BASS DRUM OF DEATH
It’s been a little more than a year since John Barrett and his punk band Bass Drum of Death put out their debut album—a year that took this kid from a sleepy Mississippi hometown and got him doing encores in front of 5,000 screaming Europeans and playing back-up band for Hodgy Beats and Left Brain of Odd Future on live TV.
2013’s self-titled Bass Drum of Death album – published on Innovative Leisure – is everything about 2011’s debut GB City amplified, in every sense of the word. With nothing but his inspiration and his instruments, Barrett spent the fall of 2012 in his studio, smashing out punk rock. This time it was just him, lots of coffee, a Realistic reverb unit to give everything just a little of that stoned-in-outer-space and for the first time in Bass Drum of Death history, a bass that he used on every new track.
When he was thought he was finally finished with his album, he went to the bar to celebrate. Except there was one last riff he couldn’t get out of his head. He raced home, did that out-of-nowhere song start to finish in three hours and made it back before last call. “Now,” he remembers thinking, “NOW I’m done!”
That grand finale was “Bad Reputation,” which is the first track on side B, he adds. Opener “I Wanna Be Forgotten” comes roaring out at you with three big caveman chords and a chorus that sounds like something from the Leave Home-era Ramones.
Ty Segall and Wavves might be the other wild animals exploring this kind of blown-apart pop, but Barrett’s connecting back to the source. When he makes a song kick in, you’ll hear the distant howls of first-gen punkers like the Testors or the Kids. And when he slows down with “Faces In The Wind” or the awesomely grinding “No Demons,” you can almost see the classics of the past flapping by. But that’s the long story. The short story of Bass Drum of Death, says Barrett, is simple: “It’s just me in a room with a bunch of shit, wrestling with myself trying to figure out if it sounds good.” And after all that, don’t worry—it sounds good.