DIY IN LA
Murphy Lynch And The Inoculators Take Matters Into Their Own Hands
>>BY Peter Terebesi>>PICs Marvin Rinnig

IA band in their relative infancy, The Inoculators have begun to make a name for themselves in and around Orange County, CA. And while punk rock superstardom presently eludes them, they continue to press onward, toward bigger and better things. They don’t have a major label or even minor league record deal just yet, but these guys are taking it all in stride and doing things just a little differently. In the early part of October 2006, I had the chance to interview Inoculators front man Murphy Lynch to get his take. – P. Terebesi

When did the band form, and where do you play around Los Angeles?
The band has been kicking around in one form or another since at least 2004 when the album was recorded. Right now, we’re myself [Murphy Lynch] on vocals and guitar, Adam Reis on bass and vocals, and Peri on drums. Los Angeles can have a great punk scene if you go to the right places. Like most cities, LA is a sprawling mass. So it can sometimes be difficult to gather large crowds with small local shows. But there are a couple local punk clubs that come to mind. Weekly there is the “Kiss or Kill Club” every Friday at Safari Sam’s on Sunset Boulevard, which always packs in a large crowd and has the best of local talent — some of which are signed to punk labels like SOS Records. Also “Anarchy in Hollywood” is every Monday night at the Lava Lounge. Free show, cheap beer, good punk bands — sweet.

What record label are you on?
We’re not on a label right now. When we were recording the album, we considered whether or not to make a fake record label name for it, like a lot of bands do, but decided against it since we’re proud to have done this ourselves.

How did you get John Silas Cranfield to mix your album?
This is one of the lucky parts about living in LA. You’re surrounded by lots of people in the industry. But getting to them can sometimes be difficult. We still got really lucky getting to work with John because it was right before Christmas in 2004, and so there was a gap in the studio schedule at Steakhouse Studio. They mix a lot of the Epitaph Records stuff, and I had contacted some people at Epitaph about potential mixers and they suggested John at Steakhouse. John mixed the first Horrorpops album, the Nekromantix album Dead Girls Don’t Cry, and has worked on many other albums, like Rancid’s latest, Indestructible. So I was really happy to have him mix the album and got into the studio at a much cheaper rate than normal since they were experiencing a little downtime. It was a matter of being flexible. We had the raw tracks “in the can” so to speak, and were just taking our time trying to find a quality mixer, and when this opportunity came up we just had to jump. We literally got like two days notice. “If you can start in two days we can give you five days for this amount of money” kind of thing. So it was like, yeah, we’re ready, here it is, let’s go!

Who else of note worked on the album?
Well, for all the OC punks out there, Michael Ashton Raco-Rands was the guitarist for The Earwigs back in the early ‘80s; good luck trying to find their 7-inch, “She’s So Naive.” Michael played all the leads on “Romance The Dead” and did an excellent job complimenting the song with haunting tones. He also played a couple subtle licks on “Two Party System,” but not the majority.

Also, Tracey “Spacey T” Singleton, who was in Fishbone for two albums I believe [contributed]. “Live at the Temple Bar” was one of them I’m sure. I knew him from my day job. Everyone’s got a day job. He has since quite and now does studio work full time. Last I talked to him he had just recorded for the Skeletones, Talib Kwelei, and now he’s in the studio doing all the guitar and bass work for the new Kanye West album. He helped out on around half the tracks on the album doing everything from doubling up the rhythm sections to thicken up the sound to laying down some sick leads like you can hear on the track, “That Could Be Me.” He also brought some great ska strumming patterns, like triplets, that are equally sick they are so fast and clean. And for all of those with a ska-phobia out there, don’t worry, there aren’t any horns and we only use the patterns a few times throughout the whole album, just to break it up a little. Similar to the way in which Leftover Crack, or Rancid/Op Ivy would use ska; briefly and aggressively.

I read one of your album reviews (AK Ink #18) where it said that you had “potty mouth lyrics...”
That was funny. Yeah, my mom liked that. But it also said that they were memorable and helped define the band so it was more of a positive actually. Just a funny way of stating it.

Is there a main theme or message from the album as a whole, or just individual songs?
The main theme of the album is kind of summed up in the title, Dropped Their Brains. It’s about getting your head out of your ass. So many people do so many stupid things and that’s basically what the album is about. Calling ‘em out on their shit!

So back to your not being on a label, what about money? I know that it’s very expensive for new bands. Everything is expensive from the recording to the duplication. Some people take a lo-fi approach to recording, but the duplication still costs quite a bit.
Yeah, money was an issue from the beginning because I wanted to do this as professionally as we could afford. But that stuff isn’t very cheap, so I wound up getting two extra jobs to basically finance the production of the album. It was a lot of work at the time holding down three jobs in total, plus working on the album, as I could scrape together more cash. This is when it would have been nice to have a record company: for the money to record. But ultimately when it’s all said and done I’m happy I did it this way because there were no concessions. No trimming down of the potty mouth lyrics or not tackling subjects for fear of reprisal. We just went for it, and damn the consequences. It was actually a very conscious decision. Do we make an album that we think other people will like, or the one that we will like? Ultimately we are the ones whose name is attached to it, so screw everyone else. This is for us and the music. Hopefully other people will like it, but if not I already feel like we’re a huge success since we’ve released an album and played a lot of great shows to support it.

And I guess the money had to stretch even further since you pressed it on vinyl as well as CD?
Vinyl winds up costing twice as much as CDs to duplicate. Everything has to be made at a different place. The sleeves are made by one printer, but the little circular labels that go in the center of the record get printed at a different printer. And finally the record itself gets pressed and assembled at the pressing plant. Any promo stickers you might want for the album would again be printed at a separate location than the others mentioned. Also, don’t forget the mastering process. Everything gets mastered onto CD these days. So if you want to press on vinyl you have to then send out and have a separate vinyl master cut. When you get CDs duplicated there is so much competition for your business that they are all one-stop-shops. You just give them the artwork and music and they do all the legwork, giving you a finished product from one location.
But vinyl is so much better that there was really never any question that it would be pressed. Just a question as to how much of a pain in the ass it would be to get it done! But we got it pressed on a really nice green wax that matches our album cover.

Where are you all from, how did you meet?
I think we all met through Craigslist actually.

What bands have you played with?
One of our favorite shows was when we got to open up for Cheap Sex out in Victorville, which is about two hours northeast of Los Angeles, out in the middle of nowhere. But those kids like to rock out! We got to play for a swirling mass of 400 kids in a pit for our whole set. One kid chipped his front teeth in half, dripping blood everywhere, and several other kids had slashes across their cheeks from all the spikes on the leather jackets. Not our usual crowd, but they all meant well enough. It wasn’t like anyone was maliciously trying to hurt someone else. It was just a lot of people with a lot of energy. These things happen. All part of the risk of the pit I guess.

So it sounds like you fit it well with Cheap Sex, but your music isn’t really all that crusty. Somewhere in there is a question.
Yeah, I hear ya. We definitely have an aggressive edge to our music, but we aren’t crust or even hardcore. We mix it up a lot and that helps us play to different crowds. We’ll play a fast hard-driving section then throw in some ska chords over the verse, then right back into another heavy section for the chorus. Much like Leftover Crack or Rancid might do. Then go into something a little more poppy sounding, then to a pissed off thrash song. And all in about a minute and a half. Our songs are usually between a minute and a half and two minutes. Short, fast, loud and to the point! If you don’t like it, wait a minute and a half. And we’re definitely rawer and faster sounding live than on the record, which is true of many bands. Playing live you just wanna break shit!

What is the next big thing coming down the pike for the band (record deals, tours, releases etc.)?
We’re gonna be picking up a holiday song for the winter holidays! I know half the people out there will think this is lame, but I always liked when bands would bring out a special song at certain times of the year only. Or for a certain show for some reason. Whatever the case. We just picked up a couple covers for Halloween, and I’m sure we will for the holidays as well, but I’m also in the middle of writing one. So hopefully we’ll play it this year. If that works out maybe we’ll record it. But at this point we’re just writing new songs and looking forward to recording a new album in the next year or so.

Your thoughts on NOFX? Starbucks?
Both are best when fresh.

To check out The Inoculators, visit www.inoculators.com or www.myspace.com/inoculators.