Quirky, adventurous, complex, and aggressively catchy, Melted Bodies’s brand of music can stir some minds up making them work overtime and boggle some more of them in a unique and mesmerizing way. The band from L.A, mixes up some ingredients and serves us a tray filled with deconstructed cocktails that will certainly rock you silly.
Enjoy Yourself is the band’s debut and is as captivating as it is exploratory, one can’t stop from reminiscing about past bands that have blended a special kind of sardonic humour with sudden explosions of catchy aggressiveness, like Mr. Bungle, System of a Down and perhaps, Dead Kennedys.
The album is a full-on blast of energy, fuelled up by conscious lyrics with a touch of well-placed ironic beats that move on with the songs’ charm and manic progressions. The album certainly lives up to its title. Enjoy yourself.
How did Melted Bodies come to be? Did you play or still play in other projects?
Andy has been working on songs after he had left Local Natives. He had been hesitant to share anything since it’s tricky to find people passionate about metal in LA who are also adaptable to all the other genres of his vision.
He and Scott had gone to see the film “Why Don’t You Play in Hell?” and during their discussion afterward, Andy mentioned he’d started recording some demos. Scott had played in bands all over Portland and was itching to be in a band again. He asked Scott if could play thrash-metal drums –– which actually made him a bit nervous as he hadn’t played in years –– but said “fuck it, when can we start rehearsing?”.
Houda had known Andy for years. One day he posted that he needed a bass player to play a show in a month. After one trial run, things clicked very seamlessly and felt like they had been playing together for ages.
Ben actually booked Melted Bodies to play the first-ever show when they were just a trio. He has a solo project Diamondstein that was performing at an art show and had asked if they wanted to play. Shortly thereafter, he was asked to join as the keyboard player and programming to fill out the vision.
And the rest, as they say, is history.
I’m so glad you caught that influence. Horror movies, and especially campy ones from the 70s and 80s, are our favourites. The more fake bloody, gooey animatronic monsters, alien invaders the better. We take the Halloween season very seriously. - Houda
Your debut release with its quirky and aggressive atmosphere throws us back to the universe of B Movies. I was reminded of Brain Damage and other precious cartoonish yet flawless kind of horror flicks. Are you in any way passionate about those universes?
Houda: I’m so glad you caught that influence. Horror movies, and especially campy ones from the 70s and 80s, are our favourites. The more fake bloody, gooey animatronic monsters, alien invaders the better. We take the Halloween season very seriously.
Is L.A the perfect atmosphere for the kind of music that Melted Bodies does? Transgression of music genres and having fun with it.
Andy: Los Angeles overall has treated all of us very well. I think it does help it highlighting parts of our current culture because of the very diverse incomes, living standards, cultural backgrounds and sheer size of what can be explored.
We take a lot from that. We talk about capitalism, materialism, narcissism, anxiety, and depression. These aren’t light subjects but we know that other people out there are going through the same frustrations. Satire allows us to talk about the darker topics in a way that people can relate to and not feel alone. - Houda
What was the concept/ideas you meant to convey through the cover art for Enjoy Yourself?
Andy: I made the piece with four cuts of meat (all beef) & shot both covers in my apartment using natural lighting, some red/blue led lights and some post work in photoshop.
I have used raw meat in a lot of pieces for a number of years. It seems to evoke both a beautiful yet uncomfortable reaction which I am attracted to. I think its a wonderful medium to work with. Here we have this abundant and readily available form of dead flesh for sale at almost any grocery store which most humans without thinking twice will happily consume & yet presenting it just slightly out of the context of “mass consumption“ & suddenly it makes a lot of us uneasy which I find fascinating.
It’s almost as if western culture took advantage of “Stay Positive” using as a way to ignore mental health, turn to lazy, give excuses and then packaged it up for sale on Etsy and Instagram. - Andy
Your music seems to have a very caustic kind of humour that reminds us of Dead Kennedys and other bands that have used satire to express meaning. How important is humour in your music and day to day life?
Houda: If we don’t laugh then we’ll just be crying through all the madness. Dead Kennedy’s are a big influence on Andy and myself. The way they were able to speak to so much of their frustrations with what is happening without it feeling preaching. We take a lot from that. We talk about capitalism, materialism, narcissism, anxiety, and depression. These aren’t light subjects but we know that other people out there are going through the same frustrations. Satire allows us to talk about the darker topics in a way that people can relate to and not feel alone.
Your video for Ad People is pretty well thought out and quite funny, (also a bit nerve wrecking at times). During the song there’s a line that says "I can’t stay positive when the world is beginning to rot”, what bugs you the most about today “happy feel-good” kind of attitude? How was the process for the making of the videoclip?
Andy: Well I think the line between “having a positive attitude” and “ignorance is bliss” is continually becoming more and more unrecognizable. It’s almost as if western culture took advantage of “Stay Positive” using as a way to ignore mental health, turn to lazy, give excuses and then packaged it up for sale on Etsy and Instagram. For the clips/ads featured in the video we filmed and ad-libbed almost all of them in one day. Scott took to editing the everything together and then creating the content you see in between the adverts. It was a blast to make.
These are two somewhat random questions, but if you got to choose between David Cronenberg and David Lynch, who would you pick to direct your videoclip? What’s Melted Bodie’s spirit animal?
Scott: I love that you specified Lynch. I’d like to think that we’ve utilized a few of Lynch’s visual themes, though not deliberately. It has seemingly crept its way in subconsciously. Our videos leverage a lot of found footage and stock video. Stock video is interesting because it’s an entire marketplace of content doing its best to reflect the common world, but geared towards a level of marketability. With that in mind, it becomes this aesthetic of grotesque mundanity, depending on how you wield it or how long you look at it. I think this is very common in Lynch’s work. Where the benign appears malignant. It’s fun to ground our big sound with this visual motif, but also incorporating levels of body horror and gore to punctuate the narrative.
Spirit animal would be a Western Hognose Snake
Where do you take most inspiration from to write your lyrics?
Andy: For Enjoy Yourself I think if there was a unifying source of inspiration throughout it would be from watching people.
How was the process of recording Enjoy Yourself. Are there any episodes or vignettes that somewhat stick out?
Houda: The whole process sticks out! We initially tried to find an engineer and studio to record, but realized that we couldn’t find someone who had our vision (AND PATIENCE) to get our sound across and if we did it at a studio it would cost well above any of us could afford. We realized the best way to do our songs justice would be to everything on our own. Andy got a recording interface, we all pitched in with microphones/stands/cables and then started recording out of our practice space. We had to work around everyone’s work schedule to record, which meant going into the studio until late hours after 9-10hr workdays and sacrificing months and months of weekends. On top of that, we went through frustrating technical difficulties that saw Andy having to get 2 new laptops within a 4 month period.
Where we did reach out for outside help was Mixing and Mastering. We ended up just emailing a bunch of mixers and see who would respond back. We were blown away when John Spiker (Tenacious D, John Carpenter) replied with so much excitement and eagerness to work with us.
Overall we are extremely happy that we went the route of producing on our own terms and timeline. We weren’t rushed and were able to try different recording styles and tones that helped build our personal sound.
What are your plans for 2021 that you can/would like to share.
Working on new music! We’re working on a deluxe version of Enjoy Yourself that will feature Remixes from some awesome bands/artists that we’re working to release early this year. Then in the middle of all this, we’re writing new music to start on the next album!
Text & Interview: Cláudia Zafre
Band: Melted Bodies
meltedbodies.bandcamp.com/