Interview by Marina Malin
LA-based ALEXSUCKS are authentic, unpredictable, and unafraid to reveal themselves off leash. Their grity edge is deeply rooted in the skateboarding culture they grew up in, with 3/4 members demonstrating their die-hard loyalty with Thrasher tattoos —a testament to their lifelong connection to the scene.
With their debut album The Gutter (2023) and standout tracks “6 Pack and Cigarettes” and “Can We Forget” under their sleeve, ALEXSUCKS head for their DANCE, PUNCH, CRY tour on March 5, where you can expect to do exactly that. In between jabs at one another and laughter, I managed to get in some words about the group’s journey and their creative expression. Read more to find out who the glue band member is, Alex and John’s love for The Hives, skateboarding lingo, what actually matters in LA, the creative process, feeling like a worm in the sun, and what to expect from an ALEXSUCKS show.
Let’s start off by saying your name and role in the band.
I’m John, I play guitar.
I’m Johnny. I play the drums.
I’m Gun, I play bass.
I’m Alex, and I play guitar and sing.
Can you paint the scene of how you met and how ALEXSUCKS got started?
Alex: I met Gun first through skateboarding and that was our whole friendship at first and all we really cared about. In the early days when I was making music and didn’t have a band, Gun would DJ the tracks and I’d sing over him.
Gun: None of the songs were finished. He would just perform mumble songs.
Alex: When it came time to take it seriously and get a band, we riled up John, who knew a thing or two. We found Johnny at a party.
How did you guys get along when you first started out? What did that initial creative collaboration look like?
Gun: We got along so much better then than we get along now. I’m just messing around.
Alex: We’re just around each other 24/7, so we get sick of each other. But Johnny recently joined the band three or four months ago and he joined in the middle of the tour. When he joined we just started having so much fun off the rip. Vibes are high right now. We’ve just been working and touring so much lately. It’s definitely different because at first it was all just for fun. The first eight songs we ever made together were all just fun and games and then it somehow turned into our full time jobs. Now, we’re like oh shit. We’re locked in and making music and touring as much as we can. It’s all the same fun and games, but with a bit more stress and pressure. It’s definitely a lot more scary.
Would you say there was a specific moment that shifted your energy towards your music and becoming more serious as a band?
Alex: We had played a few shows, nothing crazy. I think for me a feeling I’ve always chased since then was our first LA show at The Roxy which was maybe a year and a half ago, almost two years. It was the first time I heard a full crowd of people just singing all the words back to us. We’ve had shows where some friends come and a few fans but this was our first real show that all the fans were singing, and it was just a moment that was really eye opening and what we’ll forever be chasing. Not to say that we’re chasing the success of things, because honestly that’s not what we care about. We just want to have those experiences and feeling the people’s energy. For me, it’s always been about the show and seeing the people live that are behind the streams or behind the computer listening. That is the best thing ever and getting to travel around with your best friends and meet these people has just been the best thing in the whole world.
I think that sentiment comes across through your music videos. I noticed that most of them are live performances. There’s such a fun energy to those videos. As someone who hasn’t seen ALEXSUCKS live, I’m curious if the videos are reflective of the typical vibe of your shows?
Alex: Our shows can range but we always try to bring it our all and I think our fans bring their all too. The reason we called this tour DANCE, PUNCH, CRY is because that’s what you should expect. When you show up, we want it to be a fun dance party pretty much the whole time. Then we got a few mean songs and you could throw some punches. Then we got some sad songs that should just rip you. Our whole thing is an experience that we are sharing with people. It’s a community.
I think that’s exactly what is so special about live performances. Are there any artists that you want to emulate in your stage presence? Or any shows that have inspired your performances?
Alex: The Hives. I haven’t seen them live, you can make fun of me for that, but I watched the YouTube videos. I gotta go see them, but I quite often put on The Hives’ full live sets and get bummed that that’s not us. Me and John are really on that.
John: Yeah 100%, they’re the best live performance band.
What about their performance particularly stands out?
Alex: One thing that we take pride is that we are not a group of dialed musicians who are the best. We also mess up every show. It’s raw, and you feel it. We want to feel like there’s a human being on stage. I’ve gone to shows and I’m like okay that was perfect, but I could literally just go listen to the song, you know. What you get at our shows could be this or that. I really respect bands that have that feel too. I like how not everything’s played exactly the same.
In a way that rawness lessens a separation between the artists and the audience since you’re able to be candid and make mistakes, but still have a good time.
John: We’ve seen LCD Soundsystem play a few times and that’s an amazing show. All the live synths and everything like that is really cool to see. They’ll fuck up too and then they’ll fix it and just come back. It’s really cool.
You guys live in LA but aren’t originally from there. What was the process of coming into the LA rock scene and how has it shaped your music?
Alex: I think very early on just being degenerates and going to parties all the time was a big shaping thing. We realized that we wanted to make music to be played out and essentially make party music as a band. Garrett is a DJ as well. I think me watching him DJ dance music put it in my head, the way music moves. I’m not a big electronic music guy, I like certain attributes of it. When it came down to finding the sound we were trying to do, we were at these parties and I realized I wanted to make stuff for people to have fun and I want it to be played at those parties. As far as the culture of LA, I talk about my days in Denver at Denver Skate Park. We will never be a band talking about going to places in LA because that’s not what we resonate with. I think we all can agree that there’s a bunch of dorks out here, but we do love LA. LA is sick. There’s palm trees, In N Out, and warm weather all year round. That’s all that matters. The people don’t matter.
John: The palm trees and In N Out is it.
Do all of you skateboard?
Alex: Everybody but John.
John: I don’t skateboard well at all.
Have you been trying to now that you’ve been hanging out with skateboarders?
John: I have not. I was kind of bummed that the area I was raised in didn’t have a skateboarding community.
Gun: You can’t say that, you’re from Seattle. I’m from Cleveland, only 10 people skate in Cleveland.
John: The group of the people I was around did not skateboard, so I had no one to I wanted
Gun: John hasn’t started skating, but he’s starting to understand the terminology more. He’d be telling us to go do like a jump onto something, and we’re like bro, that’s not how you say it.
Alex: That was a gnarly wipeout.
John: I do say wipe out all the time. I say wipe out.
At least he’s enthusiastic about it.
Gun: It gets pretty annoying pretty fast.
Would you say that skate culture has impacted your creative process or music writing?
Alex: Growing up being skating my whole life and being a teeny infant playing Tony Hawk and all those video games shaped a lot of my my music taste. That’s a big part of everything. That mentality of not thinking and doing it, just like we do in skating. We’re not very thought out and I think that is represented in skating because you can’t be thought out.
Gun: Yes, skateboarding has a huge impact on everything. The biggest impact. It’s the reason Alex even likes music was because it was played in all the video he grew up playing everything, skateboarding, skateboarding, skateboarding. Alex is skateboarding *shows Thrasher tattoo* (they all have Thrasher tattoos aside from John).
You have a single that came out last night called “Worm in the Sun.” Can you talk about what that track means to you all and how you approached making it?
Alex: I’m not gonna lie, I’ve never beat myself up more over writing a song. As a writer, I’m trying to grow. It’s hard when you grew up illiterate and failed out of high school and then to write good lyrics and essentially poems, I’m just trying to find new things to say every day without saying it on the nose. I just said a worm in the sun because that’s how I fucking feel: just dried up. I was hyped when those words came. We just want you to dance and feel the angst, but not be like wow these guys need to shut up about their problems. So that’s why the song is disguised, at least for me.
John: Yeah, we love making music that you can just jump and dance to. So you have Alex’s hard writing and poetry and-
Gun: He literally just said that.
John: Ya but over a distorted dance instrumental, that’s just so fun.
Gun: Hell, yeah.
John: Oh, shut up top.
Would you say that the lyrics come first or the instrumentals come first?
Alex: It always starts with a guitar riff and then it turns into an instrumental. Songs will live as an instrumental with a mumble over it for many months. We’ll live with 100 ideas with no lyrics. There just mumbles of the vocal melody and the ones that stick, I go in and finish up. I probably wrote four or five different versions of “Worm in the Sun.” Sometimes the words can come first, but more often than not, there, it’s an instrumental with a mumble, and then I write to that
Is the writing intuitive or planned?
Alex: I write down any term or thing I think is cool. I have a million ideas that don’t make any sense. Then I’ll sing the mumbles and look over this page of lines and I find which one fits. I wrote “Worm in the Sun” and I wrote the whole song about feeling like a worm in the sun, which is honestly a pretty good representation of how I feel. The other day we wrote a song called Hollow Head. I just said, hollow head and I was like boom I’m stupid so I’m a hollow head. I wrote that down and then the whole song written around it. It’s just me jotting down things. That’s new though because in the past we’d make the whole song start to finish in a day and I’d write it on the spot. I don’t think that I can force the words I like anymore as easily, at least for what I’m striving to write.
You’ll be returning to Denver on tour on March 16. What can the audience expect from that show?
Alex: For one, we have blurred radio playing with us. They are a Denver based band and also my little brother’s band. You can expect my parents to be there and their friends who hated on me at first to be there, and now they’re showing fake love.
Gun: You stay ripping on them. Stay ripping
Alex: Dude because you know how awkward it was going home at first and my parents’ friends being like how’s your little music thing? Oh yeah, my son just graduated college. I’m like, oh cool well I sleep in a van and travel around like, fuck you. No but what you can expect at the Denver show is a great night. It’s right by my where I went to high school. I just can’t wait to see our name on the marquee.
Do you have a favorite venue to perform at in Denver?
Alex: The last show we did was at Mission Ballroom, that place was fun and it was a crazy show. That was probably, that’s probably the best Denver show. We also played the Gothic and Meow Wolf. We’ve played, we’ve played a fair amount of Denver shows and then I used to play the bars in Denver as much as I could and call everybody I knew to come.
What goals do you have as artists in the new year?
Alex: My first goal is like, not to lose my mind and spin off the planet. My second goal is to be happy with myself and the things we’re putting out. A more normal goal is to finish the album.
John: I thought you were gonna say a fun fact thing like drink more water.
When can we expect the album?
Alex: The album, when’s it gonna be done? That’s the million dollar question. It was supposed to come out last year but now we got all new songs.
