Throughout the years Chad Price has made his way through a number of music genres. Most associate Chad’s name as the third singer of ALL, the band formed after Milo left the Descendents in 1987. Most people are unaware that Chad has never stopped making music since ALL’s activity has become scant over the last twenty or so years . While he still gets the call from Bill Stevenson to play a show here and there, it’s the in-between where he has released music with his bands. From the alt-country sounds of Drag the River with Jon Snodgrass to the much more aggressive A Vulture Wake, or just him hitting the road with guitar, Chad Price’s discography without ALL is just as exciting. Which brings us to his new band, Chad Price Peace Coalition and their new album, A Perfect Pearl, released on Double Helix Records.
It had been a couple of years since Drag the River played, and with some internal issues happening with A Vulture Wake, Chad decided to tour the country with just himself and a guitar. As he played these new songs, he was writing other parts for them in his head. Citing bands like Jethro Tull and Yes as inspiration, he actively thought about how to bring these songs to life, imagining how they should sound with a full band backing him. Chad wanted more than just a basic three-chord structure. He wanted songs where people were actually playing parts that cohesively worked together. From the sound of it, in his own words and the music itself, he may have found the best way to do it.
(Edited for clarity)
Dying Scene (Forrest Gaddis): The record is called A Perfect Pearl; how many songs are on it all together?
Chad Price: The record’s called A Perfect Pearl. There’s ten songs on it total. Our first single was called “A.M.” The album’s physical release is April 18th. The labels wanted to wait until May for streaming. If you’re a vinyl collector and into that kind of shit, or if you just want to hear the record so bad that you can’t wait for a month.
I like that they’re doing that though. They’re making you go out and look for it rather than just giving it to you. I would have loved being able to stream it as a kid, but as I’ve gotten older I appreciate it much more.
It’s the joy of the hunt, the thrill of the chase. Yeah a lot of times that is the most motivating.
Is your band composed of members of an ALL cover band?
Well, I’ll tell you. They were doing an ALL and Descendents tribute show in Portland, Oregon. That’s where my whole band lives. I live in fucking Indiana, and it’s a real pain in the ass, but they played at a club in Portland where a friend of mine books. He called me. He’s like, “I have these dudes that are doing this tribute show. What if I just fly you out here and give you a couple hundred bucks, put you up, and you could sing with them?” I saw a little video of them playing. I wanted to make sure that they knew what they were doing. They’re very good. We practiced the night before we played the show. They’re great players. That is how I met them. They have their own band. It’s a band called Liquid Light, but they also do a lot of different tribute bands and shit. Which I find very, very funny. People like to play music. I can’t fault somebody for just wanting to fucking play music and make money playing songs that they like.
I like that.
They’re just music nerds. They went to school for music and they just like to play, I can’t really recall talking to them that much about this. ALL and Descendents were probably a newer find for them in the last few years. They were just like, who the fuck is this band? Fucking punkers playing crazy shit on guitars.
Since they were familiar with your work, was it easier for them to work with your sound and voice?
Pretty much. When we recorded a lot of these songs, I had just sent them basically acoustic demos. No drums, no bass, no nothing. Two of them, Anthony and Corey, basically play everything. I play guitar and sing. Those two dudes covered drums, lead guitar, keys, and whatever other shit we found in the studio. They were already fans of all my shit. They knew what my voice was capable of and what we could do. I just kind of feel like I found the right guys for the moment , and they just kind of helped create a lot of these songs.
Were there any points where they fell into similarities to with A Vulture Wake or Drag the River? Was there any time they kind of sounded too similar to one of the other bands?
Not really. Although these guys love ALL and A Vulture Wake. They keep sending me kind of ways to make ALL and A Vulture Wake songs sound like Chad Price Peace Coalition songs. It’s hard to hear those songs in a different way, especially for me, because I sang and fucking played them every goddamn day on tour. Also, for a fan they might be used to hearing it real fast and with a fucking killer guitar part, and that’s not what this is at all. So, they’re trying to sneak some of that shit into it. I gave them A Vulture Wake song to learn for when the record gets released and we’re really touring a lot. So, we’ll see what comes of that. Even after playing these songs and then practicing A Vulture Wake song in the mix of these other ones, I don’t know if this is going to work. It might not. I do want to be able to play any kind of music in a set without it sounding weird.
Is there a genre you feel more comfortable with than others?
Not really. I mean, I’m comfortable kind of doing most things. This is probably more comfortable to me than like ALL or A Vulture Wake. For one, ALL is work. It’s fucking hard work and if you’re not seeing that shit every day, it’s basically use it or lose it. And when you lose it, it’s hard to get back. Bill will just call me out of the blue and be like, you want to do Punk Rock Bowling? Then it’s fucking work to get back into that shape. With A Vulture Wake, the singing isn’t as difficult because that is shit I wrote specifically for my range and my voice. The guitar playing becomes an issue because I play guitar and sing in A Vulture Wake. I’m not really that kind of guitar player. I’m not like a fucking rock and roll guitar player. Chad Price Peace Coalition is more up my alley because it’s stuff I know how to do. I’m just slowly kind of learning more shit. Not really music theory. I’m starting to like shit that’s a lot more complex. It just hits my brain in a different way and it makes me think and it makes me feel shit that other stuff doesn’t give me.
Is there a genre you haven’t explored that you want to?
No, I’ve done punk. I’ve done metal. I’ve done country, folk, rock. I don’t know what else there would be for me. This is the kind of music I like.
You have another single dropping on Friday (4/4/25)?
It’s called “Rose.” I believe before the May 30th digital release, there’ll be four singles out. So people will get a pretty good taste of what the record is going to be like.
Then you’re touring the Pacific Northwest.
Yeah. Right now, I’m kind of booking through the year. I live far from those guys and everything is either flying or driving a fucking van across country. We’re basically doing five to ten shows a month through September right now. That’s as far as I’m looking out. We’re going to be trying to hit the whole U.S. in pieces.
April 11th was the 30th anniversary of ALL’s Pummel. What do you remember about recording it?
I mean, that was a long time ago. I don’t remember a whole lot. When I first joined the band, with the first album (1993’s Breaking Things), it was record and go on tour immediately. I didn’t even know what the fuck was going on. I was just stoked. Otherwise I’d be in Kansas City, just doing nothing with my life. Pop-punk was making waves. You had Green Day and shit already making a name. So A&R guys were just out looking for pop-punk bands. So this guy, Brian, I don’t remember his name from Interscope. So, he was actually courting us like you hear about. Labels actually wining and dining and shit. That actually happened and it was cool. He flew out to Fort Collins, Colorado. We flew out to L.A., he took us out to bars, all that shit. It was great. The record itself, the band was in a pretty dark time.
Listening to it as an adult. I’m like, this is fucking dark for that camp, in general.
It’s very dark. Kind of remembering where everyone in the band’s lives were at that point, the band has had some tough times. It’s gone through some shit. One thing I remember is that all the songs on the record are tuned in E flat because of my voice.
Were they hoping for more of a poppier album from you guys? And you guys just bring them “Black Sky” and “Stalker?”
Yeah, they were definitely hoping for that. We put the record out. Our A&R guy, we found out, was a drug guy. He just disappeared. Nobody knew who it was. We never talked to him anymore. Interscope didn’t know where he went. He just fucking took off. After that, there was nobody at Interscope that knew or cared who we were.
It kind of makes sense. You always hear there were disagreements on how to market you guys, but it’s because nobody knew how to market to you.
Yeah, usually these big labels, they might pick up a band. A lot of times the band will just have a hit song. Obviously labels like when a band picks up steam on their own and they don’t have to put money into it, What was the first song on it?
The single? I think it was “Million Bucks.”
OK, yeah, I guess people kind of like that.
They were looking for something more like that. Maybe the only song like that is “Miranda.”
Oh, yeah, I guess that’s on there, too. I mean, those are the poppier songs. The record obviously was not going to take off on its own. The label is like, well, we don’t even have a guy here working with you. Who the fuck are you anyway?
I guess the Descendents/ALL were not as big because they hadn’t done Everything Sucks yet. They hadn’t had their comeback yet. Nobody realized what they had.
Right, yeah. I like a lot of the songs on it. I mean, that’s one of the records that when fans say that’s their favorite record. I’m always surprised. It’s like you’ve got to be fucking kidding me.
There’s some great songs on that record. I like “Long Distance” a lot. One of the only TV performances I’ve ever seen of you guys was Conan O’Brien where you guys played a “Million Bucks.” Did you guys go and perform anywhere else on TV?
We did Conan O’Brien and we did some live shit on MTV. You go in with a handful of people to make it feel more like a live show. Then they just film you basically playing in the room and we did some interviews with those guys.
Did it sour you on the industry?
Not for me, I was still young. What did I know about the music business anyway? Certainly for those guys. Certainly for Bill. Yeah, it had to have been crushing.
I can imagine he was probably sketchy about it going in after all the SST shit, I’m sure he was like, if it can happen over here, it’s going to suck 10 times more over here.
Absolutely, on the plus side, they paid us money to get out of our contract and Bill built The Blasting Room.
Had you guys been recording in Colorado at that point already?
No, no. I think we recorded that album at Ardent down in Memphis. We hadn’t recorded it in Colorado until we started building the studio.
Are there any other shows you’re doing outside of the tour?
One cool thing we’re doing in July. I don’t know if you’ve heard of this. It’s called Buddies Fest. It’s in Tillsonburg, Ontario. Oh, it’s like two hours south of Toronto. Basically, just right over the border of Detroit there’s a little town. Jon Snodgrass has played this venue a few times. So he decided to put on a show there. Oh, okay.
I think I saw Drag The River and ALL playing, too.
Chad Price Peace Coalition’s playing. Snodgrass and his band are playing. There are other bands like Dillinger Four, Flatliners. There’s a lot. It’s Friday through Sunday. There’s probably thirty bands playing or something. And that’s going to be very cool. I’ll just get to do a lot of shit three days in a row without driving anywhere. Other than that, it’s just playing shows in different places for a while.
Info about the album’s physical and streaming release dates here.
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