Surprising as it might be for a couple of rambunctious punk rockers to migrate over to a sound like bluegrass or folk, Sean Wheeler (Throw Rag) and Zander Schloss (Circle Jerks, The Weirdos, Joe Strummer) known as The Legendary Duo are still the same risqué guys making real music. Schloss, born in Missouri, brings the twangy bluegrass and folk feel while Wheeler’s background is more soul and reggae.
Any artist changing up their music, whether it is from rock to pop or even stripping down to acoustic, always has concerns. How will the fans react? Will they understand it? If they don’t get it, then whatever, you keep doing what you’re doing until they catch on. And that seemed like the mentality going into this project. The duo wanted to create something raw and as the Silver Lake-based multi-instrumentalist Schloss states, “…super direct that they [listeners] can sink their teeth into.”
“I wasn’t concerned as much about it as Sean was but I always had to remind him that Throw Rag kind of has a ting of that [bluegrass] going on anyway,” he says. “I was born in Missouri and have been playing bluegrass my whole life. The Circle Jerks thing was actually a fluke for me. I’m a steady jazz player and all this other stuff.”
As we all know, opposites do attract. Wheeler and Schloss balance their musical tastes and punk rock attitudes, which are presented loudly on stage with explicit banter.
“We talk a lot about herpes, crack cocaine, you know, heroine, stuff like that,” kids Schloss. “It’s not necessarily intentional. We are kind of raunchy dudes. Sean is exceptionally raunchy. And it’s great. I’m generally a pretty funny guy. But in a comedy team or whatever there is the serious guy who is tall and skinny, and the other guy who is more stout and jolly. So we are doing the classic comedy thing where we are foils for one another.”
Wheeler’s raspy definitive voice, Schloss’ plucking away at his acoustic guitar, and their punk roots blend to form this diverse sound of southern soul and hardcore aggressiveness they were accustomed to from early days in the biz. They don’t just sit there and have you listen to their music. The guys engage listeners with maybe provocative statements in-between songs but also in their actual music where they get you with their range and vivacious spirit.
“The nature of the fact is we are duo. Many of these folksy guys are like ‘I wrote the song, these are my lyrics and I am going to play the song for you now and explain the song to you,'” says Schloss. “And we don’t do that. We have raunchy banter and we stand up and play. The fact that Sean has incredible punk rock swagger and he is dancing around, and I’ve cut my teeth with The Circle Jerks, The Weirdos, Joe Strummer…more aggressive styles of music, we don’t come off as precious at all. We say that we are building a bridge out of punk rock and I think a lot of people get the wrong impression that we want to get out of punk rock. We are building it out of the materials of punk rock. And hopefully bringing all those punk rockers along with us.”
The Legendary Duo’s record Walk Thee Invisible dropped on Tuesday and they celebrate the release at Bootleg Theater tonight. Tomorrow find them playing Pappy and Harriet’s in Pioneertown and in early February the guys head to Germany for the start of their European tour with Pascal Briggs & The Strokers.
