Brown Brigade Unchained

Ex-Sum 41 guitarist Dave "Brownsound" Baksh finds his true calling with a new band

It would be very easy to assume that ex-Sum 41 guitarist Dave Baksh's new band, Brown Brigade, would be a heavier version of his former group, with a few more riffs and solos thrown in for good measure. Safe to say, then, that anyone
who has heard their Into The Mouth Of Badd(d)ness debut full-length was shocked, and quite possibly confused.

"With Brown Brigade, we wanted to have a Ween approach to metal," Baksh explains. "All these different styles of heavy metal music, kind of like how they take different styles of pop music. The metal is what Vaughn [Lal, bassist] and I grew up playing together.

"We've always had this ability to love heavy metal and be able to laugh at the funny stuff. I'm sure there's some parts of Italy, if we make it there, where we're going to get the shit kicked out of us [laughs]. That really is the gist of Brown Brigade. It's just a creative outlet. We don't want to stop at metal."

And they don't, as the album features a smattering of influences, including hip-hop, funk, dub and reggae. It's a schizophrenic smorgasbord of styles and unearths a side of Baksh that most people probably never realized existed.

"These are just the influences I've had over my life," he says modestly. "Even with heavy metal, I'm not just talking about Iron Maiden and Judas Priest. I'm talking about Death, I'm talking about Carcass, I'm talking about Arch Enemy, Kyuss, Pagan Ritual, tons of different bands. There's so much depth and width to metal now, with all these types of styles, and this was all our influences coming out."

The mere fact that the guitarist is as well-versed in metal mythos as he is comes as a bit of a shock. Where most young bands hail heavy metal as an influence purely as a joke, Brownsound could hold his own with any long-haired Satan worshipper. However, due to the over-the-top nature of some of their songs, most listeners could be forgiven for thinking Brown Brigade were hopping on the irony bandwagon. Baksh urges these misguided listeners to look past that and see the band for what they really are.

"If they want to shut it out, that's up to them. One of the problems with the world today is that people make a lot of judgments without real facts backing up their opinions. That's just something you have to deal with. I'm looking forward to the people with the open minds that look forward to checking it out, even if they know it's something they don't like."

The group toured across Canada earlier this year with Pennywise and Circle Jerks, two bands not exactly known for their open-minded fans. The guitarist was surprised by an exceptionally warm reception throughout the tour.

"That went really well, man," he boasts. "I was expecting some reactions that weren't very favourable, especially because of the Circle Jerks fans and some of the Pennywise fans, but I gotta tell you, they treated us with respect. They had a good time, there was a pit at pretty much every show, and that was very surprising. When I was a kid, you could not listen to punk and metal at the same time. It's amazing what bands like Agnostic Front have done for joining the
two scenes."

With such a diverse breadth of styles being incorporated into the mix, it's not likely that Brown Brigade will catch on with the mainstream as easily as Sum 41, but that's completely beside the point for Brownsound.

"Even if this thing doesn't work out, my mind and my sanity is back, which is a priceless thing," he says solemnly. "My happiness is back, I'm waking up ready to go. I'm picking up my guitar not just to get through the day, I'm picking it up to learn from it. It could be the worst decision I've ever made in my life, as far as a paycheque goes, but as you know, and everyone in this world should know,
a paycheque is not everything."

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My Cousin Vaughn

Brownsound's cousin, bassist and co-founder of Brown Brigade, Vaughn Lal, holds a special place in the guitarist's heart. Baksh shares a childhood
memory of just how special he is:

"We've always been close. The first day I met him, we were playing Transformers on the stairs of my cousin's house. I was about six and he was about eight, and there was another cousin of ours there, saying how he was Vaughn's best cousin. So me, being the weird six year old that I was, I
pushed the kid down the stairs! He's alive today, and he's forgiven me, but that's how psychotic I get about my cousin Vaughn."

The following feature is from the September 2007 issue of Chart Magazine. To purchase the issue go to the Chart Shop.