Lagwagon back in town that nearly spelled its end

It took nearly 20 years, but Lagwagon frontman Joey Cape was ready to talk about the craziest night in the California punk band’s history.

“I never really felt comfortable telling it until recently,” said Cape, who returns to Pensacola as Lagwagon plays Sunday at Vinyl Music Hall, 2 Palafox Place.

“One of my favorite memories from Lagwagon touring happened in Pensacola,” Cape said. “We actually broke up onstage at a gig at Sluggo’s.”

“It was just insane,” he said of the Pensacola meltdown in 1995. “It makes that Billie Joe (Armstrong of Green Day) thing — freaking out on TV — look totally weak.”

Pensacola native Earl Lyon attended the show in ’95. “That was my fourth or fifth time seeing them and they seemed tight,” Lyon said of the band known for skate-rock anthems such as “Parents Guide to Living.” “You didn’t think anything like that would happen, but obviously, there was a breaking point.”

“I’ll never forget,” Cape said. “We’re onstage at Sluggo’s and our drummer (Derrick Plourde) just nodded out. Then Shawn Dewey, our rhythm guitar player, started yelling at somebody in the audience for running into the microphone and hurting his face. He was bleeding, and I start yelling at him.”

The squabble soon escalated as Lagwagon’s other guitarist, Chris Flippin, intervened.

“Obviously, some people were out of it and couldn’t perform,” Lyon said. “The next thing you know, they had a big fistfight between the two guitarists.”

“You got to remember, these guys are giants,” Cape said. “Shawn is like 6-foot-7, and Chris is 6-foot-9, and they’re fist-fighting onstage.

“It was so surreal, when I look back on it now. Jesse (Buglione), our bass player, he’s standing there cross-legged with a cigarette, smoking really awkwardly, looking at me. I looked at him and I just kind of made this face like ‘Oh, well!’ Because that’s it.”

Buglione then pointed something out to the spent frontman.

“Jesse nods to the right,” he said. “I look over and there’s this crowd, a full Sluggo’s room of kids with their mouths going ‘Oh my god. What am I watching?’ ”

Cape reshaped Lagwagon over time and reflected on that night and the years that followed.

“The drummer was really having a hard time,” he said of Plourde, who committed suicide in 2005. “He was a drug addict. He was getting worse on tour and the tension in the band was getting heavier. Everybody’s come to terms with this stuff now. We’re all at peace with it. (There) were many, many good years after that when Derrick was fine and we’re all friends.”

Lagwagon has been around since 1990, releasing their first album, “Duh,” in 1992 while riding the wave of recognition that followed fellow California bands like Green Day and Rancid.

Tickets are $15 for this all-ages event. Doors open 7:30 p.m. Local bands Guns To Fire and It Starts Today will perform, as well as Delaware band Plow United.