This week H-Town Rock sat down with Airon Paul Dugas & The Religion to chat about the band, recording, Seattle, albinos, and Jacob Calle's 'fro. Afterwards we were lucky enough to be treated to arguably one of the best plates of migas we've ever had. Airon swore H-Town Rock to secrecy, however, lest we unintentionally spur a douche-ification of his favorite dining spot. You can listen to the full 24 minute interview [complete with Steven's million-dollar flashbulb idea] here. There is the occasional dirty word, so get some headphones if you're at work.

H-Town Rock: I am here with Airon Paul Dugas and Steven [Burnett] who's representing The Religion. Airon, how long have you been playing music?
Airon: About 17 years I guess.

HTR: And how old are you?
Airon: 34
HTR: So half your life...
Airon: I stopped playing for about 7 years, stopped playing in bands altogether. I guess about a year ago all of a sudden I got re-inspired and started doing solo stuff because I didn't want to deal with any bullshit - like a band. I actually had no plans of making a band whatsoever.

HTR: So when did you put The Religion together?
Airon: One night I was at a Paris Falls show and Ray Brown (from Paris Falls) offered for them to be my backing band, basically. I had just started playing out solo, and Ray and Steven and I, we all went to high school together and have known each other a long time. He offered, and I was like "that's a great idea" so I called Steven up and asked if he wanted to play bass. We did it based off of just having fun and not taking it serious at all, and it was the easiest thing in the world, so now we're kinda wanting to get serious.

HTR: So is the entire backing band in Paris Falls?
Airon: No, [Steven]'s not.
Steven: Jen and Ray Brown are the piano player and the guitar player from Paris Falls, and they have a drummer, Mike DeLeon, who's been in a ton of bands as well. And they're all seasoned vets, so it was really easy. They're all like "we can learn these songs in like two practices."

HTR: Yeah, you guys sound really tight together.
Steven: That's weird because we never practice.

HTR: Do you have plans to record?
Airon: Actually yeah, we're going into Sugar Hill in a couple weeks. We're trying to see if we can get a lot of stuff down in one weekend.

HTR: How much do you have together for that right now?
Airon: Not much - By the Big Star show [on the 24th] I think we only had seven songs total, as of last practice we now have nine. Of course, I have like over 70 solo songs, so whatever needs to be filled we can fill it with acoustic songs.
Steven: It's all in that book.
HTR: This one, next to me?
Steven: You could take his entire career.
HTR: That's a little scary.
Steven: Did I just advertise that?
HTR: Yeah, [to everyone] don't steal Airon's book.

HTR: What's one thing that you want everyone to know about Airon Paul Dugas?
Steven: That he is single and ready to mingle.
Airon: I think that pretty much sums it up. Um, I don't know. I set out to do this strictly as a songwriter, that's kind of my main thing. I just like writing songs, and the band is just an extra plus.

Steven: I hear we're moving to Seattle.
Airon: Well I wasn't going to tell him that.
HTR: Moving to Seattle?
Airon: Yeah, well. We've almost convinced the rest of the band. It's kinda funny that we're telling this to the Houstonist.
Steven: [jokingly] Seeya bitches! Is there a Seattle-ist? You can inform them, maybe give 'em our resume?
Airon: We're still gonna be a Houston band though. That's what we're going to tell everybody.
Steven: We're definitely not going to change the plates on the van.

HTR: Is there a timeline on that?
Airon: About six months.
HTR: So sometime in May? Is that gonna be semi-permanent...?
Airon: Possibly? It was actually just an idea that had nothing to do with music or the band or anything. I want to go live next to a mountain.
Steven: He wanted to go somewhere that didn't have bad allergies.
Airon: I have really bad allergies, so I was looking up the top 10 best cities for allergy sufferers, and Seattle's one. And then Steven is like, "I want to go." And then Graham [Airon's roommate] was like, "I want to go." And then we told Ray and Jen Brown, and they were like "we want to go." So I think eventually we're all moving there, and hopefully this band will still be together.
HTR: I hope this doesn't turn into a curse with Houstonist - if you do the interview you leave town. Because GTRS was the first one.
Airon: Oh yeah...

HTR: Do you guys have a band or two that you think everyone in Houston needs to pay attention to?
Airon: Well definitely Paris Falls... and I'm not just saying that as a friend... I would never promote a friend's band if I didn't like them. Yeah, Paris Falls, listenlisten, and Robert Ellis.
Steven: And I'm really enjoying Sew What. They're so cute.

HTR: Do you have a favorite memory from the Houston music scene?
Airon: I used to go to a lot of Dead Horse shows in the early 90s, and I actually love Dead Horse. As far as local music goes, I think right now is actually the best time for local music. I think there's more bands that I actually want to listen to then there ever has been. Bands that I actually buy their albums and listen to them. I listen to Robert Ellis and Paris Falls all the time, they're in [my] main rotation.

HTR: For those readers that are uninformed, how would you describe your sound?
Steven: Loud.
Airon: We're not that loud, we just look loud. Anytime somebody asks, I just say down home rock and roll.

HTR: You guys have a show Wednesday night at The Mink. Who else is playing that?
Airon: Mimicking Birds is the touring band, from Portland, and there's another local band.
Steven: Winter Wallace.
HTR: I've heard a few of their songs, I liked what I heard.
Steven: Jacob Calle posted some stuff in our comments, so they might actually be cool.

HTR: If Jacob likes them? Is that the barometer?
Steven: He's got the fro-ometer. It's like "does Jacob Calle like it? Oh, then it's going to be entertaining."
HTR: I think his 'fro actually grows if he likes something. He can't hide it.
Steven: The pinnocho-fro.
HTR: That's awesome, that's gonna be his nickname from now on. No, I doubt we [at Houstonist] have that much saying power.

HTR: The only other thing that I know about you, aside from your music, is that you had a really terrible scooter accident. How long ago was that?
Airon: It was last December, I was actually leaving a Paris Falls show and was two blocks away from The Mink, and [I] got hit head on by a car.
HTR: How long did that sideline you?
Airon: I was in the hospital for I three weeks, and in a wheelchair for three months... the learning how to walk again didn't actually take that long, but it took a while to get back to climbing these stairs everyday.

HTR: Aside from the show Wednesday, do you guys have anything else coming up?
Airon: No... because of the studio thing we don't want to play any shows for a while... We have nothing recorded, whatsoever - we don't have a demo, we don't even have a MySpace or anything.
HTR: Are you going to do a separate one for the band?
Airon: Yeah, 'cause all the stuff on my MySpace is strictly solo stuff. We do I think two of my folks songs in the band, but we've turned them into complete rock songs. I actually try to write songs for The Religion now that we've started it. And it's fun because I'm actually more of a rock and roller than I am a folksinger. I just kind of started with the folk thing and it came really easy.

HTR: You guys are going into the studio in... three weeks? So we won't probably won't see you guys until December, at least.
Steven: Yeah. We'd like a nice national weekend show...
Airon: We're definitely going to be open to playing shows...
HTR: You guys could definitely hang...you should be opening a show at Warehouse or something like that.
Airon: Yeah, but the lack of a demo or anything kinda sets us back.

HTR: We're actually in Airon's house, for the record, and there's two full shelves of LP's over here, and Hayes Carll is on the turntable... If you were going to pull one record out to show somebody... what's the first thing that leaps to mind?
[Airon sighs, and he and Stephen start laughing]
Steven: I thought you were going to go for Edgar Winter & the White Trash.
Airon: No, no, no. That's what I was thinking. I have a Screwdriver record, that I found under the couch.
Steven: Under my couch!
Airon: At our apartment, and I kept it, and I like to show everybody for some reason... Mississippi John Hurt, any of his albums really - Worried Blues would probably be the first one I would pull out... any Townes Van Zandt. I'm pretty typical, as far as influence goes I think my influences are obvious. But like he said, Edgar Winter's White Trash Roadwork album, which I actually do pull that out sometimes when I'm drunk and I'm trying to hook up with a girl and I somehow think they're going to be impressed with this album, but they're not. And they never are, no woman ever will be. But it's one of my all time favorite albums, my dad got me into it and I've been listening to it since I was a kid.
Steven: When I was 16 I had a car, and Airon was a year younger than me... Airon was all into Dead Horse and death metal, all that shit... He's like, "I want you to hear this, this album's awesome." And it was this albino rock and roller, Edgar Winter & the White Trash. I was like, "that chick on the cover is hot. That's a dude, whoa."
Airon: There's like 20 minute long piano-vocal solo offs, where he's dueling the vocals with the piano... and it sounds like the Saturday Night Live band most of the time. They do a lot of Otis Redding type stuff.

HTR: Anything else you want to throw out there?
Airon: No, that's about it.
HTR: Cool, well thanks for sitting down with us.
Airon: Thanks for coming over.

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Airon Paul Dugas & The Religion plays at The Mink on Wednesday night with opening act Winter Wallace and headliners from Portland Mimicking Birds. Do yourself a favor and go see the show.

Filed in Arts & Events and tagged airon paul dugas, h-town rock, houston bands, interview, local scene, music