Portland, Oregon’s Stunt Drummer didn’t have one for the longest time – an inside joke that the band eventually decided should be its moniker. They eventually found one to play on their 2023 self-titled debut – only for the band to swap drummers again for their recently released second album, Warm Up, Tiger.
Join The Bad Penny as we talk with guitarist/vocalist Marty Buckenmeyer and bassist Ethan Schee about the challenges of getting a band off the ground, our mutual love for the Jesus Lizard and why Stunt Drummer decided to record live in a small room with minimal overdubs.
“It’s self-help ska, only not as dreadful as that sounds.”
-Be Decent’s Ken Partridge
Be Decent – an instructively named neo-ska quartet from Brooklyn – are fixated on the September 18 release date for their debut record, Now’s the Time. But first things first (or second, in this case): The band needs to slip out a couple of singles to lather captive indie-rockers with interest. The first tune came in the form of “Human Nature,” featuring Ted Leo; today, The Bad Penny exclusively brings you Be Decent’s second single, “You Better Work,” and accompanying video for it.
Calling to mind a reprimand from father or a frustrated exclamation directed at one’s self while trying to fix a laptop, “You Better Work” is a chipper, affirmative song with saxophone flourishes and undeniable reggae influences.
Florist – a band from Tampa, Florida – left desert-doom devourers speechless after releasing their first album, Contact, in 2023. They’ve been on a roll since then and just signed two weeks ago to Ripple Music, perhaps the fastest-growing heavy-metal record label on the planet. But while Florist’s prospects are bright – Ripple is reissuing their Adrift EP on August 21 – the band was bittersweet when The Bad Penny caught up with them on Friday.
The Bad Penny had tallied about two dozen first interviews with bands in recent years, which we consider to be one of our proudest achievements: Getting those bands who are so, so good but don’t have the self-awareness or confidence to leap across the brook, even if they tumble into in the water.
For a group that banded together only about five years ago, Glasgow’s Void of Light are already showing remarkable prowess, adeptness and assuredness, especially considering their “formative” years occurred during COVID. Their debut full-length, Asymmetries (Ripcord), makes wanting to press the “skip” button almost as difficult as picking up a gun in a game of “Russian Roulette”: There’s a better chance than not that the next song on the record will be as good, if not better, than the last one. The irony, though, of course, if that you wouldn’t get to hear it – at least not the whole way through.
(L-R: Alfredo Hernández, James Childs and June Kato)
It’s only taken about two decades to clinch an interview with the one, the only, the mighty Alfredo Hernández, former drummer for Queens of the Stone and Kyuss, and one of the originators of the “desert-rock” that continues to catch on across not just the U.S. but, rather peculiarly, Europe.
Not to be overlooked on Hernández’ resume are stints with (Kyuss founding member) Brant Bjork and the Bros and Yawning Man, and his current status in the band Avon. which QOTSA devotees will recall as one of the song names on the band’s first album. (Lesser-known fact: Hernández co-wrote seven of the 11 album tracks with Josh Homme; and joined forces with the band’s leader as well as Monster Magnet guitar and Homme homie John McBrain to craft “Regular John,” still considered one of the prolific band’s best numbers.)
As for these days, Avon just delivered a new album, Black on Sunshine, in mid-April via Go Down Records. Unsurprisingly, promotional materials for the record suggest three RIYLs: Wouldntyaknowit: Kyuss, QOTSA and Monster Magnet. Filling out the lineup are Emmy-winning guitarist, Airbus band member and Geoff Barrow (Portishead) collaborator James Childs. Palm Springs mainstayCharles Pasarell handles bass. Childs’ guitar and vocalist pal in Airbus playing guitar and sang on “Black on Sunshine” and “Strangest Love” too.
The amount of information Hernández shared in his well-considered answers is nothing less than very noteworthy (we’re not prone to hyperbole, even if it’s all the rage these days). Here are a few main points before you dig in:
• The most salient point made in the premise of the story as you’ve read it so far is wrong. • Hernández and Josh Homme are still on good terms, and while they don’t talk about their current projects, you might see them play together again at some point. • Same goes for Nick Oliveri, who brought Hernández into his Mondo Generator project twice, and apparently they had a blast. • Kyuss and perhaps even QOTSA were modeled at least in part after Hernández’s bands.
It was only a month ago that Fireball Ministry co-founder and guitar virtuoso Emily Burton graciously set aside some of her busy schedule to talk about her and all the current developments that are making her beam at the status of her influential, 27-year-old stoner rock band. (Read all about her successful litigation here.)
When we checked in with her for part two of our conversation, she was in much better spirits and game for talking about some of her movies of all time. For those who don’t live in the loop, musicians have extraordinarily long stretches between †venues, affording them some time to cozy up in a band, rewrite and rewrite and rewrite once again the band’s set list. Burton prefers the latter.
And wouldntyknowit, we found out some more info on the recently birthed project that is D2 Archipelago, by touching base with drummer Brian Kotzur, formerly of Silver Jews. We chatted him up about everything under the sun, really.
On an unusually comfortable day in late June, Ealdor Bealu – the best band in Boise, regardless of genre – gave The Bad Penny one of our more memorable interviews of the year. And in video form, so you watch the entire conversation now that you’ve no doubt heard the heavy/desert rock band’s fourth record, Graves of the Silent Plain. As we enjoy our gabfest atop some rocks, we kept our eyes peeled for beavers, turtles and other wildlife – fitting for a discussion of an album that the band calls “the most Americana” release it’s issued thus far.
It’s hard to overstate how superior the effort is compared to Ealdor Bealu‘s previous releases, although it must be stated they were all formidable in their own right: the cerebral and moody Dark Water at the Foot of the Mountain (June 2017), the deeper dive into shamanistic psychedelia courtesy of Spirit of the Lonely Places (July 2019) and more naturalistic Psychic Forms (April 2022). Aside from being the most cohesive, narratively engaging and catchy Ealdor Bealu album to date, the band put out Graves of the Silent Plain through Ripple Music. So, even if choose not to familiarize yourselves with the band via this article and video, rest assured you’ll be hearing plenty about them soon.
“Americans and the British, we really struggle to understand and put ourselves in the feet of Russian leaders who truly, truly believe that if they’re not seen as an equal great power, their state will collapse.”
-Struck a Nerve guitarist and Russian foreign policy expert Nathan Sadd
If you’re a thrash metal fan, what are you doing when you’re not windmilling your long hair or gesticulating air guitar riffage till you fall through the makeshift box spring “bed” in your parents’ basement? Perhaps reorganizing your CD collection yet again, indecisive over whether it should start with albums by the Big Four or strictly abide by alphabetical norms by putting Acid Drinkers’ releases before Anthrax’s? Get a job, son!
Like Nathan Sadd, for example, who holds the unusual status as a guitarist in maybe the most exciting British thrash band of the moment – Struck a Nerve – all the while maintaining the pride of his parents and the respect of academics as an expert on the topic of Russian foreign policy as proven by the PhD he received in international relations from the University of Oxford. Yeah, that’s a mouthful, but an overachiever like Sadd deserves it.
When we posted most of our interview with the guitarist late last year, we reserved a side conversation about Russia’s war against Ukraine for a future edition of On Tyranny. Seven months later, one would think we missed our opportunity to post the chat due to outdatedness. But, oddly enough, the chat is still relevant thanks to a turn of events in Ukraine that can only be compared to very, very rare foreign entanglements – like, as Walter Sobchak would say, “our current situation” in Iran … or one of the “visits” we’ve paid to the country to which he was referring in The Big Lebowski, Iraq … or Afghanistan … or Russia’s own past quagmire in that same land.
What’s more entertaining than entertaining the possibility that conspiracy theories are actually true? Well, listening to the time-tested, catchy, post-punk tunes of U.K. legends The Jack Rubies, for one. The band, which originally formed in London in the late 1980s, reunited three decades later – with their original lineup intact – to great fanfare.
In the unlikely event that you’re unfamiliar with the band’s sound, SD Ineson (backing vocals, guitar, harmonica) described it to The Bad Penny as such: “Jack Rubies music is a collision of every member’s musical idiosyncrasies. On the face of it, it is a rock band (whatever that means), but there is no pandering to ‘rock’ normalcy. [Frontman] Ian Wright and I met in art school and carried that sensibility into music. Ian is left-handed, and he developed his own unique chord shapes that ‘don’t look right’ (wright!).”
Ineson continued: “Consequently, everybody else in the band had to work from a place of abstract creativity, inventing riffs out of thin air to fill out the picture of what [frontman] Ian [Wright] concocted lyrically (i.e. off-the-wall absurdist irony, with shades of Morrissey and Dadaist poetry). But thrown in sideways are shards of Bolan riffs, Smithsian jangle, Ghosts of Rockabilly twisted into the awkward shapes of the guitar disassemblage of Gang of Four anti-rock. Jack Rubies are pop-rock saboteurs. Engineers of melodic disorientation and what you see is what you don’t get.”
The Bad Penny had the good fortune to kick back (virtually, of course) with the revered band to pick apart some of the most notorious conspiracy theories of the past hundred or so years. Enjoy the chat – and snag The Jack Rubies’ comeback record, Are We Being Recorded? right here.
The Bad Penny (beta) 