The Rising: Intro5pect

Classified ads. Industry contacts. MyTwitFace callouts.

These are some of the traditional channels through which underground bands find new members. (And yes, social-networking has been around long enough now that it can be deemed “traditional.”)

But a house party? Not exactly the kind of place you’d expect to form the next incarnation of your band. Drink some booze, horse around, throw a television out of a third-story window, sure. But connect with a future bandmate? That’s not usually on the party agenda. Not even if Kid ‘n Play are planning to show.

Then again, the house in question was no ordinary house. Some have ghosts. Some have mirth. But the one we’re going to tell you about had something different: hardcore music lovers residing therein.

Back in ‘04 or ‘05 - it’s all a bit hazy - a band of electronic-obsessed punk nihilist vagabonds called Intro5pect showed up to play a show at this house in Reno (yeah, yeah, the Biggest Little City in the World, we’ve heard it a million times).

At that point, Orange County’s Intro5pect had been around for a spell, five or six years - again, it’s hazy - and were already familiar with the place, having played there in the past. See, Reno, being a gambling town and all, had - and from all indications still has - a problem with all-ages venues. The problem being that the city had (has) virtually none of them.

But because some people who aren’t of age still like live music and all (imagine that), a group of music lovers fulfilled their civic punk duty by reconfiguring their basements into faux venues where traveling bands could play, get some Zs, merrily fill their bellies with food and drink, whatever. The house had a sloping driveway, which was perfect for bands who needed some kind of ramp to truck their equipment in and out.

Intro5pect had fun playing there the first time, but it wasn’t an especially memorable performance or anything. It was, after all, a small show for a few dozen people in a basement.

But the second time around, something special was in the air. Or the water, maybe.

A band called the Fidels, who had broken up, decided to come together for a one-off reunion show because they were so psyched to see Intro5pect play. So psyched that their keyboardist, Sara Zaidi, just had to approach them afterward and spill her love of the band to frontman Dave Small.

“At that time in my life, I was first getting interested in electronic music,” she told IndiePit in a recent interview. “I’ve always been a fan of rock and harsh [music], and I took piano lessons my entire life. So when I heard Intro5pect, it was incredible for me, because it had the energy and the fast-paced stylings of punk, but it had a lot of electronic influences.

“And I recall just staring at our drummer, trying to figure out - ‘Are they using triggers?’ I was so fascinated by all the samples, and after the show, I went up and talked to Dave.”

“For a long time, we’d been looking for a keyboard player that could play the kind of music we wanted to,” Small added, in the same interview (it was one of those conference-call deal-i-os). “She was exactly what we were looking for, so we said, ‘If you want to move to California and join our band, let us know.’

“We were serious, but it was kind of a joke, because we never thought it would happen. And then, six months later, we were looking to go on tour again, and we were looking for someone to play keyboards. We randomly gave her a call, thinking she’s say no, but … she happened to say yes. And she’s been in the band ever since.”

—–

Rewind to 1999 or so, way before Small had even imagined having other people be part of his music project. A frothing fan of classic punk (the Clash and Minor Threat in particular), industrial (Skinny Puppy in particular) and electronic music (Atari Teenage Riot in particular), he started piecing together songs in his bedroom - like any good DIY upstart - and palled up with GC Records for an early 7-inch release, “Education” (’99).

“It always annoyed me that most of the industrial-electronic stuff wasn’t political at all,” he confessed. “I’ve always been interested in socio-political issues, and I’ve always thought keyboards, synthesizers and drum machines were an entire aspect of music that a lot of punk bands completely overlooked.

“So I just went about making the music that I wanted to, incorporating different elements from all these genres.”

After quickly pulling the trigger on the project - he started playing gigs too - Small found Intro5pect drawing loads of interest from musicians who were interested in joining the band. Unfortunately most of those musicians also turned out to be unreliable.

“I don’t think I was taking it that seriously at first, and then it just kept going, and people kept wanting to be involved in it,” he said. “Originally, it was going to be more of a solo thing - but it’s pretty impossible to do live shows solo. Also, I’d been in different punk bands before, so doing solo stuff, you miss the camaraderie of doing it with people who have the same interests.

“[But] it’s a different sound, using electronics. We had to find people who are into punk stuff but also open-minded enough to do something different. And then [you also] have to find a group that’s in it for the long-haul. It’s hard to find.”

This went on for the first five years or so of the band’s existence, Small sweating it out like this. And it wasn’t until about a year after that point that a lineup fully fermented - the same lineup, more or less, that has carried through to today. That also includes guitarist Chris Mann, who has been with the band for about seven years; and drummer Donny Morris.

Delivering another hit to the band, its longest-serving bassist, Gregg Armen, split last year. But that facilitated the entry of Landon Hell, who brought in some fresh perspectives. And he also helps take care of management and booking issues.

For most bands that haven’t really been formally bound to a label, those issues might be a triviality. But thanks to collaborations with Anti-Flag and Leftover Crack, Intro5pect have gotten a little bit of a leg up (so, then, a toe? Never mind).

“When we were putting out our first album, we made some demos and sent them to a bunch of labels,” Small recollected. “We didn’t hear back from most of them, but one of the ones we did hear back from was A-F [Anti-Flag's record label]. I’d been listening to Anti-Flag for a number of years, and one day happened to be driving down the road, and got a call from [frontman] Justin [Sane]. He really liked the demo and offered to produce it and put it out on A-F. So he flew out here, produced the first album and added a couple of vocal things to it.”

“He’s been an unfailing cheerleader for us,” Zaidi chimed in. “He’s always there if we have a question or if we need advice or input on songs.”

And the band has needed advice, especially over the course of the past year or so. If Intro5pect’s long list of problems were a musical composition, losing Armen was only the sonata.

“We all had some personal issues to content with - for example, my father was pretty sick this year,” Zaidi shared, also mentioning that the band’s van got impounded. “It was a snowballing effect.”

That growing snowball soon outweighed any of the progress they had made on writing their next album, which they had planned to support with a tour - a tour that they had already been, well, planned. The snowball crushed that too, forcing them to scrap the U.S./U.K. trek.

“This year has definitely been the hardest one for the band,” Small admitted. “Pretty much everything that could go wrong went wrong for about six months or so. We had unbelievably bad luck with everything.”

—–

And that brings us to, well, today. The band isn’t just in recovery. Intro5pect are fully healed and ready to kick some balls.

Yesterday, they released a new EP, Record Profits (GC). This winter, they plan to tour. And then comes their new studio full-length. Por fin, as they would say south of the border.

“Hopefully [we'll] release the full-length in March or April -” Small started.

“- I think we’re talking about May,” Zaidi interjected.

“OK, May,” he laughed.

“The EP is our way of saying [to our fans], ‘We promise an LP’s on the horizon, guys. We’ve been hard at work on quality music.’ “ Zaidi added.

Plus, they had too many songs for the full record, so the EP is a sly way of slipping out the spares. Fans should expect to be treated well by the material, since Intro5pect are known to shred entire first drafts if they’re not happy with how the song schematics are designed.

And what to expect from the LP, even if it’s still being hammered out? For one thing, look forward to even more pronounced political content.

“We talk about wage slavery, government misdirection with propaganda,” Zaidi said.

If you have any questions as to Intro5pect’s political ethos, this should probably answer more of them:

Small - who handles recording and mixing for the band - is still braving Orange County’s arch-conservatism, somehow. Even if he’s one of the more politically attuned punks we’ve met as of late.

Zaidi is too, and like Small, she doesn’t cower from declaring her views (as so many bands we’ve talked with lately do).

“I’m a political-science major, so going into Intro5pect was a natural fit for me,” she said. “It’s great, we have really fascinating discussions. I definitely enjoy it more [than writing songs about] broken relationships or whatever. I’d rather make use of this incredible chance that I have, and this venue that I have, and make it worthwhile.”

And really, that’s in a nutshell all Intro5pect are asking for - to be able to connect with the people who dig them, to say their piece to those people … and to be able to make a living doing it.

That’s right: Their collective ambitions are no loftier than simply being able to make music for a living. And that’s the sign of true music lovers.

“It seems the goal for a lot of young bands is to get famous instead of putting out good music,” Zaidi said. Meanwhile, Intro5pect are keeping it real: “It would be ideal to be able to continue to put out music that’s very thought-provoking - and to be able to quit our day jobs.”

(For more, including streamable songs, go to Intro5pect’s IndiePit profile.)

And don’t miss these past editions of “The Rising”:

Made in Mexico
The Horse’s Ha
Rainbow Arabia
Brian Bonz
The Drums
Too Many Daves
Mountanaka
The Hero and the Victor