Dead Ringer
Interview with Dead Babies
Los Angeles, Calif.
HAWTHORNE, CALIF. – “Did you guys see everybody come up when you guys got on?”
Pablo, introduced as the Dead Babies roadie, has the kind of slow-churn drawl that starts to kick in when the effects of drinking or smoking something settles and everything said is profound, but the Babies have the punchline. The band’s just finished their set at Hawthorne’s Kickback at Oscar’s and they’re hanging out now in the restaurant’s parking garage basement.
“No,” drummer Junior answered in response, looking puzzled.
“No, I saw everybody leave,” guitarist and singer Bender added.
“Dude, I saw a whole bunch of people go like this,” singer Vicky said, dramatically tip-toeing away as everyone started cracking up.
Pablo, now on a roll, didn’t stop. He pointed out how the crowd was amazed by the insane noise coming from the band, particularly two females – a final point that doesn’t sit well with everyone.
“What the fuck does that gotta do....” Bender asked, trailing off to fish something out of her car before circling back to complete her thought.
“I don’t like that,” she said. “When they say the Babies are fucking something about a woman-fronted band. We’re not a woman-fronted band. We’re just a band. That’s it.”
“There’s a whole female-fronted genre,” Vicky said. “It doesn’t make sense. We really are against that whole thing.”
They just want to be judged on their music and not be weighed down by labels irrelevant to the work. At the same time, they’re not weighing anyone down over-philosophizing their music either.
Most of the hour spent with the Los Angeles band is laughing – about the fact that the disclaimer at one time on their Instagram bio (“Deleted at 666,000”) was actually just a joke copying those who do make those kinds of claims. Their comeback show last year was just as funny. They weren’t coming back from anywhere, unless you count a brief hiatus writing songs. To be clear, they did come out of the gate after that show with the resolution of starting a new chapter, Bender said, and trying to help themselves more. That is, attempt to actually promote the band, but half the time it’s a battle just to get everyone to show up to a gig or even get onto the mic and hype the crowd.
“We’re not really good at promoting as you can tell,” Junior said referencing the performance earlier in the evening. “We don’t talk on the microphone or say we have an Instagram or we’re on Facebook and follow us or whatever.”
“I don’t even know what to say to the people,” Bender said. “Hi, how are you? This was a pretty regular show for us, yeah. Sold out show, you know.”
It was free admission.
“We’re just a bunch of fucking jokesters,” Vicky said.
“We didn’t break up, but we say we broke up because it’s fun for us,” Bender said. “I don’t think anybody was believing any of that shit.”
“There’s a lot of people that messaged me, ‘Why’d you guys break up,’” Vicky said.
“I told Junior, ‘Hey, I like listening to your guys’ shit and there’s a ton of other people who like listening to Dead Babies too,” Pablo said, jumping back into the conversation, as Bender immediately implored, “Like who?”
“Well...” Pablo said slowly.
“My mom,” Junior offered.
“Santa,” Bender said laughing.
Pablo’s about the only one of the three (they were missing bassist Koque that night) that will bestow compliments on them; the rest of them prefer more self-deprecation than propping themselves up. Fans do enough of that. Their conversation that night came to a stop more than once as passersby in the garage congratulated them for their set.
Dead Babies started roughly two years ago, originally the idea of Bender and a former drummer who were writing music together. Junior came on in 2017 as did Vicky, who was previously in the now defunct riot grrrl band Side Effects. Bender pushes off any credit of being the leader or the one with the idea.
“I don’t know,” she started. “I don’t like to be ‘Well, I did that, you know? Because the band didn’t become a band until I had a band. This is the first time I’ve ever played in an actual band, so it was just me and my drummer and that was that. That’s all I ever needed and then we got a band.”
Vicky is quick to point out the Babies wouldn’t be booked as much were it not for Bender and her outgoing personality. Indeed, she’s one part cartoon, bouncing off the walls, but with wit and writing chops. Meanwhile, Vicky is the yin to her yang, more reserved and rarely sings facing a crowd (she’s shy, hence the reason she often tends to sing facing the drummer). And Junior, with his metal influences, deflects and calls himself “the guy in the back,” but it’s his drumming style that adds a unique layer to their sound, with Koque helping carry the backbone of the beat.
The rock ‘n’ roll band – that would seem the best short-hand for Dead Babies – mix a cacophony of metal, punk, ska, thrash and rhymes, the latter a nod to Bender’s hip hop influences.
“We’re hip hop without the skill,” Junior said.
“No, we got the skill, ese. [The song] ‘Lesson Learned’ it goes,” Bender said, breaking out into the song’s full lyrics. That particular piece is about growing up in what she called a “fucked up family.” Another song, called “Sandy,” relates back to when a friend of Bender’s was going through heartache. Not knowing what to do to help her friend, she wrote a song. “Throwback” is a song about relapsing. There’s also political songs and songs referencing abuse.
“Nothing is off limits,” Bender said of what their music touches on. “What I like about the Babies is we don’t have hooks. To make a song with hooks, I can’t. I just can’t. The people who like the Babies, they genuinely like the Babies. They’ll come up and they’ll tell me – the last time somebody said something about the ‘Sandy’ song lyrics, they said, ‘Dude, I felt like you were speaking just to me.’ That’s what I always go for. If I can’t reach a crowd to be chanting the same shit for three minutes – and that’s cool, I like that too – but if I can reach one person and let them know, ‘Hey, guess what? You’re not alone. You’re not the only person whose ever felt like that, that’s where it’s at.”
Her nickname is a reference to the Futurama robot of the same name because “I was more of an asshole back then. I drink and I smoke. I’m a Bender, but I’m not a Bender.”
The name Dead Babies comes from Bender’s work as a veterinarian technician and having seen a lot of death among young animals. How she got into music is another story.
“I couldn’t find Jesus Christ in the 12 steps. This is true,” she said. “When they sent me to rehab, I got stuck in the 12 step. The first step is admitting you have a problem. Got it. I got a problem, bro. More than one. I got 99 problems, but a bitch ain’t one. So then the second step was surrender. There’s a higher power. OK, cool. Yeah, for sure. And then they said find god. Dios. Find who? How do you find Jesus? I don’t know how I’m supposed to look for him. Where is he? Have you seen this guy? He wears the crown of thorns?”
Needless to say she didn’t find someone in the flesh, but she did find a Bronze series Warlock in a pawn shop.
“$170. Now I know I probably could have gotten it for 5 bucks, but I didn’t know that then,” she said. “To me, I saw that and you know what? It was more than $170, but I told the guy ‘I’ve only got $170.’ He said ‘take it.’ What a dick.”
Several YouTube videos later and she figured out the guitar and then how to sing and play the guitar simultaneously, which swings this story now back to the collective Dead Babies.
The band recently started recording for a five-song EP. They’ve currently got five songs out on Bandcamp.
For as much as they kid around, they would like to tour outside of the local area. But Bender reminds the group that to do that requires work and showing up.
“I think that’s everybody’s dream is to eventually get to perform in front of an audience and share your music with a bunch of random people that you’ve never met that can relate to it,” Junior said. “To actually go out there and share you music with people that could criticize you, it’s pretty brave for any band to do.”
He said this as yet another person from the bar-restaurant passes by congratulating them on a job well done during their set.
Asked if they had any final thoughts about the band and where it’s going, Pablo once again re-entered the conversation, with a statement perhaps signifying it was indeed time to wrap the conversation: “This is the last of the teen years.”
“Don’t sweat the petty things; don’t pet the sweaty things,” Vicky offered. Sound advice in just about any instance.
“Junior,” Bender asked, “do you have anything to say before you get hung at the gallows?”
Without missing a beat, he suggested: “Buenos Noches.”