I don’t hear ‘my kind of music’ very much anymore and I want to make it live again somehow even if it’s through our admittedly limited means. I miss bands like Fugazi and Jesus Lizard. I like really hard rock and who makes it anymore? I can’t get into nu-metal really. There are tons of bands who want to authentically replicate the sounds of hard rock from the 70’s and 60’s. Who is out there trying to create hard rock that’s original and not just a nod to a foregone sound? Queens of the Stone Age maybe?… WHO ROCKS ANYMORE?
—Dragoon bassist Tripp Lamkins
It’s tempting to start any review of Dragoon by saying something like, “Grifters fans who aren’t paying attention to this band are missing out on a loud, crashing, chaotic echo from the past.” That would be an accurate enough introduction to the band’s sound but it wouldn’t really be fair. Former Grifters Tripp Lamkins and Stan Gallimore, who also make up Dragoon’s expressive and always experimental rhythm section, have been playing together since they were in the 9th-grade. To no small degree The Grifters’ sound was an extension of BOB, Lamkins and Gallimore’s high school band. These guys have been working on a bass-driven fusion of prog, metal, punk and pop for decades.
