Lick Lick Interview: SXSW 2010

Posted on Mar 15th 2010 10:13AM by Evan C. Jones
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In the raucous Austin, Texas music scene, it takes a seasoned crew to stand out in the crowd. Luckily for Lick Lick, experience is on their side, with many members formerly belonging in large touring bands. Don't worry, these five musicians just want to have a good time, which is great news for SXSW audiences. Spinner recently spoke with singer Mo Perce to discuss the band's history and her weakness for Russian dancers.

How did your band form?

We're basically a band of people who come from other projects. Matt Kelly, he plays the keyboards, he was in a real popular local band in the '80s called Sprawl, and then another one in the '90s called Middlefinger; they toured a lot. And then we have a bass player, Peter Stopschinsky, who's a local composer about town; he's kind of a local celebrity. He was in a real popular band here called Brown Hornet. He now owns a non-profit that supports original compositions, called the Golden Hornet Project. He also does work with DJ Spooky and other people like that. Our drummer came to us because he used to play on other bands that are on our little label, and he kept saying "As soon as you need a drummer, I wanna be one." We didn't really know him ... he's kinda new to us, but now we know him, so that's good. The guitar player is ... I'm not sure how we met him. In Austin, everyone's in like five bands at one time; it's pretty incestuous. We just kinda carried around players, and when you find a group of people that work, that's kinda how it happens. It's just mutual admiration.

Describe your sound.

I would say that it's kinda like a mix of prog-rock and punk. It's got some nastiness to it, but it's a little bit more punk, because there's a laissez-faire attitude amongst the players. We have pretty complicated time signatures and stuff like that, but if we don't hit the mark, we don't care (laughs). We're just trying to have a good time, and it's loud.
What are your musical influences?

I would say again, the prog-rock thing comes up. Even the youngest member of the band, who's like 30, he keeps bringing references of, you know ... "I heard the best record ever today. It's called Red. You guys have to hear it! It's by this band King Crimson!" And we're salty old f***ers, so we appreciate that too, but we've already listened to that a million times. There's that, and then there's a lot of ... I think we're all very influenced by Kraftwerk and that kind of stuff, and what we grew up with in the '80s: Devo, Gang of Four and stuff like that.

How did you come up with your band name?

Really, there's not much story. We were hanging out at the Austin City Limits festival ... I was just sitting there. I think we were bored and looking through the schedule, and that's another thing we do for SXSW ... devise drinking games that have to do with band names, read the list of band names and come to a good one and everyone drinks. I don't know ... I thought of Lick Lick and thought that it'd be a funny band name. As the band kinda formed, and we still really didn't know what our name would be, we were making plans to go to Japan, because a lot of the bands on our label are out of Japan. We were gonna do the reciprocity thing, they come here a lot for SXSW, and we were gonna use that to go and have them host us there. We were trying to think of band names that Japanese people would like and would sound good with a Japanese accent (laughs). It worked out, because when we went there everyone was like "Lick Lick! Lick Lick!" It was great.

What's your biggest vice?

Boy, that's a good one. Probably physical activity. I think activity, as a band especially, I dunno. That's a hard question. I don't want to incriminate anybody.

What's in your festival survival kit?

My bicycle.

Beatles or Rolling Stones?

Stones I think. They're more of my era.

What's the craziest thing you've seen or experienced while on tour?

Somebody had broken a beer bottle, and thought they were doing a good deed by setting it upright on a table. Matt was flying around the room, dancing and whatever, and he got onto this table. He went to put his hand down and do some kind of break dancing move on this table, and he put his hand right on top of the bottle and it slit his wrist wide open. The whole show stopped and blood gushed out, and he had to go to the emergency room. It was terrible.

Who was your first celeb crush?

Mikhail Baryshnikov. He's so foxy, or he was in 1979, anyway, or whenever that was. That's no good reason.

Evan C. Jones is a contributor from Seed.com. Learn how you can contribute here.