Get mellow with them Friday at Barley Taproom
The infamous photo of Glenn Danzig carrying a box of kitty litter and bags of groceries came to mind when this writer heard the band name Goth Dad, but while the name sounds like it could be a ridiculous Internet meme, band founder Ryan Sherrer explained via email, “there’s no real story behind the band name.”
“I used to just write a bunch of band name ideas in my phone, and ‘Goth Dad’ was the only name I had written that wasn’t just terrible,” said Sherrer, in advance of the Hattiesburg, Mississippi group’s free show this Friday at Barley Taproom with the Chattanooga band Lacing.
The dream-pop quintet Goth Dad started out as a solo project for Sherrer as a way to practice his songwriting; after sharing some works-in-progress with a few friends, they started writing together soon afterward.
“Either I or Colin [Cameron] will send the band a rough idea of a song in our group chat before a practice, and then we just play around with it until we’re happy with the song,” said Sherrer about the band’s creative process. “Usually, the lyrics are written [at the] very last minute. I hate to be rushed, but I think I write best under pressure.”
The band picks up influences almost by osmosis.
“We listen to a lot of dream-pop and shoegaze, but I think a lot of influences come from bands that we’re playing shows with frequently,” said Sherrer, regarding sources that can shape the band’s sound. “We’ve played a lot with our close friends in Astragal, Inside Voices, and Hand Out the past year, and I think our new material hints at that.”
Regarding the ups and downs of touring, Sherrer recalled a situation in Utah that could have been an ordeal but turned out to be a fond tour memory.
“Our van’s battery died in Salt Lake City in January around one in the morning after a show last tour,” said Sherrer. “It was 20 degrees outside and there was so much snow. A few dudes from the band Sonnets stuck around with us to jump us off and hang out, but we eventually had to get a friend bring us to go buy a new battery.
“The people we stayed with gave each of us a mattress to sleep on and French toast in the morning. It wasn’t the wildest night we had, but it’s a favorite because these kind people we hardly knew made us feel at home in what would’ve been a miserable situation.”
While Goth Dad’s sound leans toward swirling, blissed-out pop, Lacing’s take on shoegaze favors a heavier, more rock-oriented approach.
“We are currently in the middle of mixing our second LP Without,” said Jerry Reed, Lacing’s drummer, via email. “I can’t stress enough how happy we are with what has been done with it so far.”
Earlier this year, Lacing went into the Dark Art Audio recording studio in Nashville with engineer Mikey Allred, who has worked with acts including Inter Arma, Holy Mountain Top Removers, U.S. Christmas and Yautja.
“Mikey was a wizard with what he could do in the box, and with all the note frequency information that we were throwing at him,” said Lacing bassist Joseph Micolo via email.
“This session was totally different from Bummer, as we did the recording track by track instead of fully live,” said Reed, referring to the band’s 2017 debut album. “This allowed us to overdub more guitar, synths, weird pedals, and a lot more.
“We also had [Allred’s] awesome cats Oz and Rupert to keep us company. Good dude, good times, good cats. We did it over three weekends, which I think helped make it a very relaxing, fun time.”
The new sound is both a clarification and a reaffirmation of previous work.
“Although I feel the new stuff is definitely different than the Bummer era, it feels really natural,” said Reed. “The fuzzy heaviness is fuzzier and heavier, and the atmospheric stuff is way more dreamy. I feel like we were finally able to use the studio as an instrument, which was key to us getting these new songs to where they need to be.”
“This one still sounds like us for sure, all the typical Lacing elements, but everything is clearer, louder, heavier, etc. while not sounding like we just went in and did Bummer 2 or something,” said Lacing guitarist and vocalist Joe Davenport via email. “Our goal was to essentially level up.”