Watch: At Home with Jerry Lehane of The Dogmatics
At Home With Jerry Lehane: The longtime leader of Boston garage rock heroes, The Dogmatics, releases his 5-song solo EP (his first) July 10 on Rum Bar Records. We talked from our bunkers, dropped more than a few names
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Jerry Lehane has been sitting on new music. The longtime leader of Boston garage rock heroes, The Dogmatics, releases his 5-song solo EP, his first, July 10 on Rum Bar Records. Recorded over three nights in 1991 while Jerry was in between bands, the songs feature hand picked guest players to include the late-great Charlie Chesterman.
The sessions could only happen late night at the famed Synchro Sound on Newbury Street–a spot with some serious local cachet as it was owned by The Cars. Sound engineer Tom Hamilton (the Tom Hamilton not in Aerosmith) had done some work at Synchro and was able to offer Jerry a good deal on after hours sessions. He and his crew could record on the cheap, starting at midnight. This was too good to be true and Jerry got to work.
“I had these songs and handpicked musicians I was friends with around Boston,” Jerry says. “They all came in and did it for nothing. I knew they were good songs, but the songs never got out. I didn’t shop them around.”
Among this late night cast was Charlie Chesterman (Scruffy the Cat, Harmony Rockets, the Motorbikes), bassist Chris Doucette (The Galley Slaves, Witch Doctor and Lehane’s future bandmate in Hotbox), guitarists Danny Coughlin (Children of Paradise, Lazy Susan, Eric Martin & the Illyrians) and Chris Erikson (Sacred Cows), and drummers Randall Gibson IV (Scruffy the Cat, The Flies, the Illyrians), Lance Hewitt (Timmys) and Scott Seiver (Ted Leo, Tenacious D, John Legend, Pete Yorn, etc).
The result of those midnight sessions is a collection of pop-tinged sing-a-longs with a sweet garage rock bite.
The first single, “Kiss My Tattoo,” would be a nice compliment to the soundtrack of the next Dennis Lehane (and Jerry’s cousin) movie shot in Boston. I forgot to ask if he ever did get his dog back.
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