Leather boots, angry lyrics about politics and rotting world, videos consisting of frames with suffering people interspersed with smiling faces from morning TV news. Seems familiar? Let’s add on-stage fire and industrial guitars boosted by electronic beats. 3TEETH, in contrast to Youth Code, roll out the heavy artillery – which is the thing that all industrial heads love the most. The only thing they lack for the perfect image is fake blood. But, as the singer – Lex Mincolla says, they still have their best ahead. I’ve managed to talk with him about their tour with Tool, future plans and condition of the LA scene. If you don’t know 3TEETH, now is your time to get to know them – they’re becoming huge!
[MOŻESZ TAKŻE PRZECZYTAĆ PO POLSKU!]
You’ve recently got back from the European tour. How was the reception? I have an observation that industrial in Europe is in a deep underground right now.
We had arrived to a sell out show in London which really set the tone for the rest of the dates and the reception was really great the hole way though. It was just a little 2 week run of shows leading up to our headline slot at Wave Gotik Treffen in Leipzig which was an absolute blast.
On the other hand – 3teeth supported Tool and Rammstein. The Rammstein/3teeth duo is understandable but Tool… How did Tool fans react to you?
Tool fans are an interesting breed as they are so ravenous that almost everything else at the show that isn’t TOOL is really just an obstacle. That being said when your playing in front of 20,000 people every night you’re bound to make fans based on the shear numbers alone. So We played about 30 shows that tour with TOOL and Primus it gave a ton of exposure to audiences we never would have otherwise played for. Also the fact that TOOL’s Adam Jones is a fan of ours and he had personally selected us to go on tour with them which helped a bit as we knew we had at least 1 fan every night. Also the TOOL guys came out on stage during our show dressed as furries which I think added to some of the general fun and weirdness of the whole thing and allowed us to pull more fans over the fence.
I’m sure you are familiar with all the criticism around Combichrist (link) I just wanted you to ask what is your opinion about that. Is there a line that shouldn’t be crossed?
I know Joe personally and he’s a total sweetheart and where his particular brand of controversy has never quite been my cup of tea, I do understand it as part of their art. That being said, I believe it requires some fancy footwork to pull of racial humor and maybe he didn’t have the right dance moves through the mine field of internet justice. He just sort of ran through it and yes there were some explosions and casualties but I think everyone is going to be just fine. There are much bigger problems to focus on in America than rock n’ roll controversies but I think this just the world we live in now where egoic energy is masquerading as delicate sensibilities and faux outrage. It’s as if everyone wants to just make the controversial topics about themselves by expressing some sort of feverish opinion about it. I think the pre-internet era was probably a better time for shock rock because it was more of a one way street.
I really like that 3TEETH comes with full package. Everything is a part of bigger vision – your style, your stage acting, your videos – it maintains a coherent whole. Why is this important to you?
I like to look at 3TEETH as an art project built onto of the chassis of band. It allows me to think of the band more conceptually and helps me align my intention with what I want to accomplish it. It’s as if it gives the whole thing a certain density that allows a participants to peel back layer upon layer of meaning and connecting dots which ends them down a proverbial rabbit hole of discovery. I think there can be something empowering about the autonomy of discovery and trying to build a universe with that in mind is what really excites me.
You come from LA. Media pinned this city as a center of new wave of industrial. I’ve asked Sara from Youth Code about this, and she said that this is exaggeration, and she doesn’t think there is some kind of revival. Do you agree with this statement? Or maybe you see it differently?
I think i’ll partially agree that it’s an exaggeration because I’m sure the perception of this is most likely far greater than the reality but I also can’t deny that there is definitely a new wave of for lack of a better term „industrial” sounding bands coming out of Los Angeles.
Maybe in LA there are some bands worth checking out, but they are not as famous as yourself or youth code?
If you don’t know about Ho99o9, you should check them out. We just got off tour with them and also just released a 7″ with 2 collaborative tracks. They’re a super mutant hybrid of a lot of sounds with some future afro punk industrial vibes. They’re amazingly talented guys with great energy. I’m a huge fan.
Also, if you haven’t heard of Author & Punisher you have to check him out as well. He’s a one man band who builds his own instruments and its just a wall of tortured doomdustrial sounds.
Can you tell me more about Lil Death Parties, their idea? As I understand, that’s how you met other 3teeth members.
LIL DEATH was something that I started back in 2011 and it was sort of this underground party that mashed up industrial, techno, goth,hip hop, witch house and metal. The event every Sunday night in downtown LA and we had an big glowing neon altar that showcase performances from a lot of great artists. The whole thing felt like it was straight out of the pages of William Gibson novel or something and it was a really great time. In the end it allowed us to bring together a lot of like minded people and served as the sort of primordial black ooze that created 3TEETH.
This will give you good idea of the soundscape as we release mixtapes every month from different artists
There is 3-year gap between your first and a second album (obviously not counting remixes). What did you learn in those 3 years that resonates on shutdown.exe? Can you compare this LP’s?
I think we learned how to become a band in those 3 years. The first album was written with zero expectations and more for just the sake of creating something that we wanted to listen to. The fact that it got any traction and people were into was a total bonus for us. Never in our wildest dreams did we imagine we’d be touring that album at the scale that we did. Those 3 years were spent doing a lot of touring and really evolving what 3TEETH was going to be. By the time we were ready to start writing our second record we knew we wanted to make it bigger and heavier, the type of sound that could fill an arena so we spent a lot of time really figuring out some signature tones that would give it a sort of sonic gravitas that the first album lacked.
I’ve read somewhere that second album for a band is a proof for critics that first album’s success was not a coincidence. What do you think, what would be the third album for you?
I guess i’m gad the critics found proof in our 2nd record but I don’t much concern myself with these things. I’m just really focused on making this 3rd record our best material to date. We were fortunate enough to sign with Sony Century Media that has allowed us to focus full time on writing a record which is a luxury that we didn’t have until this point as we were all working jobs at the same time as the first two records. We also know that the album we get the distribution foot print it deserves with having major label backing finally, so its a pretty exciting time for us.
Which 3teeth song is more important for you and why?
Thats a hard question but there’s something about „Insubstantia” that feels very personal to me as it seems to memorializes a very particular headspace that I was in at the time.
What was the weirdest 3teeth review that you’ve read?
This guy Kalias who reviewed our debut release back in 2014 for Trebuchet Magazine wrote such a astutely observational review that it actually made more realize things that about the album and myself that I hadn’t even been aware of. I later found out he was a London School of Economics grad which sort of made sense.