It’s possible you don’t know Drunks With Guns by name, but their sludgy and noisy sound undoubtedly influenced some of the great grunge and rock bands of the ‘90s. From the mouth of Michael Doskocil, the band’s singer, the story of the band almost feels stranger than fiction.
The original iteration of the band formed in Crestwood in 1984 and broke up in 1987. That lineup only played four shows, including opening for 45 Grave and Samhain, Glenn Danzig’s post-Misfits band. They only officially put out three 7-inch EPs, which consisted of rough mixes from studio sessions due to myriad issues, including master tapes being erased and taped over, and the producers finding the music too bad to mix.
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“We just landed into a couple of magical spots, even though we only did three 7-inches and four shows in the first two-and-a-half years that the band existed,” Doskocil says. “And then things went south, as they always do. Somebody wanted to be in charge, and I guess we all had that somebody in us.”
While Drunks With Guns were mostly dormant throughout the intervening decades—with the exception of some additional 7-inch releases, as well as an attempt to revive the band with a new singer in the early ‘90s—their cult began to grow. Bands such as Nirvana, Soundgarden, and Mudhoney cited them as an influence, original copies of their few EPs started going for big money, and bootleg tapes of those EPs were shared far and wide. But Doskocil hadn’t really thought about getting the band back together until the early 2010s, when he got a call from George Drakoulias, a record producer and former A&R executive for the Def Jam offshoot American Recordings.
“I knew who he was,” Doskocil says. “I saw his name on the back of that first Black Crowes record; he’d done stuff with the Stones. But I mean, come on, why was George Drakoulias calling a junior varsity ice hockey failure from Crestwood? It’s gotta be a joke. So I hung up on him. Then he called me right back and said, ‘Don’t hang up! This is George Drakoulias.’”
As it turns out, Drakoulias was now working as a music supervisor for films and had reached out to clear the song “Wonderful Subdivision” for the Noah Baumbach film Greenberg, starring Ben Stiller and Greta Gerwig. LCD Soundsystem frontman James Murphy, who also contributed original music to the film, was also particularly excited about being able to get a Drunks With Guns song onto the soundtrack.
“That kinda got the wheels spinning, and I thought, It’s been long enough,” Doskocil says. “By then, I’d met enough people to know the Drunks With Guns had been a big part of the people who did that whole Seattle thing.”
Doskocil officially got things in motion to get Drunks With Guns going again in 2016, spurred on by his frustrations with the presidential election.
“If the Drunks With Guns were born of anything, it was boredom and anger,” Doskocil says. “I thought, ‘Goddamnit, I gotta do something. I gotta say something.’ And this is what I do the best. I think maybe I didn’t do it for 20-something years because I just wasn’t that angry.”
He even reached out to his former bandmates to see if they would be interested in joining, but they were content to leave the band in the past.
“My first communications were with the original band members,” Doskocil says. “I reached out to everybody, and nobody else really wanted to do it. They had all moved on and weren’t doing music anymore. And I thought, ‘Screw this, I’ll see if I can find somebody else.’”
The current lineup includes guitarist John Zeps, bassist Rick Eye, drummer Weasel Walter, and Doskocil on vocals. Since getting back up and running, Drunks With Guns have released the compilation Fucked Up On Beer & Drugs, which collects the remastered material from the original three EPs alongside unreleased songs, and Live, which captures a 2024 performance in Austin, both through Trouble in River City Records. The group continues to build on this legacy with live concerts, including its upcoming tour.
“It seemed like there was enough of an interest that we could pile into a Subaru and drive two or three thousand miles over 10 days and play 10 shows,” Doskocil says.
Drunks With Guns’ stop in St. Louis at The Sinkhole on September 24 will be their third time back since re-forming, and this time they will be joined by Shitstorm, Jenerator Jenkins, and Janet Xmas. Drunks With Guns have always been known for their live antics, and this current iteration of the band keeps that spirit alive, which is even more reason to catch them while they’re back in St. Louis for the night.
“I think we do an excellent job of recreating the band that did those first couple of 7-inches; the band that is in that small clip in Greenberg,” Doskocil says. “I don’t see why you wouldn’t go and see us. What else would you do that is more important than seeing the only band from Crestwood?”
