Dying Scene caught up with Geoff Andersen and Carlos Gomez of Last Reel Hero at Analogue Records for an interview and photoshoot while visiting them in their hometown of Pueblo, Colorado.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Dying Scene: Tell me about your band. Where are you from? When did you form? Who’s in the band? What instruments do you play or what roles do you play? And how did you come up with your band name?
Geoff Andersen: We are Last Reel Hero. We’re from here in Pueblo, Colorado and we formed in 2017. I believe, the beginning of 2017. I’m Geoff and I play bass. Carlos plays lead guitar and vocals. We have Dan Wiley on keys, trombone, and vocals. Jim Chandler on drums and Keith Sanchez on guitar and a little bit of vocals as well. Our band name, Last Reel Hero, is basically taken from a line in the movie “The Harder They Come” starring Jimmy Cliff and it means that we are here ‘til the end.
DS: I haven’t seen the movie, so now I’m curious. I understand that you have connections with other local bands. Tell me about your connections with The Dead End and Diskount Vodka.
Carlos Gomez: Well, the Dead End is my other project, a psychobilly trio with a standup bass. We kind of don’t really like to give ourselves the genre or name, but we’re a rock and roll band. The current lineup of the Dead End has been around for about the same time as Last Reel Hero has been around, which is kind of crazy…since 2017 or so. And as far as Diskount Vodka goes, Matt Hamilton (aka Pickle) who plays drums in the Dead End also plays drums in Diskount Vodka with my little brother, Cuauhtli Gomez, who plays bass in Diskount Vodka. So it’s a big rock and roll family.
DS: Very cool. How would you describe your music to someone who hasn’t heard of you?
GA: Hard reggae. Punk rock, that’s very reggae-influenced. There are people who want to say we’re a ska band, which technically that’s part of our sound but there’s a lot more to it than that. We’re probably more of a very reggae influenced punk band more than anything.
CG: I would agree with that statement. I would just say that we’re all kids who listen to reggae that play punk rock and it just comes out the way it comes out.
DS: Who are your biggest influences and inspirations?
CG: That’s a good one. As far as this band goes, I mean, we love the Trojan stuff. Anything that came out on Trojan Records is a heavy influence in our band and our sound. The roots of ska and then even the two-tone stuff later on in the 70s in England, I would say all of that stuff collectively. Everything from Bob Marley to The English Beat. One thing I love when we go on tour are the playlists that Geoff comes up with because it’s just all this musical inspiration and we get to the gigs and it’s just stuff that we were grooving on this whole time. And then we project it in what we play and how we represent ourselves. So, I mean, as far as us, that’s what I want to say.
GA: Yeah, it’s old school reggae, ska, rock steady, two-tone, dance hall, old school punk rock, and pub rock type stuff then our just straight-up rock and roll influences. Yeah, it all just comes out. It’s not really even intentional, it’s just what we’ve always been into and then that’s what comes out.
CG: Definitely. I mean, we do a Waylon Jennings cover because anyone could do a Bob Marley cover. Why not do a Waylon Jennings cover? And honestly, I hear more rock and roll in it, but many people are like, wow, you made that into a ska song. So, it’s crazy how it is, but we soak in a bunch of different things. Definitely.
DS: Now, I’m curious. What Waylon Jennings song do you cover?
CG: “I Ain’t Living Long Like This.”
GA: We released it as a single about a year ago. So, it’s out there as a single on the streaming platforms. We have a new single that just came out 2023 October called “The Calling Of The Gun.” That’s really heavy, heavy reggae…heavy subject matter…heavy song. That’s our newest release.
DS: In addition to this latest single, when should we expect new music from you?
CG: That’s a hard one. We’re currently writing and just working on stuff, especially with it being wintertime. During that downtime, we’re going to try to pump out the new tracks and see where we go. I mean, there’s really no deadline on anything right now.
GA: Yeah, we just released just that song as a single and we don’t have anything else planned at the moment, but it’ll probably be late spring, early summer.
DS: Are you working with a record label? If so, who?
GA: No, our own label, Last Reel Records records. But we’re open to the right offer, that’s for sure.
DS: So, you guys have been performing locally and touring regionally for several years now. Where have you been performing lately? What is the biggest show you’ve played and what is the best show you’ve played? I’m sorry. And tell me about the most memorable show you’ve played.
CG: I already have a few in mind. I guess to start off with the first answer, we commonly play in New Mexico a lot. So, we do play locally here in Pueblo, but ever so often, every couple of months, which is good because it maintains our momentum. People would probably get tired of us just playing every weekend or whatever, but we go to New Mexico a lot and they’re very welcoming to us there. It seems like every time we go back, there’s a bigger following. So, a lot of the stuff we do is a little south from where we’re at currently. As far as bigger shows go, I want to say the reggae festival we played.
GA: Oh yeah. We played the The Sunshine Reggae Roots Festival in Topeka, Kansas about…the year before, a year and a half ago during the summer. That was really awesome.
CG: That was cool. That was a big.
GA: So, we played a big free outdoor show…
CG: That was my number two.
GA: …opening for The Slackers in Denver. It was pretty much the first show that Denver had post-COVID and it was free and outdoor. So, that was a really big show.
CG: That was a huge show and that was one of my best memories just for the fact that Vic Ruggiero from the Slackers comes up to me as I was minding my business backstage and he is just like, “Hey, what’s the name of that song?” And I was like, “Looting and Shooting,” which is one of our singles. He’s like, “Well, I liked it so much that I recorded it on my phone.” That blew my mind. It was just surreal. My thing is that I love bands and love music. Vic, The Slackers… third-wave ska, that was one of the first third-wave ska bands that I started listening to when I was really young. Being a skateboarding kid at like 12 or 13 or whatever, you’d buy compilation CDs, like Give ’em The Boot or whatever, and I heard The Slackers. So, for me, that was an awesome show. I didn’t expect that side of it. It was already a great big show. And then that was just the icing on top for me. So, that’s the one I will always remember.
GA: Yeah, it was definitely a memorable show. It’s one of our best ones ever. We also got to play with the Skatalites in Denver. That’s one of my favorite shows ever that we’ve played. One of the coolest moments that we had as a band is when we played with The Toasters in Colorado Springs and their trombone player got sick. So, our trombonist, Dan, filled in for him and played the entire show on trombone for The Toasters that night and just killed it. It was awesome. If you went to that show, you would’ve never known – unless you saw that he was the keyboard player and singer in the opening band – that he was not their regular trombone player.
CG: Yeah, that was a great moment. Dan’s a very talented guy, too. He’s a music teacher at a local school. One time, The Dead End did a recording session and I was just like, “Dan, I brought this keyboard down. Will you just come?” And he just busted out all this stuff on these songs that he had just heard that day. It was just mind-blowing. Kudos to Dan. Kudos to all our members because I think we all collectively bring our own element to the band and that’s what makes our band what it is.
DS: So, you said New Mexico is where you travel often for shows?
GA: Yeah, so far mostly it’s been throughout the Southwest, mostly Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, California…Vegas. Kansas, Nebraska, around here. But we have planned…we’re going to the East Coast and back in June. That’s our next tour plan. So, we’ll be all through the Midwest and up and down the East Coast.
DS: So what is the music scene like in Pueblo?
CG: It comes in waves, to be honest. I mean there’s never not a music scene. There’s always kids in bands.
GA: There’s several good bands.
CG: Yeah, there’s old timers like you (Geoff). I’m not trying to call you old or nothing, but I mean you’ve been on the front lines doing it since the 80s and 90s. Paving the way for snot-nosed kids like me to be doing what I’ve been doing. I’ve already been doing it for almost 20 years now. So, the scene never dies, but it does come in waves and at its peak it’s obviously the best. But even when it’s struggling, I mean there’s still bands out there doing it, inspiring other kids to do it. It’s a great thing. I can’t think of a time where there weren’t shows going on, but there has been times where we’ve had great killer venues with touring bands and other times where we have DIY venues like the CR23 Bombshelter here in Pueblo. It’s the only all-ages venue at this point that we have, which is great because the youth wants something to do and it’s a place for them to go, it’s well regulated and shows end at a decent time. It gives the kids a place to play and gives us a place to play to inspire those kids. It’s all energy, it’s all this just energy just being pushed off from one another. It’s amazing. I really enjoy our music scene and we have a lot of great musicians here and I hope to put us back on the map again, if anything.
DS: Very cool. So, you mentioned a few things earlier about what you’re working on. What else are you up to? Have you achieved what you sought out to achieve as a band?
GA: Well, what we’re working on now is just booking a tour to go to the East Coast and back, trying to get as many good shows as possible there. And we are not working on any new material at the moment, actually, but we will be before long. We kind of take a break a little bit in the fall band-wise and then get back on it when winter comes. But our biggest focus right now is just booking our tour and we have a few shows coming up about once a month or so in Colorado for the next several months. That’s kind of it.
CG: I think for the most part we’ve set out to do what we wanted to do and we’ve pretty much accomplished it. I just want to get bigger and better.
GA: We’re just trying to keep expanding. We are where we set out to be musically. Definitely. As far as I guess being known or just playing as many shows as possible and whatnot, we’re still working on that.
DS: What advice do you have for musicians who want to start a band?
CG: Just do it. You can’t be discouraged. There is, being in a band, there is no guideline to this whatsoever. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I use templates from bigger bands. I see stuff they do and I try to apply that towards our bands and whatever. You can’t give up. You have to fine-tune your craft. There are a billion guitar players out there. You can’t be the best guitar player. But if you could fine-tune your craft and find who you are as an artist and then find a way to network, get out there, and get a response from people. So, to be in a band, you have to be open-minded to not only other music but just being on the fly with a lot of things. It’s just maintaining the momentum, being true to yourself, and never let anything discourage you from doing what your passion is.
DS: What is next for Last Reel Hero? What goals do you have for 2024?
CG: I think really it’s like we’re going to go on tour. We need to showcase what we have to the East Coast right now because we don’t have that following there quite yet. Thank the good Lord for Spotify and all that good stuff because we do have people who are aware of what we do. We probably wouldn’t be getting shows if it wasn’t for the internet. We want to take over the East Coast because we already got the West Coast and then we’re going to try to go overseas. Then put out new music along the way, music is the number one thing and that’s the whole reason we do this.
GA: We have a couple Colorado shows that will be playing in the beginning of the year, and then we will end up releasing a single, a new song…a single…digitally, probably in May. We go on tour through the Midwest and the East Coast in June. Our last album, which is our second album, only came out on digital platforms that’ll be released on vinyl coming out in June. Well, it was only on digital platforms and CD. It’ll be released on vinyl in June. It’s called Back To The Sun. We will have some other stuff coming out on vinyl as well in the summer of 2024. And then our next focus is working on the album after that. And keep touring as many places as possible.
CG: Music videos.
GA: And yeah, we want to just keep touring more places.
DS: So what bands are you guys listening to this week?
GA: This week? What am I listening to? I was not listening to Steely Dan. I was listening to Cock Sparrer earlier, I guess, and I was listening to, geez, I was listening to Operation Ivy earlier because I was trying to learn one of their songs that I wanted to play.
CG: I collect records, so I was listening to Frankie Valli. I was listening to Frankie Valli at home and then Revolting Cocks on the way here. Yeah.
DS: Very cool. So, do you have any final thoughts you’d like to share with Dying Scene?
GA: Thank you very much for doing this. Exposing the great town of Pueblo, Colorado to the world is wonderful. There’s always been a small but vibrant music scene here that’s been large at times, but comes and goes and definitely look out for us…Last Reel Hero. We are going to keep on growing.
CG: Yeah. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. It’s great that we could get together and do this. And thank you for taking the time. It just means a lot to me. And Dying Scene, doing what they’re doing…we were featured in Dying Scene in 2018, maybe, which was super cool. So, it’s definitely an honor and a privilege to catch up again.
DS: Super. Thank you
