by Tom Lounges
For the last nine months transplanted Highland, Indiana bassist Darrin
Laszlo has been living large on the road.
As the newest member of the growingly popular Los Angeles-based 22 Jacks,
Laszlo has been touring the world. He's been playing on stages he once only
read about in national rock magazines, and has been hanging out with some of
the biggest rock stars on the charts today.
In short, Laszlo is now experiencing the kind of life he only dreamed
about six years while slamming bass in Chicagoland clubs with hard rockers
Sgt. Roxx.
22 Jacks has played Chicago twice in the last two months, first at the
Aragon Ballroom in February with Smashmouth and Luscious Jackson, and last
month at House of Blues with Lit and Save Ferris.
"I remember as a fan, going to shows at the Aragon with my friends. Now
I'm the one up there playing for people. It's pretty rad to think about
that," said Laszlo, who now resides in Los Angeles.
"I just felt I'd done all I could do here and that it was time to move
on," he said of why he left Chicagoland. "I thought the best place to be for
music was on the West Coast. There's been some tough times since I moved
there, but I'm glad I made the decision. I've learned a lot by being out here
that I never would have learned if I had stayed here."
Rock 'n' roll has been Laszlo's passion for as long as he can remember.
Making the grade as a musician was almost all Laszlo thought about as a
student at Highland High School, where he co-founded Sgt. Roxx with classmate
Jack Adams in the mid-'80s. At their peak, Sgt. Roxx toured the Midwest and
was the first N.W. Indiana band to release a local CD, then the cutting edge
of technology.
Since those days, Laszlo has lopped off his once long locks and traded
the glam-rock trappings of Sgt. Roxx for a decidedly more punkish,
garage-rock approach with 22 Jacks.
Formed in 1995 by veteran punk rockers, Steve Soto (Agent Orange) and Joe
Sib (Wax), 22 Jacks opted to avoid the pitfalls that the founding members
former bands had experienced with major labels. They formed their own
nationally distributed imprint, SideOneDummy Records, and have released three
full length albums of infectious music best described as power-pop played
with a punk attitude.
"It's kinda Ramones-esque or Clash-esque," said Laszlo. "It's music with a
lot of great hooks and a lot of melody, but its pretty hard driven too!
There's a lot of energy in the music and I love that about this band."
After relocating to Los Angeles, Laszlo invested four years in a low-fi
rock trio called Dragon, a group not unlike the Counting Crows. After
releasing two regional CDs, the band imploded.
"After the plug was pulled on Dragon, I just kinda hung out and jammed
around for about a year or so," he said. "I was just banging around the
clubs and looking to hook up with someone."
That goal was accomplished when Laszlo bumped into 22 Jacks drummer Jose
Medeles. "Jose and I were roommates when I first moved out here and we
always got along really well. I hadn't seen him in about three years, then
suddenly I ran into him and he told me his band (22 Jacks) were looking for a
bass player. So I grabbed a tape from him, learned the tunes and went to
audition."
After beating out nearly 40 other bassists vying for the same gig,
Laszlo, soon found himself sharing concert stages with chart-toppers,
Smashmouth.
"Joe and Steve from our band have known the guys in Smashmouth for a long
time, so we all get along just great," said Laszlo. "They (Smashmouth)
remind me of the kind of guys I used to jam with back home at the old Club
Dimensions in a lot of ways. They're really down to earth dudes, there's like
no attitude, you know? That's pretty refreshing to find after having lived
in L.A."
Last October, Laszlo got his first taste of 'rock stardom', when 22 Jacks
jetted off to Australia. After having been part of three Warped Tours in
the land of kangaroos and koala bears, the group had built enough of a
following 'down under' to pull off a two-week headline tour on their own.
"While we were there, I got to visit the grave of Bon Scott (from
AC/DC)," said Laszlo, "which was a pretty rad experience for a Calumet Region
guy like me, who was raised on AC/DC."
Laszlo said the band hopes to return to Australia again after the hoopla
of the Olympics settles down. Until then, they plan to stay on the road in
the U.S. as much as possible, working their third full-length album, "Going
North."
They spent the first part of 2000 on a six-week U.S. tour with MXPX,
then got back on the bus for another go 'round with their pals in Smashmouth
as part of the Yahoo!-sponsored "Outloud Tour", which also included Luscious
Jackson, who reportedly have broken up since that tour ended.
"I'm not sure what the plans are once we part ways with Lit at the end of
March, but with summer just around the corner and all the tours getting ready
to go out, I doubt very much that we will go home and sit on our hands."