By FINN HARTNETT

Staff writer

When Dallas Pryor was 20, he picked up a guitar for the first time.

He was far from home, in Pensacola, Florida, and wasn’t sure what he was doing.

After growing up in Abilene, Pryor enlisted in the Marine Corps after high school.

“I didn’t apply myself,” he said. “I didn’t have a career plan.”

He wanted to go to Kansas State University — he was, and still is, a huge Wildcats fan — and the only way he’d have a chance with his grades was through the military. So he signed up.

“I went to boot camp in San Diego, did combat training in [Camp] Pendleton,” Pryor said. “My first schooling was over in Pensacola. My next schooling was in Jacksonville, North Carolina. And then I was in my first duty station in New Jersey.”

In New Jersey, Pryor was “a f—ing barfly.”

He disliked his fellow Marines, who he thought had little personality besides their intensity and discipline.

As a recruit, he was barely allowed off base and spent most of his time in the Port Exchange, the Enlisted Club, and smoke circles around his barracks.

“I hated the Marine Corps,” he said.

In one smoke pit, Pryor met Trent Baldwin, a native of Broken Bow, Oklahoma. Pryor began “jamming out” with Baldwin, and when Baldwin was sent to Hawaii, Pryor bought his guitar for $50.

After a few months, Pryor gained trust among his superiors and was allowed to leave base more freely.

“I played around for a while, and I became a regular at this bar that was 40 minutes away from me called Mayo’s Halfway House,” he said. “My favorite bar in the world.”

Mayo’s, in Chatsworth, New Jersey, is still around, though it has come under new ownership in the years since Pryor came to love it.

“After four, the bar staff and a few of the regulars would still be in there drinking, and the owner would break out the ashtrays, and people would be smoking in there, too,” he said. “I’d break out my guitar and start playing.”

Mayo’s owner eventually told him to start performing at the bar.

“You better start playing here, or I’ll never let you back in,” is what Pryor remembers being told.

For every performance, Pryor got $80 and free beer. It was the highlight of his time in Jersey.

After 4½ in the Marines, Pryor returned to Kansas. Nervous about his prospects at Kansas State, he first enrolled at Salina Area Technical College, taking classes in electrical technology, before transferring to his dream school and majoring in architectural engineering.

“I did great in Salina,” Pryor said. “I did not do great at K-State.”

Despite giving up music to focus on his studies, Pryor ended up dropping out of Kansas State.

He found work as an electrician after college, and in 2017, formed a band with Keegan Knox, a Salina Tech classmate.

The duo performed as Dallas and Keegan for a while before settling on the name Lazy Wayne.

“His nickname was Lazy K, and my middle name is Wayne,” Pryor explained.

By 2018, the band had grown to four members and was “taking the road seriously,” per Pryor.

Lazy Wayne traveled to Iowa, Texas, and even at Mayo’s. The band performed roughly 60 shows over the course of a year.

Pryor remembered 2018 as the year when he first took responsibility for the group.

“It’s like, ‘Hey, so we’re on my third transmission, I paid for the trailer, it’s my truck that we’re using, and you drove like an a—hole; are we going to buy into this together?’” he said. “And they all said, ‘Nah.’ And I’m like, ‘OK, cool. This is my show, I guess.’ Ever since then, it’s been my show.”

Knox quit the band late in 2018, though he gave Pryor permission to continue using the Lazy Wayne name.

The band remains active, although there has been frequent turnover in the past eight years. “I’m on my third bassist,” Pryor said.

Pryor, the one constant throughout the turnover, plans to reorganize Lazy Wayne under his own name a few days before Chingawassa weekend. It will make marketing himself and the band easier.

The group therefore is listed as Dallas Pryor on event programming, despite the fact that the rest of the band — guitarist Logan Sanders, bassist Sam Williams, and drummer Tyler Jimenez — will perform alongside their frontman.

It will be the band’s first time at Chingawassa Days. Pryor said he does not have much connection with Marion, though he used to get his hair cut at Mike’s Barber Shop on Main St.

“The first time I heard about Chingawassa Days was when Charlie Daniels played it [in 2017],” he said. “I was like, ‘What? I didn’t know Marion did a festival. This looks sick.’”

He and his band will bring a red-dirt flavor to the Central Park stage, playing original songs and Randy Rogers covers.

When asked what made his band unique, Pryor spoke confidently and passionately. His whole life, after all, had brought him to this point, a week away from a first performance under his own name.

“I think my vocals set us apart,” he said. “I think our harmony sets us apart. And I think our rhythm section is the best in Kansas. I think they’re the best people in our state to do it. Nobody gets together quite like Tyler and Sam.”