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article by jennifer kelly.
Bangers Vs. Fuckers is a steamroller of a record -- fast, hammering punk, distorted to the bending point and played at a level that redefines loud. It's all over in 18 minutes, and no single song lasts more than two and a half minutes, but the impact stays with you long after the last (surprisingly gentle) track has faded. It's as stripped and visceral as Thee Headcoats, as relentless as a Ramones show and as sexually aggressive as early Stones, but harder, faster and fuzzier.
I talked to John Dwyer, the Coachwhips' front man (and also ex-Pink of Pink & Brown), about the band's pulverizing live show, the difficulties of transferring that sound to record, the recent line-up change and pretty much anything else that came to mind. Our conversation happened a day later than originally planned because -- I learned later -- Dwyer had spent the whole day previous drinking bloody marys. I caught him in a rare reflective mood, pondering which movie to rent for the evening. Or maybe he was just fucking with me. You decide.
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Splendid: So you guys just got back from Japan?
John Dwyer: Yeah, we were over there for 12 days. It was amazing. We did seven shows, two of which were in Tokyo. Kobe, Nagoya, Yoko Suka and various other towns.
Splendid: How were the crowds there? Did they know who you were?
John Dwyer: They were fine. We played a couple of sold out shows. DMBQ, the band that we were over there with, was, apparently, a big draw in Japan. But the shows were good.
Splendid: Was it different from playing shows in the US?
John Dwyer: Well, everybody there was Japanese.
Splendid: Yeah, anything else?
John Dwyer: No, people danced and shit. It's hard to get them going, maybe a little more...
Splendid: So I was reading this review of a Coachwhips show -- I think it was at Yale, where, you know, people are very smart -- and the guy said that your live show made the whole concept of recorded music seem outdated and ridiculous. So, for people who have never been to one of your shows, what kind of stuff happens? What's so wild about it?
John Dwyer: It varies from show to show, but there's a lot of sweat going on. When we were in Japan, we set off a bunch of fireworks and lit them in the club and the Fire Department and the Police ended up coming and shutting it all down for a while while they aired it out.
Splendid: Good thing there was no flammable insulation in the walls.
John Dwyer: Yeah. Thank god. No need for one of those on our hands. People have been known to get laid through our shows.
Splendid: But not actually at your shows?
John Dwyer: Naaah. Actually, one time I did see two people having sex at a show that we played in the basement here, two or three years ago. I walked in on them fucking. I was going to change my clothes. I think they were so into it, they didn't even notice me walking in.
Splendid: Good for them.
John Dwyer: Afterwards, the girl came out. I was waiting outside for them to finish. The girl came out and said, "I don't even like him that much." And I was like, "All right."
Splendid: Isn't that too much information?
John Dwyer: She was just drunk, and he was kind of gross. He was some kind of graffitti guy.
Splendid: Yeah...well, given that all this crazy stuff happens at your shows, is it hard to recreate that environment on record?
John Dwyer: I think the key to making a successful record now is making it more distorted. The next one will be more distorted than this one. I hate clean recordings. I get really disappointed with the bands that are really heated and have an electric vibe, and then you get their record and it's super polished and bullshit sounding. There's so many bands I could name that have that problem. I don't know if in their minds, they want to sound like their record and they can't live or vice versa.
Splendid: So how do you do that? What do you do to distort while you're recording?
John Dwyer: We just turn everything up all the way, pretty much. It's not necessarily about being loud, turning the tape machines all the way up. We don't use many effects or anything. We record everything live. There's kind of a big difference, too, that you can hear in the recording when somebody is dubbing stuff or when it's all done live.
Splendid: So you pretty much cut one track and you're done?
John Dwyer: Yeah, sometimes we'll lay down the clap tracks. A lot of people use headphones, but we will have music also playing in the room, so it's also picked up again in the microphone, so that you can fake out the live sound a little bit.
Splendid: So it seems like there's a lot of things that might be urban legends about you guys -- that you found your drum kit in a dumpster?
John Dwyer: Our old drum kit was actually found in a bush.
Splendid: That's true?
John Dwyer: Yeah, in our back yard.
Splendid: What about the rumor that none of you knew how to play before Coachwhips? That can't be true, because you were in all these other bands.
John Dwyer: Not me, but John and Maryann, the original two other members in Coachwhips, did not. They might have had a general grasp, like John knew how to hold the sticks and hit the drums. We were playing really simple stuff.
Splendid: How long ago was that?
John Dwyer: About two years ago.
Splendid: How long did you play together before you went out and started doing shows?
John Dwyer: Ah...probably about three months. I honestly don't recall. It was that long ago. Maryann was in the Shakers, so I did the first two shows with no keyboard.
Splendid: How'd you meet them?
John Dwyer: John and Maryann, or the two current people?
Splendid: The two that are in the band now.
` John Dwyer: Mat Hartman, he's been playing in bands for a long fuckin' time, and he actually played saxophone for Coachwhips back in... we had a little sax, like a rotating sax player who would come to shows to improv. Then Val does this shit called Double Dutch, which is four girls, they're amazing. She ended up coming on a tour and covering for Maryann.
Splendid: It's a very cool album, and it's hard to get into words what's so cool about it. It's sort of a nonverbal experience. It's hard to write about it, and probably hard to do interviews about, as well.
John Dwyer: Plus the fact that it's 18 minutes long. Even if it sucks, if it's only 18 minutes long, it wouldn't be that much to swallow. It's definitely an ADD record.
Splendid: So what's it like playing this stuff?
John Dwyer: It's really fun. It's great to be able to travel around and see people like it. It's fun when you see the audience dancing, which I don't think people tend to do too much. It seems like, these past few years, people have lightened up a little bit. When we started, it was like pulling teeth to get people to dance at shows. Progressively, the more we played, the more people would have fun. Sometimes it's just insane, total chaos, you can't even play. Other times, it's on the other side. We've played shows where people were scared of us, even though we try to dress up nice.
Splendid: Do you think a lot of rock music is too complicated?
John Dwyer: Probably, I guess. It's not that I don't like complicated stuff, because I do. But the stuff that tends to move me, personally, is usually very simple. It's kind of like a less is more aesthetic.
Splendid: So, what would be an example of something simple that moves you?
John Dwyer: I like the A-Frames. I like them a lot. I like Baby Boyfriends. I like a lot of old Motown stuff, old bullshit. Hasil Adkins, one man band stuff, where you play the drums with your feet and play the guitar and sing at the same time. That's cool.
AUDIO: I Knew Her She New Me
Splendid: There's some blues stuff in your album. You can't always hear it because it's in this really slammed out punk. Underneath it...
John Dwyer: It's definitely garage blues, for sure.
Splendid: Do you listen to blues much?
John Dwyer: Yeah, but I'm pretty picky about. I don't like the Chicago blues sound. I'm not super into like B.B. King-style shit. I like a lot of kind of old-timey, country blues stuff.
Splendid: And you play harmonica on "I Knew Her She New Me". That's the most blues-oriented track.
John Dwyer: That's the only time I've ever done that on a record. I usually have that just to irritate everybody in the car on tour, mostly.
Splendid: It's a cool song. It seems a little different from the rest of the record.
John Dwyer: Yeah, we're trying to incorporate a couple more slow songs into a record. We've got, for the next record, we're going to have two slow ones.
Splendid: Are you all done with the next one?
John Dwyer: It's ready to go. We just need to record it.
Splendid: How does that work? Do you have all the songs worked out live?
John Dwyer: Yeah, we've been playing a lot of the songs that will be on the new record, and I've written a few things by myself that I'll probably show them right before we record and then we'll bang them out.
Splendid: And you said it's going to have a couple of slow songs, instead of just one?
John Dwyer: Yeah, there will be a couple of slow songs on this one.
Splendid: How come?
John Dwyer: I don't know. We normally play them live. But on a record, it's kind of nice to break up the monotony of the constant slam of fast songs. But in order to be a good Coachwhips record, there needs to be a pretty decent flow of songs.
Splendid: Yeah, it reminds me of seeing the Ramones live, because one song ends and then it's the exact same really fast beat, but it's fun and ...
John Dwyer: We've been compared to them a number of times.
Splendid: Do you like that, or do you think it's a simplification?
John Dwyer: I like the Ramones... there's a daytime show on TV right now, and I just glanced up at it, and they're showing a picture of a girl named Ruthie, and it says her turn-ons were "muscles".
(This makes me laugh.)
John Dwyer: She's got these eyebrows. She's creepy looking. The guy in the room with her just totally does not have muscles. We're big on day television, by the way.
Splendid: Oh, really?
John Dwyer: Not really. I like to think we are.
Splendid: Yeah... Oh, the title Bangers Vs. Fuckers -- what's the difference?
John Dwyer: What is the difference? I think, really, there's not that much of a difference. Maybe one of them is a little bit more selfish, you know, but really, they're the names of two baseball teams that we've got out here in San Francisco.
Splendid: Oh, and who usually wins and... what's the spread?
John Dwyer: Heh heh...I think...fuck, man, I don't want to get this wrong, because they'll be pissed off, but I think the Bangers won the series last year. Actually there's four new teams, so there's no Bangers and Fuckers anymore. There's more people playing ... There's one called the Unconditional Lovers, which I thought was a pretty good name.
Splendid: Yeah, it sounds like a... pretty interesting place you live in.
John Dwyer: Yeah, it's pretty good. People are getting older, getting into shit like baseball.
Splendid: I was looking at all these people you were thanking in the notes, and there are some really awesome bands on there. (For instance, Kelley Stoltz, Kyp Malone, Tussle, Mr. Quintron/Ms. Pussycat, Numbers, Bob Log III and X-27)
John Dwyer: Yeah, we've met a lot of really cool people on the road for sure. There's a lot of good bands in America right now, underground. Not so much the mainstream. like a lot of the shit that I listen to, I have a little book to put CDs in to take on the road, and I flip through it later, and most of them are CDRs from people I know which I think is really cool.
AUDIO: You're Gonna Get It
Splendid: Yeah, so what's your favorite song on the current record?
John Dwyer: Um...I kind of like the opening track a lot. "You're Gonna Get It". That one's really fun to play live. It never was back in the day. We just put it on the record. But after we put it on the record, the curse was lifted and we could play it.
Splendid: What do you mean by the curse?
John Dwyer: The curse of the song that sucked dick live every time we tried to play it back in the day, but then after we put it on the record...
Splendid: Why would that happen?
John Dwyer: Honestly, I think that part of it had to do with the fact that the drummers changed during that time period. The new drummer is a lot faster. The other one played just a floor tom and snare. The new drummer has a kick drum.
Splendid: How come you don't have a bass player?
John Dwyer: Because we have a keyboard player.
Splendid: You have to have one or the other?
John Dwyer: I like bass players and shit, but it's kind of hard to find a bass player here. But actually there are a lot of bands that don't have bass.
Splendid: It's an epidemic. Bands with no bass player.
John Dwyer: It's more of a new era. Hip hop has definitely taken the lead bass sound away, but indie rock and roll is leading in the direction of...I think big trouble.
Splendid: That's possible. I like the way the bass sounds.
John Dwyer: I like bass, too, but I think I want our new record to be trebly. Just to turn the treble up on the whole mix.
Splendid: A lot of people talk about how they can't hear the words on your songs.
John Dwyer: Yeah, but that's just tough shit. We record it the way it sounds live, and that's just the way it comes out. I was thinking about putting out a lyric sheet, eventually. I might do that on the next record.
Splendid: Yeah, you could put something totally different on the lyric sheet than what you were singing. That would be so cool.
John Dwyer: Yeah, why not? It could be about back rubs...
AUDIO: Dancefloor, Bathroom
Splendid: I was wondering what "Dancefloor, Bathroom" was about.
John Dwyer: That's about waiting in line at a party that had a bunch of people doing drugs in the bathroom and, you know, waiting forever.
Splendid: Oh, okay, because all I could hear was the word "dancefloor" and the word "bathroom" -- it sounded like an intriguing scenario...
John Dwyer: Yeah, because you'd wait and there would inevitably be a line, and then people would come out of the bathroom and be bitchy about it, like "how could you knock on the door like that?" But I've been on both sides of that door, so...
Splendid: What about "Evil Son" -- what's going on in that song?
John Dwyer: That's just a bad boy song. We don't even play that one anymore.
Splendid: It's a good song. That's the one that was on the Narnack sampler.
John Dwyer: That was one of the songs that sort of fell by the wayside when the line-up changed.
Splendid: When did that happen?
John Dwyer: About six months ago. Maybe more than that.
Splendid: So between the last album and this one?
John Dwyer: While we were recording that record, the shit hit the fan.
Splendid: How has that changed the band? You said the drummer was faster; what about your keyboard player?
John Dwyer: The keyboard lines have actually developed a little bit. They're not as simple. Part of that is that I'm not really writing the keyboard lines any more. When I wrote the keyboard lines, they were pretty much the same as the guitar.
Splendid: Yeah, I noticed that about a lot of the songs, that it sounds like you're all just hammering on the same note, you know.
John Dwyer: Yeah, yeah.
Splendid: It almost reminds me of that Oneida song where they play one note for 15 minutes.
John Dwyer: I like that band. We played with them a long time ago. They were super fun.
Splendid: All these songs are so short... Have you ever written a longer song?
John Dwyer: For Coachwhips, no. We keep it pretty short.
Splendid: What about "Harlow's Muscle of Love?" What's that about?
John Dwyer: It's a cover of Alice Cooper's "Muscle of Love". We made it "Harlow's Muscle of Love" just to bust my old drummer's balls. I hated the old drummer.
Splendid: Okay...you're in a whole bunch of other hands. You're not in Burmese anymore?
John Dwyer: No.
Splendid: I was trying to get that record at one point, because it sounded like it would be so cool.
John Dwyer: I'm not too happy with the recording of the record. It was noisy grindcore. They've changed it now. It's super ... slower, like old Swans. I like it a lot.
Splendid: And you were in Pink & Brown. Was that over before Coachwhips started?
John Dwyer: It ended right at the cusp of Coachwhips starting.
Splendid: What happened there? You just ran out of steam?
John Dwyer: Ah, just needed a different direction and it wasn't working out any more.
Splendid: And you're also playing with The Hospitals now.
John Dwyer: Yeah, we're playing a couple of shows with them this month. And then probably this summer, we'll record another record.
Splendid: They just had one out, didn't they?
John Dwyer: It's been about a year, I think. But people didn't hear it immediately, that's probably why you think it just came out.
Splendid: What about Ziegenbock Kopf?
John Dwyer: That, too, we've got one more record coming out, but we don't do it live anymore. That band put me in the hospital. I got a big piece of glass in my leg. I had this crazy run-in with this English doctor. The English medical system is apparently as good as their food is. I was in a hospital by myself, and he was like, well, do you think you want antibiotics? And I was like I don't fuckin' know, you're the doctor. He was asking me if I want meds. And I was like, what kind? Jesus fuck, this is fucked. The infection was spreading rapidly. When I first got in, they knocked me out for two days and I woke up and they hadn't given me anything and I was just totally way sicker than I was when I fell asleep.
Splendid: God. You were all by yourself?
John Dwyer: No, I had some boys there with me.
Splendid: It's amazing how unsupported people are when they go on tour in Europe. It seems like almost anything could happen.
John Dwyer: It was kind of nuts. I'm going back over there with the Coachwhips this year.
Splendid: When are you going?
John Dwyer: Looks like September, with a new record I think. We'll record it in June, but it will come out in the fall.
Splendid: So that's two in one year.
John Dwyer: Yep. Production has been slowing down a little bit. I've written about 70 songs.
Splendid: How long does it take you to write a song?
John Dwyer: Sometimes like one minute. Just writing the general idea of a song in my head only takes a second, but hammering out the band in the course of a few practices takes longer. We'll play it one way and then suddenly decide that it would be better this way. And maybe doing it live, the vocals will change. And you know you have a finished product when you start playing it the same way all the time.
Splendid: You have an acoustic project, too?
John Dwyer: Yeah, I just got my copy of that record in the mail today.
Splendid: That's OCS, right?
John Dwyer: That's the stuff I record at home.
Splendid: So how come you need all these bands?
John Dwyer: I don't have a job. It's getting a little tough now that Coachwhips is getting more recognition and we're touring around, it's getting harder to focus on everything else. Coachwhips is taking up so much time. But it's nice. The band is getting recognition. That's why I could have five bands, because I never had to spend any time on any of them.
Splendid: Are you going to miss that if you have to spend all your time on Coachwhips?
John Dwyer: It's a little bit fucked up. I can always do the acoustic stuff. But right now, we're just getting back from two and a half months of touring, with very little break in between. I'm burnt out. I can barely pick up a guitar. I just want to sit around and do nothing. Yesterday morning, I woke up and called my friend Patrick and he came over here and we started immediately drinking bloody marys. And around three in the morning, this morning, I was like, okay, time for bed. And because of that I'm totally burned out today.
Splendid: You probably need a few weeks to...
John Dwyer: Yeah, but I should probably not drink like that. I'm thinking about locking myself in this Friday night and maybe renting a movie.
Splendid: That's so disillusioning. I mean, that's what I would do.
John Dwyer: Yeah, maybe get a movie, with a big pillow and a bottle of wine. I might get Yentl...Streisand. I just feel really boring today.
Splendid: No, that's fine. So, tell me about the video that's on the album.
John Dwyer: That's in Shah's apartment. We actually played at, like, fuckin' three in the morning that night. We played our whole set with no problems. It was 150 degrees in there, super, super hot. It was a fun show, but it was super late and people were really tired and it was really, really fucking hot. Everybody was doing cocaine, too, so everybody was extra stupid.
Splendid: Stupider than usual.
John Dwyer: They were like overheated, dehydrated, totally high off their asses.
Splendid: That sounds like so much more fun than renting a movie and getting a big pillow. But you guys play a lot of those shows where you're at people's houses...
John Dwyer: Yeah, we like to play the house parties. A lot of times, we'll play a show at some shit-assed club and I'll tell the audience, contact us if you want us to play your house, and we'll do it. Or we'll do that in New York. Last time we were there, we made that offer and we didn't end up hooking up anything. There were a couple of people who wanted to do it, but everybody kind of pussied out...they didn't want people there getting wasted.
Splendid: If you have a house you can do it, but if you have an apartment, like people do in New York, isn't it harder? People call the cops pretty quick, don't they?
John Dwyer: Hey, I've been arrested in my own house. I've got street cred. I got arrested when Trin Tran, this band from Madison, Wisconsin played here. I spent the night in jail. The thing about New York is that a lot of people have those warehouses and stuff like that. There seem to be a lot of places where you could plausibly get away with playing a show at three in the morning.
Splendid: So why would you rather play at someone's house than at a club?
John Dwyer: I don't know. I've been playing at clubs for so long now. People go way more nuts in houses. It's a party. You like going to a party, right? Look at it from an audience point of view. How many times have you been to a clubs and how many times have you seen a great show at some weird spot, like someone's basement or in a park or in someone's house. That kind of stuff sticks with you. The club shows just kind of fade out of my memory. I just don't give that much of a fuck about them. It's pretty rare that anything really blows me away in a paid venue. The environment is so generic and sterile a lot of times at clubs. Like half the clubs in America...there are things that I look for in a club, like an omen that it's going to suck. One of the things is fire painted on the wall, images of fire, which is a huge thing. Or if the room is a big black box. They paint the room black and there are blue lights. It's impossible -- if you drop a pick on the floor, it's gone forever. I like places that have fake fireplaces and couches and shit like that.
Splendid: So you're doing another album, and you're going out on tour again with Coachwhips.
John Dwyer: Yeah, Coachwhips are going out on tour to the UK and maybe Europe in September. I'm not sure about the Europe part. No shows for the summer. I think we're all kind of crisp. Matt, the drummer, is in Cat Power, too. He's flying out tomorrow to go play some shows with her. Val's got this Double Dutch thing that I told you about. That's going to take up her time. And I'm going to be working on this Hospitals record and taking it easy.
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Jennifer Kelly deals dope out of Denny's, keeps a table in the back.
[ graphics credits :: header/pulls - george zahora | photos - provided by the label :: credits graphics ]
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