Call it “noise rock”, call it “metal”, or call it neither. San Francisco’s Kowloon Walled City is pushing noise around and getting recognized. I was lucky enough to meet up with front man Scott Evans and guitar player Jason Pace at their record release show in the city. They seemed like a couple of down-to-earth guys that were quite modest in their approach to music, metal and the industry.

So you guys have been getting some pretty awesome reviews lately; metalsucks loves you guys, lambgoat gave you a 9/10. You guys feeling the love?

J: It’s great. I mean, you can’t really complain about getting that kind of review.

S: I found it very surprising.

J: It is surprising because we recorded the record and Scott mixed the record for an eternity.

All by yourself?

S: All by myself.

J: So we’ve been hearing the record for an eternity and we have no frame of reference at all. So it’s interesting to hear what people say about it.

S: We’ve been dying to get some feedback and that kind of thing. At this point I’d take bad, whatever, it’s just nice to finally be like, “Yes, here it is!”

J: We gave birth to that fucker. Now we get to hear what people say about its eyes.

You guys have managed to be embraced by the metal community and the rock community, and that’s not too common. Do you guys kind of feel the same way?

S: I don’t know that we’ve been embraced by either. This is an ongoing sort of debate, but I really don’t think of us as a metal band, at all.

J: (laughs)

S: I don’t! Shut up! (laughs)

J: Well, it’s funny because everyone is willing to debate that with Scott – whether or not we’re a metal band. I think we leave that to people like yourself, to figure out. But I mean, if more people like us, great. We do what we do and it’s “noise rock”, or it’s “metal”, or it’s neither here nor there.

S: For what it’s worth, none of that is conscious.

J: Yeah, exactly.

S: It’s not like, “Ok guys we’re gonna do a little rock and a little ska and we’ll be a rock/ska band.”

Talking about your sound then, what kind of motivates you guys – sonically?

S: Well, I think for me, from a more abstract perspective, that’s the way I think about it. I joke sometimes that we’re not playing music, we’re pushing sound around.

You guys had Turk Street last year, and Gambling is your second album?

J: Yeah, the first “LP” after the “EP”.

S: You could say it’s a second record.

Did you guys approach this album differently? Were you thinking, “Hey, we gotta do this differently or go for this kind of sound?”

J: Not consciously. Not at all I don’t think.

S: No, to the contrary. My philosophy on that is that I like bands, I like music equipment, I like all kinds of things that do one thing really well.

What’s the meaning behind Gambling on the Richter Scale? To me it kind of sounds like people are putting too much faith in technology. Am I anywhere close to what that might mean?

S: To me it’s directly about living in San Francisco.

J: Super literal.

S: Yeah, pretty much. It’s this incredible city, with all this industry and all this money, half of it built on fill.

Right.

J: Who’s Phil? (laughs)

S: He’s very strong. (laughs) And, you know, with everyone sitting here saying “Well, we know this is gonna happen, la-la-la” (earthquakes) that’s really what it’s more about to me.

Well, it’s perfect timing too because we just had the whole 20-year rememberance.

J: Yeah, the Loma Prieta! We should’ve released the record on the 17th. But we didn’t think about that I guess. The cool thing about it is that you can really easily extend that metaphor to anything. You were saying technology. You can extend it to politics, technology, diet…(laughs)

S: Diet? Back up the tape! Wait a minute! (laughs)

So you guys have the albums out there now, you have them for free. You also have the cd and the vinyl. What’s the motivation behind the vinyl?

J: Look at it! It’s sweet!

S: Yeah! I mean, these days when I look at a cd in a jewel box it just looks ridiculous to me. I try not to buy them. I know that if I buy it, I’m just going to put it in my computer and rip it and then wish I didn’t own it anymore. I think we were just trying to acknowledge that. If you want the music – yes, please – take the music, you’re going to go steal it anyway, if you’re determined. If you like having a nice thing, if you want to own music you can buy, what I happen to think is a really nice package. We hand silk-screen those sleeves for the cds and made those nice too. You can buy the physical object if you want to, but you know, that’s not the way…

Well, it’s not too uncommon now either. You hear bands say, “Hey, we have the music on vinyl now. Come check it out.”

J: It’s funny though…it’s funny how much “ink”, if you will, “internet ink” we’ve gotten about doing the “free” thing.

S: The vinyl is not unusual, but people are still surprised about the “free” thing.

J: Are we all that weird to give away our shit? I mean, there must be a million bands giving away their shit.

S: As far as I can tell, it seems like there are a lot of bands that don’t put out physical media that are like, “new” or “young”…

J: They don’t do both.

S: Yeah. And there a couple of “radio heads”…

J: Well, RadioHead can put their music out on flowers. They can print sheet music on a…duck. (laughs)

S: You’re giving away our plan! (laughs) There aren’t too many bands at our little “nobody” level that are willing to…they all feel like they should be able to sell records or something.

J: People are going to steal the music anyway. I don’t even want to assign an “ethical” thing to it, I don’t even want to say “steal”. People are going to get the music, one way or another. So, if they want a cool package…

Come and get it!

J: Exactly.

S: The other part is, I had a little record label in the past and it always bugged me that I needed to send out a hundred promo cds, or 200 or whatever, to all these press people, half of which turned around and sold them on ebay without even opening them. “Oh, unwrapped in shrink-wrap.” Yeah thanks. This way, instead, you just say “Hey, it’s free.” and you can point anyone that wants to listen to it, whether it’s a writer or someone you meet on the street, you can just say “go grab it”. It’s really liberating.

J: If people like what they hear, and they actually want to support what we do, they can buy the vinyl or whatever.

S: Or buy a shirt, or come to a show…

J: So, essentially, we’re publicly traded. (laughs) No, that’s the next step. We’ll probably be going public next spring.

S: Oh yeah?

You heard it here!

S: Back up the tape. (laughs)

Well it’s a kick-ass record guys. Have an awesome show tonight. Thanks for taking the time. I’m sure the accolades will keep coming your way.

J: I don’t really think, uh…I think we’re due for the bad shit. (laughs)

S: Yeah, I’m perpetually surprised.

J: It’s awesome.

To hear the band’s new record, as well as their last record, “Turk Street”, visit their homepage.

Here’s a little bit of live footage of the band performing Friday at their record release show.