The Methadones: punk with pop sensibilities
If the softening and corporatization of pop-punk has weakened the genre's street cred, that does not matter to Dan Schafer.
"I like a lot of genres of music, but it has to have a good portion of melody in it," states the founding vocalist and guitarist of The Methadones. "It has to have some kind of pop sensibilities and hooks, whether it's a punk band or even an indie rock band. Otherwise, I just don't connect with it."
The Methadones claim influences ranging from The Jam and Ramones to Cheap Trick. Therefore, when Schafer's band performs at Mad Maggie's in Elgin tonight, expect an equal dose of those suburban summer staples: punk rock and power pop.
Of course, any of the bands with which the Des Plaines native has been associated offer common threads of energy and melody. The list of area pop-punk acts featuring Schafer includes Sludgeworth, The Riverdales, The Mopes and the legendary Screeching Weasel.
While playing with the latter, Schafer founded The Methadones as a side project in 1993. The band didn't take off, but he revived it around the turn of the millennium. To date, The Methadones have released five albums, with one comprised entirely of power pop cover songs.
The quartet, which includes guitarist Mike Byrne, bassist Pete Mittler and drummer Mike Soucy, most recently self-distributed a split release with Carbondale pop-punkers The Copyrights.
"I write about stuff I go through, personal stuff," says Schafer, the band's principal songwriter.
Around the time The Methadones released their most recent CD, 2007's "This Won't Hurt -," Schafer decided to hand off guitar duties to a fifth member so he could concentrate on singing. "I'm getting up there," he admits with a laugh, "and these shows were starting to take a toll on me. I was getting winded a lot. So I got some guy in there, but it just didn't work out. We weren't a five-piece.
"We went back to what I thought we did best, to the original format as a four-piece," Schafer says, confirming that the group's music will always call for two guitarists.
Schafer is such an integral fixture of the pop-punk scene that New Hampshire veterans The Queers, with whom he's played, wrote a song about him ("Danny Vapid," Schafer's stage name). When asked how punk rock from Chicago differs from that made around the globe, the experienced musician replies that he doesn't notice geographic distinctions anymore.
"We used to talk about this some years back," says Schafer. "We thought that there was a 'Chicago sound.' Naked Raygun, Big Black, The Effigies, bands like that. Maybe that was true at one point, but I don't hear it anymore.
"I think it's a good music town, a lot of great music has come out of Chicago, and Illinois for that matter," he continues. "But I hear all kinds of stuff coming out of here. It's diverse." He cites personal favorites such as The Copyrights, Shot Baker and The Bomb (which features Methadones' Mittler and Soucy as well as Naked Raygun's Jeff Pezzati), along with higher-profile acts like Alkaline Trio and Rise Against.
Schafer is a busy man these days. He's part of the recently reunited Screeching Weasel, which is planning live shows this year. The Riverdales, his other band with Weasel frontman Ben Foster, are preparing to release their fourth album, "Invasion U.S.A.," in July via Asian Man Records.
The Methadones won't fall by the wayside, though. Other than steadily playing local shows and touring Europe last fall, the band just recorded material for two 7-inch records on Chicago's Underground Communique and California's It's Alive Records.
"I'm going to continue doing it regardless," Schafer declares. "Everybody's got jobs, and two of the guys are also in The Bomb. At this point, we play when we can. We make time to do it."
The Methadones: Appearing with HighBall, Love and Squalor
When: 9 p.m. Friday, May 1
Where: Mad Maggie's, 51 S. Grove Ave., Elgin
Tickets: $5 (847) 531-5883 or madmaggies.net