I have to admit, I was a little stoked when Doug Carrion emailed me the other day asking me to check out his new band called Field Day.

In case you were not aware, Carrion has been in some of the greatest punk bands out there including Dag Nasty and Descendents.  So yeah, I might have geeked out slightly.

Field Day formed in 2019 after Carrion and other Dag OGs Brian Baker and Peter Cortner tossed around the idea of performing Dag Nasty’s Wig Out At Denko’s (Dischord Records) and Field Day (Giant Records) live.  The discussion turned over a new leaf in terms of a band and Carrion and Cortner decided to start the band.

The band has a 7″ titled 2.0 coming out this summer and the one track I heard called “Searching For Answers” is just solid.  They were supposed to play Now That’s Class in support of the release, but that stupid virus had to go and ruin that for now.

Seeing how we are all stuck indoors, I thought I’d ask Carrion a few questions about the new band:

DC: The idea of a reboot was mostly driven by the fans asking where Peter was hiding and if we would ever perform the Wig Out at Denko’s material live. Just to be super clear, Field Day is the band with me and Peter Cortner who sang on Wig Out at Denko’s and Field Day (Giant Records), Kevin Avery, and Shay Mehrdad.

Between the fans asking, and a few conversations with the members, we agreed that Peter and I would call this project Field Day in order to avoid confusion with the fans and promoters.  Now, when you see a flyer with Field Day on it, you know it’s Peter and Doug and if you see a flyer with Dag on it, that’s gonna be Shawn and Brian.

What was the turning point in the discussion to where you decided that maybe it was best to just try something new?  

Peter and I talked about Field Day being an extension of where we left off with Dag Nasty, so I’d say maybe that was right at the beginning of the conversation in Nov 2018.  Our initial goal was to have fun, start doing shows, start writing and to start recording.  We gave ourselves around 9 months to work on the live show and then set our minds on having new music done and released within the first year.  Well, our first show as Field Day was July 12th, 2019 and we have new music recorded and coming out June 5th, 2020…that’s 11 months from the first show!!!

Prior to me hearing “Searching For Answers” and getting ever so pumped for more material, I noticed y’all were supposed to play a Cleveland show.  Sadly this pandemic prevented that from happening.  How’s the band handling all of this and will the tour happen in time?
Glad you like it!! Yep, we have a new 7” coming out on Unity Worldwide in Germany, distributed by Cortex in Europe and RevHQ here in the states.  I produced it, Cameron Webb (Pennywise, Ignite, Motorhead) mixed it. If you’re a vinyl fan, you can preorder a few different colors from the distributors and if you just want to download the songs, iTunes, Amazon, Spotify, etc. will have music June 5th.

Cleveland, along with a bunch of other shows, had to be postponed which was frustrating, but had to be done.  We’re hoping to get back to Cleveland in late July but that really depends if the local and state governments are allowing concerts. For the states it’s up in the air at the moment.

Separately, we are scheduled to go to Europe [from] October 31st to November 8th and we’re hoping that comes together. It’s also out of our hands and up in the air, but a possibility.  Although we haven’t been playing live shows because of the virus, during the downtime, we’ve stayed really busy doing press, a lyric video, interviews, and etc to set up this 7”.  Also we’ve been writing new songs for our next release possibly later this year.  On our end we’re ready to jump right back into the studio as soon as we get the OK.

What can Dag Nasty and Descendents fans expect from Field Day?Positive vibes and singalongs for sure!! We play almost everything from Wig Out at Denko’s and Can I Say with a few select tracks from the Field Day recording. Expect to have fun and be projected into a time warp because Field Day play the recorded songs true to form.

Our motto in the band is “Be Humble and Don’t Suck.” Over the past 10 months of shows, we’ve met lots of new faces, reconnected with old friends and everyone is having a blast!!

Another thing people can expect is the informal hangout with the band after the show.  Usually two weeks before a show, we start getting requests from people who want to get photos or have stuff signed when we come into their town, so we started building in time after the shows to hangout with fans. It’s really cool!!