Chris Spencer of Cutthroats 9 Ditched New York to Drive a Muscle Car and Shoot Guns

Photo credit: James Rexroad

Before its inevitable facelift into a high-rise luxury condo-lined gentrified hell, fancy-assed boutiques, hoity-toity restaurants, and godawful bars, downtown New York City was actually a bustling haven for good drugs, cheap rent, and an underground rock defining music scene.

Beginning in 1988, Unsane were at the forefront of that dystopia—a loud-and-angry-as-fuck urban-aggro screamoid assault trio who helped personify the then-East Village/LES drug den and crime-ridden hell-hole with a murderous recipe of gory noise-rock and sludge-metal. At Unsane’s helm stood its leader, the perpetual N.Y. Yankees hat-wearing Chris Spencer, whose trademark blasting wail and filthy riffs scattered, smothered and covered seven sick masterpieces of blood-splattered anthemry.

But way back in 2000 with Unsane on hiatus, Spencer took a detour to Cali. There, he formed the equally slaying and relentless Cutthroats 9, unleashing a 7-incher, an EP, and a full-length of naturally Unsane-like noise-rock terror.

Fast forward 14 years. Over and done with his beloved NYC’s transformation, Spencer jetted off to join his brother on the left coast in the middle of Cali nowhere land to lead a reclusive life of muscle cars, fishing, gun play and front porch jamming. That existence has manifested into the launch of Spencer’s own vinyl-only label, Lamb Unlimited—modeled after Tom Hazelmyer’s groundbreaking noise label Amphetamine Reptile—and a revival of Cutthroats 9. The recently-released sludge-heavy and tortured slide-dripping behemoth Dissent has the classic bloody-throat screaming Spencer/Unsane M.O. exploding off its stomach-gutting blues-mangled desperation and noise-rock bludgeon. But while Dissent’s cover art doesn't feature any crime scenes such as decapitated bodies on subway tracks (as Spencer tell it "that's an Unsane thing"), his Cutthroats don't need it. Just give Spencer his battered six-string and blooze-noise-drenched slide and pain will be inflicted, and on Dissent's deafening seven tracks, Spencer and his cohorts do just that.

We tracked down Spencer at his home in Cali to talk how New York blows, the rejuvenated Cutthroats, and his big plans for Lamb Unlimited.

Noisey: You’ve left New York, right? Where are you holed up now?
Chris Spencer: Northern California.

Are you done living in New York?
Uh, yes.

Completely? You’re never coming back?
Uh, yeah. [laughs]

Do you miss New York?
I mean, I kind of do, sometimes. I mean, I miss my friends. I miss hanging out in the usual places. But then a lot of them are being closed down. Shit just changes.

I think a lot of those bars we went to when I last interviewed you shut down.
Yes, I believe you’re right. Motor City and Nexus.

Enough reminiscing. So why a new Cutthroats album 14 years after the last one?
I was busy with Unsane for quite a while and I was back in New York for quite a while and Will, our drummer, was doing Death Angel shit. So, he was busy, I was busy—he’s all the way across the country. Then I came back (to California) and since me and him were good friends, I just said “Hey, well you up for it?” And he was totally into it. So, that’s totally the reason, just friendship. Like seeing the guy and being “Hey man, let’s make a record.” Will really loves playing in the band, so yeah. There you go.

Who’s the other dude in Cutthroats?
Oh, Tony Baumeister. He plays in ÆGES and 16 in Los Angeles.

Is this current lineup the same as the first record that came out in 2000?
All three records have different bass players. That first record, Dave Curran from Unsane played bass, and on the second record, the rhythm guitar player (Mark Laramie) on the first record played bass. We (then) shifted him over to bass instead of rhythm guitar and became a three piece. So, he played on the EP. He split and then Tony toured with us. He did a shitload of touring. He did like four or five tours of the States and was never on a record. When we got back together, Tony had always wanted to be on a record so I called him up and he was totally in and came up and did that.

You’ve started a new label and you’re releasing Cutthroats new record, Dissent, on it?
Lamb Unlimited, yes it is.

What’s the plan with Lamb Unlimited? Are you going to branch out and put out stuff besides Cutthroats?
Yeah, well, we’re doing Cutthroats, we’re doing Rabbits—we just got the new Rabbits records in, which is really cool. And then were going to do the UXO record with me and Steve—Steve Austin from Today’s The Day.

Yeah, I saw a post you wrote on Facebook how awesome the UXO is.
Oh, Jesus Christ. I got the mixes and I was like “Holy shit!” This shit is fucking heavy. It’s really good and I’m so glad, man. Really, it was done on a whim. Steve lives in Maine. I was dating a girl whose family was from Maine and she wanted to go see her family. I was like “Well, that’s cool, I can go meet your family and also hang out and write some stuff with Steve.” Steve has a studio at his house, so me and him got together, wrote enough songs to put on a 12” at 45RPM’s, which times in generally at about 26 minutes. Then Aarne Victorine and Patrick Kennedy joined and did the bass and drums.

What’s the difference, in your mind, between Unsane and Cutthroats?
I get to play slide. [laughs] Seems pretty obvious.

And that slide is featured prominently on the cover of Dissent.
Yeah, yeah. You know, that old beat up guitar and stuff. We were kind of bouncing around a few ideas and I was like “Well, this record has slide all over it. Might as well just represent what’s going on the inside, on the outside."

The slide is what you are into now?
Yeah, I really like it, man. I’ve done it since I was, like, seven. When my hands were too small to actually really play cohesively. But yeah, I just like doing it. It’s a different kind of sound. It’s not so urban-aggro. It still maintains a certain amount of aggression and that kind of thing, but without having to just, you know, with being a little more—I don’t know what you would say. Maybe with a little more technique. You’ve got be a little more sly to be able to pull that one off.

So you ditched NYC, moved to California and now you have more technique is what you’re saying?
[Laughs] No, what! That’s interesting. Now I have a lot more time to myself to sit around and play guitar on the porch.

You now lead a peaceful, kind of tranquil life there in the middle of nowhere?
Oh yeah. Just hanging out, shooting guns. [laughs]

Cool. That’s what you’re doing out there?
Oh, yeah. Shooting guns, fishing, you know. Playing guitar all day. Good times. We live next to a highway that me and my brother have dubbed “The Crystal Highway” because there is, up north of us and not far, one road that goes by our place where the state of California dumps all of their mentally ill. They just kind of put them up in Clearlake. Then there’s just this huge meth culture up there. A few weeks ago somebody just came by and stole mailboxes [laughs].

Maybe it’s not as tranquil as I’m picturing it.
Yeah. I mean, it is and it isn’t. I know my brother. There was a guy who came in and stole a bunch of farm equipment off of my brother, who is a farmer. My brother is like “Man, I’m so glad I didn’t see that guy because I’d shoot him. Yeah, super tranquil!

So, you have a heavy artillery arsenal?
We have a gun safe, if that’s what you mean.

Awesome.
Then there are bows and all kinds of crap. But yeah, shit you can’t have in New York. I have an old muscle car that I really like—stuff like that that I would never have in New York, ever. In New York, I had a bicycle.

A muscle car rules. What kind is it?
A ’69 GTO. Manual 4-speed, 400. Good car.

Back to Cutthroats. You didn’t feel like splashing some cow’s blood on that slide for the cover of Dissent?
No, that’s an Unsane thing. That’s certainly an Unsane thing.

So you’re getting away from that?
I mean, obviously. Yes.

What’s the deal with Unsane? Are they done?
Oh, I don’t know. I mean, you know. You could see I’m doing Cutthroats, new UXO, whatever… I like staying busy. So, whatever I want to do, whatever I have time for, I’ll do. You know what I mean. We’ll see. (Vinnie Signorelli) got hurt real bad so I don’t know and he’s a lot older than me and Dave. Who knows what will happen with that…

Is that when he got hurt a few years ago?
Yeah, yeah.

How’s he doing?
I mean as far as I can tell, he’s doing good. He’s the kind of guy that says everything is fine, then you see him and say “Eh, okay.”

And Dave (Curran) is busy doing Melvins stuff.
Yeah, Dave is tour manager and sound guy for the Melvins and he’s out on tour with Buzz’s solo project for an eternity, I believe. So, Dave is super busy. We’ll see lineup-wise with Unsane. Who knows.

I read you found an Unsane demo from 1988 recently. That’s sick.
Oh, Jesus Christ! Yes, I did [laughs]. And it’s pretty funny. I can’t sing for shit on the demo. I’m trying but I really can’t. We’re kids. It’s me, Pete (Shore), and Charlie (Ondras) and it’s pre-first record, pre-first unreleased record. It’s from November in ‘88. We’re barely even a band. And it’s definitely a lot more punk rock sounding. You can definitely tell that I’m the same guitar player. It has the same kind of sound.

Were you already screaming your head off in ’88?
No. The mistake I think I was making is—I wouldn’t say sing, per se—but it’s more of a punk rock thing and less of an urban assault thing.

Do you have plans to release it?
Well, what I’m trying to do is get the first unreleased Unsane record, which never came out because the guy who was going to do it for us for Circuit Records did way too much cocaine. He got the test pressing but then could not afford to press the record. So, it just never came out. But there is a test pressing that we have but we’ve got to figure out. I was thinking about releasing the early demo with the early unreleased first record.

On your Lamb Unlimited label?
Of course.

You had started another label a few years back, right?
Co-Extinction. But that got kind of snatched out of my hands, I’ll be honest with you. I had the idea but then also Dave had the idea and also Andrew Schneider had the idea. I brought it up to them and everybody was like “Let’s do it.” Then I was gone for a while and came back and those guys were like “Oh yeah, we set it up and it’s just a website with just like four songs that people recorded at Andrew’s studio and we posted those and we sell those.” Whereas I wanted to do something where we do vinyl and it’s more of a collectors label. So, it’s more—it’s records.

Dissent is on the short side, kind of like an EP. Do you have more new songs in your arsenal?
It’s like 26 minutes. It’s really high quality. It’s a 12” record played at 45RPM’s so you can’t really go past 26, 27, maybe 28 minutes.

Cutthroats needs to come out east.
Yeah, yeah. We’ll get on it. I’ve got to get—well, I won’t say anything. Nothing, nothing. [laughs] One of us snores really badly so touring is rough when somebody really snores badly. Let’s just say it’s me, okay? Let’s just leave it at that. No, not really. Next.

Photo credit: Kathleen Ricards

Ha! What else do you have planned for Lamb Unlimited?
We’re probably going to put out that early—well, hopefully—the early Unsane stuff. Maybe put some stuff out, some Unsane stuff out, maybe CDs that came out that were never on vinyl—the Unsane catalog. And then I’m looking at doing a Whores record, hopefully. And then also hopefully Fight Amp.

So Lamb isn’t limited to just…
My shit? (laughing)

Yeah, because you’re so self-absorbed. [laughs]
Yeah, I’m only putting out my own record! No, no, no. No, I want to do other noise bands—other stuff that I like that the guys would be into and that the bands would be into on the label so everyone’s happy. We really work on that old AmRep [Amphetamine Reptile] sort of ethic where we work together, you know. We’re not some label, like Relapse, that’s out just to put our name all over. Relapse puts advertisements on things on YouTube that they don’t even own that record—that they don’t even own that song.

Like what?
Like “Scrape.” There’s a giant fucking “buy Unsane stuff on Relapse” blah, blah, blah. Leave that alone. That’s not their business. I’m also in the process of getting a lawyer, so… [laughs]

Is Lamb Unlimited is the anti-Relapse?
Oh, totally. We’re very fair with the bands. Everybody gets paid. They get a good percentage deal. They get a shitload of records if they want them or they get the money—it depends. A label where you can call the guy up and he answers the goddamn telephone, you know. We’re fair and everybody’s cool and we’re all nice.

Brad Cohan loves shooting guns, but hates Twitter.

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