Insert Joke [Here]
An interview with Jizz Grenade
From Issue 4.4, Winter 2019
The members of Jizz Grenade, pictured in their Pomona practice space.
POMONA – What it looks like when Jizz Grenade takes off, blows up or whatever other descriptors you want to use for success, it’s both specific and intangible at once.
“At the end of the day, we’re not over here trying to be some pop hit,” said drummer Angel Alda. “We love this shit. So how great would it be if we could love this shit and do it all the time and have food on my table. That’s beautiful.”
“If you want to talk about goals, obviously I’m not trying to get fucking top 40 charts on the TV or some shit like that,” guitarist Beau Turner said. “Let’s face it, MTV hasn’t picked up punk rock since the first time it came out. For me, my main goal is to be on the lineup of Punk Rock Bowling.”
The two along, along with bassist Pigeon, are sitting in their Pomona garage practice space, also now doubling as their studio and general workshop for the San Gabriel Valley band. They’re in the process of recording, originally targeted for release this year. But issues with what Alda called a “producer” – air quotes are his own – led them to take the task into their own hands. They're now targeting a March release, which would follow 2018’s “A Thin Line Split” with That One Band and the Jizz Grenade EP released the year prior.
It's been said before writing about music is like dancing about singing. In other words, largely a fruitless exercise. And this doesn't hold any more true than for this band. With a name like Jizz Grenade, comedic hyperbole and all, it’s too easy to get into the crude jokes that come out of them like a bad case of tourettes. In fact, it doesn’t take much when nearly every answer to a question evokes laughter.
“Note that Pigeon reached for a burrito in his pocket,” Turner said a half an hour into their interview as Pigeon quietly grabbed the Del Taco burrito from his hoodie pocket.
“His stomach kept it warm,” Alda said. “When he’s not having sleep apnea.”
“I die a couple times a night,” Pigeon confirmed.
“It’s ugly and annoying at the same time,” Alda said.
“We’ve had to roll him over on his side a few times, and he doesn’t even do heroin,” explained Turner.
“I’ve told him about getting a mask,” Alda said.
“I’d rather just die,” Pigeon said.
Jokes aside, their music is the exact opposite. There’s substance and range, and they’re prickly about being defined beyond what they call “cunt rock,” noting the confinements of labeling anything.
“I’ve never called us anything,” Alda said. “Whatever. We’re that. They’re going to call us something anyway. Just let them. I think our main goal is to write something substantial that’s good and something we believe in. The dream is to maintain integrity. You go out there and be yourself and everybody collectively helps each other. That’s the dream.”
And if the music isn't memorable, the name at least is.
When they were in Vegas for Punk Rock Bowling they ran into Subhumans singer Dick Lucas, shot the breeze with him and then as he left, they mentioned their band name.
“Nobody’s going to take it serious,” they recall Lucas saying.
“Then he stopped and said, ‘But, hey, that’s a fucking memorable name,’” Turner said. “Oddly enough, I saw him two years later, 2018, at a breakfast buffet in the Golden Nugget.”
Turner congratulated him on a good show the night before and then chanced to see if the singer remembered the conversation two years prior, showing him his vest with the Jizz Grenade logo. Lucas looked at him, blankly, but before Turner walked away, Lucas mused “Yeah, that is a memorable name.”
“Here’s the thing, we didn’t want to not be taken serious and we didn’t want people to write us off because of it, or think we were some joke, like Jack Black shit,” Alda said. “He’s the funny guy who’s always zany.”
“Yeah, if the name’s going to be that, our music's got to be fucking good,” Turner said.
“And so it drives us to be better than what we would settle for,” Alda continued.
The conversation is a singular look at the blending of funny and serious that is the through line of the nearly hour and a half the band talked about their start and how this third leg of Jizz Grendade is the best it’s ever been.
Getting to this point took time.
Jizz Grenade started in 2008, born out of something Alda heard one night while listening to “Loveline.” He scrawled the phrase on the wall of his former home in Baldwin Park, where he tended to also record phone numbers. He and Turner started the band with their friend Keith, disbanding a year later over what Turner described as “some bullshit” (it was over a girl and erupted into a fist fight between the two). They didn’t speak for years and then attempted to reform in 2012. It didn’t work out.
“I fucked off. I just didn’t give a shit for a year and I started doing standup in 2013,” Turner said. “I’m all about the year. Every year is different.”
Alda reached out and the two began jamming around 2016, later performing as a two-piece under multiple names (White and Hairy, Steve Buscemi’s Teeth and Fat One to the Left, to name a few). They realized they needed a bassist. Enter Pigeon (of the bands Wife Beaters, No Ma’am), who was on house arrest at the time. Things worked out and the current lineup of Jizz Grenade had its first show September 2017.
“The last two years we’ve really been taking it serious,” Alda said.
“It’s been established no fucking hiccups,” Turner added.
“We’re on social media and people actually engage,” Alda said. “It’s crazy to think that’s a way of gauging how well you’re doing.”
There’s plenty to engage with, given Alda’s penchant for Photoshop and superimposing the three into various scenes (a Kwanzaa card for starters, penises in mouths and on).
“Being that we are grown men and have much going on with our lives, we do like to fuck around,” Turner said sarcastically. “So there will be a lot more original content. I say content because that is the most douchiest thing in the world. The reason for the huge gap in our playing time is because we’re spending time on that.”
“We try to make good posts,” Alda said laughing. “We like to have fun; we say stupid shit.”
“We just like to talk a lot of shit and have fun,” Pigeon said. “We’re all just very dark with each other, but we’re such close friends we can be that way. We all have the same weird sense of humor. That’s all it is. You can’t take shit too seriously. You’ve got to live your life.”