Interview: Dustin Douglas & the Electric Gentlemen Release 'Break it Down'

Stop me if you've heard this before. Or better yet, don't.

Blues, rock, a big beat, bass, heavy guitars and an earth-shaking sound that throws your ass back to the Seventies. Call it what you want, retro, vintage or anything like that. How long has it been since a blues-based rock band has made it, by having the experience, the professionalism and the skill to back all of it up?

Sometime back, a friend and publicist named Ginny Buckley was telling me about a band that had enough to make her want to tell me about it: Dustin Douglas & the Electric Gentlemen have just released their third recording, Break it Down. A series of all original tracks, Douglas, bassist Matthew Gabriel and drummer Tommy Smallcomb have helped bring loud, big bollocks music back, with all the swagger you could ask for.

I caught up with the band before their record release event in Wilkes-Barre, the day after Break it Down dropped at the top of June. Excited was the feeling. "It's wild that it's here," Douglas says, "it was a year-ish in the making; so the fact it's finally is here is very bittersweet. The feedback has already been great, and we're excited to see where it goes."

Guitar, bass and drums are pretty much it, and the sound fills every space. "It's kind of a picture of where we are right now," Douglas explains further. "Musically, I think it shows all of our strong points. We wrote it together, and we all have our stamp on it."

"We were writing content and material over the past year," Gabriel says, "and we (had) like forty songs, almost fifty actual unique ideas. Some of them were finished, some were less finished, and we talked about like where we wanted to go, I mean that was the most anxious thing, out of all this content trying to identify what we wanted to put out there, and what we wanted to sell as the Electric Gentlemen. There were some songs we worked on for a while, and you know, at the end of the day, that's not us. Maybe it's too poppy, maybe it's not bluesy enough, whatever the litmus test was for it, but it was just all part of the process. It's not about the destination; it's about the journey."

In answer to the question of the Seventies vibe surrounding many of Break it Down's tracks, Douglas says, "It's not something we architect, but that's a hundred percent who I am. That's what I've always wanted to sound like, and that is what we sound like. Fortunately, it sounds like the music that I love; I wanted this record to be what I would listen to. I want to make records that sounds like my favorite band; I want to be my favorite band. I've tried in the past, and it hasn't necessarily hit the mark, but every record is kind of a learning process."

Gabriel and Smallcomb echoed their frontman's view. "I've always been of the opinion," Gabriel adds, "if you put the hard work in, the labor in, the effort, and really critique yourself, and you're objective, and Dustin has said this, as long as you're true to yourself, then at the end of the day you should have a great product. Starting out with not having that preconception of what you're trying to accomplish, it's just the three of us, just putting in our creative juices, blood, sweat, and tears, and you get out of it what you put into it."

All three claim a hand in the writing process, and in most cases, it's the simplest thing. "A lot of times it starts with a riff that I wrote," Douglas explains, "or it was a riff that Matt wrote, like 'Tragedy' was Matt's baby for a while, right?"

"I wrote that back when I was in a prog-rock band like twelve years ago," Gabriel replies. "Usually Dustin brings a riff, and we just expand upon it. Tommy creates, or sometimes Tommy just comes up with a drum beat..."

"...like a little bit," Smallcomb continues, "we just come up with this beat, and everyone's like 'hey, we can do something with this,' and I'm like okay, and if it sticks, it sticks."

The influences are simple, concerning Douglas' path. "Growing up it was basically Seventies rock and roll," he says. "I'm a product of what I listened to, which was bands who were influenced by the blues. That's where the blues-rock thing comes from; it was Led Zeppelin, it was Bad Company, it was all blues-based rock and roll bands. It's been in my blood forever."

"I started with the prog music in the Seventies," Smallcomb adds. "Yes, Kansas, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, but then I ventured into the blues and funk. You realize there's so much out there, but that was my starting point."

Gabriel says, "I was a product of my parents who brought me up on the Sixties, Seventies classic rock scene. My father was a huge ELP fan, and I was probably the only kid in my middle or high school who even know who ELP was, but I have always bounced around scenes from the jam band scene. I'm really jazz, funk, fusion, but my inspiration for me has always been the people I play with. Everyone talks about who was the bass player you model yourself off--honestly, I've always learned the most from the people I play with. If it feels good, and I like it, I latch onto it.

'This project," Gabriel goes on, "is probably the perfect example of that. I never would have thought I would have been in a blues band or found so much enjoyment in that. But it's because I play with Dustin and Tommy, and we create this thing that allows me to express myself in ways I never thought I could."

Douglas' time in music includes an earlier trio, Lemongelli, and he did a stint in the Badlees. Smallcomb also played with Douglas on his Black Skies and Starlight album (2014). Gabriel happened to fill in on bass for one show and stayed.

As for whether there is an appetite for rock of any kind, Douglas says, "I don't think it ever went away. It may go from being more mainstream to less mainstream, but I think it's always there. There's always going to be blues-rock and guitar-oriented blues music. That's kind of the core of a lot of things; you've got bands like Rival Sons out there, Gary Clark, Jr.; I think it's pretty hot right now. But I mean for me, we've never been a band to try to be what's hot. We want to be us...which we think is hot," he adds to laughter.

"To Dustin's point," Gabriel says, "taking a core discipline like blues and pushing it to the limit and crossing over with other genres and showing people what else it can possibly be, I think that's how things become cyclical and come back around, and it's still blues; it's still blues rock, and it's something new and fresh."

The Northeast Pennsylvania scene has also had its own musical character. Long a jam-band scene, Douglas believes their audience at least is growing. As for the blues, and the worry that fans are becoming older, that is not completely so.

Covering blues festivals and events the past few years, I have seen the audience change. For certain, fans who were around for rock's rise still appreciate the music and those who play it.

The Break it Down CD release party in Wilkes-Barre's F.M. Kirby Center was not in a big theater but packed. The greying numbers were almost equally matched by the those from their early twenties onward. Their attention to Douglas' band (and a rocking set from Teddy Young and the Aces to start) was total, and that appreciation for the blues, loud, hard, and willful was complete.
"What's cool," Douglas notes, "is the people that were around, those are the same people that saw Zeppelin, and saw Hendrix, and that's what's cool. That's who I want to reach, but I want to bring this music to a new generation. If we can wave that flag, that's awesome, and we're happy to do that. There's a lot of times where I feel like we're a band where Dad brings his son, 'cause they both play guitar, and that's kinda cool."

Currently, Dustin Douglas & the Electric Gentlemen are playing regular haunts such as the Turkey Hill Brewing Company in Bloomsburg, but also for shows in New York State and New Jersey.
Another key element, they're getting is some radio play. In this age of consultants and sanitized playlists, any commercial spins are a help. For those seeking the experience, Douglas makes it plain: "it's high volume, high-intensity blues rock. It's as simple as that. It's a lot of sound for three guys, and that's our M.O.-we want to make as much noise as possible."

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(All photos by the author)