The Dandy Warhols: 30 years old and still cool, making music with Slash, The Pixies’ Black Francis and mystery guest

Published 4:00 pm Friday, February 16, 2024

With 30 years and 11 albums behind them, The Dandy Warhols have made a lot of good music, enjoyed a number of tours and attracted a legion of fans.

And the upcoming 12th album, “Rockmaker,” has really lit the fire under lead singer/guitarist Courtney Taylor-Taylor, who fronts the Portland band that includes Peter Holmstrom (guitar, keyboards), Zia McCabe (keyboard, bass, percussion) and Brent DeBoer (drums, backing vocals).

There are collaborations with guitarist/vocalist Frank Black (aka Black Francis and Charles Thompson IV) of The Pixies, guitarist Slash with Guns N’ Roses (watch it on YouTube), and an iconic female lead singer from a 1970s-’80s pop band who The Dandy Warhols and publicists have held off announcing for publicity purposes till a later date. “It’s a doozy,” band publicity says.

Mind you, The Dandy Warhols have collaborated with many artists in the past. But “Rockmaker” is a highlight of the band’s 30-year career, with Taylor-Taylor calling it “the manifestation of our desire to hear a record of heavy raw punk and metal guitar riffs, but has its own alley.”

Taylor-Taylor hopes fans love the album as much as he does.

“I’ve smoked pot and listened to it every day,” the Portland native said recently. “It’s so amazing. It’s so far out from what we thought our wheelhouse was.

“We were able to handle it in a way … some (reporter) kid told me in a recent interview that it sounded ‘effortless.’ And that’s because we were all rocker kids — certainly me and Pete were rocker kids, and Brent was of the Pantera and Iron Maiden generation.”

Album singles

“Rockmaker” comes out March 15 via Sunset Blvd. Records. A 12-stop concert tour starts March 4 in Washington, D.C., and ends March 19 in Los Angeles (and misses Portland).

The band’s “Summer of Hate” song reflected on society’s glorious year of 2020, and now the singles keep coming with the album pending. “Danzig With Myself” features Black Francis, and “I’d Like To Help You With Your Problem” includes the brilliance of Slash. (The album’s publicity coyly doesn’t mention the soon-to-be-announced collaboration with the iconic female lead singer.)

The band and Black Francis have worked together before. Black Francis owed Taylor-Taylor a favor, and reciprocated by lending his talents to the song.

“I said, ‘Hey, want to check out this song?’” Taylor-Taylor said. “We ended up sending him the wrong song. So, Charles played on two songs. I said, ‘That’s cool, you can play on the other one, too.’”

As far as Slash, Taylor-Taylor has known band members and others around Guns N’ Roses for many years. The Dandy Warhols sent him the track “I’d Like To Help You With Your Problem,” and the famous guitarist sent back his licks — blowing away Taylor-Taylor.

“He came back in 40 minutes. It was done within a week or two,” Taylor-Taylor said. “That song is mostly (Black) Sabbath, Vietnam-era, LSD rock. Very straight-forward.”

The creative process? “He said, ‘What do you want?’ I said, ‘Cry Baby the Wah-Wah pedal,’” Taylor-Taylor said. “You can tell he knows exactly what we are. It’s so good. He doesn’t start shredding until the middle of the song. He’s just an absolute visionary, he knows what he’s doing. It goes so perfectly well.”

The singer added high praise of Slash, calling him the greatest living guitar player.

The song was released Feb. 15; the video reflects the shipwreck of the New Carissa in Coos Bay on its 25th anniversary. And now the band (and fans) look forward to the next single’s release involving the iconic female lead singer. “It’s going to be (mind-blowing) for our fans,” Taylor-Taylor said.

Celebrating 30 years

The collaborations are part of keeping a band successful, Taylor-Taylor added.

“You ask for people who can do things you can’t do,” he said.

Taylor-Taylor did a lot of writing and composing during the COVID-19 pandemic — “nothing else to do.” He released several 30-to-50-second songs during the downtime, recording them and making a video to be posted every Friday. You can watch them on YouTube; it takes about 25 minutes to watch, as there are about 50 of the short songs.

The band celebrated its 30th year on Jan. 27. The first show was held in 1994 at the old X-Ray Cafe in Portland. The four Portland-area members — Taylor-Taylor (Sunset High), Holmstrom (Oregon Episcopal School), DeBoer (Lake Oswego HS), McCabe (Battle Ground HS, Washington) — have grown since then, and enjoyed a lot of success.

Publicity says that The Dandy Warhols combine “the best bits of shoegaze, alternative powerpop and heavy rock with a wicked satirical pen.” The album “Rockmaker” is a follow-up to 2020’s experimental concept album “Tafelmuzik Means More When You’re Alone” and 2023’s digital EP “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.”

Now the quartet prepares for another album release and two-week tour.

Why only two weeks?

“It has to stay fun. That’s what we learned after we weren’t young anymore,” Taylor-Taylor said. “When we were kids doing it we could do it for months.

“Now we can do it for two weeks until we fall apart. It gets gross. You can’t wash the stink off or sleep the tired off, and you stop being cool to each other.”