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Interview
by SashaS
16-11-2004
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| !!!: somewhere, sometime, some-phunk... |
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Pulsating hybrid!!!
!!! - the summertime LP and beyond
Great music should engage one to party-too-hard, be as vociferous as one’s [unspoken] beliefs, be as edgy as a revolutionary manifesto! Not be as polite and mediocre as the second-hand copies that flood the airwaves and shop shelves. There is a cure, there is an exit, there is a liberation and it is called !!!. [The band members explain that it should be pronounced as three repetitive sounds, such as clicking; they named themselves after the film ‘The Gods Must Be Crazy’, where three mouth-clicking sounds were so subtitled.]
The band’s new album, ‘Louden Up Now’, is like oasis in the desert, a compound amidst the jungle full of dinosaurs. The musical language coined is brain-cells expending hybrid of rock and funk, pop and Urban, referencing Talking Heads, Prince, Can, PiL, Sly and the Family Stone [Larry Graham-esque basslines are unmistakeable], with touches of Happy Mondays, Gang of Four, The Clash, Big Audio Dynamite… The last quartet of acts this American septet claim not to have listened to but as an aftermath of the media comparisons.
‘Louden Up Now’ is a disc that is like Prince, Sonic Youth and Michael Moore are having a ball, it is an agit-funk-punkers’ stunner, a boogie-on post-phunk Leftism! It addresses one’s muscles without bypassing soul and mind. The topics are as contemporary as the Breaking News, the televised killing fields we all are watching while eating cornflakes and being tuned into ‘Big Brother’/’Pop Idol’/soap operas far more than with obesity and illiteracy of the Westworld.
!!!’s recipe is elevation of spirits, an instant seizure of one’s faculties, beats that capture your system, vulgar, obscene words that you gladly sing aloud while dancing the worry away. Inhale the dynamic, manic, exhilarating concoction of punk-funk-rock-disco-voodoo traversing songs that can only fail to move you if you are in ‘The Matrix’. This is guerrilla music, these are hymns of rebellion, protest chants for the apathetic generation of dancers…
Guitarist Mario Andreoni and vocalist Nic Offer are here to enhance on the wild and wacky universe of a band with members split on two US coasts: Sacramento, CA and New York, NY.
‘Louden Up Now’ is an album that is like Music of Mass Destruction versus the apocalypse we are facing; how dare you?
“This is our own solution,” Andreoni’s laughter echoes through the hotel’s atrium. “We didn’t know what else to do but make the album we have.”
“Our music is a collective effort,” Offer [can’t resist!] offers his pound of thoughts, “jamming for hours until a song emerges. It may be chaotic process but it is bound to change as half of the band is on the other side and we’re using computers more to write.”
Rush of conviviality
‘Louden Up Now’ is titled in a memory of a … teacher who used to tell them to ‘Quieten down now’ and follows four years after the self-titled debut. The band was formed in 1997 out of ashes of two punk bands in Sacramento and the twosome are telling stories about hardship and devious plans to keep the band afloat during the intervening years.
“Hopefully we are better at making it work now,” Andreoni looks on the bright side, “and be able to be together more. We hope to be able to stop doing our survival jobs and be able to concentrate more on the band.”
Your reference points are staggering, like an abridged encyclopaedia; where and when did you accumulate such repertoire of inspirations?
“The truth is that half of the bands people mention,” Offer assumes a defensive posture, “we have not listened to. Happy Mondays, never heard them; B.A.D. we have heard of but never really listened to, The Clash we respect. You are jumping to conclusions, like so many press people.”
Let’s not get antagonistic here, it‘s just an impression of a music lover…
“No, the reason must be having similar influences as them,“ Andreoni’s sounds logical, “as well as being punks. None of the bands we have listened to, we haven’t heard Happy Mondays until last year; we liked The Stone Roses…”
The first lot were more drugged up…
“We are not about drugs…” Andreoni states calmly.
So, ‘King Weed’ is a work of fiction?
“Right, right… It doesn’t happen but it is not an issue,” guitarists quickly retorts. “The point is that we listened to some of these bands 15 years ago. But, the others we admit, like Talking Heads, Can, Prince, Sly Stone… But, I mean our main influence is Sonic Youth, we are their sons and daughters but we don’t really know our grandparents.”
Peeled confessions
‘Louden Up Now’ is loaded with generous cross-pollution of styles, it is a humongous melting pot of cultural elements. Except, the sonic hedonism is not paired with vacuous lyrics but vibrate with raucous anti-American themes. How healthy is that for success in the States where ultra-patriotism appears to have become the nation’s pastime?
“The melding of styles is much higher now,” Andreoni argues, “than it was, let’s say, at the beginning of the 1990s. Everyone was into their own thing, split and separated. It is coming together now. We are no purists because it would lack a sense of adventure.”
“This is the first time we got particularly political,“ Offer explains, “but it is only a matter of depth. I like the albums that you listen to hundreds of times and always find something new. I felt I had something to say and I said it. Patriotism of our nation, that’s a completely different issue…”
“But, some people will be disappointed and I can think of a café we use to go to in California; we promised to thank them on the album and they were all pro-Bush, displaying patriotic symbols all over the place, flags… They’d say we ‘Stabbed them in the back’ and I feel a bit of betrayal there but truth will out!”
“People listening to our music,” Andreoni concludes, “will have to be anti-Bush… That means students, slackers, losers…”
Fun seekers, vibe-catchers and funk-aficionados… ‘Louden Up Now’, the quintessential mutha!!!
Tour dates:
13 October - Astoria, London
16 October - Barrowlands, Glasgow (supporting Franz Ferdinand)
17 October - Hop & Grape, Manchester
18 October - Rescue Rooms, Nottingham
[Originally published on 08 June 2004]
SashaS
16-11-2004
!!!'s album 'Louden Up Now' has been on release since 07 June 2004 on Warp/Touch & Go
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