Dax Riggs’ first demo tape was Dry Pussy. When I read that on his discography, I jumped to conclusions. I pictured a crazed man with knotty, unwashed hair and torn t-shirts, who clutched a microphone like he was squeezing the life out of it and screeched unholy, untranslatable lyrics. I asked someone with pierced eyebrows and a spiked goatee if he knew of Dax Riggs.
“Dax Riggs?!” he cried. “The father of sludge!”
I stared blankly.
“Acid Bath!”
Nothing.
“Deadboy and the Elephantmen!”.
It isn’t just metal fans who adored Riggs. A theater friend from Shreveport loved him. We’re talking about someone who bought each Glee soundtrack.
Riggs excels in whatever music he is doing, though what it is has changed throughout the years. His first major band, Acid Bath, combined metal, punk and psychedelia. His versatile voice could growl or belt, screech or wail. In 2007, after Acid Bath disbanded and two unsuccessful projects, Riggs moved in a rock direction and fronted indie-blues band Deadboy and the Elephantmen. With rock star persona and a goth-tinted imagination, he demands an audience’s attention the moment he opens his mouth.
Say Goodnight to the World is no exception. He uses his vocal talent to convey a variety of moods and mindsets. His voice can be gentle and gloomy (“You Were Born to Be My Gallows”), cool and cocky (“Let Me Be Your Cigarette”), and on a cover of “Heartbreak Hotel,” bleak and lost. I never realized how depressing the lyrics to that song were until I heard Riggs’ belt, “You make me so lonely baby/I get so lonely/I get so lonely I could die.”
“I always had a stack of cover songs that I want to do a different take on. We recorded it for fun, which is basically what we do all the time,” Riggs says, on the phone from his home in Austin, Texas. “It was an afterthought to put it on there; it just happened to be what we were playing.”
Riggs in a phone conversation is a different animal than the vocal beast you see on the stage. He’s quiet, unfailingly polite, and tends to lapse into long silences while he thinks of what to say. Contemplation is something Riggs does a lot. He’s not so much preoccupied with darkness, as one might reasonably concur from his songs’ heavy subject matter, as he is disturbed by the coexistence of good and evil.
“I definitely have issues with the yin and yang of light and dark, maybe more so than most people,” says Riggs. “Maybe it’s the same, I’m not sure. But it’s definitely a feeling that life is not easy.”
Later, he says, “I’m kind of obsessed with Blackwater and BP oil and this satanic corporation that seems to have its tendrils in the heart of the world. That’s where I am – trying to see the good in everyday reality.” Then he begins to mutter about lies and petro-chemical dollars and the basement of the Pentagon.
For Riggs, music is an outlet for his struggles and worries, and Say Goodnight to the World is his most personal album to date. Each song reflects where he was at a certain time, and he came up with the lyrics, the melody and the chords. Then the band met, usually in Riggs’ home, and figured out what direction to take the song. His home studio provided a laid-back, comfortable atmosphere for brainstorming and jamming, which the intimate nature of the album reflects.
Since he hit the road after recording Say Goodnight to the World, the songs have evolved. He previewed the songs during a July residency at One Eyed Jacks, and the songs became, according to Riggs, “more rocked out, more Stooge-y,” a change he attributes to high-energy audiences. Some of the instruments on the tracks, such as the pump organ, are unrealistic to take on the road, so Riggs and his band experiment with different sounds and compensate with talent. Some live clips are available here and here. The former New Orleanian returns to One Eyed Jacks Saturday night for his official CD-release party. Doors open at 9 p.m.
