Deliver Us From This Chaos

Interview With Los Angeles Chaos

Los Angeles

From Issue 2.1, September/October 2005

The Power Rangers song has a double peddle in it,” said 20-year-old Edgar Ramirez, “Dude, I was tripping out.”

“It’s fucking amazing,” said 17-year-old Willy Cobian.

“Walter had it in his CD on repeat,” said Jose Beltran, 18, mentioning a mutual friend between them.

“Download the theme song from Power Rangers season one,” Ramirez said turning to the only person in the room not in the band and not sure what was so great about the theme song to a kids’ show.  “It’s like metal.”

“Yeah, it’s not meant for little kids,” added Cobian who went on to  talk about the music in video games.  “I noticed a lot [of video games] have arpeggios.  That’s crazy.”

What’s even more crazy is that Ramirez, Cobian and Beltran along with Steve Vasquez, 19, were not being sarcastic when they sat talking about the technicalities of the Power Rangers music during an interview and practice in Cobian’s bedroom one Saturday afternoon before their show later that evening.

Drummer Vasquez, guitarist Ramirez, singer and bassist Cobian and rhythm guitarist Beltran are in the band Los Angeles Chaos.

What became increasingly apparent as the interview went on is the members of this band are incredibly open-minded when it comes to music.  They genuinely like talking about it, and they like talking about the latest music they have heard.

“I Fight Me is one example of a band that’s really different.  They just left everyone behind,” said Beltran.

“Is it wicked?,” asked Ramirez.

“Fuck, dude,” said Cobian in response.

“Recognize,” trailed Ramirez.

After all, the four seem to have this never-ending curiosity with good music and the good sense to keep incorporating and learning from what they hear, saying there’s a fine line between being a street punk band and being in a band that constantly experiments and does something a little more than just repeat the same chord progressions over and over again.

Not knowing what to expect to hear from their practice, as the band has not yet put out an album (though they are signed to local label, Obscene Records), Cobian shut the door to his small bedroom to show off a sampling of their sound and the music just seemed to explode from the room.

Not only do they have good timing, fast changes and the fullness from having two guitars, but their sound really does fuse the best of punk and metal.

With the song “Watch Your Back,” you can really hear the blend of a band such as System of a Down mixed with some Pennywise (which is one of the bands Beltran listens to).

“We’re educated punk,” said Beltran in attempting to describe the music they play.

“Punk with a G.E.D., fool,” said Ramirez.

In the end, however, Los Angeles Chaos does not really go by labels.  Realistically though, how can a band, that is able to integrate some very familiar sounds of what seems to be two different categories, be labeled?  No label even exists.  Taking a look at their long list of the bands they like seems to prove this.  Cobian is into bands such as System of a Down (he has a poster of the ‘Toxicity’ album on the wall in his bedroom), Iron Maiden (for which he was wearing a shirt the day of the interview), Black Dhalia Murderer, Subhumans and Litmus Green- to name only a few.

Vasquez is also into Black Dhalia Murderer and Iron Maiden, Cut The Shit, Bones Brigade, Blink 182 and a Swedish band called Sunday Morning Einsteins.

Ramirez ticked off Spazz Capitalist, The Casualties, Doors, Janis Joplin and Stevie Ray Bond as some of his favorites.

Beltran added Green Day to the list and Elvis Costello along with The Vandals, Descendents and Offspring.

They attribute their ever-growing list of good bands to going into their friends CD cases and just looking at what other bands like listening to, which lends way to the music that they end up making.

“We’re pirates on the street,” said Cobian.  “We play what we play.”

They refuse to subscribe to the idea that they are street punks as they went on to discuss how that particular music is much more “raunchy,” “dirty” and full of “nonsense.”

“It’s not going to get you anywhere,” broke in Ramirez quickly.  “Most [street punk bands] don’t experiment; they stop learning.”

“Yeah, we started listening to punk,” said Vasquez, “but we do more experimenting.”

And that’s the biggest difference between this band and a lot of local bands out there.  Power Rangers and video game theme music talk aside, Los Angeles Chaos is one of the more serious bands out there.  They are not serious in the sense that they themselves are serious about getting some sort of record deal, but serious in the sense that they are managing to pick up on a little bit of everything that is good in all genres of music and twisting that into what Ramirez might deem as some “wicked,” original material.

“We throw our ideas in a pool,” said Ramirez.

“Add riffs,” said Cobian of their song-writing process.

“Add and add and subtract, do the exponents,” said Ramirez.

Cobian’s idea for the band’s name came from the idea that certain regions of Los Angeles County are producing music that is all the same-loosley based on a generic label of being “punk.”

“Before,” started Cobian, “it [punk in general] was all an underground scene.  Today, there’s street punks everywhere.  Now, there’s a show every weekend.  And everything going on in those backyards that I saw, was chaos.  It [Los Angeles Chaos] describes everything from the L.A. scene.”

This all goes back to Ramirez’s comment that a lot of bands choose to stop learning and thus the same bad sound gets replicated to an audience that is not really into the music.

“Some of the bands [eventually] did get better,” said Cobian citing Echo park band, Society’s Parasites because their “mindset was not just street punk.”

But then again, fans have to be just as open-minded as the band.

Cobian described a time when L.A. Chaos played a show in South Central.  They covered an Iron Maiden song instead of the typical, and more accepted Total Chaos or Global Threat material and, “people raised their brows,” said Cobian.  “That tells you a lot about them.”

“We played in South Central once and some guy said, ‘Oh, fuck metal,’ and we were like what the fuck?  What the fuck are you talking about,” said Beltran with his eyes wide still in disbelief someone could say that.

Another show in Bell Gardens also proved disappointing to which Cobian attributed to the keg against the wall.

Beltran remembered how one guy at the Bell Gardens show asked him what band they were and when Beltran responded, “Los Angeles Chaos,” the guy said nothing and walked away smoking his cigarette.

And to Cobian, the factor that makes the band different from so-called street punks is that L.A. Chaos has perspective.

“I find it funny,” said Beltran about the whole street punk mentality while looking at a wire he picked up off the floor.  “I pay no attention.  It’s like a little kid that keeps bugging you until you kick it.”

“It’s the mentality of coming in here thinking they’re gonna be rockstars,” added Ramirez.

“Everything we do, has some comic relief,” said Cobian.  “If you can’t have fun with it, then what the hell’s the point?”

When asked to sum themselves up in one word, Cobian responded, “Organized Chaos.  I know it’s an oxymoron, but that’s what it is.  It’s one word.  Say it fast.”

Yeah, say it fast, and it begins to make a whole lot of sense.