The Dwarves’ Blag Dahlia discusses commodified inflammation, fatherhood and singing for SpongeBob ahead of new album
This is a special edition of Punk Rock Bach for May 25, 2026.
What’s this? A new issue of Punk Rock Bach on a Monday morning? Has Rob gone mad!?
Welcome to a special Memorial Day edition of Punk Rock Bach! Today, we’ve got an interview with the founder of hardcore punk band The Dwarves — Blag Dahlia!
Blag and I had a wide-ranging discussion about the band’s new album, the state of provocative artistic expression and even his time providing vocals for the cartoon “SpongeBob Squarepants.”
Onward!
Take a look at past album art from The Dwarves and you’re likely to get an eyeful of bare breasts and spread legs.
From 1989’s “Blood, Guts and Pussy” to 1997’s “The Dwarves are Young and Good Looking” and 2025’s “Sunshine, Lollipops and Rainbows,” many of the band’s album covers feature shapely women in various stages of undress.
The band’s latest album cover, however, is more modest.
“Usually, people are used to getting the naked women on the cover and all this stuff, and we kind of went for a bootleg look on this one, you know, like an old 1970s bootleg,” said Blag Dahlia, who founded The Dwarves and serves as its frontman. “So that’s been kind of fun. People [are] like, ‘Wait a minute, what’s this?’ You know, so it kind of grabbed people with the minimalist approach.”
The Dwarves is a provocative band that’s been around since the 1980s. The musicians’ upcoming album, “JENKEM,” is set to debut on June 5. Some of the tracks include “We are the Scene,” “Here We Come Again,” and — another curve ball from the band — a song that’s less frenetic than others: “Damned if I Do.”
Dahlia said that track is “almost like mid-tempo, 80s-rock kind of number.”
“I had no idea where that one came from,” he said. “I just kind of woke up one day and wrote it, and it was like, ‘oh, this is cool.’ So, then we went and made a video for it. It’s very kind of Hollywood high production value, and so you know it’s the usual kind of mess of a Dwarves record, and people are digging it.”
The changing face of inflammatory artistic expression
What some people might consider controversial acts or provocative behavior is part of The Dwarves’ very foundation.
One example: way back in the 1980s, an “early version of the band” called Sexually Deprived Youth played at a high school pep rally, according to the band’s website. Band members were “expelled for hiring teenage art models to pose nude with bowls of fruit balanced on their heads,” the website indicates.
But Dahlia said shocking audiences was never the point.
“I wasn’t naive and ignorant to the fact that we were shocking people, but it was more like the way I always looked at it was like I don’t censor myself,” he said. “So, the thoughts that are ricocheting around my brain go into my song. So if I’m thinking about fucking, then my song is about fucking. If I’m thinking about murder, then my song is about murder. Most artists censor themselves. Whatever’s ricocheting around in their brain, they go, ‘Oh, I better not say that, because if I say that, then maybe I’ll lose my record deal. Or maybe my mommy won’t like, you know, my output, or maybe my girlfriend will get mad. Or maybe, you know, people won’t think I’m a nice guy anymore.’”
Dahlia said when people ask him why he does these shocking things, he tells them “it seems shocking to you […] because everybody else is doing these really boring things that are not really plumbing the depths of their souls or their brains.”
“They’re just giving you, you know, a safe, modified thing that they know is not going to be a problem,” he said. “And it can get played on the radio and nobody from the labels can complain. You know what I mean? So, I think, like, the biggest problem with artists is that they censor themselves before it gets out of their brain.”
The modern world is very different than the 1980s and 1990s. Today, one merely needs to turn on the news or head to social media to find shocking content. With shock being the norm in 2026, is there still room for inflammatory artistic expression?
Dahlia thinks maybe not.
“I mean, in a lot of ways, no, because the inflammatory nature itself has been commodified, right? That’s what the internet is, is conflict, and so people saying outrageously stupid things has become the essence of our politics, when that used to be the opposite of it.”
He continued, “Politics was, by its nature, like juggling different things and trying not to alienate people and bring together the largest consensus you could do. Now our politics is all conflict and we sort of have the conflictor-in-chief, and so it’s sort of the same thing with music or with art or with anything.”
Blag’s time with SpongeBob
Dahlia is the definition of a renaissance man. He founded and performs in The Dwarves, has written books, including 2006’s “Nina” and 2022’s “Highland Falls,” and hosts a podcast, among other activities.
Oh, and he also sings in an episode of Nickelodeon’s SpongeBob SquarePants.
“SpongeBob has become this cultural phenomenon that billions of people know about now, and I’m very proud to have taken part in it,” Dahlia said. “But of course, like everything, it started as like a guy’s idea, and his wife worked at a catering company with my bass player.”
That bass player, Dahlia said, is Salt Peter — who also wrote the song “Last Chance Lilly” on The Dwarves’ upcoming album.
For SpongeBob, Dahlia said, one thing led to another and Salt Peter became the song writer on the first few seasons of the cartoon. The show’s unofficial fandom site indicates Salt Peter’s real name is Peter Straus and that he wrote songs for the first four seasons.
Dahlia became involved, he said, when the show was looking for a very specific type of voice.
“One of the first songs was this thing, ‘Do the Sponge,’ and they wanted it… and the guy specifically was like, ‘Hey, do you know anybody that can sing like the guy from The Cramps?’ And he [Salt Peter] goes, ‘Oh, I got the guy for you,’” Dahlia said.
Dahlia said he was “a huge Cramps fan.”
“Salt Peter wrote this song that was kind of like ‘The Crusher,’ which was an old, like, wrestler song that The Cramps had covered,” Dahlia said. “And so, I went in there and knocked it out, probably took an hour, you know, or less, and it’s probably the most famous thing I’ll ever do or be involved with.”
Hitting the road
Dwarves fans in Texas, San Francisco and Europe can look forward to seeing the band live later this year. Dahlia said the band plans to perform at Hellfest, Obscene Extreme and other music festivals.
“We’re just doing what rock bands do, you know, getting out on the road and flogging our record,” he said. “Our output over the last few years has been pretty exhausting. We put out a lot of records in the last few years, so you know we’re gonna tour on in and knock it out and see where it goes.”
Separately, Dahlia said he has a solo album coming out later this year.
“Ralph Champagne, The Ralph Champagne Review is coming out around Christmas,” he said. “So, you know, that’s sort of whereas The Dwarves kind of hit all the hard genres of like thrash and punk and all that, Ralph Champagne is all the like softer Americana genres of country and lounge and novelty and humor.”
But in between working on new music and touring, Dahlia is focusing on a role he’s not had before: being a father. He recently turned 60 and became a dad for the first time.
“I never thought I’d get a chance to do it in my life, and so, you know, you always regret the things that you haven’t done,” he said. “And so, then this got thrown in my lap, and it was like, ‘wow, this is great,’ you know? I feel like I can enjoy it, and I probably have the patience and perspective to really get a kick out of it in a way that I probably wouldn’t have when I was younger, and I would have felt like it was stopping me from rocking out and doing what I wanted. And now, I feel like, ‘wow, maybe I can have a whole childhood again now through this being.’ So, that’s all so exciting.”
The Dwarves’ upcoming album “JENKEM” is set to release on June 5 via Greedy Records. You can pre-order the album on vinyl or CD on the band’s merchtable site. It is also available for pre-save digitally.
Thanks for reading this special edition of Punk Rock Bach! We’ll be back at our regular publish time on Thursday evening. Until then!