Random Road Mother call themselves a punk band, but that’s only to keep the squares guessing. You won’t find any safety pins or vaguely threatening protest songs at one of their shows. "As opposed to being angry and political all the time, then no, I’m not a punk rocker. I’m a pretty happy go lucky guy. I like to get fucked up and have a good time, and that’s what I like to put across in the band. Maybe it’s because I’m too old, but I’m just not pissed off enough at anything to bring it into my music", Dave says. "We play with a lot of Ramonesy bands and hardcore bands, and I don’t know, that shit just doesn’t really sit well with me. Although I do like the genre, it tends to get a little bit tedious. I’d rather play a rock show. There’s more styles going on. Even though the metal people might not like some of the punk shit going on or whatever, I like the variety of a rock show. But a gig’s a gig, man." Another thing you won’t find at a Random Road Mother gig is a lead singer with ropy mane of blue dreadlocks. Not anymore, anyway. "You know when you cut down a tree and they have the little rings inside? You could see the rings of filth in my hair." Dave had kept his unruly, instantly recognizable nest of head snakes for nearly a decade before finally pruning them last month. "I think the main reason was probably Mr. Butch." For all the neophytes of Boston out there, Mr. Butch is a sort of local mad prophet; a ball of confusion, dreadlocks, philosophy and a battered acoustic guitar that channels folk songs from Outer Space. He was once affectionately known as the ‘King of Kenmore Square’, but then the goofy bastards tore it down. Now he’s more like the prince of Commonwealth Avenue. "The story he told me was that his hair was too heavy, so he had to cut it off. Really, he got lice, so they had to cut off his hair", Dave says. " So, I saw him that day, maybe the day after, at the Model café. He had his head down, and he was running his fingers through his hair, you know. And I just figured, if they’re that important to Mr. Butch, then fuck it. I was getting sick of them anyway. They stank, and there’s too many asshole bands like Korn anyway. They just didn’t mean that much to me, so I clipped them." New haircuts aren’t the only changes in the Road Mother camp these days. Illustrious cop fighting cock rocker Craig Riggs recently joined the struggle, pounding the skins and adding a little rock star machismo to the mix. Although he’s also a fulltime member of Quitter, as well as the never truly defunct Roadsaw, the infamous Mr Riggs has been both gigging and recording with the band. "His take on it is that that he was just going to fill in for a couple of gigs, but he said that he was having such a good time that he’d stick around until he was too busy to do it. He’s our permanent fill-in, you could say. He’s been nothing but the best, I can’t say enough about the guy. He’s an amazing drummer, and a sweetheart of a guy." Craig’s trademark pounding will be featured on the new Random Road Mother album. You know, the one that was supposed to be out two months ago. "The record’s not done yet", Dave explains. " What happened was, we did 12 songs, and they came in at under a half an hour. So we decided we wanted to make it a little longer. We’ve got two new songs ready to go, so we’re probably going to record those in a couple of weeks, and hopefully, the record will be out in December or January." The classic pop-punk ghetto fabulousness of ‘99’s ‘Mediterranean Avenue’ album will return on the new record, but Dave also says that you’ll see more ‘attitude’ than before. "It’s got a bit more piss to it, I’d have to say. It’s a fast and fun record. The songs all clock in at about 2:12", Dave says, like a train conductor checking his pocket watch. "Get in, get out, you know. I have a short attention span." Dave’s trademark tongue in cheek humor will also make a welcome return. "It’s just mostly things that I see that I think are funny. I’m pretty sarcastic." He gives an example. "I was just sitting home after the bar one night, and I saw an ad for a tractor/trailer school. I thought that would be the funniest thing, to just drop out and be a truck driver, so I wrote a song about it." Although only the most rock damaged, over stimulated mind would consider a career in driving the big rigs ‘dropping out’, you get the drift. "The title for the album that I came up with is ‘Mother, Jugs and Speed’, because that’s what all the songs are about. ‘Not lucky Enough’ is another one, because our van just broke down, and it had a lucky 7 on the front, and somebody wrote ‘Not lucky enough’ on it." In the meantime, you’ll find Random Road Mother in the thick of every happening, powder party, and rock and roll situation in town. Rock City would be a quieter, lonelier place without them. When I ask Dave what he thinks Random Road Mother’s appeal is, he says, simply, "I like to think of it as universal. It’s fucking rock." Somebody buy that man a drink.