Cheeky face about “It's Sorted” and the state of our human condition
The most American band ever
April 12, 2024
Photo by Pooneh Ghana
Web Exclusive
The ubiquitous Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson almost didn't make the cut for one of the cleverest rhymes on Los Angeles-based Cheekface's fourth album. It is classified. The lyric from the funk-laden “I Am Continuing to Do My Thing,” is “Shaving in Atlanta, slimming down in Wisconsin, vaping in the parking lot with Dwyane 'The Rock' Johnson.” The cities were inspired by the start and end of one of the band's tours, but the wrestler became a Hollywood star not so much. “The lyric was actually AJ “Alex” Johnson for a while. He is our main player of the tour. But it felt a little too much like a joke. We were just spitting at the world and Dwayne Johnson just raised his bald head as a solution to the thought,” shares band leader and co-songwriter Greg Katz. “There's little tea about songwriting.”
Katz is joined by fellow songwriter and bassist Amanda Tannen as well as drummer Mark “Echo” Edwards via Zoom for our interview on their recently released album. As with all of the trio's albums, It is classified released and, in this case, a surprise release as well. To the best of our collective knowledge, the album peaked at #6 on the NACC (North American College & Community Radio Chart) and at the time of writing was at #22 just ahead of Peter Gabriel i/o. Not one to leave much dead air, Katz quips, “Eat my dust, Peter Gabriel.”
Veterans of other projects, Cheekface has always been a DIY endeavor. “We didn't start out with commercial ambitions,” says Katz. “We never thought, 'Let's wait to release this next release until we talk to all the labels.' He never programmed us to give half of our money to someone else. We feel more validated when we do it ourselves. And since we're not trying to be a famous band, it works for us. I think anyone can do it and anyone reading this interview should try it.”
Although the band is noted for its ever-present sense of humor and musical tributes to its heroes (both the Minutemen and Elvis Costello appear in the opening moments of our talk), It is classified it is not without a serious side. “The album has a conceptual thread about belonging in society and the faces we make to belong or stand out as unique. How much of it is real versus how much is a face you put on to give an appearance to someone else and the complicated dance through a hall of mirrors that we do with our identities,” Katz explains. “Our identities and sense of belonging interact with the hustle and bustle of society politically and the mix between wanting to belong to a larger community and being a unique individual hub.”
Those thoughts appear on the album's second track, “Popular 2,” the idea for which came from Katz observing his neighbor during the COVID-19 lockdown. “I have a neighbor across the street whose front yard decoration is a head on a pipe. It looks real, but I doubt it is. It even has hair. Not only that, but the guy rarely wears a shirt. I was watching people outside my window because I was doing nothing and you start forming judgments about them. So the song is about the self-imposed surveillance state that people create in their neighborhoods. People are worried that the government and big corporations are spying on us and rightly so. But on the other hand we have created a system of spying on others ourselves,” explains Katz.
Over the course of the band's four albums, the band's sense of humor has remained intact, but musically things have moved on and continue to It is classified. “When Greg and I started, it was really a Saturday meeting to have fun finishing a song,” says Tannen. “It was very simple. Simple parts, simple construction, including lyrics. As time went on, our writing flow became easier and faster and we could add more. Let's just add this because it sounds fun, or let's add this instrumentation because I really want to write a song with it.”
“Even from an arrangement or recording perspective, whenever we stepped outside of our comfort zone, we all had a lot of fun,” adds Edwards. “It's rewarding every time we've done something a little different.” One instrument that has yet to appear on a Cheekface album is the seemingly ever-present pedal steel. “I know it's crazy, the alt-countrificaiton of indie rock is definitely happening right now for a reason,” says Katz. In which Tannen promises to include the musical saw next time.
While many of It is classified sounds like fun and games music, despite the album's core themes, one song stands out from the pack. “Don't Stop Believing” (thankfully not a Journey cover) plays as an acoustic anthem and includes the not-so-funny line “what lives is the destruction wrought by the market economy.” “I was listening to Simon & Garfunkel's 'Bridge Over Troubled Water' straight through on a manic loop,” explains Katz. “I wasn't even thinking about starting a Cheekface song, but I was wondering if I could write a little anthem like that. We kept tinkering with it and rewriting the lyrics and the album almost didn't come out. It ended up being exactly what the album's themes have been distilled down to its simplest essence.”
Our interview took place just days before the band embarked on their tour, which kicks off in the UK Given the band's focus on all things American and their own tagline of “America's Local Band”, it was only fair to explore how Cheekface plays to audiences outside the US (the band had two previous shows in London as a benchmark). “I'm surprised we're making sense to people in the UK, but they seem to be listening. I once heard a British podcast review where one of the hosts said, “The first thing you need to know about Cheekface is that they're the most American band ever,” Katz jokes.
“They're the same as every Cheekface audience,” adds Tannen. “They're amazing and they're not standing there idly. They interact with us. It's a party. It s funny. One thing UK fans do that we don't see in the US is singing along to the guitar riffs and bass lines. I had seen it on video. So yeah, the kids across the pond know how to party.”
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