An interview with band Last Slice of Butter

Q: What does your band sound like?

A: A dude playing bass and a dude playing drums. Experimental thrash punk? Most people can tell that we used to listen to Sonic Youth.

Q: How has your sound changed since the last recording?

A: Heavier. Fiercer. More focused.

Q: Who are your favorite locals bands currently “making waves?”

A: Talbot Tagora, the Dead Science, Sex Vid, Abe Vigoda (L.A.), Paper Whale, etc.

Q: What made you want to pick up the skins?

A: What 7-year-old kid doesn’t want to bang on stuff?

Q: Why does America need hardcore music?

A: We’re not hardcore … but … the notoriously rad band Graf Orlock (of L.A.) has been quoted as saying, “The future of humanity is going to be undoubtedly dark, so I would suggest doing everything you feel like doing now, before becoming tied down with things like ‘liberating the human race,’ ‘smashing capitalism’ and ‘rectifying fractured race relations.’

Q: Why do you like Christina Aguilera so much?

A: Travis likes her message on the album Stripped because she sings about standing up against manipulative chauvinists and being yourself, which is inspirational. It’s like the only pop albummarketed to 13-year-old girls that isn’t full of sleeze, which makes her the riot grrrl of teen pop music (except the album cover art, which is perplexingly full of contradictions. What a mixed message.) Also, she can hit the notes that make you wonder why you don’t listen to more soul music. I still wouldn’t say that we as a band endorse her by any means.

Q: Why do you dress like that? Are you tweemo?

A: We’re just thrifty punk kids. We don’t know what tweemo is but we’re probably not that at all. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, if that’s what you’re into.

Q: How do you feel about fame?

A: Not for me.

When I listen to the new album, Glossa, I understand that these two young musicians, when they write a song, are totally apart from the tradition of pop music.

Birthed on the murky theoretical highways of underground music and teen heat that stretch across Lake Washington, up to Bellingham and Anacortes, and down to Portland, the Last Slice of Butter have become one of the young Seattle acts that everybody at the progressive end of local guitar music knows. Travis (drums) and Catalin (guitars) are idols of a few (Seahouse I’m talking to you) and friends of many.

The live show burns with a kind of shimmering somber intensity, the way candles shine through a worn piece of glassware or the way a streetlight in North Seattle looks from along way off, late at night.

When the lights go down, Catalin anchors himself to the concrete floor with a sure stance, lifting his heavy axe like a piece of old-growth timber.

Travis is entertaining on drums, his arms tearing through the air like manic pendulums, his jaw clenched slightly.

Glossa has a bigger and more well produced sound than the Butter’s last record/demo, Drive Cabs By Day Kill By Night. Between the two recordings, the band’s sound has developed a bit, away from the elegant minimalism of a screaming guitar and a pounding set of skins, and toward a sound more focused on amplifying the nuanced feel of their rhythmic and tonal collaboration.

Aside from the short piece “Mammabird,” which sounds overproduced (especially the vocals), I really enjoy the record.

The music is still about jolts of acceleration, disorientation, panic and clarity, but the new record sounds more threatening and cavernous. The full reverb and distortion subtleties of Catalin’s guitars are apparent and better simulate the feel of a live show. Somewhere between the tones of a fat stack of moving magnets and the thump and crack of drums lives the soul of the Butter.

On Oct. 12, the Last Slice of Butter will be in Salem, Oregon playing the Boy Gorilla Records showcase at the Ike Box with Typhoon, the Black Black Black and Eskimo & Sons.

In November the Boy Gorilla Records will be releasing a 7” featuring the band.

Go to their Myspace page for more info on upcoming shows and releases.