FCBK - facebook.com/poweraxe666
TWTR - @poweraxeforever
EMAIL - poweraxeband@gmail.com
The name of your group is?
Power Axe.
How long have you been playing shows?
We started in March of 2007. Our first show was that summer. So since summer of 2007.
And you’ve always been in Southern California?
Ya. We’re from Valencia. Magic Moutain area. I moved out here September oh-eight. Ryan moved out here summer of oh-nine.
You’ve been playing a lot of shows lately.
Ya. A lot. We’re playing this Friday at the Mime. And Saturday at the Mime, but we’re DJ-ing. The two that we’re really excited for that are coming up are the 18th we’re playing at The Echo with Tera Melos and Marnie Stern and then the 19th in San Diego with them.
Do you do a lot of DJ-ing?
Sometimes. We’ll DJ when we get asked to do shows that are more like that.
Do you throw in a lot of your own music when you DJ?
Not really. We usually play high energy disco. It’s the lavender side of Power Axe.
What’s the other side?
When we DJ it’s like the opposite of what we play live. We wear funny stuff and get super drunk and dance around.
What are your live shows like?
It always depends on the crowd. They usually get super crazy and everyone’s like falling all over the place, punching each other. It’s sort of like a metal thing, crazy time signatures, just me and a drummer and my looper pedal. It’s something that needs to be experienced. I play with a lot of pedals.
What kind of pedals are you working with? What are the nuts and bolts of the Power Axe sound?
It’s basically, I have an octave pedal, and then and overdrive pedal and then a fuzz pedal—
Oh shit.
--and then I have a pitch shifter, and then a delay, and then a looper. And I have this other crazy weird fuzz thing that I don’t use much. But it’s mainly the octave into the overdrive into the fuzz into the pitch shifter into the delay, and then all into the looper, which gets the sound. And then I’ll do some live looping, but I also do some stuff where it’s already on the pedal and then I’ll just trigger samples and play to them.
Nice.
Ya, I’m in the works of getting a new amp. Mine’s all fucked up. I need a crazy loud setup. I should have a new setup in the next week. I just need somebody to co-sign a credit card and then we should be ready to go.
Any other shows upcoming?
We’re playing a lot. We have two shows this weekend, two shows next weekend, the weekend after that we have one and the weekend after that we have one. But stuff comes up all the time. After those shows with Tera Melos we have the FMLY Ride, and on the 12th we’re playing in Venice at this guitar shop Time Warp with The Shrine and Stab City and a couple other bands. That’s on the 12th, March 12th.
Do you have a calendar?
Ya. Everything’s on our website which is POWERAXEFOREVER.COM
Cool, this will all be hyperlinked, people can click on this. What kind of content do you have on POWERAXEFOREVER.COM?
It’s got some cool pictures, a calendar of shows, it’s got a news/blog/reviews section, music, there’s links to the EP. There’s a contact section. It’s got all the essential stuff. We just got it; I did all the designing for it. And then my friend, David, who I’ve known since kindergarten, actually, did all the coding and all the fancy shit.
It’s good to have a friend like that. I’m way out of touch with technology.
It changes all the time. There’s always new stuff.
[Power Axe robbing a liquor store]
Do you have new music coming out soon?
We have an EP that’s out right now that’s called Slaughter the Animals, Poison the Earth. And that’s available on iTunes, Amazon, and whatever, and on our BandCamp, which is PowerAxe.BandCamp.com. Then in March we’ll be coming out with, we have everything done and recorded and ready to go, we’re just waiting on the actual shit to get printed and whatever, and that one’s going to be called The Kinship, it’s our first full length album. It’s going to be good. On Modern Sleeze Records. I’m really excited about that.
So you live…here…what is this…where are we?
I live here at Vlad the Retailers. It’s a gallery space slash boutique store slash I don’ know, whatever. I live in a tiny cubby hole in the hallway. You can get banjo lessons here, we do movie screenings, and we have a comedian that comes on Fridays. But he just kind of talks crazy, you know, he just talks.
What’s his name?
Rick Shapiro. He used to do this thing with Louis C.K. He’s really funny. And I’ve been here since September. At this old shop across the street we played a couple of shows and those were some of the most epic shows we’ve ever played. This one show we played I remember my friend Wilton was hanging from the rafters, jumping all over the place, and everyone was all drunk. By the time we were done playing, there was a layer of sludge across the whole floor, at least an inch thick.
Is that typical of your shows?
I kind of like it when it gets crazy, but at the same time I’m worried about my gear. I don’t really care so much what people are doing during the show, it’s kind of annoying when they don’t move around, but as long as afterwards someone’s like ‘Oh! Good job!’…that’s always good. We played a show at The Smell once and nobody moved, everyone was just standing there. Ryan was yelling at them, it’s like ‘What the fuck are you guys doing? You awake?’
So Ryan talks more, he’s the one yelling at people at shows?
Ya, I feel more comfortable letting him talk. I just write the bass riffs. Someone’s got to be better at handling people and doing crowd stuff. When we play I don’t say anything ever, he’s always the one that’s hyping people up. Being like, ‘What’s our name? Power Axe!’ you know? Doing all that important stuff.
What’s the worst show you’ve ever played, terrible awful show, worst experience?
Uh, well actually just a week and a half ago, after playing a super epic show at The Smell, we played CIA and it was literally us and the sound guy. And the sound guy told us to turn it down. I was like, ‘What the fuck?’ We finished up that song and just left. That one was pretty bad. It’s always annoying when we play with bands and they take forever to set up, or show up late and mess things up. This one show we played with these punk bands, these super-cool hipster punk bands, cross earings, leather jackets, and in between one of the songs you hear this super cool guy in the back say, ‘I don’t hear any singing.’
You don’t do any singing?
No, it’s instrumental.
What other bands have you been playing with?
We’ve been playing a lot with Professor Calculus and all the Modern Sleeze bands like Narwhal Party. Those are all really good dudes. It kind of varies. We like to play with our friend’s band Hot Bodies, they’re from the valley.
Has it been going well? Are you having a good time with Power Axe?
Ya. It’s kind of like what I’ve devoted my life to. I don’t work a full time job because: A.) I don’t want to; and B.) it’s because I want to have as much time to focus on this and put all my energy into this as opposed to being stressed to working and having to pay rent. That’s why I live here. And it’s been going really well. Especially this year. This year’s been going good, we’ve been doing a lot of shows and getting good shows booked, like that show at The Echo. Our websites up, I made a music video and it’s been getting a lot of views. Ya, and our album. The Kinship. Everything’s been going good and everything that’s been happening and we’re real happy about all the people who come out to shows.
You’ve got some tattoos, are you into tattoos?
I mean, as much as the next person. I just have a bunch of dumb things. I’ve got the Power Axe tattoo. There’re actually a couple other people. I have another friend that has Power Axe, the Axe, and another friend with this big upside-down cross on his leg.
We can do a whole photo spread with all the Power Axe tattoos. For everyone who wants to join the Power Axe tattoo movement.
If you have a Power Axe tattoo, we get you into shows for free.
Is that policy?
Ya, that’s part of it. Ya, there’s only a few other people aside from me, but whenever they show up for shows we get them in. The first tattoo I paid for, for my friend. And the other one I said I was going to pay for it, I think I paid for it, or I did or didn’t, I don’t really remember, it was kind of a crazy summer.
[This guy gets into Power Axe shows for free]
Do you have work later?
Ya, I work at the Palladium. And tonight there’s a porn awards show.
Porn awards? Have you done that before, worked a porn awards show?
No.
So you’re expectations are kind of all over the place.
My expectations are very high. Obviously. It just says on the calendar XXX Biz Awards Show.
I feel like I’d be pretty excited for a porn awards show, but at the same time you never know. Everyone might just be dressed normal.
Ya.
What else do you do when you’re not Power-Axe-ing? Do you go to school?
No. I don’t go to school. This is kind of all that I do.
Any final thoughts?
Ya, we’re just trying to help make a better music scene because bands don’t really get big on their own so we’re trying to play as many shows as possible. So if we can all have a good time and work together it benefits everyone. There are a lot of separate things going on out there and a lot of good bands and we just want to make it all work together to build a better community.
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