The Stops Interview

Portland Oregon's The Stops released their debut LP earlier this year to much critical acclaim.  The Quintet play sharp, infectious punk rock with shadowy edges,  Ruby, who contributes her guitar skills and vocal prowess to the melee recently took some time out of her busy schedule to answer some questions for us as her band prepares for their European invasion.    

Interview by J Castro

Let’s start out by telling me who’s currently in the band and what everyone does:

RS: Lizzie Sings, Cissie plays bass, Rita and I are on guitars, and Fukuko plays drums. That's the line up for our recent recordings. We have Mike Warm (Observers, Defect Defect, The Minds, Arctic Flowers) filling in on drums right now since Fukuko just had a baby.

Tell me The Stops origin story. How did you all meet and how long have you been playing music together?

RS: Fukuko and I met in Portland after she moved here from Tokyo. We would chat at shows and eventually I asked her if she wanted to start a band. Fukuko had seen Cissie play with Repercussions at Chaos in Tejas so she suggested we ask her to play bass. With Rita it was a bit more complicated. We actually met in Czech as teenagers when we were both on tour and she was living in Brazil. She moved to Vancouver BC a couple years later and we met again when I was touring up there. Eventually she moved to Portland and we ended up living in the same house. She was dating my roommate. Rita had played guitar for an awesome punk band in Sao Paulo called As Mercedes, so asking her to join was a no brainer. Since Fukuko, Cissie and I were practicing in the basement it wasn't long before we were like “just get down here!”

Lizzie and I had been hanging out at the same shows for about 11 years. In 2013 I saw her sing and play keys in a band called Pataha Hiss. Her style seemed like a good fit for us so we asked her to join.

When you started the band, did you have a particular sound in mind that you wanted to work towards or was it a “hey let’s just play and see what comes out” kind of thing?

RS: We all agreed that we wanted it to be melodic punk. We didn't have an exact sound in mind- we just knew we wanted a vocalist that could sing well. It was quickly apparent that the instrumental portion would be a fusion between what we were listening to at the time and the bands we grew up on. While we had no intention in achieving this, we are often told that we have “the Portland sound.”

The Stops are currently based in Portland. With so many other great bands there, what is it like playing shows? Do you ever feel like it gets competitive or are most people pretty supportive of each other?

RS: I would say that people are mostly supportive. There is a lot of band member overlap, and in that way it feels like we're all in it together. I feel really lucky to live in a place where everyone in the punk scene plays an instrument or at least aspires to. At the same time, we are all pretty spoiled to have so many talented individuals and great bands that sometimes it can be hard to get people excited. I've seen really good punk bands play to stiff crowds and empty rooms here. I went to a Poison Idea show recently where someone said, “come on you guys, it's fucking Poison Idea,” since only a couple people were giving as much as a foot tap. Regardless, a lot of people are engaged in the punk scene and this provides the framework for people to participate in other ways than just attending shows and playing in bands. Whether it's opening a business, starting a craft night, or putting on an art show, people here are interested in participating in others endeavors- creative or otherwise.

Your debut LP Nameless Faces came out a few months ago, can you tell me a bit about your experiences working on it?

RS: Franz from Sabotage Records contacted us last July to ask about doing an LP. We didn't have enough material to do it at the time so we really had to buckle down to make it happen. The pressure of time constraints made us get a lot done. Rita and I went to the studio for mixing whenever we had time but it still took months to finish. The Stops even started recording for a 7” before we were done mixing the LP. Fortunately it was a lot of fun to be in the studio and we had a great sound engineer who I've known for over 10 years. Adam Becker (Autistic Youth, Defect Defect, Red Lantern Studios, Trash Treasury) did the recording and mixed with us from November till around April. He'd do things to help us de-stress like playing Michael Jackson in our headphones between recording flubs. He also had a really cool analog chorus/delay/reverb pedal, previously used by Elliot Smith that we used for a couple of songs on the LP.

The Stops - Nameless Faces LP 2015  Dirt Cult Records (America) Sabotage Records (Europe)

I was reading an interview with Kim Shattuck from The Muffs and she said she never includes politics in her lyrics because she feels that it dates the song. What do you think about that statement? Are there any subjects you try to stay away from in your lyrics?

RS: I think she makes a valid point but we have never been concerned with what we should or should not talk about. We have not put any lyrical constraints on ourselves and there aren't any subjects we have purposefully avoided. That being said, our aim isn't necessarily a political one. Our songs are about our experiences as people and how we see the world. The content of our writing isn't meant to fit into a mold that reflects stereotypes about us as women, punks, etc. For us, the point is to play music, write lyrics, and be in a band simply because we enjoy doing it. Putting restrictions on what we sing about would totally go against the grain of the type of people we are.

What band or musician would you say has had the single most influence on your life? Tell me about the first time you heard them and how you felt when you did.

RS: If I must pin it down to one band then I have to choose the one that got me into punk: The Ramones. My only exposure to rock n' roll before them was what was being played on alternative radio stations in the 90's. Discovering the raw pop hooks of The Ramones was life changing. I don't know what I thought punk was at the time but it was not immediately clear to me that they were it. When I found out, I thought “oh this is punk.. Ok I guess I like punk.” I began hunting down information on bands like the Sex Pistols and Clash so that I could download their albums off Kazaa. The Ramones' sound was a perfect introduction to punk for me. It felt like I was beginning to understand what made me tick.

The Stops/Daily Ritual split EP 2015 released by Sabotage Records and 4490 Records

The band recently played a show with School of Rock Portland. How did you become affiliated with them and how did you feel the show turned out?

RS: Lizzie currently works there as a piano/vocal instructor, and we were asked to play the Best of Portland fest because one of the lead organizers liked our demo. Overall the show was good and a lot of people came out to watch the kids. It's really heart warming to see teens and pre-teens playing in bands. The school provides an environment that helps them succeed as budding musicians while giving them a safe space to feel supported and engaged. We have many friends who have contributed to or worked with School of Rock since it's a great way for musicians to give back to the community.

Photos by Daniel Vincent and Aaron Sharpsteen

I’ve seen a couple of really cool Stops shirts. Is that Medusa’s severed head being held up?! They’re both great! Who came up with the designs for them?

RS: Hey, thanks! That is in fact Medusa's severed head. During high school I became interested in Greek mythology. Using Medusa on a T-shirt seemed appropriate for us so I asked my roommate if she could draw it from a photo of a famous statue. Rita put the drawing in photoshop, tweaked it and designed the background. The skull design was done by Rita's friend Flávio Bá. We found the image on his website and asked if it would be all right for us to use it. He was more than happy to let us put the design on a t-shirt so he added The Stops logo at the top. Our new design will have a girl's leg kicking a cop in the face. We found this design in my friend Allison Phillips' portfolio.

What non music related things do you all enjoy doing around Portland?

RS: We all work or go to school. Everyone in the band does many music related things including DJing, working at the local radio station, giving music lessons, attending shows, etc. So the only time left at the end of the day is spent hanging out, eating good food, watching TV or reading for the most part. Sometimes during the summer The Stops like to go to the river after practice just to catch some rare Portland sun-rays.

Where can people log on or go to buy your music?

DirtCultRecords.com   (North America)

SabotageRecords.net    (Europe)

facebook.com/thestops

stops.pdx@gmail.com

What lies in the future for The Stops, any tour plans in the works?

RS: Yes. We're touring Europe from October 2nd – October 24th. We will have our 12” and a split 7” that we did with Daily Ritual. After that we will be taking a couple months off and writing more songs. We might tour the US sometime in 2016.

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An Interview with Slick!

Nick Slick, front man of Oakland's very own rag tag trio of gutter glam heroes Slick! had some time to sit down and answer a few questions for us.  In a revealing interview, find out why he talks like Tony the Tiger, why he doesn't care what his audiences do while he's playing, and why he believes Joe Jackson is a spaceman!

Interview by J Castro

Who is currently in Slick and what do you all do in the band?

Nick: We are a classic three piece or power trio as alot of people like to say. It consists of me Nicholas J.C. Slick! on guitars, vocals, various keyboards (on the record) and miscellaneous percussion, the lovely and talented Sasha Simone on bass and angelic harmonies, and Matthew the monkey man Costa on drums.

How did you all meet and decide to play in this band together?

NICK: Last year I was in a band called Glitz, we were booked to play a showcase at SXSW 2014 but 2 weeks before we were scheduled to hit the road our drummer told us that he couldn’t do it. It put us in a very difficult position, with little deliberation we hit up every drummer we knew who could pull off learning two sets in two weeks. If you’ve ever been in a rock & roll band you know that drums (and drummers) are notoriously the most challenging component to integrate into an already formed band that already has a specific particular sound. Every drummer we knew was already too busy or it was too short notice to pick up and go tour the south west for a couple weeks. Finally when things were looking pretty bleak, I was telling my good friend Mike Noda (later to play bass in Slick!) who I was living with at the time about this predicament and he suggested the drummer in his band Caldecott the man was Matt! I hadn’t considered that because they were more of an accessible easy listening to mellow indie band. Kind of like something you’d hear on an adult contemporary radio station like KFOG, but we decided to give it a try. It turns out Matt was very familiar with us and previous bands we’d been in and was quite a fan. So he was very enthusiastic and glad to be a part of the whole thing, on top of that the guy’s a great drummer, of course it was a little shaky at first but by the time we played our way down to South-by and back he had it down. Later we disbanded due to creative differences and Matt & I formed Slick! We’ve been a band less than a year and have already gone through numerous bass players, I had known Sasha through other projects she’s involved with that were outside of the “scene” that I’m more familiar, I knew she’s ambitious and a talented player so it was perfect timing.

How would describe your band’s music to someone that’s never heard you before?

NICK: I’d say if you like Rock & Roll, Pop, Glam, Punk or anything that’s timelessly classic, what we do is everything you’d want to hear. With Slick! you can hear everything from the Beach Boys to G.G. & The Jabbers, from Roy Orbison to KISS I could go on forever with the blanks to the blanks but I think you get the idea. I want to have a very recognizable sound but nostalgic at the same time without barricading myself into one thing.

What typically inspires your song lyrics?  Are there any subjects you guys purposely avoid in your song lyrics?

NICK: Lyrics, I will admit are what I’m least good at musically, I tend to stray away from cerebral poeticism or politics. I’m not a Bob Dylan Leonard Cohen type of songwriter even though I’m a fan of both. My lyrics are usually very surface level, simple, dumb not much nuance or double entendres hidden meanings etc. As far as what inspires them, a lot of it is from my life experiences or stories from my friends or family. The musician’s condition is another inspiration “You don’t like me (Cuz I rock & roll)” is a testament to how I feel about the current state of bay area music not limited to, “Your band Sucks” as well. The rest are about all that romance, because let’s be real, people can’t get enough of that shit. It’s autobiographical though is what it comes down to, all I can do is write about what I know and see if I can do it in a way that people can relate to. We’ll see about that though.

What’s your favorite album to listen to from beginning to end?  Tell me a little about the first time you heard this album.

NICK: Fun House by The Stooges. I was very young and very on drugs.

I was reading this interview with Nick Cave and he said that out of all the art forms, music has the power to change a person’s mood the fastest.  Do you agree with this statement, if so are there any records that you put on that can change your mood pretty fast?

NICK: I do not agree with that statement. I think it’s probably true for people who love music, however there are so many people who really could care less about what they hear. Why do you think the radio can get away with playing the same 20 songs all day every day? I think the average person when it comes to music is either indifferent or adapted to whatever is presented to them. That being said it’s obvious that there are very common threads among what the average person likes and how it makes you feel. It’s been said if you play a song that’s based in the major scale it will typically sound like a happy or more upbeat song, however minor can be interpreted as sad or melancholy. Mostly seems like ain’t nobody care.

When you guys are playing live, what’s the most annoying thing an audience members has done that totally distracted you from rockin’ and rollin’?

NICK: I just want ‘em to go crazy, other than that they can do pretty much whatever they want. It’s a show it’s about having fucking fun!

If Slick could tour with any band from any era throughout rock ‘n roll history, who would it be and why?

NICK: Probably the Doors or the Grateful Dead hahahahahahahaha need I say more?

If you were a space explorer and got stranded on a life sustaining planet with only (A) one person, (B) one meal, and (C) one record to listen to for the remaining

of your life there, what would all of  these be:

NICK: The Person : An alien woman that first would try to kill me but then later fall in love with me and then we would fuck and create an entire race of alien humanoids that would create technology and 10 million years later destroy the planet through our selfish ways and have to go colonize another planet.

One Meal:  Either Chinese food or Mexican food

I probably wouldn’t bring a record I would just start a band with my humanoid/alien children and I’d exploit them for the entire planet, I’d be like a spaceman version of Joe Jackson, actually he probably was a spaceman.

What’s the single best piece of advice someone gave to you that you followed and actually helped?

NICK: When anybody asks you how you’re doing? Reply with “I’M GREAT!!!” and say it in the voice of Tony the Tiger.

Where can people go to buy or listen to you music?

NICK: A bar, your mother’s house, the street, my house, any venue in Oakland or San Francisco, iTunes, Spodify, Soundcloud, Youtube, the mall, a car, any body's town via www. it’s extremely easy to find if you’re not a useless person.

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