Purveyors of: The soundtrack to a working man’s meltdown
File next to: Odonis Odonis, Pants &Tie, The Contortions, the Touch and Go Records catalogue
Playing #WL13 Friday, February 15 @ Black Box Theatre/Great Hall Downstairs

Like a Jesus Lizard commando squad, THIGHS (and their wall of amplifiers) could show up anywhere, anytime to institute a sonic lockdown. As a field guide of what you can expect before you get shellacked, Joe Strutt sent some questions to bassist Brendan Howlett.

There's a jittery, locked-in tension in the band's sound. THIGHS would be a perfect soundtrack to a Lodge Kerrigan flick about a riot in a prison ward for schizophrenics. Why is such agitated music so much fun to listen to — and presumably to play?

Is it fun to listen to? That's relieving. It's definitely fun to play for sure. We started with a mission statement to make short songs as soundtracks to animated gifs. There was a big emphasis on finding repetitive lock-grooves and only playing them long enough for things to click into place before the song is over. One of my least favourite things to see live is when a band starts a song with a really cool idea and thinking, “oh man this sounds awesome!” — and then 7 to 25 minutes later nothing has changed, and the thing that sounded so good has been repeated so many times that I'm semi-patiently waiting for it to finally be over. It kills the enjoyment of that thing you initially liked, and it's kind of a giant “fuck you” to the audience to just play AT them like that. Obviously, there are some incredible bands out there with great longer songs full of dynamics and multiple parts and all those lovely things, but they are truly rare birds.

Our longest song is around two and a half minutes and even that is starting to feel like a fucking eternity to me, so I guess the short answer to that question is: A.D.D. and its hyperactive cousin, A.D.H.D.

Was it touch and go to bring together members from some fairly different-sounding bands, from Pants + Tie to Odonis Odonis? What were the musical touchstones that drew this bunch of amphetamine reptiles together? Given that it seemed like the band came right outta the gate with a strongly-developed aesthetic and tightly-focused musical direction, did it all come together that easily or were there months and months of secret rehearsals beforehand?

THIGHS started pretty organically in the basement of the house Rory Hanchard (guitar) and I used to live in. He had started writing new stuff with Jarod Gibson (drums, electronics) around the same time Odonis Odonis was starting up. My bedroom was right above their rumblings, so I weaseled my way in on bass for a couple jams before hoofing off to B.C. for a few months. To my great relief, they waited until I got back instead of replacing my replaceable ass. Mark Colborne (vocals) followed shortly after, and it was almost a year from first jam to the first show we ever played.

A good chunk of that was just figuring out how to do things differently than other bands we had been in in the past, and making our own instruments. Jarod spent a full year building his homemade drum kit and shoe triggers (he actually just got his patent application approved). I built an extreme short-scale, up-tuned bass and cobbled together a suitably weird guitar for Rory out of garbage I found at work. Writing the “songs” was the “easy” part.

As far as musical touchstones, we have wildly divergent tastes. Not in a bad way where we get in cock-measuring competitions over band A versus band B, but more that we end up pulling stuff in from different directions and introducing each other to it on a fairly regular basis. The two things we all love are without a doubt Arab on Radar and U.S. Maple/Shorty. All members of THIGHS are very fluent in Al Johnson-ese. (KABAAUWWWW HOOOMAAAAIIGHH etc.)

The band has an imposing physical presence with its wall of amplifiers. How did that come about?

The wall was just the product of a dumb joke but then ended up having unintended sonic value. Rory and I were the first ones to practice one day and just started setting everything up as idiotically as possible while whistling the Tetris theme and giggling like schoolgirls. As soon as we all started playing we realized how much it focused the sound and spent some time tinkering with it like it was actually a real thing. Now that we have it down, we can walk into any venue (or anywhere with a single wall socket) set up and start playing within 10 minutes with no soundcheck and never have to worry about being at the mercy of a shit P.A. system. It makes being in a band a good deal less irritating, which is… nice. Sound guys love us, cause they can basically just go on break while we play. Actually, no. They probably hate us.

Even more in-your-face is singer Mark’s propensity to dissolve the line between band and crowd. Have any of his interventions ever taken you by surprise? Does it
take the pressure off the rest of the band to “perform” when he's the centre of attention?

Often I only hear second-hand reports about what Mark was doing or catch the tail end of it out of the corner of my eye with no context or idea of how things came to that point. I'll just look up and all of a sudden he’s wearing a giant furry toucan head and fighting some girl on the floor. Mark will be Mark, I suppose. I guess it does take the pressure off the rest of us to a degree; all I personally have to worry about is remembering how to play the songs, sweating a lot and occasionally taking short naps.

And last: who in the band actually has the most alluring thighs?

TOUGH QUESTION. Jarod’s are easily the most muscular from all that bikin’. Mine are alright. I have lots of scars, so I guess I’ve got that whole rough-hewn thing down. Mark has the most flawless porcelain leg skin. (Seriously, it's like the man has no pores. Pure alabaster.) And Rory is by far the most devoted one of us to regular manscaping. I guess it all boils down to your personal taste in bro-stems.