The Downstroke Warlords Uncoil and Strike
By Brian Brophy
Photo by Andrew Bottomley
prolific. From his days in the highly influential Drive Like Jehu, whose
music had the force of twisting metal being hurled into the path of a runaway
train, to the soulful rock of Rocket From the Crypt, to his youngest
project, Hot Snakes, Reis’s music has always had an urgency, which is evident
more than ever of Hot Snakes’ new album, Audit in Progress.
Hot Snakes reunited Reis with his longtime collaborator, Rick Froberg.
The two played together in Pitchfork and Jehu, and when Reis had written
some songs that he didn’t feel he could do justice vocally, he sent the tapes
to Froberg whose vocal delivery matched the songs fiery intensity and created
the band’s debut masterpiece, Automatic Midnight. Bassist Gar Wood
on bass and drummer Mario Rubalcaba (Rocket From the Crypt, Clikitat
Ikatowi), who replaces Jason Kourkounis of Burning Bridesround out the
band. For a band that has played so few shows—Froberg works in New York,
while Reis is firmly planted in San Diego—its live performance s are unrivaled
in passion, precision and punk-ness.
A lot of the songs are more intense on this album, like “Braintrust,” “Think
About Carbs” and “Reflex.” Most bands don’t get more intense as time goes by; what made you go in that direction on this record?
I think the tempos are a bit more feverish and I think there’s a bit more
urgency for a couple reasons. One is probably Mario’s influence on the band
and wanting to, well just being delighted to incorporate his rhythmic
approach of everything to what we do. That had something to do with it,
his style. Another thing was that that was just what seemed to be happening.
It wasn’t a super deliberate thing, like this has gotta be fast or slow. I
don’t think we even paid any attention to the tempos really, it was just
what was coming out of us at this time. Maybe it has to do with a lot of
the music we’re listening to, I don’t know.
How was the writing process different on this album? Gar plays a lot more
on the album.
Gar’s playing a lot more on the record, definitely. When we started there
wasn’t any bass on any of the songs and now there’s bass on pretty much
all the songs. All of that has to do with, when we started we weren’t even
really a band. I would just put some music on a tape and send it out to
Rick and he sang on it. We just made an album and had never really played
live. When we started playing live and practicing together with the four of
us, even before Mario, it just became more of a band at that time. The
process just shifted automatically into more of a collaborative effort on
every song. Rick lives out in New York so a lot of the ideas are hashed out
musically out here in San Diego and then he comes out here and we work
on them. It’s not like we’re just putting things on a tape and sending them
out to him. We’re pretty much all in the same room. That’s when we work
out all the arrangement s and everything like that.
Are you happy with the amount of material that Hot Snakes release and the
amount that you get to go out and play shows?
I think we’re good now. We have a lot of stuff planned on this record. We’re
gonna be doing more touring on this record than we had for any of the
other records. All the touring we’ve done in the past combined and multiplied
by two and we’re still gonna do more than that. We have a lot of
desire to go out and play because the last tour was so much fun. When it
was over we kind of bummed. We were like, man, we want to keep playing.
Having the majority of the band in San Diego will make that a little
easier. I think we’re gonna get our fill this time
around.
Catch Hot Snakes live Sunday, October 3rd at the Great American Music Hall. Audit in Progress is out October 5th on Swami Records.
www.hotsnakes.com