!!!’s name may be un-Google-able, but nothing better describes the band’s blend of spacey dancefloor rock, borrowing liberally from the explosive energy of punk and European clubs alike. This isn’t music that will wake you up — it’s music that won’t let you sleep. While indie rock was flooded with bands rediscovering dance in the past decade, !!! (also commonly pronounced “Chk Chk Chk”) have been making it cool to swing your hips again since the late ‘90s, often despite the protests of their peers.
Sadly, the past few years has brought some unwelcome changes. Vocalist/drummer John Pugh left to focus on another band, Free Blood, in 2007. Then, in late 2009, former drummer Jerry Fuchs died in a tragic elevator accident. Those rocky times have shaped the sound of their latest record, Strange Weather, Isn’t It?, lending the German-influenced minimalism a dark undercurrent.
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After a brief, 10 day tour of Europe, Nic Offer, the band’s vocalist and frontman, spoke to Verbicide about Berlin’s club scene, the lack of a Joanna Newsom in dance music, and why !!! is more than just a dance band.
It looks like you were all over the place on this last tour: France, Italy, Hungary. Did you have a favorite show while you were over there?
What was the best one? I guess I really liked Italy. We played in a little college town. We played in a big square in the middle of town and it was just us and LCD, and it was a great villa. I just thought it was a good fuckin’ show.
Do European fans have a different relationship with you guys than American ones?
Sure, kinda. I mean, Americans, we very much came out of the indie/punk community, and they kind of understood us from that perspective. But when we kind of hit in Europe, especially in some place like Spain, they were coming from the dance perspective. We kind of had to coax indie-rockers into dancing. [In Europe], it was like, “Whoa, who are these guys in raggedy clothing?” We were kind of a breath of fresh air to the stale dance scene there.
It was coming from a different direction.
Yeah. So they were ready to dance. First time we played there, they were going for it.
I know you recorded this album at least partially in Berlin. How did being there influence the record?
You know, it was towards the beginning of working on the record. It’s always just good to be together as a band, to be in a strange place together. I don’t know, it’s just kind of exciting and focusing. As far as the actual city of Berlin, how it crept in — it’s hard to say. To me, the most Berlin-sounding track on the record would be something like “Jump Back.” It was definitely more of a late-night jam sesh, where it was very cold and “Berlin-y” outside. But some of the sunniest moments on the record are from there as well: “Jaime [My Intentions Are Bass]” and “Even Judas Gave Jesus a Kiss.” Both of those are from there. So it’s hard to say. But you go for just the one percent chance.
I remember reading some interview from a long time ago with Paul Westerberg. He pretty much stayed in Minneapolis and made it his sound. And he was saying it was bullshit if someone goes to another town looking for something else. But I think if it changes just one percent, then it’s worth it.
It’s something unique to bring to the album.
Yeah. I think we learned it with Out Hud, too, when we first moved to New York. Within a few months, when we first got to New York, we were kind of running over the same territory musically. And then all of a sudden we hit this new plateau, and could do all these things we had no idea a band could ever do. So pretty much since then I’ve been pretty much converted to [thinking] a town can change a sound. And maybe it’s just being in unfamiliar territory. You’re getting lost on the subway, and you’re more stimulated just to be somewhere else. Maybe it could be anywhere. Maybe it doesn’t have to be Berlin. It could be anywhere. Just a fresh, new environment.
I read you guys were hearing something different in Berlin clubs, and were trying to capture that. Can you put into words what that quality was, and do you think you captured it?
I think in a lot of ways, no. You make your record, and you step back, look at it and say, “Oh, it’s this now.” You’re just making it the best you can. You don’t know what it is until it’s done. Looking at it now, it’s like, oh, fuck — we made a pop record. To me it seems very pop. We were like, “How did we get that out of Berlin?”
The thing that was a guiding light from dancing in those clubs was the minimalism of it. You’d kind of be just blown away by how enraptured you could be by just a kickdrum and a big, echoing, “wah-wah” sound. And then you’d be dancing and just be floored. And you’d remember that the next day, when you were jamming with the group. Let’s just keep it like a “wah-wah” — just very simple. Let’s keep it minimal. So I think we did learn that, and that did help make it a focused pop record. But at the same time, I’d still like to make a record that sounds more like the dancefloor. I’d go there again in a heartbeat.
You have said this record feels a little darker, and it does have a heavier edge to it. Do you feel like that was a departure in sound for you guys?
I mean, there’s always been that darker edge. I feel like no one ever reads our lyrics sheets. I feel like they read the lyrics on Louden Up Now and kind of wrote us off. But I think all the records have pretty naked things on them. But this one is definitely… Stepping back and looking at it, it was surprising to see how dark it was. It wasn’t a departure in that, it just feels like us, and we’re at those times in our lives, and that’s where this is coming from. It just came from that darker place, and we’ve always had songs that came from that darker place.
Do you guys feel pigeonholed as a dance band?
Yeah. No, definitely. I guess I don’t mind being pigeonholed as a dance band. I resent when people pigeonhole dance as a limited genre. It can have just a simple mantra for lyrics that express simple things. But you can have dance music that says a lot of heavy things. I guess I just resent that it’s [looked at as] not having depth. Because dance music has great depth, even when it’s just a one-sentence lyric. Sometimes those can be the heaviest lyrics. I guess dance doesn’t have our Joanna Newsom or something. Okay, we don’t have that poet. But to dismiss it all as just vacuous, I think that’s missing it. I think that’s missing the whole point.
It does feel like in the last decade, a lot of dance music has crawled into indie rock. Do you think there’s more of an appreciation of it now?
Oh, yeah. Absolutely. When we started doing this, it was absolutely a no-no. Those people had nothing to do with punks. We had a lot of friends that were embarrassed of us when we were starting. In Sacramento, everyone got it, and we could do what we wanted to. But we’d have friends who would play in Oakland, and it was like, “What the fuck are you guys doing?” And it made me really appreciate the friends who did get it and stood up for us. But we got laughed at some parties we played because it wasn’t punk. Punk was kind of still recovering from the whole ‘90s thing. In the early ‘90s, everyone was reacting to all the macho slam-dancing, all that “hold your arms and don’t move” kind of thing. And we come in there and are like, “Move your hips.” People were like, “Wait, what? Can we dance?” People were real puzzled. I’ve seen it come from absolutely nothing to something that’s expected when you go see a band now.
What do you do if you get a crowd that’s just stiff? Is there anything you can do?
You just have to play the best you fucking can. There’s definitely a lot of shows where I’d like it to feel like thawing them out. And you can, you just put on the best gig you can. You treat them like they’re going crazy, and eventually you win them over to your side. There’s very few audiences I feel like we lost. I feel like we can usually lure them over to our side. Even if it’s the last fucking song. I’ve seen some shows come through at the end. And they’re just standing there the whole time and we get them by the end.
Who do you look up to as far as a stage presence?
Well, of course, Prince. No one could do it better. As a teenager, seeing Ian Svenonius do it with Nation of Ulysses — I didn’t understand why everyone didn’t do it like that. That was commanding a crowd. He was something to watch. And even watching him change through Cupid Car Cub and Make-Up, and even last time I saw him as Chain and the Gang, I thought he was fucking incredible. He, to me, is still best frontman. I thought Jon Spencer was incredible as a frontman. And I really liked the way that band would kind of trance and jam out. Back in the day I thought they were one of the best. Yeah, that’s who I guess I look up to.