Keeping In Chk

fter a tour together, members of Sacramento bands The Yah Mos, Black Liquorice and Popesmashers formed !!!. The band's name was inspired by the subtitles of the movie The Gods Must Be Crazy, in which the clicking sounds of the Bushmens' Khoisan language were represented as “!”. However, as the band members themselves say, !!! is pronounced by repeating thrice any monosyllabic sound. Chk Chk Chk is the most common pronunciation, but that was never the sound the band had decided on; they could have just as easily been called Pow Pow Pow, Bam Bam Bam, Uh Uh Uh or Caw Caw Caw. Their fans would describe the group as dance-punk pioneers, and for the last 17 years, the group has been entirely loyal to that ideal. With their fifth full-length LP on the verge of release, the band isn't showing any signs of slowing down. “The motivation was the same as it's always been. It's just more fun to create. Nothing is more exciting to us than making music. Once we've finished touring this one, we'll probably make another one. What else are we going to do if we're not making music?” Offer asks incredulously. “I mean, what am I gonna do, go out and get a straight job? Fuck that!”

Offer settled with Thr!!!er as a the new album's title after drawing it on a napkin while in the studio. He knew it was the biggest name of all the options in contention, and hoped that people wouldn't kick up a fuss. “We figured some people would give us shit for it,” he chuckles, speaking of giving the nod to Michael Jackson's enormous hit, “but hey, we thought it was a good laugh, and we figured everyone else would get the joke and have a laugh along with us.”

That self-confidence is a large part of what makes the long-running danceniks go, though this far into their career, they certainly felt as though they needed some help channelling their mojo. The group had discovered that they needed a new edge to prevent any dull consistency from setting in to their sound. Offer figures the band is in good territory if a new song doesn't sound like !!!. “We definitely felt like we had something different to prove this time 'round.” Offer explains. “We didn't feel like the last one was as well-received as this one. It was like, if we're gonna be here, we need to have a purpose, so in a weird way, it was like, if we didn't make a good record now, we'll never get another chance to do it. We just felt really driven to make this one good.” 

Enter Spoon's Jim Eno. His help with production and engineering for Thr!!!er had the group feeling refreshed and more confident than ever before in what they had put together. He also suggested the band allow guest vocalist Sonia Moore to appear on the record, upon hearing the band were looking for a diva singer. She features on their latest single, One Girl/One Boy. “Jim's a great producer,” Offer continues. “He assisted us to build the record from the bottom up, and was a real help in keeping us focused. He was good at achieving things and making sure we were on top of everything when we needed to be, you know. We were talking to him after and he felt like he'd pushed us to get weird sounds, and we were felt great because we'd always wanted those weird sounds, we just didn't know how to get them. He was great at that – he'd look at a song as a dream come true, and that was his thing. He was good at making the dreams come true.” Though the album has plenty of the spacey, hedonistic atmosphere familiar to long-time !!! fans, songs like Fine Fine Fine have a more searching lyrical perspective, while Except Death and Slyd wriggle and roll in new ways. “This new [album] feels mature and full and rich,” Offer continues. “It feels capable of a lot of things. I think it's more of everything; the lyrics are better, the grooves are better, the songs are catchier... It feels pushed, it feels like somebody worked really hard on it.” 

The sextet, whose last endeavour was 2010's Strange Weather, Isn't It?, is well-practiced at evading the norm. Though Offer and the rest of the group began in Sacramento, the band members are now spread out among New York City, Philadelphia, and their aforementioned hometown. “People are usually quite amazed we can make the relationship work, but it's an issue we've long since forgotten about. It's never something we consider. We've operated this way for 12 years; it's not something we can change, so it's not worth complaining about. We wouldn't really have it any other way.”

The band are on the verge of embarking on a massive tour of North America to celebrate the album's release, and they're feeling quite excited about it. “I just love to get out there and play,” Offer says. “The most fun I'll have is the hour I'm up on stage, no question about it. We're still a group of friends, we love being together, we love to travel and we love to play music. The whole thing is just fun for me. I don't like the jetlag, but that's the price I pay for doing something that means everything to me.” Offer's onstage antics are fundamental to what makes their live performances so entertaining; the sweat pouring off him as he dances the night away like nobody's watching. “I try not to have a routine, but we're playing the same songs every night, so there's certain things I know, like, if I put my hands up at this point the crowd'll go crazy, so, you know, it does become like you're interpreting the song a bit, but every stage is different and every audience is different, so there's definitely a bit of freedom about it as well. I used to have a couple of little things planned out, and every so often I suppose I'll do that, but currently everything I do on stage is instinctual. Things just tend to happen.” Offer explains.

The band is hopeful that this latest release gathers enough success for them to discuss further touring around the world. On the possibility of making the journey down under, Offer is optimistic. “We're always trying to figure out a way to get around to as many different places around the world as possible. We just go where ever we're invited. Let's hope this record does well and someone wants to have us down there! We'd love that.” he concludes.