MY WHAT BIG PLANS YOU HAVE

Interview With The Inoculators

Hollywood

From Issue 2.3, January/February 2006

All Photos Courtesy of The Inoculators

The kid that lost his tooth at their last show, came up to the camera guy filming the show that night. His tooth got broken in half. The roots were dangling out and he had a bloody mouth to complement it.

Another kid had his cheeks gashed.

Those were the casualties of an Inoculators show in Victorville, one of the band’s favorites to date because the kids went crazy.

“In Victorville, there was more than a double digit crowd,” said singer and guitarist Murphy.

“Yeah, with the people in L.A., you won’t find pits,” added bassist John.

“Everyone’s trying too hard to be cool,” Murphy said.

“It’s just different,” John said to him. “Just a different vibe.”

And while this band practices and is from Hollywood, they are far removed from the people who make up the “too cool to listen to music” group of people that they’ve seen at their shows and at shows they’ve been to in the area.

The Inoculators are a band that is not around to reflect an image to people. Instead, the Inoculators stemmed from each of its members wanting something a little more out of the bands they formally played in.

“I got sick and tired of being in bands not doing anything,” Murphy said.

With that tension building, Murphy parted from his former band (which he said was just another version of The Inoculators only it did not go anywhere) and started The Inoculators six months ago. He wrote the music and put out an album before the band even began playing shows. Running against the traditional way of doing things, the album served as this band’s springboard.

“I was tired of being in bands with no records, so I joined a band that already had a record,” guitarist Adam said.

In doing this, the Inoculators embody ambition and an almost puritanical work ethic and drive to accomplish something by going about the whole “band thing” in the opposite way most other bands go about it. And by sticking to their guns, the Inoculators have shows under their belts and an album to boot.

While some would say ambition is blinding, this is not a band that is starving for success or making any arrogant claims that they will make it in an industry already stuffed with bands looking for deals. At the same time, they also do not pride themselves on being lazy as some bands like to do.

Instead, their noise and their art have a purpose that they hope people might pay some attention to.

They are trying to, “communicate our thoughts and ideas on any given subject,” Murphy said of The Inoculators band name. “Whether it’s for good intentions, or just throwing it out there (experimenting) to see the reaction you get from people, either way we are inoculating them with our ideas.”

And they have a lot of ideas it would seem. Their album offers a plethora of thoughts both political, personal and otherwise mixed with some very haunting, satirical artwork that tears on sex, pop culture and social values-obviously, something they should be very satisfied, if not downright proud of.

However, because satisfaction is all relative, Murphy said he hopes in the next six months, they will write some new songs as a band and put out a seven inch. Ultimately, generating some interest from record labels would be nice, but not necessary.

“We’re more concerned with playing shows,” John said. “I don’t know how much you’d need a label. The only reason you’d need a label is to get a bigger budget. In the end it’s more satisfying to do it on your own. You have more control.”

To what extent the Inoculators really need a label is questionable. They’ve already put out their album complete with edgy artwork and a nice recording, and they’ve obviously already generated the interest of listeners. The Victorville show is a good example of that.

Playing a blend of punk and ska (“without the horns” as drummer Mandi explained), The Inoculators are not hardcore. They are not political and they are hard not to like.

Part serious musicians and part jokesters, when PARADIGM met up with  them at one of their practices, the four-piece stood in the small parking lot of AMP Rehearsal in North Hollywood to talk about their band. It started out with Murphy doing a lot of the talking.

“Why are we [even] here?” Mandi said to him bored and laying in the back of her Scion’s open trunk.

Mandi, probably the strongest one of the group, “and by probably, I mean I am,” she said, is also the most blunt.

“Mandi’s the one that starts all the shit and never let’s anyone finish it,” Murphy said. “Mandi, the dictator. The taskmaster. Mandi the assmaster.”

After a bit more clashing between Mandi and Murphy, the story of the hotel room they trashed in Victorville arose.

“I’m leaving,” Mandi said embarassed by the story to come.

“Now we can do the rest of the interview,” Murphy said to Mandi.

“I have dinner plans,” Mandi said as she reversed her car out of her parking space. “Oh wait. You wouldn’t know what that’s like.”

As she drove off smirking, the rest of them take the comment in stride. She and Murphy clash the most, but they say that’s just part of them being a band. They say they function like a family unit and their demeaning humor is just a sidebar to all of that.

The Victorville hotel story wasn’t anything to be embarrassed by. In fact, Mandi’s name wasn’t even mentioned as the other three relayed the story.

After the Victorville show, the band went back to their room for a little bit of a party.

The partying was prefaced with the fact that this had to be one of the worst hotel rooms to be in at the time.

There were bugs in the room and the beds were stripped of sheets.

“Weren’t the beds wrapped in plastic,” John wondered aloud. “It’s hard to overstate how bad this room really was.”

“If you looked at it in daylight, you could see five shades of white,” Murphy explained.

One of Adam’s friends, who came back with them to the room, decided to use a container of take out food to swat one of the ever-present flies. That was what started it, but John says hotel management didn’t even notice the apparent food fight in the room.

“It looked like we improved the room,” Murphy said.

Although the hotel wasn’t so great, they look forward to going back to Victorville to play more shows.

Knowing this band and how ambitious they are, they will go back to Victorville. They aren’t just saying that. They’ll do it, and they’ll put out the seven inch Murphy projected they would do in the next six months. This is one band that is definitely not sitting on its plans.