LAGWAGON

LAGWAGON “I think a lot of people feel powerless,” says Cape, “and in some ways, rightfully so when it comes the suffering in the world. But there are a lot of people on this planet who think prayer absolves them of any responsibility to further help other people who are suffering. Like with war-torn nations that are having bombs dropped on civilians, or with refugees drowning in bodies of water in-between countries they’re fleeing from, a lot of time the common response seems to be ‘We’ll pray for those people’ and I just think that’s awful. Praying doesn’t absolve you of your responsibility to at least try to look at the issue more deeply and consider the things you can actually do in your life to alleviate those conditions. Praying isn’t enough for a family in a boat that’s going to sink.” Cape doesn’t necessarily expect people to extract his specific philosophies from each of these songs, but they’re certainly present for the listener to seek out if they want to. At the same time, just as with Lagwagon’s earliest songs, Railer’s songs are there to be listened to and enjoyed, to take you back to simpler times. It’s no coincidence, then, that Railer ends with a frantic punk rock cover of Journey’s “Faithfully". Back in their earlier days, Lagwagon’s albums often used to include cover songs, but the band hasn’t recorded one for a long time, until now. And, with this record, Lagwagon have come full-circle and rediscovered the purest version of who they’ve always been as a band. Not that that feeling was ever really lost in the first place, of course. “I wouldn’t say ‘lost’,” confirms Cape, “but you evolve. Evolution is a journey within yourself. You go on this journey and it takes you wherever it takes you, there are multiple people along the way that you meet who have different ideas than you and as you grow, you get into different things along the way. I don’t know if you ever completely lose the sense of where you came from, but you definitely evolve away from it over time. But the thing is, it’s always there.”