Chonk was recently interviewed by online music magazine Pitch Perfect on the origins of the band and the creation of their debut release – Robots! Attack!
Q: What inspired you to make Robots! Attack!?
A: Chonk moved to Memphis in 2020 amidst the pandemic, and immediately began trying to get plugged into the local Memphis music scene. Unfortunately, everything was shut down and the scene was at a standstill. He was lucky though to find Creed and Paul, who had a similar taste for loud rock and roll with an attitude and began jamming in Chonk’s attic studio. We began to write and develop our style while looking for the 4th piece to fill in our evolving style. We found Peter through an online ad and his vocals, lyrics and diverse guitar styles were a perfect match for where our music was going. Because there was still nowhere to play live or even see live music, we honed up in the attack and began writing our debut release.
Q: Can you talk about some of the themes on the album?
A: The debut release is a mish-mash of various themes. Politics, relationships and more thematic subjects pepper the release. After an extensive yet democratic process of choosing the band name, we all agreed on the name Robots!Attack! was an appropriate metaphor for the style of aggressive music we were creating. Our name evokes the mid-century pre-space race culture of comics and sci-fi and is apropos for the emerging AI revolution that is happening.
Q: What is your creative process like?
A: The debut release was a combination of songs that had been in Chonk and Creed’s workbooks, and songs that were created from the result of all four members just jamming and trying to discover a common sound. Typically, one person will bring a riff or section and we worked until an agreeable song emerges. Even when an almost complete song is brought into practice, it will usually morph into something completely different once everyone puts their stink on it. It truly is a collaborative process as everyone has a say and can bring something new to the song. We try to “serve the song” by keeping egos out of the writing process and using whatever is the best fit.
Q: What was your recording process like?
A: Memphis is blessed with various famous, world-class recording studios. The music culture and history are rich here. However, when we started, they were all shut down because of Covid. With Creed and Chonk’s extensive experience in recording engineering and the fact they both had project studios, the decision not to wait for the pandemic to end before getting the new songs recorded made the decision to DIY the release easy. It also allowed us to really finely tune the recording. The process started with a live rehearsal recording first, and then Creed re-recoded his drum parts in his own studio. After those were done we re-tracked each instrument separately and added the vocals. Once the release was finished, we sent the songs to Detroit EDM pioneer and mastering engineer Andy Toth for Mastering.
The freedom of not being under any deadline gave us the space to explore various sounds and techniques. A xylophone in “By Any Means,” stacked cracked cymbals in “Categorical Imperative” and ethereal drone guitars and keyboards were all by-products of having the time to experiment. In the future, we will take advantage of the local studios and their expertise, although having home-based project studios is a great way to demo and develop new songs instead of spending large sums of money doing it in a studio.
Q: How do you usually go about writing lyrics?
A: The process of writing lyrics is usually personal for each member. Creed, Chonk, and Peter have all written lyrics for the new release. We all also agree that each member has to be comfortable with the subject matter of the song, or we don’t use it. Luckily, we all have a similar mindset and haven’t had any issues.On the final song on the release – the epic “Categorical Imperative,” Chonk challenged Peter to write lyrics that reflected a story of a Robot that becomes sentient. Pete’s lyrics worked perfectly with the jokingly referred to “2112” type song.
Q: What else should we know about your music?
A: We are continuing to evolve. Our new songs still combine the aggressive guitar style of the early ‘90s combined with 3-part harmonies. Atmospheric interludes and spacey sounds still remain as well. We’ve recently begun talks with a UK-based indie label, and have been playing out a lot and building a stage show to match the energy of our tracks. Read more on our website at https://robotsattackband.com