Dig That Sound
Interview With The Violent Threats
Echo Park
From Issue 1.3, January/February 2005
It was past 8 p.m. on a Tuesday, when the members of Los Angeles band, The Violent Threats and some of their friends climbed to their secret “view” overlooking infamous and misunderstood Echo Park-a place the media stigmatizes as being the breeding ground for gangs, violence and drug deals.
A man jogged around the park’s muddy lake as guitarist Cris Reyes leaned over and asked, “doesn’t it look like something from a movie where he’s gonna get mugged or something?”
At the risk of sounding a little paranoid and sheltered, maybe just a little.
And maybe just a little like the park’s venerable “swamp,” the group connotes a whole dish of unfound stereotypes in their band name alone.
With songs about downing forties or denouncing cops as “Pig Police” and
nicknames such as George Kaotik or Adrian Insane, their music is enough to alienate them as another pack of uncontrollable, anti-establishment youths by activist adults advocating music censorship.
“Our music’s pretty violent,” said drummer George. “Well, at shows, the thing is, no one seems to be intimidated. At shows we’re pretty friendly. We don’t want a lot of people to like us, because the thing is, they’ll only like us for the music and not really know us. We just want a handful of people who like us as people.”
“I think that’s why people are scared to talk to us,” he added. “They call us gothic or whatever. Or, they think we’re stuck up just because we don’t talk a lot.”
Their music has an edgy exterior which at times borders somewhere along the lines of a new breed of Rancid (circa 2000). Despite the brashness of their music, as people, the Violent Threats are a trio (which also includes bassist Adrian), that play a blend of punk and thrash balanced with goals of school and work. Contrary to what their stereotype would permit, this group is not lazy, obnoxious or rude therefore proving that if the shoe fits, it does not mean one always has to wear it.
Of course, all of this makes them an anomaly of the best kind. They provide an appealing contradiction between their false image of seemingly “dangerous and violent” music, with blunt commentary of the world as they see it.
Adrian, who writes the lyrics, covers topics of vegan mentality (a 9 second mind-number saying, “Vegans eat meat, but they just don’t notice), to Reyes being tall, to abolitionist John Brown. Most of their songs are brief (averaging around one minute) with screaming vocals that come through with delirious distortion.
“I just write shit that comes through my head,” said Adrian quietly without further explanation.
Despite the chaotic zeal of the music, the band portrayed an entirley different persona during their recording.
The basement, complete with posters and a makeshift bathroom (made of a funnel connected to a hose leading out through a small hole in the wall) that only guys or “really tall girls” can use, is the band’s station of operation. Computer equipment is assembled on a wooden table where the backside reads “George + Michelle” in masking tape. Cords are tangled in a heap in the back of the room and the back seat of a car provides seating as the band’s friends come and go through a side door.
Taking in comments such as “hey, you missed a note” or “you’re playing it sloppy” Adrian sat quietly on the floor attempting to record the bass lines for some of the songs set to appear on their current project: a new album.
“I think it’s pretty fun,” said Reyes of being in the band. “The guys are fun; they’re both talented. If we wanted to make another CD, we could make it pretty fast.”
His comment is pretty true. Even while Adrian recorded his parts, Cris sat in the back with his guitar making up riffs. Midway into one recording his friends exclaimed over one riff to which George said, “Okay, remember that one.”
In addition to the album they are working on, The Violent Threats will take part in a three-way split with bands Dis-feel and the Muks. The split and album will be released by the band’s label Obscene Records. The label signed The Violent Threats about six months ago.
Prior to that, the band (which has been around since early 2000), remained relatively do-it-yourself for their basic love of the music. The vast library of songs that George pulls up to show on his computer is testament of that.
“We’re really open-minded when it comes to music,” he said furously clicking his computer mouse from one song to the next. Ask him anything about music, and he will readily answer from where he thinks punk started (England), to the difference between thrash and punk. He does not hold it against anyone for not knowing this specialized information either. The band’s preferences span from German and Norwegian punk, to a band from Spain called Ska-p, which would only seem to dictate that their music have some sort of global resonance.
“In sounds, we tend to blend in everything. We bridge the gap because we use punk, but then throw in thrash and a beat mixed with ska. Musically, it’s all there,” said George describing the band’s sound.
As for The Violent Threats and the future, anything seems to be open.
“I want to be in this band and have a cool job,” said Reyes quickly. “Yeah, that’d be cool to be in this band. We’d be better.”
“And less crusty,” added George.
“And Adrian is going to have dreadlocks,” continued Reyes, “and I’ll be Cristina.”
They all laughed at that one.
Back at the “view” of Echo Park, the band and the rest of their friends sat alongside the curbs of a drainage ditch, talking. Earlier, George said they like going up there and not having to worry about petty stuff, or about buying products they do not need.
In pieces, The Violent Threats are like a puzzle. A person might choose to only look at one piece and see them and their music as angry, or violent, or insightful, or open-minded, or contradictory. In summation however, (just like the park) there is a lot more than meets the eyes-and ears.