people feel now when they look at pictures of themselves in the 80's with their Flock-of-Seagulls hair.

Q: WHAT 10 CD'S CAN YOU NOT LIVE WITHOUT ON THE ROAD?
A: ***AFTER A HALF AN HOUR OF THOUGHT*** Weston: Matinee, Too Much Joy: Finally, Clash: Sandinista, the Breakfast Club soundtrack, Tom Waits: Used Songs, Johnny Cash: Live at Folsom Prison, any Springsteen, Ramones Mania, Martha and the Vandellas Greatest Hits, and something cheesy from the 80's like Poison or Loverboy, or Monster Ballads.

Q: DID YOU KNOW I DID AN INTERVIEW WITH BRAD OF N.G.U. A FEW ISSUES AGO WHEN THEY TOURED THROUGH HERE, AND ONE OF THE PICTURES IN THE PIECE HE'S WEARING A DIGGLERS SHIRT? IT'S REALLY HOW I FIRST HEARD OF YOU GUYS.
Yeah man, that's fucking awesome. He's a good friend, we don't get to play with them enough. We played with them at a punk rock prom in Maryland awhile back and got to know them pretty well. We sang Stiff Little Fingers' "Barbed Wire Love" with them when they closed their set with it. We swapped some CD's and shirts with them, and there's actually a picture of Alan in Profane Existence Zine from when they wrote about that show, and he's wearing an N.G.U. shirt. He's always been a good buddy, we've been trying to set up a short tour with them for awhile and it just hasnt' worked out. We'd have a great time with them on the road.

Q: WHAT BAND WOULD WIN YOUR ALBUM OF THE YEAR AWARD THIS PAST YEAR?
A: Fonzie, for "Drive My Vespa to the Movies." Honorable mentions for Weston's "Return To Mono" and No On 15's "Even a Trained Monkey Can Do It" but the Fonzie album is incredible, and it's what pop-punk SHOULD fucking sound like. We played with them in State College awhile ago, and they put on one hell of a show too. They're the best thing to come out of Portugal since (pauses) um, what's good that's come out of Portugal?

Q: WHAT'S YOUR OPINION ON THE CURRENT STATE OF MAINSTREAM MUSIC, AND BANDS LIKE NEW FOUND GLORY, MIDTOWN AND AUTOPILOT OFF GRADUATING FROM THE THE INDIES TO THE MAJOR LABELS?
A: NFG and Midtown specifically, those bands fucking suck, like everything about them sucks. Their hair, their music, their rockstar attitudes, their tattoos that they only got once they got signed to the majors and wanted to look badass but they still look like a bunch of pussies. That dude from NFG can't sing a fucking note, he just whines through his nose. Those bands have been around a long time, they've paid their dues and I'm not saying they don't deserve some payoff but they're just not good enough to be on a major label. Mainstream stuff is still mostly complete shit. The best music is still found on college radio and in little record stores. Bands like The Gamits and The Fairlanes put out better pop-punk records than Blink-182 or NFG ever could, but you don't see them all over MTV performing their lame-assed awards shows. But that's probably a good thing anyway. If you do turn on the radio and hear a half-decent band, chances are they were better before, when they were still playing basements and paying for their own shit. And that's why those bands don't last long on the major labels. Far put out a bunch of singles and stuff for Revelation Records that was all way better than the stuff they did after they signed with Epic. Same with At the Drive-In, they signed with Grand Royale and put out "Relationship of Command" which was good, but nowhere near as good as anything they put out on Fearless. Major labels and money always seem to turn good bands into mediocre bands, then into shit bands who break up because they can't remember what it was like when they were good in the first place. Every band is different, I guess it just depends on what your goals are.

Q: THAT WILL BE A GOOD PLACE TO END, WHAT ARE YOUR GOALS AS A BAND? WHAT KEEPS FUELING THE DIGGLERS?
A: Just to keep driving around and playing our songs for new people, making new friends and hanging out with other kick-ass bands. We printed a mission statement in the liner notes of our first EP that went something like "Consume alcohol, listen to rock and roll, sing songs about girls." There aren't any goals better than that. We've been getting some really great reviews of the records and our shows in zines like this one and we're happy with what we're doing. Someone wrote that they thought we were better than the Huntingtons, that blew us away. I'd said at one point I really want to get reviewed in Maximum Rock and Roll, but I think that's the dream of any punk band. I don't know man, at this point I'm gonna say we just want to keep doing what we're doing as long as we can. Check our website for tour dates and come see us when we're out your way!

Photos: (1)Press kit photo, Anthony outisde of the Digglers practice loft in Williamsport, PA. Photo by: Alan Diggler (2)Drunk and passed out on stage opening for the Lillingtons in Richmond, VA. Photo by: Jay McCardle (3)Anthony & Shortbus on stage @ Digglers 2nd show in Milton, PA. Photo by: Justin Hershey

Check out their latest release:
"Rock and Roll: Part Deux!"

[Issue Nineteen]