Another River Rat from Edgard

“Another River Rat from Edgard” Musician Dave Malone grateful for River Parishes upbringing

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By Brooke Robichaux

Photo by Scott Vincent.

DGARD — Before taking the country by storm in The Radiators rock band from 1978 to 2011, singer and songwriter Dave Malone grew up in a military family constantly on the move.

He was in a different school every year from first to seventh grade, bouncing between Houma, Montgomery, Alabama, and a little Michigan

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Dave Malone left Edgard High School midway through senior year to get a head start on his New Orleans music career.

town 10 miles from the Canadian border.

Between all the moves, Malone’s family

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Dave Malone grew up in Edgard near Evergreen Plantation, which his family once owned.

always returned to Edgard, and it’s there he found his passion for music.

“When I tell people where I’m from, it’s

Edgard, because that’s where I have the strongest and longest memories from, and that’s how I identify myself,” Malone said.

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Semi-retired from a long career with The Radiators, Dave Malone still plays in New Orleans with his band, Raw Oyster Cult, and travels throughout the country.

“I’m another river rat from Edgard.”

Malone’s mother was born and raised on Evergreen Plantation in Wallace. When her father saw financial struggles looming overhead in the sugarcane industry, he sold the plantation and built a house a mile down the river.

That house, address Rural Route Box 240, was the place Malone called home for most of his childhood.

Each day, he and his brothers would run out the door and wouldn’t return home till sunset. It was a simple, country boy lifestyle, according to Malone.

Summer days were spent rummaging through sugarcane fields, hunting squirrels and rabbits and exploring the river.

“As kids, we lived a very much Huck Finn kind of existence,” Malone said. “We were in the river whenever we could be. There was a big bend in the river in front of my parents’ house. Every year when the river would flood, there was a pond right across the levee that got restocked with catfish and perch.”

There were four Malone boys in total: Billy, the oldest; then John, Dave and Tommy.

Younger brother Tommy went on to establish and active career with New Orleans roots rock band “The Subdudes” as a singer, songwriter and guitar player.

However, in those childhood days, Malone looked up to older brothers Billy and John. They knew how to build rafts and work shrimp boxes and catfish lines.

Later on, their creativity grew into a love for music. As teenagers, they would draw a crowd of friends to the house and strum acoustic guitars to the tune of folk era music from artists like Peter, Paul and Mary.

In 1964, the brothers watched as The Beatles played five songs on the Ed Sullivan Show in the group’s first televised performance.

From that point forward, the Malones were determined to start a band and make it big.

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destroyed in Hurricane Katrina in 2005. However, a significant portion of that time was lived in tour buses and hotels.

He became singer and songwriter for The Radiators, formed in January of 1978 in New Orleans.

“We played all over the United States and Europe a couple of times,” Malone said. “Mostly Maine to Miami and San Diego to Seattle and all points in between.”

New York, Chicago, Minneapolis, Austin, North and South Florida, Boulder, Denver and West Coast cities were hot spots that could always be counted on for a warm welcome and a great show.

Allowing students to record The Radiators each year at Tulane University during graduation gigs became an “accidentally brilliant” form of grassroots marketing, according to Malone.

Graduates would return to their hometowns across the country, records in hand, and share the music with friends and family.

The Radiators officially retired in 2011, but Malone still plays with former bandmates Camile Baudoin and Frank Bua Jr., along with Dave Pomerleau and “Papa” Jon Gros in a newer group called Raw Oyster Cult.

Malone, who now resides in Prairieville, continues to perform songs in New Orleans.

He’s currently working on a River Parishes project with local musicians Kevin Aucoin, drummer, and Joe Tullos, guitarist, singer and songwriter.

“We’re going to be doing an album kind of based on our experiences growing up on the river,” Malone said. “Their experiences in LaPlace on the East Bank were really different from mine.

My River Road in Edgard was different than their River Road.”

In high school, Dave Malone had a band called “The Family Dog.”

“I was drawn to music,” Malone said. “I just kind of knew that was what I wanted to do. I practiced guitar until my fingers bled, literally. It just consumed my life.”

The only surefire way to learn songs in the 1960s, according to Malone, was to set up a 45 record player, start it over and over again and try to play along.

Malone described his house as the “clubhouse”, a place were children from all over town would flock to. He counted himself lucky to have an open-minded mother who never objected to music instruments overtaking her dining room.

“We would set up band equipment and make all the God-awful noise we wanted to, and no one seemed to mind,” Malone said.

During Malone’s final year of school, he was voted senior class president and Mr. Edgard High School, ironically.

He couldn’t wait to escape those four walls and hit the music scene in New Orleans. With older brother John at Tulane University, Malone saw a glimpse of a lifestyle oriented to the arts.

After collecting enough credits to graduate halfway through senior year, Malone walked out the door without a second thought.

“I had a high school band called The Family Dog, and there wasn’t really anywhere to play in Edgard and Vacherie except for the KC Hall,” Malone said. “We still played regular gigs, but they were far away. I could not wait to get to New Orleans where all the music was. People there were likeminded as I was, just consumed with music.”

Malone lived in New Orleans from mid-1970 until his home was

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