Welcome to the Family

Interview with Deviated State

Carson, Calif.

It's a Wednesday night and the heat's ridiculous in Carson and just about everywhere else in California.

Two-fifths of Deviated State—Joey T. Banks and Robert Lara—are sitting outside of Coldstone. Guitarist Sean Palce, who had been absent from the band interview just before this, skated across the intersection of Main Street and Sepulveda Boulevard to meet with them. How wholesome, right? But less than an hour before that they're talking about their style of punk rock that blurs into metal and thrash, fans that have become family, prospects for a new album and grappling with scenes that can't quite figure them out. Par for the course when you play what Lara best described as rowdy core. Songs that are too short to be hardcore with breakdowns too slow to be punk.

"It's not really typical," Banks said. "We'll play a hardcore show and our songs are 20 to 40 seconds and then we'll play a punk show and we'll do the breakdown shit and everyone just stares at us like what the fuck?"

The band—now in it's second iteration—since re-charging back up in 2012 after a brief hiatus, includes a lineup that has Banks on vocals, Lara on drums, Robert Vega on bass and Palce on guitar. A fifth member, Andrew Lesa fills in on vocals, but serves mostly as a hype man of sorts.

Those who regularly go to shows around the Carson area have likely caught them play. They're regulars when it comes to getting themselves on the bills of venues ranging from backyards to bars.

Banks is the sole original member from when Deviated State started up in 2009 but too many backyard shows not going beyond the borders of where the band had grown up, got a little boring and the band went off the rails briefly.

Banks got into the scene after following a local band at the time called Street Threat and was taught guitar by one of the band's members. He fell into the music though through a family friend who was taken to punk shows by Banks' mom and it was that family friend who introduced him to MDC and Lower Class Brats among a bunch of other bands.

The current band members were already friends, drinking together at shows, so it only made sense that Deviated State be resurrected in a more serious effort to play better, more diverse shows and up the ante on its music. Plans call for a full-length album sometime early next year.

"It's going to be different. You'll notice some different changes, more details," Banks said. "I don't want to say mature because that's always a lame thing to say 'Yeah, we got more mature.' It's more straight and in your face and cleaner recordings so you can hear a lot of the details we do. There's a lot of details we do, but you don't hear anything and it doesn't hit as well as we'd like it to hit."

Deviated State released the EP No Control evolving from what could be characterized as an earlier street punk sound to more thoughtful songs with a lot of timing changes. It's the kind of music that confuses the kids at a show.

"I'd say degenerate," said Vega, who got into the bass after his grandmother forced him into lessons. "Not in the sense that it's demoralizing but in the sense that just the structure and the sound of the song it's not consistent. It'll sound this way for a little bit and then all of a sudden it'll sound totally different. It'll jump into a typical punk song and then out of nowhere it has these heavy breakdowns."

The band's currently unsigned and while that would be a nice reality, they're not holding their breath.

"It depends on the label and it depends on what they could do for us and what we could do for them because I emailed labels and promoters, even from across the country, and we always get the same response: 'Oh, you're not our type of sound,' 'You're not our type of sound.' It's always rejection so it's like fuck that," Banks said. "If they want us, they'll hit us up. But, shit, it hasn't happened yet."

"We don't expect it," said Lara, whose parents bought him a drum kit in the seventh grade as an alternative to a Game Cube. "We're not in that fantasyland. We know that sometimes it's not going to get to that point. We just stick to the roots, just being true to the music."

At the end of the day, the focus isn't about trying to make money off the band.

"When people I don't know actually come and sing a song that I wrote, with me, that's the craziest part," Banks said. "Or you see them mouthing the lyrics. That shows all the hard work and all the bullshit fighting we go through sometimes to make a 30-second song, it makes it worth it."

Deviated State just wrapped a hardcore show and is playing a street punk backyard show and a death metal show up next—frenetic and maybe even a little manic? Maybe. But it keeps everyone on their toes.

"It's experiences like that, that kind of make you persevere because you know what? I do this, for one, because I can't afford a psychiatrist. I need to release some anger somehow and, second, it's fun," Vega said. "It's something to do on the weekdays or just it's something to do with your friends.

Instagram: @xdeviatedstatex

Band Updates: Facebook

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