The Absurd Just Released Their New "Nox" EP. Listen Here And Read Our Ripple Conversation With Ben Foerg!

Straight From The Band's Mouth:

The Absurd's latest EP, "NOX", is now here. The music is available now just wait for the NEW MERCH DROP on the next Bandcamp Friday, April 7th! Look out for this limited edition merch bundle. 'Cuz when we say limited we mean limited! And did we mention it's a bit whacky? So get ready cuz it's gonna go fast. This EP is the first entirely self produced effort from The Absurd. Engineered and Mixed by Ben Foerg, it features some of the most accessible and catchy songs from the band, while simultaneously being perhaps their heaviest release to date. But don't rest easy, cuz the "NOX" EP is soon to be followed by the band's third full-length album, later this year, and a sequel EP ("LUX"), out early next year.

And Now For Our Interview!

When I was a kid, growing up in a house with Cat Stevens, Neil Diamond, and Simon and Garfunkel, the first time I ever heard Kiss's "Detroit Rock City," it was a moment of musical epiphany. It was just so vicious, aggressive and mean. It changed the way I listened to music. I've had a few minor epiphany's since then, when you come across a band that just brings something new and revolutionary to your ears. What have been your musical epiphany moments?

Man, I guess my journey to where I'm at now is strange. When I was a really small kid, like 2 or 3, apparently I had a fascination with noises and sounds in general. According to my parents, I'd walk around making noises with my mouth, banging and tapping on whatever I could get my hands on, clanking objects together, all that jazz. When I got a little older I caught myself doing this constantly.

Embarrassingly, when I was super young, my parents took me to see Lion King and I cried when I heard "Can You Feel the Love Tonight" by Elton John. Something about how emotions could be expressed through music struck a deep chord with me. (Naturally, I haven't cried since, as it's simply not manly.)

When I was 11 or so, I got my first two CD's: Backstreet Boys and SmashMouth. I'm not proud of that, but I didn't know any better. My parents aren't musical people. I was obsessed - it was my first introduction to the concept of an album.

A year or two later, I was introduced to Green Day and bands like that. Y'know, bands who said "fuck" in their songs and that just upended my understanding of what could be done. From there I found real punk and grunge, and the heavy rock of the 70's. That's really when I found the shit I loved.

Got into drums and just fell in love with the whole process. Since then I feel like I've had a musical epiphany every week, just with the people I meet, the new gear I try and the new music I hear. It's an endless world of possibilities in music, and I can't help myself but to dive in as deep as possible.

Talk to us about the song-writing process for you. What comes first, the idea? A riff? The lyrics? How does it all fall into place?

Being a multi-instrumentalist, I've tried a bunch of different approaches to writing music. When I was a teenager, I was mostly a drummer and wrote with a group. I was always extremely involved with the songwriting process though. Had an old classical acoustic left at my parents' house by an aunt, so I could plink out melodies and riffs on that and bring it to the fellas. That's probably where I fell in love with riffs.

I really got into songwriting when I discovered Dylan, and spent some time doing the folk thing. There it was pretty much always lyrics first, and then I'd put whatever poem I had (usually too many words, probably either didn't make any sense or hit some subject on the head way too obviously) to some chords and a melody.

Nowadays, I'd say I write when it's time to write. I play with a bunch of people and produce as well, so when it comes time to write a record, I get to writing. With The Absurd, I'm the primary songwriter, and I'd say it almost always starts with a riff, melody or groove in my head. Almost never lyrics first.

If I'm motivated, I'll just write the whole song out and then bring it to the guys to modify. Our forthcoming full-length album actually features a bunch of songs written around bass lines that Josh came up with. We'll jam on that, I'll come up with a guitar line, vocal melody and basic structure while we're jamming and we'll go from there. Anything goes in The Absurd as long as the end result kicks ass.

Who has influenced you the most?

Man... Off the top of my head, Frank Zappa, Green Day, Muse, Melvins, Bob Dylan, Jack White, Queens of the Stone Age, Pink Floyd, The Doors, Radiohead.

It's not really a "who," but... Weed, Booze and LSD helped quite a bit, too.

Where do you look for continuing inspiration? New ideas, new motivation?

Well, I used to look to drugs quite a bit. Helped a lot for awhile, but at a certain point it just made me repeat myself.

I'd say now I look to interesting people, interesting ideas. Twitter is an endless source of material. I read a lot of books... Lots of dystopian stuff like Brave New World and 1984 and stuff. Shit, I could probably just go sit on a street corner and find something to write about.

Like Zappa said, "art is anything you can get away with."

We're all a product of our environment. Tell us about the band's hometown and how that reflects in the music?

Technically, the band's birthplace is Los Angeles. Josh, the bassist, and I are both from the Detroit area, and I imagine that probably informs a lot of the sound. There's a pride in coming from a rough city like Detroit, and the people there are not like from other places, to put it mildly.

We had a tough time assimilating in Los Angeles, so I think a lot of our sound was a reaction to what we saw as a frivolous, vain scene. It was a bunch of plastic people who looked cool but didn't have anything to say and couldn't play anyway. So then we found kind of the heavier underground (we already loved heavy music anyway), and wound up forming our own scene, since the prevailing "scene" (if you want to call it that) in LA wouldn't have us. Served us pretty well until the government decided we weren't allowed to play anymore because reeee pandemic.

We actually got cancelled out there anyway for reacting to a bunch of the woke shit that infected everything about the Los Angeles music scene. We do not consider ourselves a political band at all, but as the question implies, we're a product of our environment to some degree.

I'm a very socially aware dude - I read the news and all that. Plus, we have a punk streak in our outlook and attitude, so contrarianism is baked into the cake. LA almost made it too easy, since everyone there tends to think and act in lockstep. Buncha sheep.

And now that we're in Nashville, I guess you can look for us to react to truck-drivin', beer-drinkin' bro country!

Where'd the band name come from?

I hate giving this one away, but it's a reference to absurdist philosophy, or Absurdism in general. When we met at Michigan State, Josh and I both bonded over philosophy in general, absurdist philosophy more specifically. "The Stranger" is a great book and a short read for anyone interested.

And, of course, one must imagine Sisyphus happy.

You have one chance, what movie are you going to write the soundtrack for?

Hm... I would love to do a David Lynch movie, but he scores his own stuff, so that's off the table.

It would be fun to score a movie about something totally normal and completely lacking in profundity. Like the time a guy from Indianapolis stubbed his toe on the sidewalk on his way home from work, then he let it go for too long without treatment and then wound up in the hospital because it got infected. Not really happens though; they just clean it, give him some antibiotics and send him on his way.

And then when we returns home his slightly overweight girlfriend of four and a half years breaks up with him for no real reason. Because that's just the way it goes.

So the poor fella has a midlife crisis, but he's so unstoppably boring as a person that his version of it is taking a kickboxing class and having an extra Blue Moon at the sports bar in his neighborhood on Friday nights.

... Whereupon he meets a new, slightly less overweight, lady, who he kinda sorta has an attraction to. They go home and watch Seinfeld and then you cut to four and a half years later where they're both a little more overweight, and one day our intrepid hero goes for a walk in Milwaukee and stubs his toe, and then the movie is over.

Scored in the musical stylings of Jonny Greenwood.

I feel like this is the answer everyone was looking for.

You now write for a music publication (The Ripple Effect?).You're going to write a 1,000 word essay on one song. Which would it be and why?

I did actually write a few thousand word essay on "Videotape" by Radiohead in college, come to think of it.

Maybe I'd write it on "Bobby Brown Goes Down" by Frank Zappa because I think it would be hard for that essay to turn out any other way than heinous, and that would be pretty fun.

Come on, share with us a couple of your great, Spinal Tap, rock and roll moments?

I have too many that are almost certainly not fit for print, but the first (appropriate) one that comes to mind is: I was playing at Boardner's in Hollywood, on the outside stage, and before my set I was trying to find a place to warm up. They didn't have much of a green room, so I found a storage room next to the stage. As I was warming up, I received a few knocks on the door, so eventually I stopped and opened the door.

It was a very haggard looking Ron Jeremy, asking me if I had any weed.

I shit you not. I don't know the guy at all. I don't know why he thought to knock on that particular storage room door.

In any case, I didn't have my weed on me, so I bode him farewell and went about my business.

Tell us about playing live and the live experience for you and for your fans?

First off, playing live is addictive. I consider myself primarily a songwriter (or I used to, anyway) as well as a producer. Playing live is simply the most fun part of the musicians' experience.

We had a tough time establishing an audience in the beginning, so to compensate for that, we'd ramp up the energy, do raucous shit on stage. I'd say heinous shit into the mic that, at very least, got people's attention. It was literally a matter of doing that over and over and over again until we had an audience for what we did. (Improving dramatically as a band helped, too.)

Once enough people started paying attention, we tried to play with bands whose work ethic we respected and whose product and live shows we really enjoyed. It didn't take long after that to develop a reputation as a high-energy live band, and we certainly do not discourage our fans from all kinds of behavior that is almost certainly not fit to print.

Over time, the shows we were throwing gained a reputation of their own for being a party and a great place to see heavy live music. That gave us the confidence to get on the road and take whatever city or small town we rolled through by storm, and that's basically the model today: no matter the venue, no matter the crowd, no matter the capacity, give the best possible show and make people feel like they're a part of it.

What makes a great song?

This is a difficult question to answer because I write in and appreciate a bunch of different genres. For a pop song, or any song that follows a pop format, tension and release is important, and throwing curveballs within the confines of the format is important as well. Obviously a good hook is needed for that, and in pop, everything sort of contextualizes the hook. A good hook isn't worth shit if it doesn't have the proper context or setup.

Actually, context is, I think, an underrated component of what makes a good song in any genre. Even in doom or stoner genres, you can't just throw a chorus or breakdown in wherever and hope it lands, even if it's a great chorus or breakdown on its own. If it doesn't have the right context, then the best that an artist can be credited with is writing a good chorus, but not a good song.

There's a fine line between keeping it interesting and keeping it predictable, between the cerebral and the primal. To be honest, most doom is insanely boring to me because it's too much about the tone and not enough about the song. The best bands of the genre nail the drone, the groove, the hypnotic vibe while still remembering that the song comes before any of that. Just my opinion.

Some songs are just meant to be super long, and I'm a big fan of progressive stuff, myself. The Absurd have a bunch of songs that radio stations simply wouldn't play because of length. And fuck radio stations for that - it makes music sanitized and boring. And, I guess, fuck the artists who think that's the only way to play the game.

I think the main thing, no matter the song or the genre, is to keep it interesting. If you have a hunch that a section is boring, it probably is. Nothing is sacred, and no part of a song is so good that it can't be replaced or used elsewhere. If the song doesn't demand it, eliminate it. And remember that not everyone is going to like your song, so don't bother trying to write for everyone.

Tell us about the first song you ever wrote?

I can't remember what it was, but I assume it wasn't very good. It took me awhile to figure out how to not suck.

What piece of your music are particularly proud of?

A lot of it, to be honest, but The Absurd's "RadioSlaveUSA" comes to mind. I tend to think that whole "The Sun Still Rises" album is pretty good.

I'm also pretty proud of "Build the Wall," because I think that song rocks. It's one of the catchier riffs and hooks I've written, and people always love that song when we play it live - until I tell them the name. And who doesn't like fucking with people?

Who today, writes great songs? Who just kicks your ass? Why?

All Them Witches and King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard are two bands that come to mind. Great bands who can groove and drone on heavy shit while still writing songs I remember.

Lou Aquiler from The Oil Barons plays guitar really fucking well. Better than me. And Will Hammond from Karma Vulture plays guitar better than me as well. They both kick my ass.

For songwriters, though he's in a way different genre, Raspado Man just effortlessly writes really good songs. He's probably more of a natural than me.

Josh Homme is someone who I think is just the whole package and just kicks my ass overall. But then, who the fuck am I to compare myself to that guy?

Vinyl, CD, or digital? What's your format of choice?

Digital, unfortunately. Easily has the highest fidelity.

That being said, I love vinyl and tape. If I had more money to collect and have good players for those mediums, I'd probably listen to music more that way. I absolutely love the sound of vinyl, and slightly less so of tape. And there's a lot to owning a physical copy of something. The digital space is really a let-down with that.

That said, gun to my head, FLAC sounds the best.

Whiskey or beer?And defend your choice

If you're holding a gun to my head and asking me to choose between whiskey or beer, I'm pulling the trigger.

This is like asking me to choose between pussy and good food for the rest of my life.

Beer. May the whiskey gods forgive me. Satisfying the oral fixation of dipping constantly and also being able to hold a drink and look cool at parties are just too valuable to me.

We, at the Ripple Effect, are constantly looking for new music. What's your home town, and when we get there, what's the best record store to lose ourselves in?

Hometown is now Nashville. Best record store is Vinyl Tap, because they serve beer.

What's next for the band?

Well, we're touring extensively this year. So catch us at most cities, and several "drive-through" towns, in America this year. And I believe we'll be returning to Ripplefest this year, which is in September, unless something I said here gets me in trouble.

We also have another full-length album coming later in the year, so be ready for that. Josh and I have bandied about the idea of pressing vinyl for this one, and we've actually had a bunch of people ask us if we're going to do it, so I'm thinking maybe we will. That would be pretty damn cool, I think.

Otherwise, same as always. Planning to take over the world. Etc, etc.

Any final comments or thoughts you'd like to share with our readers, the waveriders?

Well, to the Waveriders, I'd say that they should follow us on Facebook or Instagram or wherever they like. Our handle is @theabsurdband on most platforms. Hate social media like the plague, but following really, really helps. Since basically no label will take us (for a litany of reasons), it's the only way we have to get the word out, and we greatly appreciate anyone who does give us that support.

Otherwise, fight the good fight, and remember: music is the best.