No Age Promise More 'Sophisticated' Noise on New Album

With a third LP due this month, No Age aren't worried about complacency so much as proficiency. Truth is, the noise-punk act's drummer Dean Spunt and guitarist Randy Randall love the thrill of creating with just the rudiments of technique.

"We've gotten a lot better at our instruments, which I don't necessarily think is a good thing all the time," Spunt tells Spinner. "There's something about being fresh and going through the process of learning -- that was really interesting for me."

That's not to say that Spunt and Randall don't want to be good at what they do -- far from it. The Los Angeles duo simply wants to keep things fresh.

"When I start to learn something really well, I kind of want to move on to the next thing," Spunt says. "There's that feeling when you're trying something new that you can't really get if you're a pro. When I think about music that I like, it's never technically good musicians, like Stevie Ray Vaughan or something. I don't really care about that kind of thing, but a band like Black Flag, it's all about people being really intense and trying things, even if they're not technically great at their instruments."

To keep things fresh on 'Everything in Between,' due Sept. 28 on Sub Pop, Spunt and Randall employed more electronic elements than on their previous full-length efforts, 2008's 'Nouns' and 2007's 'Weirdo Rippers.'

"We've always used samplers, but with this record and these songs, we've definitely expanded in how we're using them," Spunt says.

This time, the noisy elements play more of a complementary role in the songs.

"We've gotten a little more sophisticated in our sound-capturing abilities," Spunt says. "It's just pedals and guitar feedback and manipulating sounds to make them sound good. On this one, we're playing the noise and the sampled sounds along with the music, whereas with 'Weirdo Rippers' and 'Nouns,' it would be on and then be in the background. It would be like a transition or a real pretty tone, and then the song would kick in. On this, the tones and the ambience are playing with the songs. They're married now."