INTERVIEW: Opie Ortiz still loves the art of tattooing and the energy of Dub Allstars
Photo: The Long Beach Dub Allstars, featuring Opie Ortiz on vocals, will bring their reggae rock to New York and New Jersey. Photo courtesy of Josh Coffman / joshphoto.net / Provided by Press Junkie PR with permission.
The Long Beach Dub Allstars are a collective of musicians who have helped cement the reggae rock sound over the past two decades. The revitalized group, which reformed in 2012, continue to tour and bring new music to fans around the United States.
They have a few gigs lined up in the New York-New Jersey area, including July 26 at Asbury Lanes in Asbury Park, New Jersey; July 27 at the Brooklyn Bowl in Brooklyn, New York; and July 29 at Bird & Betty’s in Beach Haven, New Jersey. The Aggrolites and Mike Pinto will provide support.
The band’s history is inextricably tied to Sublime, another highly influential reggae rock band from Southern California. Sublime’s original lineup of Eric Wilson, Bud Gaugh and Bradley Nowell forever changed the music landscape in the 1990s, but tragically Nowell died after a heroin overdose in 1996.
The Long Beach Dub Allstars, or LBDA, formed in 1997 as a 10-person group, including Wilson and Gaugh, and they continued the interesting combination of reggae, punk and rock ‘n’ roll. Lineups changed over the years, with Wilson and Gaugh moving on to other projects, and the band even took a decade off from touring and recording. But in 2012, a new version of LBDA came together, and it has been musical energy and passion ever since.
The man at the microphone, singing lead vocals for LBDA, is none other than Opie Ortiz, an American artist specializing in tattoos, pop art and murals. He also has a personal connection to Sublime because the artwork for their albums is from his hand.
He’s responsible for the “Sublime” tattoo on Nowell’s back, which was featured on the cover of Sublime’s self-titled album. His iconic woeful sun, almost dripping with detailed contemplation, graced Sublime’s 40 Oz. to Freedom album.
Ortiz, ever the Renaissance man, has also played in the bands Warchurch and Dubcat, but today he devotes his time to tattooing and LBDA, bringing those Long Beach vibes to fans across the nation.
“We’re having a good time,” Ortiz said in a recent phone interview. “It’s a real lively show. Pretty much all the bands — Mike Pinto, Aggrolites and Dub Allstars — we’re all playing newer material because we all have new albums that we’ve been working on. Our album isn’t out yet. It’ll be out in the fall, but we’re still playing some of the new songs on the road.”
That album, like other LBDA recordings, has come together organically, with the guys delivering batches of songs that seem to flow and gel together. Ortiz said that fans should expect a similar formula to previous albums, but the lyrics have evolved, much like the band members themselves.
“The songs are a little less party vibe,” Ortiz said. “We all have kids and stuff, so there’s a lot of [songs] talking about youth and stuff like that and certain social situations that are going on today. … It’s a trip because I notice that a lot of the fans they’ll say they couldn’t come to the shows back then because they were too young, but if they were all-ages shows, their parents would bring them. So I find it interesting that the parents are still listening and coming to the shows, and the kids are still coming because their parents were such diehard fans. That’s pretty cool. Two or three generations of parents and kids coming to our show is pretty cool.”
Ortiz said the live LBDA experience is second to none. He appreciates the time in the studio, but gigging around the United States is where the band finds its true sound, taking the album cuts and prolonging them, morphing them and inverting them for the swaying crowd.
“They evolve into different things,” he said. “What we are about is a live performance, the wildness, the songs that we play that maybe haven’t ever been recorded by us. … You’re going to get a lot of the older songs. You’re going to get a lot of the newer songs from each album. You’re going to get some of the Sublime songs, our versions. It’s a large variation, a step away from the album because the album is so cut and dry. Live performance is a little bit more exciting I feel.”
In today’s LBDA, there are a few leaders. Marshall Goodman, or Ras MG, is the drummer for the band and sort of its director and producer, Ortiz said. Michael “Miguel” Happoldt, lead guitarist and vocalist, has his hands on a lot of the tracks LBDA has recorded. They’re also working now with Roger Rivas, of the Aggrolites and Brothers of Reggae.
“[Rivas] has a huge influence on us, too, because he’s so well-versed in reggae and stuff like that,” Ortiz said. “So some of the tracks on this new album he wrote, and then we used his platform to write some cool lyrics, too.”
When Ortiz is not devoting himself to the Dub Allstars, he’s often tattooing for his many clients in Long Beach, California. He admitted that it is difficult to participate in both art forms at once.
“I don’t split myself up to spread myself too thin, so when I’m doing music, I kind of devote my whole time to the music,” he said. “And when I’m doing tattoos, I kind of separate myself from the music. It’s just easier. I have a ton of people asking me if I’m tattooing on the road right now, but it’s just better that I’m not because we’re running around so much I don’t really have time. … It’s just art. A lot of the fans they’re into tattoos. It just coincides with rock ‘n’ roll and punk rock and reggae music and all that. I think all art intersects each other, so, yeah, it’s a huge thing. Now they have tattoo conventions where they’re having reggae bands play, punk rock bands play. It’s a huge event, so it’s definitely morphed into a scene.”
Ortiz has many tattoos on his body, but he still actively gets tattooed himself. For example, recently Ortiz lost a mentor of his, Rick Walters of Bert Grimm’s World Famous Tattoo, and so the LBDA vocalist felt compelled to memorialize this grandfather of American tattooing.
After that most recent tattoo, Ortiz still has space on the back of his thighs, feet and head.
“Everybody has their own reason for doing it,” he said about the art form. “I’m an artist, so I like embellishing myself like a temple, you know what I mean. Some of them are quirky and dumb, but some of those mean the most to me, you know. Like I have tattoos that my kids did on me, and I hold those very special to me. Of course, I’ve had famous tattooers tattoo me — Regino Gonzales from Invisible, Tim Hendricks from Saltwater. … Some of the ones that mean the most are the little ones.”
A connective tissue between the Long Beach Dub Allstars and Ortiz’s mastery of tattoo art is the city of Long Beach, California. It is his home, his muse, his past and his future.
“We grew up in the town,” Ortiz said. “We’ve all done a lot for Long Beach, but I mean it is a melting pot. It’s a cultural melting pot. There’s all kinds of religions and every kind of culture in that town, so you can really get well-versed with the cultures and people in that town. I love it. Just like every other town, it needs help. They’ve got to make some right moves. It is moving along with all the other cities where they’re getting smart with the bike lanes and trying to do stuff to help the congestion and clean up the beaches. I’m proud of Long Beach.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Long Beach Dub Allstars, featuring Opie Ortiz on vocals, will play in New York and New Jersey July 26-29. Click here for more information and tickets.
