AZLTRON: Patric Fallon, or should I say Sick Face Fallon, you were in a post hardcore group in Chicago before you moved to San Francisco and pursued a more electronics based sound. What drew you away from Post-Hardcore and into Electronic Music?
Patric Fallon: Haha… Patric is fine. Sick Face is just a name I like to take on when performing with All Teeth and Knuckles. It gives me an excuse to be such a belligerent, loud-mouthed ass hole. But yeah, to answer the question, I was never really drawn away from “post-hardcore”, but more interested in making music on my own. I was still in my old band when I started making music with electronics and computers, and the band breaking up was the whole reason I chose to start focusing on my solo projects. I was just more interested in doing music by myself, and the easiest way to do that was to make electronic music because there’s no need for drummers, bass players, synth players, etc. It’s all inclusive if you want it to be. It’s funny though because I’ve now come full circle and have recruited 3 other members for the ATAK live show including a live drummer, a live synth player, and a live percussionist / background vocalist. I’m even thinking about starting a new rock band!
AZL: Your Myspace page says that you guys are long time friends, where did you meet and what was the common ground that you bonded on?
PF: Gio and I we’re both brought up in the Central Valley of California, but didn’t end up meeting til we were about 19 or 20. I was on tour with my old band and we ended up playing a show in my hometown with a friend’s band in the basement of an old coffee house. Gio was singing and playing keyboards with them at the time and we all ended up hanging out at our friend’s apartment afterwards. Gio and I found out that we both had strong loves for guys like Kid 606 and Squarepusher so we started trading CDs and tapes of our solo music with each other. Gio’s shit sounded more like Wolf Eyes on crack and I was just trying to emulate Autechre at the time, but we bonded because we were both in “post-hardcore”, “screamo” groups even though we weren’t that into the music.
AZL: Where did the name All Teeth and Knuckles come from? Was the Acronym A.T.A.K. created on purpose?
PF: To this day I’ll swear to God that “all teeth and knuckles” is a commonly used phrase. Like, “I fought that parking ticket all teeth and knuckles, but I still ended up paying it.” Basically, I thought up the name during a very depressing and low point in my life, and as a way to cope I wanted to make music that fought everything I hated “all teeth and knuckles”. It’s supposed to represent a sort of rebellion and ferocity against every negative force you encounter in life. Accidentally, the name helped to create the amazing and appropriate acronym ATAK. When shit like that happens, you know you’ve found a perfect name.
AZL: Your Debut album “Club Hits to Hit the Clubs With” is about club culture, where did the inspiration to write an album about dancing and drinking come from? Is it meant to be satire or honest?
PF: That is such a great question. The inspiration just simply came from being a young, broke kid immersed in the drinking, drugs, and dancing of the bar/club scene. Maybe immersed is the wrong word. I was definitely there as not only a participator but as a spectator. I love partaking in the debauchery, but I also love watching what it did to people. It’s unbelievable what clubs can and will turn a person into, but it’s great! I wanted to make an album that was simultaneously an advocate for club life while also holding a mirror up to it. In that respect it’s both satirical and honest, but I think the most honest things we’ll see or read or hear these days is satire. It’s hard to tell what is what though. Some of my closest friends will hear a song and say to me, “You’re joking, right?” when it’s actually the most serious part of the song, and visa versa. I guess everyone should take what they want as they see it.
AZL: What hip hop artists do you guys draw inspiration from? What electronic artists?
PF: Hip hop wise I’m mostly into the electronic, left-field kind of stuff. I’m very big into Neptunes and Timbaland of course, but more drawn to the sounds and whacked out style of Anti-Pop Consortium, Airborn Audio, Subtle, Beans, TTC, and a few older producers like Mantronix and Grand Master Flash. Electronically I’m more inspired by the older sounding stuff like Kraftwerk, Suicide, Flying Lizards, or even Devo. I like the impact of the sounds they used despite their simplicity. Everything coming out these days is sampled, tweaked out, cut up, and obliterated til you almost have no idea where the sound came from. I’ll take a nice heavy sawtooth wave from a 20 pound synth before all that.
AZL: What do you think about the surge in electronic party bands that have come out in a big way this year? (i.e. Justice, Simian Mobile Disco, Calvin Harris) Do you have a favorite?
PF: I think the surge is great! It means a lot of people are out there having a blast all the time! It also means there’s a shit ton of music out there that I’ll probably never hear, which means really picking a favorite is impossible. I’m pretty much completely over Ed Bangers. If they could give me something that didn’t annoy the fuck out of me (Uffie) or sound like over compressed, cracked out Daft Punk (Justice, Sebastian, etc.) I’d be into them. Though, Mr. Oizo is pretty sweet. I don’t know if they’d really count as a party band, but some of my favorite tracks right now are from Von Sudenfed. Mouse on Mars and Mark E. Smith is the best collaboration ever. There’s a local SF producer called Ghosts on Tape who easily makes the most perfect combination of grimy hip hop and minimalist techno you’ll ever hear. He’s my favorite.
AZL: How has the response been to your band in San Francisco? Is electronic music popular there?
PF: We have a lot support from old and new friends all over the Bay Area who are also fighting the good fight for electronic-based music. We’ve got amazing venues like The Mezzanine (where our CD release party is being held August 2nd) and the 222 Club that help us out constantly. We’ve received a ton of support from XLR8R Magazine (who’s sponsoring our CD release party) and local zine Versus SF. There are definitely fans out there, but most of our crowd is made up of our friends and musical peers. Electronic music is definitely big in SF, but mostly in a DJ/club setting. There’s definitely a big group of kids that want to see it live, but nothing like Europe or LA or NY. SF is definitely still very granola no matter how many hip hop, electronic, dance acts come from it or to it.
AZL: Do you really hate leather jackets? Or is there a type of person who wears leather jackets that you despise?
PF: Hahahaha… I definitely don’t hate leather jackets as a whole. What I don’t like, and this goes for any article of clothing (shoes, hats, jeans, etc.), are people that think they are a certain type of person from the clothing they wear. It was inspired by a night outside of a bar in SF called The Hemlock. It’s definitely not a super nice place, but it’s in the Tenderloin and it’s clean enough and big enough to not be a real dive which makes for a lot of douchey types coming through with the idea that they are “slummin’ it”. So what you get is a group of 9-5ers wearing their leather jackets instead of their ties and collars because they’re out on a Friday and it’s time to “party like a rock star”. I’d say the same thing about a kid wearing a Bathing Ape print hoodie cause they think its “hip hop”. All I really mean by the song is don’t wear your identity, be your identity.
AZL: On the track “Look So Good” you say you use second rate tools to make first rate tracks, do you use any vintage keyboards on your songs? What’s the most ghetto instrument you used on the album?
PF: We have a pretty good collection of old keyboards now, but when the album was being tracked we mostly used a Juno-106, a Korg MS2000, and computer programs. The oldest keyboards we used were a few beat up little Casios and a horribly embarrassing Yamaha I used to plan out melodies to sequence on my computer. When I talk about “second rate tools” I’m mostly talking about running OS 9 on my laptop and using a busted microphone to record vocals with. If you listen throughout the album there are some random little sounds that have no rhyme or reason for being there. That’s the microphone. That thing was fucked. We thought it was the space heater in the studio that was causing the mic to make those noises, hence the rant at the end of “The Real San Francisco” and me saying “Fuck those noises, man.” in the beginning of “Let’s Undress and Listen to CSS”.
AZL: I love when you guys diss Spin and Pitchfork on “My 411 Track”, are you harboring any animosity towards them due to a D.I.Y. ethic or you just don’t like the corporations dictating what’s popular in the indie community?
PF: Well, to be honest I’m actually not dissing Pitchfork at all. I read Pitchfork almost every day. I’m just saying that I don’t give a shit what they think about me or my music because it’s what I wanted to make and it’s real to me. However, I am DEFINITELY dissing on Spin. I hate that magazine along with Rolling Stone, Alternative Press, and all the bull shit papers just like them. All they do is hop on the band wagon of obvious. Not once have I picked up any of those magazines and read about something new or interesting or even good! They think the Yeah Yeah Yeahs are edgy! They are filled with articles like “Inside the Mind of John Mayer” or “On the Real with Panic at the Fallout Card”. Not only are they cyclical, corporate, money-driven drivel, but they also aren’t doing their job. They are supposed to report music news. The keyword is “new”. All they do is regurgitate what MTV has already told you is cool and what Sony and Virgin have deemed worthy to make money for them. There was a lyric that was supposed to be in “My 411 Track” that didn’t make it that went, “I’m not co-opting anybody’s culture/ I’m making this shit my own/ Won’t feed into the corporate vultures/ Won’t be on the cover of Rolling Stone/ Fuck MTV, man/ That shit’s best left alone”.
AZL: You made a tribute song to a band that also made a tribute song to another band with “Let’s Undress and Listen to CSS”, where did the idea for that come from? Did you really have a crush on Lovefoxxx? Did you meet her?
PF: A lot of people ask me that and it always makes me laugh. The lyrics from the song are basically the story of when I met Lovefoxxx verbatim. I was working backstage as the artist attaché at The Mezzanine when CSS opened for ESG. I really wanted to talk to her, and I had thought up this song title as my ice breaker. It totally worked, and we talked for a while. I found out we were both Pisces and born a year and a day apart from each other. She told me her real name, and I invited her out to a club where one of her band mates was DJing an after party. She was too tired to go, but she said the most amazing thing to me when I was trying to convince her to come. She said, “If I were to go it would be only for you, Patric!” Even though she didn’t come out it made my night. We recently opened for them at The Mezzanine, but her boyfriend from the Klaxons was with her so I didn’t try anything. Although, right before we played the song I did say, “No offense to the dude from the Klaxons, but I think I’m in love with your girlfriend.” No one really got it, but yeah, it’s more of a joke/infatuation now.
AZL: You guys always talk about drinking and stealing drinks, do you have a favorite drink?
PF: Gio and I both drink gin and tonics almost exclusively, with the occasional Sparks or PBR thrown in for good measure.
AZL: What’s next for A.T.A.K.?
PF: We’ve got a US tour coming up in the end of August to promote the release of “Club Hits to Hit the Clubs With”. We’ve already started writing a new song to play on the tour that will probably be released on a three-way split CD with label mates History Invades and Drugstore Cowboys on Pish Posh of North America and Lujo Records in 2008. We’ve got a music video coming out soon for “Look So Good” and hopefully a few remixes will be surfacing in the near future. Gio and I both run the record label Pish Posh of North America, so that also takes up a lot of our time, but don’t worry! We’ve got lots and lots and lots of plans for the future…
AZL: Thanks for your time guys, I really appreciate it.
PF: Thanks for being our second interview ever!
MP3 – Let’s Undress and Listen to CSS – All Teeth and Knuckles
MP3 – Fuck Your Jacket – All Teeth and Knuckles
MP3 – The Real San Francisco – All Teeth and Knuckles
All Teeth and Knuckles Myspace
The next in my series of indie pin-up girl crushes is Dead Disco, a trio of lovely lasses from Leeds, England. Who were noticed by James Ford of Simian Mobile Disco who helped them record a few of their earlier singles in his attic. Since then their singles like “Automatic” and “You’re Out” have been garnering them more and more attention.
