Wraths: Music with a sting

Wraths, l-r, bassist Chris Kranes, guitarist Steve McCall, vocalist Jim Lindberg, and drummer Andrew Tyler Murphy. Photo courtesy of Wraths

Wraths, l-r, bassist Chris Kranes, guitarist Steve McCall, vocalist Jim Lindberg, and drummer Andrew Tyler Murphy. Photo courtesy of Wraths

The Sound and the Fury

Down to basics with South Bay’s Wraths

If you ask him about his involvement with Wraths, Jim Lindberg may reply that he’s just the hired help. But regardless of how he’d answer, the mere presence of the lead singer of Pennywise gives any project in which he has a hand instant credibility among fans of hardcore skate punk bands, whether in the South Bay or throughout the country and beyond.

Which is fine, but a little more of the spotlight should fall on guitarist Steve McCall, with a few rays left over for bassist Chris Kranes and drummer Andrew Murphy.

A few weeks ago, Wraths unleashed a punchy, streamlined album with 12 tracks, 11 of them originals, plus “Fix It” by Black Flag, that clocks in at less that 25 minutes but packs enough venom (see the cover) for a record twice or three times its length.

Lindberg and McCall recently sat down in the El Segundo studio where they hammer out songs, and talked about how Wraths evolved and how their record and its sound harks back to the early days of punk rock, thus paying homage to Black Flag, the Circle Jerks, and other local or L.A.-based bands.

McCall stirs, awakens…

“I’d been out of music for a while,” McCall says. “I’d played in 1208 and in some other local bands, and then I was dormant for five years. My two friends were playing in the Darlings (meaning Kranes and Murphy), and I said I had a few songs. We got together and wrote five or six songs.”

But McCall didn’t want to add vocal duties to his guitar playing, so he contacted Lindberg and asked if he knew of any candidates for the job.

“He said, Let me hear it,” McCall continues, “so I sent it over to him and he said, I’ll do it.”

McCall, Kranes, and Murphy were pleased with Lindberg’s response. Says McCall, “That’s pretty much the origin, big bang theory of Wraths.”

Artwork concept and design by Andrew Tyler Murphy. Scorpion illustration by Alex Flynn

Artwork concept and design by Andrew Tyler Murphy. Scorpion illustration by Alex Flynn

Asked what it is about Wraths that gives this lineup a distinctive edge, Lindberg explains that, going back a decade or two, there were several ‘90s skate punk bands (and he mentions Pennywise, 1208, the Deviates, and War Called Peace) “all playing a similar style of music that was really popular during that time, and still is pretty much.” And it was also during those years that McCall, then in the band Pacino, gave Lindberg some of his music to listen to.

“I immediately noticed there was something different than your typical sound that we were all playing,” Lindberg recalls. “He just had his own unique guitar sound and style. Kind of reminded me of the band Helmet. It was more riff-based instead of chord progressions, and I liked that because that was similar to Black Flag. Black Flag had this really explosive sound, but they didn’t really stick to the Beatles formula of verse-chorus-verse.

“And so, Steve’s stuff really stood out for me,” Lindberg adds. “When he contacted me more than a decade later and said, I’ve got some songs, I was definitely interested to hear what he had.”

Although McCall had simply asked for Lindberg’s recommendations for a lead singer, Lindberg never shared or passed along the request. Instead, his response was pretty much “I want to play on this; I’m not going to give this to anybody.” He liked that it strayed just enough from the formula while remaining aggressive and being melodic at the same time. “That’s what I liked a lot about Black Flag and the Circle Jerks.”

In and out

A group can have virtuoso musicians, but if there’s little or no chemistry between them, the records or concerts may never really take off. And without that rapport, why bother?

“After being around the South Bay scene for 15 years,” McCall says, “you start weeding out the people you don’t really want to play with… You have a core group of friends that you like creating music with, and you know what they bring to the table.”

“One cool thing about this,” Lindberg notes, “it’s been really an easy project to work on. We just get in here and play; there’s none of the baggage that a band that’s been around 30 years has.”

“Everyone’s pretty mellow,” McCall says, alluding to his musical friendships with Kranes, with whom he’s been playing for 15 years, and with Murphy, a solid five or six years.

Wraths has performed live a few times, at St. Rocke in Hermosa, for instance, and just last weekend in Santa Ana with Death by Stereo, but their opportunities are limited by other commitments.

“With my full touring schedule,” Lindberg says, referring to Pennywise, “and everyone being busy it’s hard to coordinate, but when we do play we have a good time. It all comes back to rehearsing and putting in the work. Any band that sounds good live or sounds good on record, it’s because they put in the time.

Steve McCall and Jim Lindberg. Photo

Steve McCall and Jim Lindberg. Photo

“We try to get together once a week and go through the set, and when we went in to record the songs at Screaming Leopard studios in Hermosa (produced by the band and Patrick Burkholder), we knew the stuff top to bottom. These guys already had a lot of the music written and we were able to record most of it in one or two days.”

One objective was high on the list:

“It was really important to us to keep the feeling of the live sound,” Lindberg says. “We all feel that with music in general, especially this type of music, it’s a disservice to have too many computers involved. We wanted to keep it raw and live-sounding, and so we went down to the studio and just did one or two takes of each song. I think that some of the bands in our genre just overdo it; they spend three-four weeks fine-tuning stuff and it loses that immediacy. So it was really important for us just to go and bang it out.”

“You can’t record like ELO and then go to the stage like the Ramones and think you’re going to reproduce that,” McCall says.

As for songwriting credits, often a contentious issue when band members think the two cents they’ve thrown into the mix is actually worth a nickel, my impression is that the laurel wreathe largely goes to Steve McCall. However, he seems to demur and says that a seed is introduced “and then everyone will throw some water on it.”

After a moment or two Lindberg steps in. “He’s being modest; he wrote a lot of the riffs and a lot of the lyrics as well. When he first came to me a lot of the songs were completely formed and I shoved some lyrics into them the best I could.”

Lindberg found this process engaging because it differs from his usual approach to songwriting. As he explains it, “I had to work with something that was already formed instead of us collaborating like I do with (Pennywise bassist) Fletcher where he’ll bring in (raw material) and I’ll try and form it into something that’s cohesive. In this case they had a lot of cool jams already formed, just without lyrics or melodies, so I came and did that.

“On some of the subsequent songs, Steve wrote the melody line and lyrics as well. But it definitely was a team effort in the sense we came in and worked on their things and it was very easy for each of us to go ‘You think this part’s cool?’ ‘Should we get rid of that?’ Being a young band, not in terms of age”–he says with a laugh–“it’s very easy. We don’t have to fight about stuff like that.”

Keeping it real

As for the content of the songs, the lyrics follow the music and we can sum them up as impassioned, replete with angst and bottled-up rage. No one’s talking about rock climbing or the beauty of a desert sunset. What’s interesting, though, is that a song not on the current album has a wistful, even nostalgic air to it. McCall wrote the music and lyrics, the tune is called “My Home,” and Lindberg pretty much raves about it:

“It’s about the South Bay and all the development, and the line is ‘What happened to my home?’ I think it’s really pertinent to see what’s going on around here and how they’re losing a lot of our culture. People in this town, especially people who grew up here, have every right to be concerned about the kind of development that’s coming in. We don’t want to be little Beverly Hills.”

For those who’ve lived in the Beach Cities for a generation or two it’s easy to remember a favorite bookstore, coffeehouse, record store or movie theater that’s become the site of a bank or a row of townhomes.

“I don’t want to sound like a stodgy old man who’s saying let’s turn it back to a bum haven for biker gangs and hippies,” Lindberg says, clarifying his view on the matter. “I enjoy it when a new establishment opens up and you can get a nice sandwich somewhere. But they need to keep some balance here and respect for the culture. That’s kind of what the song’s about.”

Sample lyrics: “Just like that they tore it down/ Got no respect for hallowed ground/ Bulldozers don’t make a sound/ What happened to my home?/ This isn’t the South Bay that I know…

This writer is reminded of the last scene in “Love and Mercy,” the Brian Wilson biopic in which the legendary Beach Boy takes Melinda, his wife to be, to see his former home in Hawthorne–only to discover that it was demolished to make room for the 105 Freeway.

Steve McCall and Jim Lindberg. Photo

Steve McCall and Jim Lindberg. Photo

Circling back to the core nature of the music, Lindberg again emphasizes performing and recording it “with as much ferocity and passion and intent” as possible, to convey the desperation and the honesty. And furthermore, “It’s about keeping it topical, and about making music (that) doesn’t have to have a message that hits you over the head, but it’s got to have some meaning to it, instead of just being this kind of pop-punk dribble.”

McCall concurs. “If you’re in a punk band right now and you’re writing about being late to school or that girl that doesn’t like you, get the fuck out of the game. Read the news, there’s a lot of injustice.”

It sounds like there’ll be a Wraths, Volume Two.

“Definitely,” Lindberg replies. “We’ve already gotten probably five new songs that we’re unanimously stoked on.

“I think the bottom line is,” he adds, “we enjoy playing music and we think we’ve got some righteous jams that people would like, and we just wanted to put out (the record) in a way that’s hype-free. That was really important to all of us, and so far the response has been really positive. We’re happy with that, and people have latched onto the idea that we’re kind of trying to pay homage to the early Hermosa bands like Black Flag and Circle Jerks, and that couldn’t be a better compliment for us.”

Wraths debut album is on Bird Attack Records. ER

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