After releasing their debut album, and having a wild release party at Star Bar, Mable of Gun Party gave the deets of Special TV Microwave Computer and the next time they'll be in Little Five Points.
How did you guys get together and form the Gun Party?
It’s kind of a funny story. My brother and I started it off as a joke band June of last year for an album release party, and it was absolutely terrible. We were making songs that were supposed to be jokes, but they were really bad. We had a totally different drummer, and background singers who didn’t really know when to sing.
Wow, so what did you guys do?
We all changed some things up, and while our members came from other bands, we decided that we could make something serious out of this joke band.
Why name your band the Gun Party?
We thought “Gun Party” sounded Blue-collar Republican, which was very much not the nature of the band, and also the other name we had, Lobster Carnival, totally sucked.
Let’s talk about the new project Special TV Microwave Computer. This project has a lot of throwback-sounding elements within it. Who are your influences?
We definitely all tend to lean towards more of the rock genre of things. Each of us brings in our own thing that we like, and try to merge them all together. Our drummer loves, loves, loves Radiohead. I am more of a fan of female punk singers and bands. Our guitarist really, really loves loud garage rock. Our bassist is more of a Harry Nilsson fan. It all just kinda merged into this clusterfuck of rock music that kinda turned out awesome!
How has merging all those different styles been like when it comes to creating the first album?
It could be a really interesting process. Some of our songs came way more organically than others, and some time we didn’t really notice we have different tastes in music because we seem to have one when we’re able to go into the studio. A lot of the songs, like the “Kite Flights,” we’ll work on for months and the original form was all over the place. It was very much rock and roll, but it was all kinds of things – punk, then it was blues rock, and then it had loud, garage-y guitar tones – and it wasn’t making a lot of sense. It took many, many weeks and us sitting down tweaking a lot of things. What really did it was when we went into the studio to record it and having somebody else listen to it. They were able to tell us how it was running into each other. The main thing of us having so much of a difference is that it takes us a really long time to figure out which is appropriate and which is perfect for the song we’re doing. Ultimately, it worked out, and now “Kite Flights” is my favorite song.
Whenever I’m listening to the album, what should folks look out for within the content and lyrics?
There’s a theme to each song, but not easy to pick up on. We try to not be completely random with our lyrics – it’s usually about something, sometimes they’re about someone, but they all have themes. If you keep listening, you’ll pick up on them. Like “Runaway” is a break-up song, so I’m sappy and crying. “Kite Flights” is a self-destruction song, and it doesn’t make sense at first but it’s within the way that song builds as well as lends itself to the lyrics which lets you know how feisty it is. In “DBV,” which stands for Dead Bitch Vagina, is simply about a stalker in a hotel room. They’re all over the place, but each song has a consistency with the lyrics. We want to convey some sort of theme, or some sort of emotion and I think we’ve done a good job with that.
I saw on your Facebook that you guys were performing at Nophest (nophest.com) this week, when will be the next time we can catch you in Little Five Points?
We’ll be at the Little 5 Fest in September, and then the Halloween Festival in October.
Where can people keep up with you? Twitter? Facebook? Websites?
We have a Facebook, and a new Bandcamp page. Oh, and people can pick up our album at Criminal Records, which is in your neighborhood!
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