Athens-based bands Weird Science and Death to the State will be joined by Empty Walls, a low-fi punk band from Florida at the Smiling Skull Saloon on Monday.
Weird Science has been busy.
Since the 2012 release of its first album, We are Sick People… Pray for Us, the Athens-based band has been playing local shows and touring, with additional out-of-town shows planned for the near future.
Even still, Weird Science has been able to set aside time to record a new album, one which Chris Lute, the band’s drummer, says is an improvement.
“It wasn’t recorded in my bedroom,” Lute said. “So it sounds way, way better.”
Weird Science will be joining another Athens-based band, Death to the State, along with Empty Walls, a punk band from St. Petersburg, Florida, at the Smiling Skull Saloon Monday night. Because the band is always attempting to perform local shows, Lute said it has been difficult to find time to record new material.
“Now we’re trying to focus more on being in ‘writing-mode’ and then being in ‘touring mode,'” he said.
The new album was recorded as part of a project for music students at Hocking College, in which the students acted as the band’s “managers” and then recorded its music.
“They did a really good job of recording it,” Lute said. “They gave it to us to mix, and I’ve been just working on that really hard for the past two weeks and trying to get it done for tour.”
The DIY attitude found in Athens has fostered an environment in which local bands can have more agency over the types of shows they play and the bands that play with them, Lute said.
“If I want to play with the bands I want to play with, and I want my band to do the things I want us to do, then we need to do it ourselves, and we can do it ourselves,” he said. “You don’t need to go through a booking agent.”
With the generally lax attitude the Skull takes toward scheduling shows, Lute said it is easy to add an out-of-town band to a quick show. In addition, the Skull allows bands to keep their cover charges, so the out-of-town bands can be compensated for their time as well.
Death to the State, another Athens band, is a relatively new addition to the Athens punk environment. Formed last year, the band has not produced any physical or recorded copies of its music yet. However, that will soon change, as the band is scheduled to begin recording in early February, said Michael Lannan, Death to The State’s guitarist and vocalist.
“The writing process is pretty quick and simple with this band,” Lannan said. “I have a song. I show it to the guys, they like it or not — give me their two cents. Then they play their parts to it, and we go from there.”
The members of Death to the State and Weird Science are familiar with each other, with Lute describing the other band as “homies.” But Empty Walls, self-described as “punk,” “crustpop,” and “low-fi” on the band’s Bandcamp page, will be fresh faces for the local bands and their audience.
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Lannan said Athens, which he described as a “traveler’s city,” is a welcoming place for out-of-town bands, such as Empty Walls.
“For a small little place in the middle of nowhere Ohio, it’s pretty active,” Lannan said. “A lot of great musicians come in and out of this town.”
@seanthomaswolfe
