It’s always something of a punch to the gut when a likable band breaks up, especially when they put in one of our favorite performances of 2010. What’s more, they played at the Black Cat in April with the band that topped last year’s list to put in a strong bid for our favorite show of 2011! So if you had not yet heeded our advice and seen the rhythm-driven confetti ball that is Baltimore’s Double Dagger, this is going to be your last opportunity to do so. Tonight marks their final D.C. show and Friday night at Baltimore’s Ottobar will be the final show in their nine-year, two-month run. It’s a bummer for us, but since the band is breaking up on amicable terms, it’s bound to be a night of raw, visceral excitement rather than one fraught with weird tension.

In preparation for this final show, we talked to Double Dagger bassist Bruce Willen about their finale’s celebratory tone and the imprint that they’ve left on the area’s music scene.

How long did you guys know that you were coming up on the end?

This summer, we sort of made the decision that it would be a good time to announce our last shows. We’re not breaking up because we had a big falling out or anything like that, so we wanted to play our final shows other than suddenly stop playing and that’d be it.

I doubted that this was because of malice since you and Nolan work together.

Yeah. All three of us are still friends.

One thing that has always made you stand apart was your thoughtful lyrics. Do you think that you’ll continue to espouse those greater concerns in other aspects of your life?

Yeah, definitely. I think there’s definitely something to be said for making music and art that is more concerned with ephemeral qualities. But at the same time, it’s not the things that stick with you with music or art or books, it’s always something that at least tries to approach a larger concept or something that speaks to some deeper meaning or idea and even if it doesn’t work all the time, it’s more valiant to take a stab at it even at the risk of failure or embarrassing yourself then to keep it something that’s very light and ephemeral that carries less risk.

What do you think the final imprint will be that Double Dagger has made on the music scene, at least within the Baltimore/Washington area?

That’s kind of a tough question. I hadn’t really thought about that too much. One thing that we’ve always tried to do as a band was to have very strong live performances and bring a lot of energy to the music in a lot of different ways. What I can see in other bands that have come along since we’ve formed — I don’t want to say that we’re a direct influence on anybody — but I guess the idea that you can have a really intense performance and that you can be in this band that’s aggressive, but it doesn’t have to be one-dimensional. It’s being really aggressive and smart. Or you can be really high energy but it doesn’t have to conform to a single sort of genre all the time.

In fact, one thing that I appreciated that you did at your Comet Ping Pong show was to invite the women in the audience and additional people who didn’t want to mosh to the front of the room.

That show was kind of funny. Every once in awhile, sometimes there are some traditional mosh pits at our shows in the sense that people are getting aggressive to the point where it’s annoying to the rest of the audience. We definitely love it when people are dancing or moshing, but sometimes you can see that it’s really alienating the majority of the crowd when there’s like, five dudes who are throwing each other around. They’re having an awesome time, which is cool, but sometimes it’s like, “can you tone it down just the tiniest bit?” That was definitely an instance where we thought we should try to shift the dynamic of the show or the audience as much as we can. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. Just because you have a microphone doesn’t always mean that people will take your advice. But, that was a really good example of being able to switch things up and change the crowd dynamic and I really think that helped the rest of the show.

To be fair, nobody in the back of the room will stay in the back of the crowd since Nolan will come out and dance with them anyway.

I think that’s something that we really try and do for every show. We don’t really like having this strict separation from the audience where they’re here to watch us perform. I think that’s something that we’ve tried to do from the beginning, to blur that line a little bit.

Can you think of any shows offhand that were particularly memorable?

There were a lot of great shows. I think we’re fortunate where most of the shows that we’ve played in the band have been good in one way or another. We’ve definitely had our share of terrible shows, though, as has any band. But, I’d say…all of the shows that we’ve played at Whartscape in Baltimore. We played every year at Whartscape since it started and all of them were great in different ways. The first couple were much smaller and more intimate and sort of felt like small warehouse shows and the last few were much more of a festival atmosphere. Some of our early shows in the basement of Charm City Art Space were just really awesome and had this small intimate atmosphere, everybody having a really good time. We played this show at this house in Baltimore called the Nerve Center. Everybody showed up with pizza. So, everyone at the show wound up getting pizza and during our set, the audience crowdsurfed the PA system while we were playing.

Is there anything that we can expect from your last few shows?

We have some “secret guests” playing the last Baltimore show that we’re not going to announce unless the show sells out. We’re doing two final shows in Baltimore, one on the 12th and one on the 21st. We anticipate that a lot of people will be at both shows, so we’re going to be doing mostly different sets. Probably also for the D.C. show we’ll probably mix it up. So, all three of those shows will be significantly different. We may play a couple of songs that we haven’t played in a long time.

When you started the band, did you see it lasting this long?

Nine years is a long time for a band. But, I think it’s a good time because bands that have been together for more than ten years — it’s almost like a turning point — you either have to become some psychedelic alt-folk jam band or just, The Rolling Stones. I think the nine- or ten-year mark for any band is a turning point. It’s a good time to call it quits. But, we’re all really excited about the last shows and that’s one of the nice things about scheduling the shows and quitting on our own terms — we get to book a lot of really fun shows with people that we really like in cities that we love to play.

Double Dagger’s final D.C. show will be at the Black Cat Backstage tonight with Imperial China and Holy Ghost Party. $10, 8:00 p.m.