Girls Against Boys Too Sexy For Themselves
Even if he never considered himself sexy before, Johnny Temple finds himself
smack at the center of what has fast become known as the "sexiest band in the
land."
And he's not going to argue the point.
"I guess it could be worse," lamented 30-year-old Temple, bassist for Girls
Against Boys about his group's constantly being pegged by the media as
"sexiest band in the land."
The title apparently fits though, based on Temple's description of GVSB's new
in-process album, which he tagged as having a "groovy, noisy, psycho sex
vibe."
Currently holed-up in a Minneapolis studio with producer Nick Launay
(PiL, Gang of Four, Silverchair), Temple said the New York-based quartet are
more than two-thirds finished recording their Geffen Records debut, after a
smash three-CD run on Chicago indie Touch & Go.
Temple said the band, known as much for its scummy disco-double-bass-and-
keyboards grinding rock sound as it is for its sexy ways, chose Launay based
not just on his resume of working with heroes such as Killing Joke and
Minneapolis' Semisonic, but also because "sonically, his recordings are really
interesting. He gets these really vibrant sounds from instruments and he knows
how to work with rhythm-based bands, so we figured he'd be able to appreciate
our sound."
Despite building their signature sound on the back of Temple and singer/bassist
Eli Janney's double-bass attack, Temple said, with the exception of one song,
the group is abandoning that working method this time around. "We always
want to bring in new elements," said Temple, "and a lot of the material used to
be very funky. This time instead of a lot of songs with two basses, we have these
electronic noises and samples in most of the songs, which helps to push it in a
new, funky direction."
So, since the beginning of the sessions in September, the group has been
creating their own samples by recording bits of guitar and drum sounds,
processing them through effects pedals and digital delays, then chopping them
up, only to splice them back together again. Some of the tentatively-titled tracks
resulting from this new method of working are "Park Avenue," "Sgary Nubian," "Cowboy's
Orbit," "Exorcisto" and "Roxy."
The band is aiming for a March 1998 release.
Temple said he hopes the 13 songs Girls Against Boys is recording will
represent some progress and growth with their sound. And as for the media's sex peg? "When you're doing a ton of interviews, journalists need angles and the sexy
thing isn't bad," Temple said. "It does get comical at times, but it could be
worse." [Thurs., Oct. 16, 1997, 9 a.m. PDT]