Big Dictator
By Chris Jay 09/24/2009
Decade of dictatorship
In the local scene, bands come and go. Rare is the original act that can hit the five-year milestone, let alone a decade. It takes talent, focus, friendship and a certain amount of success. The few that have achieved the 10-year mark are well-known among local music fans, but occasionally a band slips through the cracks. One such act that deserves heaps of praise for its longevity is Ventura’s Big Dictator.
Back in the day
Formed in 1998 by guitarist, vocalist and songwriter Kelly Turner, Big Dictator has released three full-lengths and two EPs’ worth of guitar-heavy, working man’s rock with a new release on the way later this year. Its first incarnation got quite the buzz in the late ’90s, and the early part of this decade found the band packing local clubs, playing the Warped Tour and opening for bigger acts in multiple genres, like Sugarcult and Metal Skool. But despite these successes, Big Dictator, in many ways, fell victim to the waning local scene when it took a nose dive in the mid-2000s. With barely any bars booking live bands, the group seemingly disappeared. “I think there are two reasons why people may have had that perception,” explains Turner, after a long first day at a new job. “When the local scene dried up, we started playing out of town a lot. We were like the house band at Velvet Jones in Santa Barbara. We headed down to L.A. and San Diego a whole lot. The other half of it was, locally, we started literally doing our own shows. Our practice spot is downtown above the Star Lounge. We’d get a keg, friends would stop by. We always had so much fun practicing that those practices sort of became our local shows for a while.”
Return of the phallic tyrants
With the resurgence of the local music scene, especially with the sheer number of bars booking live music again, suddenly Big Dictator, with a current lineup that, along with Turner, consists of Rey Stoyanoff on drums, Ron Lovio on bass, Brian Everhard on guitars and vocals and John Young on vocals, is back to playing out regularly on the live circuit and finally getting some long overdue respect. “The scene changes,” says Turner. In the ’90s it was really cool to play these tiny, cramped places. People packed in, more like a party. Then the big club bars came into fashion where you’d get 400 to 500 coming to see live music. Then the bottom fell out, and with downloading and the Internet . . . and now there is no rock music on top-40 radio anymore. Bands just aren’t getting the exposure they used to. Any form of rock or live music has been pushed back into the small rooms. In some ways that’s healthy. Let it start fresh again. A lot of the older folks like it that way and are coming out again, and you’re seeing more young people come out to the smaller venues like Sans Souci and the Good Bar. The type of music we play, and the show, has always worked well in those type of environments.”
Older and wiser
As for the secret to the fountain of youth for bands, Turner is passionate and poignant about how and why to keep rocking on. “I am always amazed at bands that can’t work it out and break up. Hell, even if it’s only playing once or twice a year, Raging Arb style. Why not? A lot of my favorite bands are gone and I’d love to see them get back together. I don’t care that they’re old. Everyone gets old. Once I hit my early 30s, I realized that no matter what break we did or didn’t get, this is what I always wanted to do, and I still like doing it. I love music. That’s all there is to it.”
For more information on Big Dictator and to listen to tunes, visit www.myspace.com/bigdictator.
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