Oscar Aguilar
Audio By Carbonatix
Oscar Aguilar, frontman for Denver’s The Regular, lost his girlfriend to a low-down son of a bitch, as he tells it. It’s a mild tragedy that most young people will experience on their romantic journeys. But instead of just moving on – because who does that – he opted to immortalize his displeasure in song. That’s how his aptly titled single “Scum” came into being.
“You ever have someone in your life you just can’t stand?” Aguilar asks. “He’s a total piece of shit, and every time you think of him, you just want to beat the shit out of somebody?” (He usually asks this of the audience, too, whenever the Regular performs the song live.)
“We actually saw this coming a mile away,” keyboardist Spencer Adamson chimes in. “We actually wrote the song before you guys broke up, because we saw it coming.”
“Oh, yeah,” Aguliar concedes.
The band worked with videographer Kyle Lamar to direct the music video for the single, which drops Friday, March 25. It was a raucous affair shot inside the hi-dive.
“We had this character,” Adamson says. “Let’s just think of the worst person we can think of, just this guy who comes into the bar and will just try to get with anyone else’s girl, just not even giving a shit about it.”
The titular “Scum” keeps hitting on women at the bar until a full scale brawl breaks out in the packed venue. Beer bottles fly. Someone throws a fish at the stage. Scum gets a bottle broken over his rotten head. It’s a good old-fashioned melee in every sense of the word. The band keeps playing.
“I wrote the script and got the location within the week for the shoot,” Aguilar says. “We had to cast people, as well, and get extras to come. We told everyone there would be punch and cookies at the hi-dive.”
As for “Scum,” Aguilar isn’t sure where that slime is lurking these days.
“I’ve got him blocked on everything,” he says. “It kind of triggers me. … In a way, the guy kind of won. He got the girl and then he gets a song.” (Aguilar is seeing someone new now, in case you were wondering.)
The video marks the second attempt the Regular has taken at shooting a bar fight for a music video. Last year, they shot a video at Herman’s Hideaway for a song called “Animal.” It involved ten pounds of confetti. The fish thrown at the stage appeared in that video, too. But you’ll never see it.
“The next morning, (Lamar) calls me, and he’s really upset,” Aguilar says. “He was like, ‘My camera got stolen out of my car. My $60,000 camera, and I didn’t have insurance.’ And all the footage was in it.”
It all worked out in the end, because “Scum” seems like more of a bar fight song, anyway. They took precautions the second time around, however. You live and learn.
“We took the hard drive to dinner with us,” Adamson adds. “I said if we lose another music video shoot, I’m going to kill myself. We took the hard drive out of the car with all the footage. We are like, ‘We are not losing this.'”
Stylistically, “Scum” evokes Flogging Molly fist-fighting Social Distortion at an acoustic Dropkick Murphys show. The pounding bass drum, quick tempo and shouted “La, di, da, da, di, da, da” vocals on the chorus make for a catchy track.
“I think we were thinking about making a kind of drinking song,” Adamson says. “It grew out of that. It’s definitely a stomp along, throw a punch, have a pint kind of song.”
“Scum” is a sonic departure for the Regular. The band started off as Aguilar’s solo project in Illinois. (Patrick Smith, Scott Barber, Elliott Miller and Adamson joined later.) The members find the music of Swedish songwriter Kristian Matsson, who performs as the Tallest Man on Earth, and Denver band the Lumineers to be influential. Aguilar is a big fan of Deer Tick, and drew from the Rhode Island indie-rock band for inspiration.
He is overjoyed when a Deer Tick comparison comes up during his interview with us.
“I just came in my pants,” Aguilar exclaims.
“You just made him so happy,” Adamson adds.
“That’s my favorite band ever in life,” Aguilar says. “John McCauley – I tried to fangirl at their last show at the Gothic, but I got too scared.”
Deer Tick frontman John McCauley also started off as a solo act, so Aguilar feels a certain kindred spirit with the musician.
“I used to just go around with a kick drum and a tambourine,” he says. “I went to L.A. and Chicago, stuff like that. When I went back to Chicago, I asked Spencer if he wanted to join. It was after we’d been friends for a couple of years.”
The two eventually relocated to Denver in 2018, picking up more members, and played their first show at the Lion’s Lair.
“It was a total disaster,” Aguilar recalls.
The band is currently grinding it out in Denver and playing shows in Los Angeles and Chicago. The members plan to release a full-length album, though they don’t have a firm release date shored up.
“We’re headlining in Chicago and Los Angeles,” Aguilar says. “No one knows who we are out here, but the last show we played sold out. We were really surprised about that.”
For the record, neither Aguilar nor Adamson have ever participated in a bar fight.
“I’ve always wanted to be,” Aguilar says. “It’s actually on my bucket list.”
“I’ve had a shot glass thrown at me,” Adamson adds. “But I didn’t fight.”
That being said, they both work out at fight gyms. You never know.
“Scum” premieres on Friday, March 25. For more information, visit theregularmusic.com.