Hanging Out with the MaxiFads
by Daniel Pemberton
The MaxiFads are a new punk band out of Beaumont, Texas who will be opening up the annual Christmas Band Nite at the Art Studio on the night of Dec 25th. The band’s members are a synthesis of past local punk groups that have existed on different sides of the punk genre but nonetheless complement each other. I stopped by their last practice session before the show and got a chance to talk with them about the adventure of starting a new project, how they found their sound, and what the fuck they are actually screaming about.
The makeshift “practice room” is located in the living room of an unassuming split level a few minutes outside of the southwest corner of Beaumont. Sandwiched between a U-Haul location and a refinery currently undergoing renovations. Don’t let the modest space fool you, something is brewing here. Fast paced three-chord rock riffs scream out of the amps of the two guitarists Jared Hughes and Ryan Thomas, while bassist Philip Rhodes and drummer Noah Gates keep a tight rhythm section, an essential element to any punk act. Vocalist Braleigh Sparks sits on a grungy couch, mouthing the lyrics. She assures me that she is fine, just saving her voice for the performance.
“I am having to sing a lot louder than I am used to with this type of music. Of course, I am used to projecting, but what we are doing is much more aggressive”, says Sparks, “ It was definitely a shock for my voice when I first came in. I don’t know what I was expecting but I was worried I would damage my voice or put it out, anxious I would want to do something in the future but would ruin my voice here. But I decided I want to do something now, I want to create music now”. This urgency can be felt coming from all members of the band, having only been a project for a handful of months and already eager to perform. Some of the songs they will be playing are only a few weeks old, but bassist Rhodes says that the most important thing is to get out and just play as many shows as they can to build momentum.
Instrumentally the band falls somewhere in the neighborhood of Husker Du and that era of Descendants when they were actually good, young and full of snot. Of course, the MaxiFads agree with this assessment, but according to Hughes their main goal is to just make “loud noises and punk rock”. While Rhodes says, “I feel like we are definitely rooted in the core of punk rock. But at the same time, we are trying to be different. I mean everyone is trying to be different. If you are in a band you are trying to do something different and you are probably still going to sound like someone else”.
When asked about what they were setting out to do when they first got started, guitarist Ryan Thomas just shrugs and answers, “We really didn't have a single direction we wanted to go in, we were really just jamming”. Rhodes jumps in to clarify, “There were definitely some difficulties at first. With Ryan and Noah coming from a hardcore punk background they wanted to play everything super fast, much faster than I was used to. It was about finding that happy median most of the time”.“That is still something we are trying to do, to be honest”, adds Hughes, getting a laugh from his bandmates. “ It is kinda like all of our different sounds mixed together. Like you have Noah and Ryan who come from a more hardcore background and then you have me coming from Delicious Fuzz which was kinda more pop-punk I guess and we kinda combined those two things. Along with some other elements, I think Jared brings this surf rock thing”.
Rhodes tells me that they spent their first few months fiddling around with a few songs that just were not going anywhere, but that their creativity really took off when Sparks joined the group.
“Yeah we started writing more but we didn't really have a direction which I think came from not having a singer or any lyrics for that matter, it was all just music. Braleigh was coming to our practices with Ryan and she was here most of the time and hearing us play these songs and finally one day it just made sense for her to be our singer because she was here anyway, she knew the songs better than anyone, and she literally sat down at one of our sessions and just wrote lyrics to those three songs. And that was the point where we were all like, dude she just wrote lyrics for three songs in an hour this is going somewhere.” says Rhodes.
But Sparks clarifies that the creative momentum is sustained by every member of the group, “Noah and Ryan also wrote the riffs for a few songs so it wasn't just me that kickstarted the band. Everyone has played a part in keeping up the creative pace. It is the fact that everybody in the band contributes to the writing process whether it be riffs or lyrics or whole songs. So we get to see a bit of all of us in the music”. When Sparks was asked about how she studies up on her punk singing, something entirely new to her before this project, she drops one name, “Kathleen Hannah”. But although they have this vocal influence Thomas is clear to point out that they are not necessarily a riot grrl band. “I would say the vocal style is riot grrl but the music isn't riot grrl because it is not really politicised music about gender equality specifically. That is something we may want to talk about in our music down to road but currently, none of our songs are explicitly political”. Rhodes jokes that if they did decide to explore more political territory, “Now would be the perfect time for it with everything going on”.
So if the band isn't singing about politics, then what are they singing about?
“We have one song about the government stealing peoples brains”, says Gates, “That is about as political as we have gotten so far”.
“We have one about panic attacks, anxiety,” says Sparks, on a more serious note, “I didn't want to talk about it because it is something people are having conversations about these days, I want to talk about my own personal experiences and put those into words”.
The idea of writing songs from a personal, as opposed to societal, standpoint is one that resonates with Rhodes, “These songs are definitely from a personal perspective but at the same time they are relatable. That is something that I always liked about punk, that is what got me into the music in the first place. I was listening to songs and felt like they were about my life. So while a lot of the songs come from personal experiences I feel like they are experiences that people can relate to and share in. To me, that is what punk rock has always been about”.
The MaxiFads will be debuting what they have been working on at Christmas Band Nite at the Art Studio on Dec 25th.
Photos courtesy of Shane Brown