Rock classically, think futuristically

Band name: Son Cats

Personnel:
Son Cats are Alex Reed Wilson on guitar and howls and Jasmine Dreame Wagner on drums. We’re barely legal.

What do you call your musical aesthetic?
The kind of loud that gets us into trouble with our music teacher.

Next show:
Tonight, January 17, at Pehrspace with The Tleilaxu Music Machine, Melted Cassettes, Shane Shane, & BYODeath.

Saved by skate videos: Son Cats' Jasmine & Alex.

Hey Alex & Jasmine, how long have you been making music as Son Cats?
A shade under two years. We found a drum set in the trash in an alley in Missoula, Montana in February of 2009. The next day we took out a lease on a storage shed at former WWII detainment camp and started making some noise. Three months later, we started taking the noise on tour.

What music from your childhood was most formative, as far as what you are doing now?
Alex: If it weren’t for skateboard videos, I’d be listening to the crappiest music ever. I like Wu Tang, and pretty much nothing else. Outkast’s Aquemini is good too. I’m really partial to A Tribe Called Quest’s “Award Tour,” the intro is pretty great. Hell, all of Mighnight Marauders is good. Public Enemy is great too. I also like the use of uncompleted or partial music in Akira Kurosawa‘s movies. He would take trumpet parts out of songs, or prefer songs that weren’t complete, and score his movies with that.
Jasmine: I distinctly remember listening to my pink transistor radio late at night as a kid. The Beach Boys “Surfin’ Safari” and Billy Joel’s “Just the Way You Are” are two songs that repeated nightly on the one station I could tune into. I knew as soon as I heard them that I never wanted to create anything like that. I asked for AC/DC’s Dirty Deeds cassette for my birthday and was forbidden by other people’s parents from playing it at the town pool. I do admit that I loved The Eagles, but only because I thought the line where “they stabbed it with their steely knives” was about carving up a delicious turkey dinner.

What’s the most controversial song you’ve ever written?
Probably “1971” (listen below), because it’s about how we don’t believe in being nostalgic for a time we didn’t grow up in. If it really is just like 1989, or 1993, or whenever, then why aren’t the kids in Bushwick wearing Skidz? Because no one actually wants to relive their middle school years. The problem is, people want to pick and choose what to remember, what to relive. But history doesn’t work that way. I don’t know, maybe our most controversial song is “The Sun and The Santa Maria,” because it’s about how cool it is that we get Columbus Day off from school and how we can spend the whole day surfing. Fool, none of our songs are about surfing.

How’s your tour been?
Tour has been awesome, most of our shows have been totally off the hook. San Luis Obispo was insane—people crowd surfing, a dude in a Wookiee mask throwing playing cards and bicycle parts. Alex almost got stabbed with a pair of scissors. It was all in good fun. As for our most crazy night… let’s say it happened somewhere in Iowa and involved seven pounds of horseradish American cheese, a two gallon bucket of pickles, and a man masturbating to Rachel Ray.

How can people get a hold of your music?
Buy our 7″ record from us on tour. We also have a zine called American Goldmine which comes with a CD. You can download our music online, but it doesn’t sound nearly as good as a record on your stereophonic hi-fi. Only if you must.

Anything special planned for Monday night? What can the audience expect?
Volume. Sweat. Transcendentalism.

What’s gonna be cool in 2011?
Wax cylinder recordings. The gold standard. CASH 4 GOLD (our new age doo-wop duo), MAGIC: THE GATHERING (our 12-piece psychedelic supergroup), EAU DE MORTE (our black metal band). Hydrangeas. 2012 anxiety. Pre-apocalyptic reverie.

Listen: Son Cats’ “1971”

Connect with Son Cats

Don’t miss Son Cats at Pehr tonight…