As told by Dirty Harry
The Dumpster Junkies started in the fall of 1999. Paulie and I were in the band Nobody's Heroes for 2 years prior. When Paul quit that band I wanted out too. We wanted to start a new harder, faster punk band. Especially cause at the time the Cape had about 2 hardcore bands and the rest was all crap in my opinion. I asked Josh (who had played bass in the band the Nihilist) if he would sing. He was the punkest kid i knew at the time and he seemed to want to do something since his band was also now defunct. We recruited Bill Golden on guitar. He was in the band the Nihilist but had quit and oddly enough I was his replacement. He agreed to join the Dumpster Junkies.
With the members in place we and a few crappy punk songs I had written the week before our first practice we were ready to go. We still needed a name though. I take full credit for the name. I personally like it and don't care what anyone says (I hear crap about it all the time from band members and others). It doesn't mean anything just like we don't but anyways. We went to a local recording studio and recorded a five song demo(which was never released) in November of '99.
We played our first show in Gloucester, MA but no one was there so it didn't really matter. In the winter of 2000 we were playing shows here and there trying to get our name out (we still are). Bill Damone from the legendary Boston punk band Toxic Narcotic expressed some interest in recording us so into the studio we went. This time we had some better songs and were a little tighter. I think it only took 2 days and we had our S/T. It sounded like a million bucks to us then. We ended up releasing it ourselves cause no one else wanted to. I guess everone else thought it sounded like 12 cents.
We kept at it playing shows, promoting, writing. We had decided that we wanted a second guitarist and my buddy Scott Walker had just moved back into town. So we were a five piece. Not only did we have a new guitar player but he could sing and write as well. Things were going good. In the Spring of 2001 we went back to the studio to record some new stuff. While in the studio Bill Golden told us that after we were done recording he was leaving the band. A band can be real stressfull, especially with me in it.
So we had like 12 new songs recorded and were back to a four piece. We recruited my old friend Ben Kelly to take Bill's place. He learned the songs real quick and real good. We hadn't put out the material we had just recorded and we started listening to it and realized we sounded better at practice then on tape, so back to the studio we went.
We rerecorded all the songs and some of our favorites off the s/t. We were alot tighter and the whole thing was just better. Bill Damone had agreed to release our second effort Psycopathic Thoughts on his boston DIY label Rodent Popscicle Records. Right before the record was done though Scott got kicked out of the place he was staying and had to move back to New Hampshire. So we had a brand new kick ass record but we were short a member. We decided to keep it in the family and have Scott's little brother Jesse play in his place. I think alot of people thought we were just fucking around when we said it was a different person.
After the release of the P.T. we started noticing a bigger following and it started to seem like Cape Cod might actually have a decent scene for the first time in 15 years. Now with bands like God:Awful, One More Day and others, things are finally starting to look alright.
Dirty Harry
Dumpster Junkies
SPC