A true band of the new school, Der Spazm’s Leticia Garcia and Dillon Christensen met on MySpace. I apologize if that makes anyone feel old. After this genesis and laying down the experimental groundwork, they found bassist Ashley.
“They found me through Chritian Children’s Fund,” jokes Ashley, “instead of fifty cents a day they asked me to play bass. I said “I think I can handle that, the streets are pretty rough.” The band all laughs along. Being in a band can be like maintaining multiple committed relationships at once. Suddenly, you find that you have 3-4 girlfriends, all in need of attention, but Der Spazm gets along swimmingly. There was a real sense of camaraderie in the practice space that can be heard in the swirling, Sonic Youth-ish guitar tones and animated melodic basslines. Every voice in the band is distinctive yet complimentary.
Over the last 5-or-so-years, Der Spazm has found themselves a solid core audience. Anyone who was listening to indie rock at the beginning of the millennium should give the band’s EP a listen. Leticia’s reverb-laden arpeggios recall Modest Mouse’s Isaac Brock or Built to Spill’s Doug Martsch playing over Dillon’s Thurston Moore-ish guitar howls. The bands influences are as diverse as the band itself. Dillon claims Courtney Love as an early influence. That is an odd card to play against Ashley’s Jaco Pastorius, but the sound comes together in a powerful blend of unbridled passion and focused, dancing basslines. “You’re not gonna eat a salad that just a big ass carrot in the middle,” says Ashley on keeping her fingers moving under the guitars. Though band disagrees with my interpretation at first, drummer Andy concedes “People hear what they hear and say what they’re going to say, but yeah, I listen to those bands like Modest Mouse and Built to Spill. But you know, everyone wants to be in their ‘own’ band, you know?” Leticia says “I never said ‘I want to play like this person or that person. Part of that is just because I’ve never been good at playing other people’s music.” Dillon started off trying to emulate the styles of his heroes and carries those tricks and inspiration into his songwriting. This in no way is to say that the songs are derivative, in fact Der Spazm offers a fresh take on these sounds while unconsciously playing to its roots.
“I think the only way for us to progress,” Leticia says, “is to get out of Sac. Play shows outside and pick up more notoriety and the way to do that is with recordings which we went without for so long.” The band just released their first EP, Thousand Days, in September of last year. With this in their pocket they hope to be able to get out and play more around California. Word-of-mouth is the all important tool these days, and Der Spazm knows it. Dillon hopes the band can find an audience in the North West around Portland and Seattle. They hope to take a trip up that way soon and get the band out on tour.
“Sacramento… They like us I guess,” says Leticia, “But I think a lot of people just don’t understand us.” Prove them wrong Sacramento.
Der Spazm is playing Friday 1/21 at Old Ironsides with Razorblade Monalisa and The Alcohol Plague @ 9pm, $5 cover
You can check out the sounds of Der Spazm at last.fm by clicking here.
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