Lil Daggers Prepare to Release Debut Album

Miami garage rock band Lil Daggers are currently out on a tour that wraps up later this week promoting their upcoming self-titled debut album.

The album will be out April 12 on Livid Records.

Over the last couple of years the band has done quite a bit of touring including a 2009 slot at SXSW and have released a number of EP's and 10" records.

The band's music draws from the members love of a variety of genres including early rock and roll, doo wop, psychedelic rock and punk.

Influences from Velvet Underground to the Doors to Black Flag can be heard throughout their songs.

Lil Daggers made a stop in Detroit at PJ Lager's House last Tuesday and on Friday I got a chance to talk to vocalist Johnny Suraiva as the band was headed to New York.

After asking about that Detroit show Suraiva said, "It went real well. I mean the weather was really bad but there was still a good turnout. There was a good amount of people there and that surprised us because with the weather we figured nobody would show up. I mean if we weren't playing we probably wouldn't have come out! [laughs] It was cool to see those people there. It was a fun show. That's like the second time we've played there."

Suraiva shared that the band would not be touring for awhile as they take the Summer off to pursue various things including school committments, "We did a lot of touring last year. We are thinking about doing something later in the year but this Summer we just can't make it work because of conflicting schedules."

The Lil Daggers album will be all original material with none of the songs off of their previous EPs included on it.

Suraiva says that when they decided to record the album they were not looking to move in any certain direction and that many of the tracks were ones that they had put together over the years, "We didn't really sit there and write it out. We had enough songs already to put it together. So it's kind of like separate tracks that stand on their own. We didn't really have any intention about what the album would be like as a whole."

Suraiva went on to share how he would describe the band's music, "I guess kind of like a mellow garage rock. Just noise I guess. Noisy mello garage rock!"

The first single off of Lil Daggers is "Slave Exchange": a psychedelic track that plays heavily on the use of a creeping organ.

Suraiva says it his favorite track off the album and that they will be releasing a limited run 7" single of the track with a unreleased B-side track "Sweetwater" through Discosoma Records, which is based in Miami and weill be donating the proceeds to restoring the area's coral reef.

For this tour, the band is only playing one old song that is not off their debut album and Suraiva says that he's been enjoying playing new song "Past Due", "We like doing it live. It's like a repetitive song but in a good way. We've been having a lot of fun with it."

When asked how the Lil Daggers' members met, Suraiva said, "Me and Jacob had a band before and two of the other guys, Gary and Reuben, were also in another band together. We played a show together before both bands disbanded. After a few years we just came together. We'd all been friends for a long time before the band got together. Our drummer we met through another friend. We all kind of grew up together going to shows out in Miami."

Suraiva says that the band is not looking too far down the road, " I don't think we have too many plans which doesn't seem like a good thing but it is. We kind of just play it by ear and see what happens. We're just having fun right now. We don't expect anything as long as it's fun. We're just gonna keep doing it. That's as far as our planning goes."