No Age interview

No Age means no age restrictions. It also means no boundaries, no rules and no looking back. For the LA duo currently storming the underground DIY scene with their self-made brand of skate-inspired, reverb-heavy punk, creativity rules supreme.

HUCK catches up with drummer and vocalist Dean Spunt to talk about collaborations with the likes of Ed Templeton and Bob Mould from Husker Dü, macho musicians, veganism and cow's farts.

HUCK: Why did you decide to leave your former band Wives and become No Age?

Dean Spunt: That band, we started it when, shit, I think I was like nineteen or something. We were around for a couple of years. The intentions of that band were just different, the mix of us three. I think the third member of that band was a very powerful presence and our ideas kind of got squashed. It’s funny, in Wives me and Randy didn’t think we had anything in common at all. He thought all I liked was like Minor Threat hardcore, I thought all he liked was like Bonnie Prince Billy or something. We were friends and we talked but it was just like ‘you like mellow stuff and I like fucking punk’. Then we realised that’s just like the presentation of the art... What Randy liked about a certain type of music was the same thing, when you break it down, as what I liked. So it’s like Crass and Captain Beefheart are totally different but like they’re the same thing when you look at it.

At what point did you depart?

I think we just asked ourselves ‘would we listen to the music we’re making?’ and the answer was no so we were just like ‘we should start making music that we want to listen to’. There wasn’t really anything we wanted to hear that was being made. So that was the initial idea of No Age. We were like ‘what do we like listening to? We like listening to things like My Bloody Valentine, The Ramones and hardcore and then like guitar, folky stuff. So we should just do a mix of stuff like that'. The original idea was that we should make songs that sound like they’re recorded on top of each other like a Ramones song, on top of a My Bloody Valentine song, on top of a fuckin’ Irish jig or whatever. That’s how we started writing songs, putting parts together that didn’t really go. That’s kind of still how we’re writing. The interesting part now is that we’re good at our instruments. I didn’t play drums before and to begin with, I think I was like reacting to the drummer of Wives because he was a really great drummer, really like macho. I was like ‘well, I wanna play drums because I don’t know how to play drums’. I feel like that is a good starting point. Things are always more interesting when people don’t know what they fuck they’re doing. I don’t like anything when people are pros. Art, writing, music; you know people create their craft but when they start with just feeling and ideas it always comes out more interesting. Most people that I’m interested in are just people that have started doing something because they had a need and it felt like they were supposed to do it.

Was it scary becoming a two-piece?

Yeah it was scary but it was definitely what we wanted. We wanted to be challenged and to have to really work at what we were doing. We knew that with two people it was gonna be pretty different and difficult at times to make it sound like we wanted to but that was the challenge we wanted... We didn’t want it to be easy we really wanted to push ourselves and see what we could do and I think it worked in our favour.

Do you still get to spend a lot of time in LA?

Yeah, well, last year we were all over. We’ve been home since November and we don’t have, really, any shows booked until we go play Primavera in May. Well we do, we’re playing this art book store called Family, we’re doing a noise jam, and we’re playing a house party. A friend of ours mum has cancer so it’s like a benefit for her, I think it’s going to be really fun, there are two houses next door they’re both having bands play.

Will you always make the time for those kind of gigs?

Yeah, that’s where we came from, you know? We have to have this balance, if we don’t balance ourselves out we don’t know what the fuck’s going on.

Were gigs important to you growing up?

Yeah, I grew up in a shitty suburb, there was a big venue but I used to drive for hours to go to shows. There were a few venues that opened up when I was in 11th and 12th grade. One was The Smell and I started going there, which wasn’t very far, about 45 minutes. I used to drive two hours for another, and an hour and a half for another one. I just wanted to see bands play and I was so thirsty for music knowledge. Bands, people touring, I was so intrigued by that lifestyle. So when I found out about that, that’s all I wanted to do. Then when we started Wives... I put out a seven inch for us, I booked the tour and it worked. From then on, we never looked back. We were like ‘fuck it, we’ll just do this’.

You’ve done some collaborations over the past year with people like Bob Mould and Ed Templeton, what’s been your favourite?

Both of those! Bob is a huge hero for me so just to be able to jam with him has been really cool. Ed Templeton too is really huge for me and Randy growing up skateboarding and into his art. And now we’re friends with him, we’ve been friends with him for a couple of years but he’s just such a rad guy. Him and his wife Deanna, they’re just so awesome. Part of what makes us grow is that we like to collaborate. It’s weird because I feel like those things aren’t considered normal, some people trip out and say ‘what... you’ve made a shoe?!’ but for us, we don’t really see boundaries... The idea of the band was to have freedom to collaborate and make a universe for ourselves.

Is there something that ties all the stuff you do for No Age together?

Yeah I guess, I don’t really know what it is though. I can’t really pinpoint it. I don’t think most people can, which I feel is kind of good. I’d like to think it’s just sort of a feeling. I don’t think anything we do is too clinical. I feel like there is a thread, I just don’t really know how to describe it. Maybe it’s better I don’t know how to describe it... When you’re into punk or DIY you're sort of different. You're more in touch with your feelings. There are people I know that aren't in touch with that so they’re OK with working nine-to-five, and that’s cool. But I can't feel OK about that. I think when you're into this stuff, you view the world a different way.

You've been a vegan for 11 years. Do you ever think you'll quit?

No, it’s just so easy. Maybe when I was younger I’d be thinking ‘oh maybe I’ll eat eggs’ but then it’s like ‘what’s the point?’ I don’t crave the stuff. I just think about the reasons why I’m vegan and it really outweighs any of the ‘I wanna eat something because it tastes a certain way'. The reason I’m vegan outweighs any of that shit... It’s cruel to eat animals and the factory-farming industry is fucked up. Also growing up in Southern California, it’s so easy to be a vegan. I’ve seen videos of how they treat animals and not just when they kill them, when they’re getting their milk out or their eggs. I don’t know how many times I’ve seen videos of cramped chickens, they just kind of snip their beaks off so they don’t peck at each other because their crammed in cages. I don’t like that energy. It’s also to do with health and the environment. Cows and factory-farming causes more pollution than cars.

Isn’t that from cow’s farting?

Yeah, cow’s farts, totally. They keep breeding them and there’s this one quote that says a vegan driving a hummer is doing more for the environment than a non-vegan. I don’t really get into it too much, I don’t like preaching. It’s just sort of what I do and what some of our friends do... I mean who says that you should really eat a fucking cow anyway. It’s a living thing you know? For me, that’s heavy. I wouldn’t feel right. I feel like if I started eating meat I would just start not caring about more stuff. I’d be like ‘ah well, fuck it’ until I’m just like most people. It’s a balance thing.

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