Kreamy 'Lectric Santa is a psychedelic treat
“You’re like an art rock band, but you’re not pretentious. You guys are fun!” That description of the group Kreamy ‘Lectric Santa (KLS) came from Chris Cottie (from the Florida band The Eat), and it’s as concise and spot-on a description as one can get when trying to convey KLS’s sonically challenging, yet playful work.
When it comes to sheer wild diversity, few bands are in the same league as KLS. Core members Robert Price and Priya Ray answered some questions in advance of their Friday set (which, according to Ray, will be a “psychedelic hoedown”) at Sluggo’s as part of the annual Do Ya Hear We? festival.
Kreamy ‘Lectric Santa began in the early ‘90s in Miami, Florida as a “freak collective” that was part of the local punk and noise scene but more rooted in psychedelia, post-punk, and experimental music, according to Price.
“Our aim was to be genreless, and for better or for worse, we have melded forms traditionally unmeldable,” said Price.
Within a year of the group moving to Atlanta, Georgia in 1998, Ray sustained a spinal injury from a fall, which left her a wheelchair rider.
“All of a sudden, we were airlifted from a life that we knew of dysfunctional but wildly creative compounds,” said Price. “The days and nights of partying and losing our shizzitte were now focused on Priya regaining her independence and her recovery.”
“To keep my sanity, I brought myself to the cusp of carpel tunnel [syndrome] playing my acoustic obsessively,” said Price, about this period of uncertainty in the band’s history. “I started developing a ton of these instrumental musical sketches I called ‘Sickly Sweet’.”
“The idea was to quickly compose these pieces on guitar, violin, and other instruments and toys lying around, thus capturing that initial spark one gets when a person first writes a song,” said Price, about the ongoing project, some of which can be heard on the group’s Bandcamp website. “We have maybe 100+ tracks. It’s a never-ending obsession.”
Eventually, Price began finding long-distance collaborators for the “Sickly Sweet” tracks, including artists like Peter Stampfel of the Holy Modal Rounders and Tori Kudo of the Japanese ensemble Maher Shalal Hash Baz.
“We’ve utilized several Sickly Sweets on each new release and plan volume one to be released on a label called Crass Lips,” said Price. “Hopefully sometime in this millennium.”
The band’s creative process can take its time, and it’s been more than 10 years since the last full-length album from KLS.
“We like to revisit, add, and revisit,” said Ray. “Our music is really more like art.”
“Or a fine stinky cheese,” added Price.
KLS is working on its next proper full-length album, which will be a concept album dealing with “power, greed, consumption, and the end of the world,” according to Price.
“Unfortunately the narrative, as with the times we’re living in, is under constant revision,” said Price. “I’m trying to somehow keep it funny and absurd and not be too preachy about it, but the subject matter is hardly humorous.”
“I also really don’t want to create music that is too specifically tied to one timeframe and becomes dated in a few years,” said Price. “Like 1980’s hardcore about Reagan.”
Another work-in-progress for KLS concerns Ray’s challenges being a DIY artist with a disability.
“When I decided I wanted to continue doing KLS, it also became very evident to me about how little people understood about accessibility and why it is so important to think about it,” said Ray. “These experiences motivated me to start my grassroots group DIYabled to inform people about disability, and I decided I wanted to make a documentary about disability from my perspective.”
“Navigating the DIY world can be improbable and even dangerous at times, but it’s the lifestyle I choose to live,” said Ray. “If anyone is reading this and is interested in working with us on our documentary, please get in touch!”
Currently, KLS resides in Asheville, North Carolina, and there’s a strong connection between the band and the Chattanooga punk scene, which began with former bassist Andrew Powell’s friendships with punks from Dalton, Georgia in the ‘90s.
“Visiting [Chattanooga] is always like a homecoming,” said Ray.
“On a regular basis, people tell us when they listen to us while driving their cars, they get lost, despite it being a route they’ve driven every day. That’s the best thing to hear!” said Ray, when asked about her favorite bit of fan feedback, and when considering the twisty musical career and quarter-century history of Kreamy ‘Lectric Santa, it seems expected to end up in unexpected places.