08/19/09
Text: Scott Indrisek
Sometimes we do nothing but listen to ragged, raw 90s rock and wish we were living in that simpler, louder decade. Thankfully, bands like Cymbals Eat Guitars exist to keep that distorted spirit alive, reminding us of the days before Modest Mouse CDs were sold next to the register at Urban Outfitter's. Their debut, Why There Are Mountains, caused Pitchfork to gleefully froth at the mouth. The band tours North America in September, and plays Brooklyn Bowl on August 27th with Anthem favs Real Estate, These Are Powers and the Drums. We talked to guitarist and vocalist Joseph Ferocious about indie rock crushes, Guided by Voices tracks, and why wheatgrass will kill you.
HOMETOWN: Waretown, NJ / Eltingville, Staten Island
FAVORITE NIGHTSPOT IN THE CITY YOU CALL HOME, AND WHY: Lit Lounge, because we played there like three times when we first got together. It has all the vibe and ambiance of a gothic asshole (>^^)>^(^^)^<(^^<). I've never actually been there for a drink because I'm 20 and I don't have a fake.
THREE BANDS OTHER THAN YOUR OWN THAT YOU CAN'T LIVE WITHOUT: Bedhead, the Microphones, Silver Jews.
IF CYMBALS EAT GUITARS, WHAT DO GUITARS EAT?: My mid-range.
DESCRIBE EITHER YOUR MOST HORRIFIC CONCERT ACCIDENT OR THE MOST ECSTATIC CONCERT SUCCESS: It's February 2009. We arrive at Haverford College, fully prepared to impress the shit out of headliners Dirty Projectors, so much in fact that they immediately demand we go on tour with them, and that Angel proposes to me on the spot, and that David Longstreth bestows upon me an honourary (with a U) Yale degree. Instead, my Vox AC-30 fails epically during sound check and I end up playing through a dusty Crate bass amp that was lying around the basement venue. No one could hear the guitar, save the people in the first row... but EACH OF THOSE PEOPLE BOUGHT A CD, AND STARTED THEIR OWN ROCK BAND. That's a lie. I'm a terrible myth-maker. There were some mega drunk kids in the front calling out Black Flag songs for us to cover, though... so for someone to confuse us with Dirty Projectors was pretty flattering. Flash forward a couple of months, Dave magically appears in the 5th floor hallway of our rehearsal space in Bushwick and I'm too stoned to explain to him what happened, or who I am, or anything. It's okay though, he's a higher being that speaks in twelve part vocal suites, so my head would have exploded had I tried to converse with him.
FAVORITE MID-90S INDIE ROCK TRACK: "Pueblo"/ "Gold Soundz" / "Tractor Rape Chain"/ "Gold Star For Robot Boy"/ "A Good Flying Bird."... Boooooring!
MUSICIAN, LIVING OR DEAD, YOU’D MOST LIKE TO SLEEP WITH IN AN ALTERNATE REALITY: See the question before last, bearing in mind that I'm straight. Why alternate?
FAVORITE RECORD LABEL: tUMULt, based solely on the fact that that dude released the first two Iran records, and also that the splash page for their website has been the same for five years-- a hundred dead, fucked up wild wildebeests lying on the floor of this industrial boiler room.
FAVORITE PIECE OF FURNITURE: Matt's La-Z-boy, that thing cradles a drunken ass like no other.
PIECE OF TECHNOLOGY YOU WILL FOREVER NEED: The Venus 2000. Just kidding...! Uh, probably my delay pedal, it's a T-Rex Replica, and it's the BOMMMB.
SOMETHING THAT'S ALWAYS IN YOUR POCKET/WALLET: My membership card to the Junior Classical League. My Latin teacher in high school signed the whole class up. We never once competed =(.
LYRIC YOU'RE MOST PROUD OF: Probably from our newest song, "Plainclothes":
'The drug store smilers tower ten feet tall over a maze of abandoned cars their canceled eyes show through the holes in their sphinx masks I scramble to the dunes to puke under the pale moon. It is initiation season so watch out for the cars with no lights on if you flash them they will swing around and follow you home and in the lamp light living room a portal gently pulls at all the shit you own. What a relief it is to laugh like this years later through tears at someone's kitchen table feeling the full weight of all that dark energy. Because there's matter and there's legion else. Unobservable scaffolding for planets and stars. Dry mushrooms taste a lot like communion wafers to see cathedral ships behind the Bucks County sky when I was thirteen, my man's in a hallucination reverie, he says that there was a man who went and murdered a plainclothes but he drove so far away from Belmar 'cause all of the people there hung glow-in-the-dark masks on every single screen door, a crown vic in the rear view oh my god.'
YOUR DAY JOBS WHEN YOU’RE NOT BEING A ROCK BAND: Brian works in a health food store on Ludlow Street, protecting the Vegetablemasons secrets -- for instance, did you know that wheatgrass juice gives you cancer? Matt is an ice cream man and a merry maid on Long Beach Island, and I shuffle redwells in the basement of a law office.
BEST WAY TO MAKE $10 GO A LONG WAY: Gray's Papaya? Or making a wager with Brian or Matt. Seeing dudes do something crazy for ten dollars is always good.
FAVORITE BOOK IN THE LAST FIVE YEARS: Published in the past five years? Or just something I've read in the past five years? The second one is easier, so... Self-Portrait In A Convex Mirror by John "the God" Ashbery.
