I love it when my kinda punk band comes together. My wishlist usually goes a bit like this:
- A female vocalist that is and equal band member, not just a singer out on front
- Predominantly melodic vocals, with some 'heavier' second vocals
- Interesting guitar-work that focuses on a strong song backbone rather than a million solos
- Varied song structures that flow well
- A drummer who is good, but not so good he doesn't know his place
- Some breakdowns would be nice but you can't always have everything
And with Smalls from LA I've discovered my latest music crush! They've recently released their debut EP Expecting The Worst and my goth, it's such a delicious mix of sugary pop punk, spicy skate punk and beefy hardcore.
The 4 song EP leaves me wanting more on each listen, aided by the fact the last song is my favourite:
- How perfect is that intro for synchronised jumps and/or crowd call outs?
- And then at 00.30, get that circle pit moving!
- The pre-chorus/chorus at 00.55 is really where it's at though, angsty AND melodic enough that the teenage girls AND their hormonal boyfriends, who say they 'only like the fast parts', will both enjoy it.
- The mix of the drum beat and vocals at 1.16 are just perfect. Moar of this macho hardcore with female pop punk vox pls.
And if you want to pretend you'd like them more if they were faster with more male vox, then don't worry, they've covered that too!
I'm hoping for big things for these guys, and things are expanding within the Smalls camp as we speak. I caught up with guitarist Billy to talk about their new band members, seemingly forgotten female led punk rock bands from our youth and of course, DAT BAND NAME.
GDAC: Give
us the generic biography of the band, from the EP it sounds like you
guys know each other quite well? There seems to be a familiarity and
shared sense of purpose.
Billy: Well, this project began about 2 years ago when I first met Ashley. It has always been difficult to form a band with a lead female singer, this is my 4th attempt at a band with a female lead, other genres this
was the first in the punk genre. For months and months we failed to
acquire the rest of the band. Instead of sitting around waiting on
people we began writing as much as we could ourselves. As a multiple
instrument musician I was more than capable to write everything from
guitar, bass to drums. So i took everything and recorded it with Garageband and sent it to a couple musician friends to see if anyone
would help us out. Russ' band at the time was dissolving, he wanted to
keep active so he agreed to play with us since he had nothing else going
on. He also really liked the songs and really wanted to see what we
could do with this. We played a few shows with a drummer Ashley met at a
mall and things took off from there. That guy ended up not working out,
as a matter of fact 6 days before the last show we played march 2nd
he cut all contact from us. Left us high and dry. We ended up getting a
friend of ours to fill in and we played a really short set that day but it
was the biggest crowed we ever had there must have been 300 kids in this
backyard. I'm going to go ahead and say we did good that day because we
sold about 90% of our crewnecks!
How does the songwriting process go, do you find it easy to write rhythm and lead guitar parts by yourself?
It's
pretty hit or miss. There's times where things just come to me and I try
to record them as soon as they do. I try to let it flow, I pretty much
go with my gut and dont over think it too much as far as
how to arrange everything. There's also times where I'm like "ok im
gonna write today" and I totally hit a wall and can't do anything. I try
to have fun with it.
The lineup is being shuffled and added to, what was the thinking behind it?
Ashley and I knew from the start that ideally we wanted this to be a
5 piece band. At first when we finally acquired a drummer I hit up Russ
and he was stoked to play bass. He had never done it before and he
thought it would be way fun to do it. I showed him the songs and then
let him basically do whatever he wanted to do with it. We played shows
as a 4 piece we figured it was good enough. Fast forward to after we
recorded the EP, I got two texts literally within fifteen minutes of each
other. My friend Eddie text me asking if we were interested in a second
guitar, because he had found us a perfect match. After that russ text me
"Hey I want to jump on guitar lets find a bassist... i kinda suck at
bass man!" It was funny because I saw the messages like an hour later
because I didnt have my phone on me. So I texted Eddie and said 'Hey, Russ wants to jump on guitar so I guess we need a bassist now.' Eddie
text back "Perfect, this guy also plays bass and he has really good
gear, you should meet up with him hes a really cool guy and hes stoked
on your EP, i showed it to him when you sent me the first drafts." So
last wednesday we got together for the first time. with Russ on guitar, Gus on bass, and our new fill in Mark on drums. Mark is a friend of ours
who's in a band with Eddie called Anchorless. Mark did the drums on the
EP.
In Ireland (where I'm originally from) it's
still relatively rare for a girl to be in a punk band, is it more the
norm in LA or does Ashley still draw some extra attention?
Southern
California is the breeding ground for bands. Female leads are all over
the place here. The only thing that we feel makes us stand out from all
the other bands is we're not trying to ride someone else's coat tails. It just seems like every band tries to sound like "the band" that made
it big with a female lead. You have 1,000 paramores, you have 1,000 Flyleafs. In the punk rock community we dont really have that that much.
and i dont think its acceptable. But I think that the reason for that is that every band tries to do the Paramore sound, they try to do the
hard rock, indie-emo sound. We're a punk band. It's died down now, or
maybe we're just not paying attention. So it's good, we're not in the
spotlight. In this scene at least its not so much a focus were not
playing the 'we're a female fronted punk band' (card). We're just a band, with 5
members. Period.
I'm all for equality so the female
bassist/singer in my band had to endure the same bad jokes, smelly
practice space, beer drinking etc, have you guys been on tour yet and
had to censor yourselves around Ashley?
You know, we're still fresh as far as being a 5 piece. We dont
practice much, maybe two or three times before a show. We're all
pretty laid back. We get together and we practice and thats our focus. When we do hang out theres usually girlfriends around or other people so
things dont really get out of hand. We're not really party animals. I
have had those moments in past bands though, where it gets awkward
really fast. And practicing in mid summer in a lockout with no A/C, I
def not miss that.
I realize how cliched it is to talk about the
female member of the band, and I'm sure as you guys are doing promotion
for the EP you're already tired of that angle. But seeing as this blog
is partially about finding cliches in music, indulge me; last one, which
is more common; Paramore or Tsunami Bomb comparisons?
Believe it or not if you go asking around our local current scene
'Paramore or Tsunami Bomb?' 90% of them would say "who's Tsunami Bomb?".
most of the kids in this scene are 16 to 23. Not a single one would know. It's actually really weird because most of us are older. Gus being the
youngest at 20 fit in with us so well because he grew up with an older
brother who is Russ and myselves age so he grew up listening to our
music. Again, Paramore isn't a thing anymore around here. It's not pop
punk, its not punk rock. Sure kids listen to it but its not as hyped up
as it used to be. Ashley really has a unique voice, its not Paramore at
all. To be honest we don't promote ourselves as a female fronted pop
punk band. We're just a band like any other band. We're not here to focus
on one person, we're here to focus on Smalls, the band.
Were there particular influences in mind when forming the band?
As far as bands we did have a focus on what we wanted to sound like
but in the long run I don't know if we pulled it off. We were going for a
Lifetime, The Movielife, 7 Seconds, Kid Dynamite, Rufio sound. I know
those are all a bunch of pretty different bands but that was the general
idea. We wanted to be melodic and fast like Rufio, we wanted to have
heart like Lifetime and The Movielife and we wanted to have that fast
punk sound you get from 7 Seconds and Kid Dynamite. I wish we sounded a
little more youth crew to be honest, but it is what it is.
To
me there's a blend of pop punk, punk rock, skate punk and melodic
hardcore and I love that you list all these genres on bandcamp. Are you
that nerdy that you know all the subgenres of punk you are playing, I
know I am, or was ticking as many boxes in the genre list as possible?
Honestly the 'melodic hardcore' was a joke. Fat Mike was
asked how he felt being categorized as a pop punk band and he gets
irritated, hes like "were a melodic hardcore band ok? Stop it." I always
found that funny. But yeah being older we used to use so many different
names for different bands; skate punk, pop punk, punk rock, ska punk,
punk ska, I could go on forever. I used a couple hash tags to get to
those different people who would run into it.
Speaking of which, where did the name Smalls come from? It must be an SEO nightmare! Any plans to call an album Biggie?
Haha,
a couple days ago i thought about doing a Biggie shirt rip! You know
that iconic picture of him with a crown and a gold chain? Well that with
our new bassist Gus on it instead. He has a killer beard right now
and it needs to be on a shirt. As far as our name its from The Sandlot. The only thing i dont like about it right now is that yes if you look up
smalls in hash tags 80% are Biggie Smalls threads. But its ok i guess.
July 16th
well be playing with Mixtapes, Last Call, Light Years, You Blew It! at
Cobalt cafe in Canoga park. We have tickets on our bandcamp and
bigcartel you can also message us for tickets. We'll be trying to play
as many shows as possible this summer and the remainder of the year. I
know its too soon but possibly hit the studio by the end of the year for
another EP
Smalls are on facebook, and their EP is on bandcamp.
