The first time I saw Guerilla Toss was at the Coward Shoe in Baltimore last winter. It was one of those shows where the bill is a veritable who’s who of up and coming bands. Everyone that played that night has been instrumental in helping to create and spread the gospel of the contemporary noise rock movement across the country in the last few years. Even on an evening where each successive band was tearing down the house and ripping apart the audience’s eardrums with waves of monumental post-rock distortion, when Guerilla Toss played, it felt like nothing else mattered. The wildest guitar flailing and the best sets I'd ever seen from some of the other bands on the bill still couldn't match the overwhelming, dumbfounding presence and sound of Guerilla Toss. Their energy and performance felt as dangerous, primal, and spectacularly unexpected as anything I’ve ever seen. I was instantly hooked on the band’s abrasive and acid-fueled sound.
In the months since that time, Guerilla Toss has been making waves and gaining followers as tracks from their freshly released record--Gay Disco, out December 17 on NNA Tapes--have circulated through the catacombs of the internet. The record comes through like a bull in a china shop, breaking the mold of the Vermont label’s hushed and electronic aesthetic with one of the best rock-based albums to be released this year. The band’s sound, part funk-punk fusion and part red lining noise-scapes, never relents for the length of the record, delivering track after track of frenzied shouting and triumphantly weird uptempo rock music.
I got in touch with the Guerilla Toss drummer Peter Negroponte to talk about the band’s music, their surprisingly accessible new record, and their unbridled live energy.
Guerilla Toss is really the first heavy or rock-derived act that NNA Tapes has put out, whereas most of the rest of their catalog is exclusively ambient and experimental electronica. What if any relationship have you all had with that type of music, and how did you came to work with NNA?
Toby and Matt are chill dudes! I've known them for years, from back when Ian and I lived in Burlington VT. I love the label and own most if not all of their releases. They're definitely throwing us a bone by doing something that’s a little different from their usual aesthetic and we are grateful that they are giving us this rad opportunity. Toby's been sending us selfie pictures via text message recently when he's drunk. I dig that too.
You all seem to thrive as a band by combining many disparate elements and influences into your own sound. On Gay Disco in particular, there seems to be this really interesting juxtaposition between these very dance-influenced and groove-heavy sounds and moments of total noise and discordant energy that are happening all at the same time. Was the emphasis on those two elements deliberate and central in the conception of Gay Disco?
I wouldn't even call that a juxtaposition at this point. We just ripped it off all the cats that have been doing it for the last 35-ish years; Beefheart, no wave, etc.
There seems to be a growing strain of noisy and experimental rock music coming from the northeast in the last few years--bands like yourself, The Dreebs, PC Worship, and some of the acts coming out of Baltimore. I was wondering how you felt being put in that context, and if you all have felt there is sort of a mutual source of influence and sonic ideology with some of those bands.
Sure, those are all our buddies, love 'em all. Is the influence coming from a similar place? Probably, but at this point, it seems like anyone who is doing cool shit has a wealth of musical tastes. It's more about what an individual has fun playing. Does that make sense? Like, I'll hang out with my harsh-noise friends, or "rock band" buds, and the crossover of taste is huge. I think it's all coming from the same place--or at least I like to think that.
Your band is known for your live shows being incredibly intense, and your music in general seems never to rest in any place for longer than a few seconds. How much does chaos and experimentation come into play in Guerilla Toss’s performances, compositions, and recordings?
At this point, I just hear them as pop songs, at least in their formulaic structures: verse, chorus, bridge, etc. I guess not all of the songs operate in the strictest sense of that form, but I think the elements are there. When we play live, we don't improvise much. Shit gets busier and more chaotic once the live juices get flowing, but the songs never tend to stray too far from their original form. The writing process can sometimes involve some "experimentations"--like, we'll come up with a riff, a beat, a synth pad, and then spend an hour dissecting it, turning it inside out, playing it backwards. Silly stuff like that.
The new record is by far the highest fidelity recording you have put out to date, especially when compared to something like the SEXDOME split you all did awhile back. The new record is also one of the most sonically and texturally rich and strange things you've done to date. How was it working in that sort of environment, where so many elements of your sound that had been previously obscured were suddenly more exposed and manipulable?
Actually, the same dude that recorded the SEXDOME stuff recorded Gay Disco as well. The actual laying down of tracks was done similarly, too. With Gay Disco, however, we spent a solid week getting fucked up and mixing, throwing in some extra juice, etc, etc. With our some of our previous efforts (Jefferey Johnson, SEXDOME) we literally spend a few hours mixing it, and were satisfied.
You all have a lot of different sounds in your repertoire that people can make comparisons to, from Ponytail to Primus to the Butthole Surfers. How much do any of those bands influence you, if at all, and what are some of the more obscure influence you all have drawn from lately that people don’t often get?
HA! I was never much of a Primus fan. As for Ponytail, I don't see that at all besides the female vocals and the uh... energy? It's kind of a shallow comparison in my book, but I dig Ponytail, so I'll take it. And as for Butthole Surfers, I’m down; great band and I'm into it. I like to joke that we stole our sound from Fat Worm of Error and put funk/punk beats underneath it. And then there’s the obvious Beefheart shoutouts, no wave/new wave jams, James Chance, Public Image Ltd, etc. And then there’s nerdy stuff that we dig, "avant-garde" jammers like Ligeti, Xenakis, Morton Feldman, 60's/70's minimalism... but I don't wanna go there yet. Haha.
What message, warning, or suggestion would you give the people of Richmond regarding your show at Gallery 5 on Thursday night?
Only smoke pot on the weekends - don't drink and drive.
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Guerilla Toss performs this Thursday, Dec 12, at Gallery 5 (200 W. Marshall St) with BLANCHE BLANCHE BLANCHE, Buck Gooter, and Brown Piss. Doors open at 7 PM.