INTRUDER BLUE
One time I scored No More Tears by Ozzy and Hysteria by Def Leppard out of the same car when I was a teenager. I love both of those records. We used to get all kindsa tapes and CDs back in the day from cars. Mixtapes could be cool too. If you can't get a girl to make you a mixtape, you can always steal someone else's and pretend your crush made it for you. I had this cool pop punk mixtape with MTX and The Queers and Screeching Weasel... All love songs. That was a sick score. There was this girl that worked at blockbuster that I'd always imagine she gave me the tape. Never talked to her.
When did you realize that you wanted to write songs in between petty crimes?
Writing songs was always an interest of mine. I think I was coming up with dumb little tunes and lyrics basically as soon as I was alive. I was that kid that was always walking around making noise, wearing a blue ski mask. I finally worked up the guts to lift an electric guitar out of this pawn shop when I was about 15. Then I learned it didn't work without an amp, so I tried to hit the same place and got busted. Life is hard sometimes. Where does the doo-wop influence come from in your songwriting, and how did you learn to compose in that style?
Just listening to that kinda music a lot, I guess. I mean, it's just feel good music - it's awesome. Like, the opening sequence of Adventures in Babysitting, where "And Then He Kissed Me" is playing and Elisabeth Shue is dancing. I had the biggest crush on her. That song may not be exactly doo-wop, but it's not far removed. It just sounds like being in love. That era of pop is just the best. We're not the first punk band to do it. The Misfits, really, were quite doo-wop at times. We just think it works, and we like it, so we do it. How did you learn to play guitar, and is this the instrument you typically write with?
Yeah, I write with the guitar. I mean, a lot of times I have ideas for melodies, chords, riffs just in my head and I'll record them on my phone with a voice recorder. But, when I sit down to develop a song, guitar is for sure my instrument. I leaned mostly just by listening and trying to emulate records I liked. The cool thing about guitar is that you can kinda get a few pointers, learn a couple power chords, and you're off to the races. I used to just sit and play along with The Misfits or Screeching Weasel or like GBH or something, then bands like NOFX and the Vandals as I started to get good enough. You can kinda just work your way up from easy guitar stuff to more difficult when you listen to punk. Back to the topic of theft, did you shoplift any particular styles or methods for songwriting from your influences?
I remember reading an interview with Fat Mike where he said he just collected all of his musical ideas, however disparate, then worked them into an album's worth of songs over time. That's something like my basic approach. The harmonies and arrangements in your songs are very impressive - did you ever receive any formal musical training?
Not exactly. I mean, no. I did grow up around a lot of music, though. Then I just started making music and spent years fucking around with writing songs for myself and feeling it out. Plus, I have a great team. All the dudes in the band have great insights and opinions. We do a lot of the finer points of arrangement in the studio. A lot of stuff is improvised, then layered. We'll definitely do things like, listen to a supposedly finished part of the song and then spend an afternoon putting on more harmony. Do you feel that you’ll always have material to write about while keeping with the themes you’ve established?
It's not the easiest thing maybe to make every single song just about crime and girls and the law, but it's not as hard as you might think. For one, limiting your scope a little can actually be very creatively liberating. The fundamental problem of writing is "what the fuck do you write!?" Restricting yourself helps with that, cause it screens off gazillions of possible answers to that question. And then, you got the fact that crime and girls are actually awesome, so it's easy to write infinity songs about them. Have you ever considered a concept album since you and your accomplices have a history of misadventures?
We're a concept band. If we made a concept album, that would be soooooo meta. I'm not sure the world is ready. Then again, in some sense, concept records are all we make. It isn't like the first record was set out song by song to tell one story, but it can be interpreted that way and all the songs are ultimately expressions of one central theme. Same for MI. Same for Masked Intruder III. Does Officer Bradford get bent out of shape if a harmony is off or is someone’s in the wrong key?
He doesn't give a shit about that. He more gets pissed when he doesn't have his whiskey in the Green room. A drunk cop is a happy cop. Intruders Green, Yellow, and Red are all very capable musicians themselves. Do they often try to elbow their way into the songwriting process?
I value their song sense a lot. So, they're an important part of the Masked Intruder song writing machine. I write the words, chords, melodies and have the basic structure and harmonies conceived, but whenever I bring stuff to the band, everyone puts their stamp on it in how they approach their parts. The songs develop when we fuck with them as a band and then again in preproduction along with producers. Your recordings have always been very pristine. Is this an important part of your aesthetic? How do you feel about DIY recordings and low-fi sound?
Yeah, it's absolutely a core aesthetic commitment of the band. It's funny, cause I think we kinda coulda gone either way after our initial demo. But, I think the juxtaposition we're trying to get off the ground needs that clean production approach. I like low Fi records fine, it's just not our sound. Do you feel that there’s room for genre exploration within the Masked Intruder sound? Ever consider writing a metal song for MI?
Yes, there's room, but nowhere near enough room to write a metal song. You'd need a fucking airplane hanger to make that move.
You’ve contributed to the MI music videos with effects and design. Where’d you learn these skills?
Lifted a laptop once that had Adobe Photoshop and After Effects. Allegedly, I mean. I just learned it by fucking around and watching YouTube videos. That shit is pretty cool! One time I even faked some evidence to get out of a bit. Allegedly. What are your ultimate goals as a songwriter? As a petty criminal?
I wanna write a song so good that it will make all the girls I like fall in love with me. As a petty criminal, I just wanna do more crime and less time. It's all about the crime to time ratio.
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