FREAK VIBE: Sewer Mutant Swamp Stomp Rock n’ Roll

Photo By Reed Dunlea

Freak Vibe from Seattle, Washington cannot decide on whether to classify themselves as “swamp stomp,” “blues punk,” or “garbage rock.” The bizarro creep punk group is doing some weird shit on their own terms, and there is no way their whole aura isn’t going to draw you in. And probably leave you feeling a little confused.

Their amazing video for “Jesus in the Kitchen,” shot and edited by the band, should give you a full idea of the (freak) vibe they are going for. In the interview below, we discuss how forming a band can make you a confident musician, analogue VHS manipulation, pissing people off, and getting hustled on the street.

[Ed. The band has broken up since this interview was conducted.]

Noisey: What do you play, where are you from?

Nolan: I’m Nolan, I do vocals and I’m from Seattle, Washington.

Chad: No you’re not.

Nolan: I grew up in Orange County, California. Now I live in Seattle, Washington.

Xtine: Xtine. I live in Seattle. I grew up in Seattle. I play bass.

Chad: Chad. I play guitar, and I grew up in Seattle, Washington as well.

Anthony: I’m Anthony. I play the drums. I grew up in Dallas, Texas, and live in Seattle.

Chad: He’s an animal.

What kind of animal?

Chad: One that can’t be caged.

Like the Muppet?

Chad: We’re gonna be getting a cage for him soon.

Just build a cage into the back of the van. Lock up your gear and stuff, too.

Chad: Something that’s attached to the ground so we can’t throw it. [Laughs]

What is a Freak Vibe?

Anthony: Oh god.

Chad: Fucking.

Whenever you guys named the band, was there a specific thing you guys were thinking of?

Chad: Should we tell the truth?

Anthony: Nah.

Chad: We were gonna be called another name with “vibe” in it, and we decided to just go with Freak Vibe. Long story short.

Xtine: It was a Stooges reference.

Chad: The band is an obscure Stooges reference, but it could be received not well by a lot of people.

Anthony: Especially being a bunch of dudes. And one girl. “TV” stands for something. You can figure it out.

How did this band start?

Chad: Xtine, Nolan and I have actually been friends a really long time. And we wanted to start this band for the last, like, four or five years.

Nolan: We wanted to be a noise rock band for a while.

Chad: Yeah, the original idea was to just be No Trend rip-offs. Just yell.

Nolan: Then we never did that.

Chad: Then two years ago we had the idea to sound in the vein of how we sound now. We all got really excited about that idea and it gave us the drive to actually get our shit together and actually form. It’s been a conceptualized project for a really long time.

Photo by Reed Dunlea

What is that sound? I think I’d have a hard time describing it.

Chad: Swamp stomp.

Anthony: Blues punk? I don't know.

Chad: We were joking about swamp stomp being the signature dance for Freak Vibe. It's kind of a high, extended leg motion.

Xtine: Sewer mutant swamp stomp rock n’ roll.

Chad: Or just garbage rock. I read things funny sometimes, and if I saw a band that called themselves garbage rock, I would read it as “garage rock” you know?

Yeah, you’re dyslexic.

Chad: Yeah.

Tell me about how you play the drums. You move far.

Anthony: I keep it simple and I hit it hard. It's the only way I know how to play.

Xtine: He's an animal.

Chad: He's a fucking animal.

Anthony: I use my whole body and have fun. I'm still learning. What do you guys think?

Chad: A thing that I think is important is that we're all very emotional people, and it's portrayed in the performance. And it's perceived very well by a lot of people, and it's not perceived very well at all by some.

Nolan: Some people hate it.

Chad: I am very grateful that we are able to showcase what I feel is raw emotion. Some people hate it.

How do you know they hate it?

Anthony: I just piss off a lot of people. It's pretty straightforward.

Chad: We've had numerous Facebook rants about us. We've been kicked out of places.

Anthony: We've been banned from places. Over stupid stuff.

Xtine: Can we not?

Anthony: Who cares? We're dangerous. We're a rock ‘n roll band. It happens. We're punk. It's not intentional.

Chad: We never set off to piss anybody off. We don't want to make anybody mad.

Nolan: We don't go out of our way.

Xtine: You've had to apologize.

Xtine, do these three guys piss you off a lot?

Anthony: She's in charge.

Nolan: Yes.

Chad: We piss her off all the time.

Nolan: She hates me.

Anthony: Oh god.

Are you the boss?

Xtine: Um, I'm the driver. Yeah. I love it. I hate sitting in the van not doing something. And everyone has to do what I want to do when I drive.

Nolan: Cuz she wants to do cool stuff.

Xtine: Like go to a casino.

Nolan: Yeah she'll be like, "let's do this scenic route and hit the casino."

Chad: I lost $30 gambling on the street in New York.

Xtine: He played the ball cup game.

Chad: I got fucking hustled. I think it was the dude's whole family. This one dude handed the guy $100 and wins $200 back, and just keeps winning. I think it was his son. So I'm watching and I'm confident because I'm guessing it right without betting. So I decide to bet and the guy says if you put in $30, you'll win $100. And this little girl runs by and is like, "you got it!" So I'm feeling good about myself. And I bet, and lost $30. It was on the street right next to Palisades [a DIY venue in Brooklyn that Freak Vibe played at].

Tell me about this ridiculous music video you guys have.

Xtine: It was Chad's idea.

Nolan: It was? Okay.

Chad: What?

Nolan: I mean, you made the video, yeah.

Anthony: You directed it.

Chad: I didn't come up with the idea. I did all the editing. Xtina and I basically directed it. I don't even know who conceptualized the original idea.

Nolan: I just wanted to shave my hairy friend.

Chad: You came up with the shaving thing. We were gonna do it on a shag carpet or something like that. Nolan came up with idea.

Nolan: Chad filmed it all. And it looks great. I just wanted to shave my hairy ass friend while he was wearing a Reagan mask, in my pajamas. That's it.

Anthony: We wanted to make something really unsettling. Not knowing what's going on.

It's an unsettling fucking video.

Nolan: Chad figured out a way to manipulate his VHS player.

Chad: I was dubbing one tape onto another, but I was circuit bending the VCR. I wanna get my hands on some old VHS editing stuff. I do a lot but it's just from VCR to VCR. It's very primitive. I just open up a VCR and fuck with it.

Is it a tedious process?

Chad: Yeah. It takes a long time because I film everything on VHS, and then put it on the computer and put the song over it there. I have a shitty program that rips the VCR onto the computer. So if anything has a lot of visual noise, a lot of it doesn’t pick up. I have to have a 5 minute clip of me circuit bending to have 30 seconds of usable imagery. If it's too crazy it'll just clip and be a white screen. It's cool. I like VHS stuff. You can cut stuff up and put it together. I did that with Blade Runner and Grease. I have a little company called Tape Appeal. I like analogue shit because it's simple.

It's nice to not have limitless possibilities. I think it's cool to have limits to your form. What do you guys want to accomplish with this band?

Anthony: Rock.

Chad: I literally just want to play guitar really loud. That's what I want to do.

Nolan: I just want to be able to make good songs and shit. I don't know.

Xtine: I just want to tour.

Nolan: We just want to rock. Nothing else.

Anthony: And try not to piss too many people off.

Xtine: We're on an upwards swing. We just got down exactly what we want this band to sound like. We gathered all of our influences. And we all work really well together.

How did you guys get to that point? How did you gather your influences?

Chad: I've always kind of played guitar the way I play in Freak Vibe, but I've never channeled into that. I never felt confident in my guitar playing ability until Freak Vibe started and we started writing songs like that. Like, "oh this is how I'm supposed to play guitar." I've never felt that way before.

Xtine: Me and Chad love The Cramps and The Gun Club and The Stooges. Those are the biggest things that we wanted to sound like I think.

Anthony: We're all into hardcore too.

Xtine: Yeah we all mostly go to hardcore shows. We would start playing shows, and people would come up to us and be like "oh have you heard this band? You sound just like them." Like The Scientists. And The Birthday Party.

Chad: Yeah I found out about a bunch of cool bands just by people doing that.

Nolan: Like Feedtime.

Chad: The U-Men.

Nolan: The U-Men. That is Seattle fucking junk rock. So good.

Any last comments?

Chad: Keep rock ‘n roll dirty. No squares, no narcs. Ever.

Anthony: Have fun. Be safe.

Nolan: We're Freak Vibe. Sorry.

Follow Reed Dunlea on the internet