mod lang make pop rock for mothers and meatheads alike

On a frigid January night in Detroit’s Cass Corridor, I’m mercifully let into Third Man Records, and out of the cold, an hour before doors. I walk in on Detroit pop rockers Mod Lang performing that most intimate and sacred rite: the sound check. They’re just wrapping up the chorus of one of the new songs and, feeling like I’m witnessing something I shouldn’t be, I awkwardly pretend to browse black and yellow mugs, yellow and black guitar straps, and Raconteurs LPs. After the song, the band and the sound guy, Cameron, begin trying to diagnose a clicking feedback that, while always annoying, occasionally sounds pretty sick. “This is Kraftwerk,” Alex jokes. 

Feedback sorted, Beej attacks the kit and, like nothing happened, the band launch into “Without You” from the excellent snap! crackle! pop! where the action is vol. 1 like it’s the middle of their set. Ava asks Cameron for “a kiss of snare,” later amending it to “a Valentine’s peck.” I begin earnestly developing the opinion that the sound check is actually the only true way to experience live music.

I’m writing a much worse, much more annoying intro in my head when they rip into the chorus of “What I Can’t Have,” the stellar opener off their upcoming debut album Borrowed Time. After a makeshift medley of “She Loves You,” a second Beatles song I can’t recall, and a truly memorable rendition of “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” they decide they sound good, and they’re right.  

Antonio gets off the stage and introduces himself to me and we walk by a cozy lounge area in the back of the venue and into what I can only assume is the most luxurious green room situation in any non-arena venue in the state of Michigan. Naturally, when the time comes to gather the rest of the band and sit down for the interview, we choose a six foot by six foot liminal space connecting the green room to a large, hotel-style bathroom. Later, when Sharp Pins’ Joe Glass politely interrupts the interview to cut through the space looking for a towel, I learn there’s also a shower in there. 

During the interview we talk about the importance of pop music, gush about Ween, and honor our mothers. We welcome two surprise visitors, one from this realm (the aforementioned Glass) and one from beyond! We don’t go into Alex and Antonio’s Call of Duty: Black Ops III Zombies addiction, and there are two reasons for this. The first is that I’m a bad journalist and the second is that I had already wasted a substantial portion of their interview time waxing on about how much I love Ween. And I’m doing it again here. Fuck!

We all know what mods are, but what’s Mod Lang, I couldn’t find anything on the internet

Beej: Didn’t do the homework! [everyone laughs]

I tried to!

Ava: If you have to ask, you’ll never know. 

Antonio: Directly, it’s a Big Star song off the album Radio City, but Mod Lang is also short for modern language

Alex: It was a class that Chris Bell was taking at community college and thought would be a cool name for a song. 

Antonio: I think it’s a great song, but the aspect of modern language is also cool, because Mod Lang was a new step for me in life and in music. 

Ava: It was almost Kanga Roo.

Antonio: Yeah, Ava and I were looking through song names, because we were like “so many cool bands are secretly named after song names,” so we went through albums and albums like “oh that’s cool, is that used?”

Ava: We were at Kyle and Shelby’s house [of 208] and there was a book and Kyle was like “open the book and the first thing that you point to,” and we flipped it open and it was Kang a Roo and there’s a Big Star song called “Kangaroo” that rocks, but then Antonio was like “what about Mod Lang?”

Sounds like some Rick Rubin shit.

Antonio: Just open the book, take your shoes off, and make some banana bread!

Ava: Where’s my latte? [everyone laughs]

There’s something in the ether right now with what I guess you’d call  a ’60s revival. Do you think there’s a reason for that? 

Antonio: I think all of us have always been obsessed with ’60s stuff, but speaking for me personally, it was always like simple, garage, kind of meathead hard rock shit. But as I’ve gotten older, I’d see more bands that were poppier, like Shadow Show [one of Ava’s other bands] or Secondary Colors [Alex’s other project that Antonio joined] and that inspired me a lot. I discovered a lot more ’60s pop from there. All the songs that did the garage rock stuff had the pop hooks, and I just never paid attention to any of that. 

Alex: Pop music is awesome and its progression is really cool. I was just listening to Wire yesterday and I forgot how good they are. And it’s super poppy. There’s so much pop that I’ve neglected, until the last couple years, that extends past 1975. 

Antonio: Yeah I hated the Flamin’ Groovies, I know that doesn’t make sense.

Ava: Off the record, off the record! [everyone laughs]

Antonio: When I was younger, I was like, “Why is this so clean? This is so lame.” Like I said before, I was so into the fuckin’ [meathead voice] meathead shit. 

Beej: You like a good guitar tone. 

Antonio: Maybe that sounds mean to say meathead, but I embraced it, honestly. But I also neglected the clean, hooky pop stuff and have grown into liking it. 

Beej: We’re gonna get picketed at our next show [everyone laughs]. Jocks against Mod Lang.

Alex: We’re gonna have the nerds. The nerds are gonna get our side. 

Antonio: I love meatheads but meathead does just sound like a really mean way to refer to it.

Beej: Can you redact the word “meathead”?

It just makes me think of Meat Loaf

Antonio: Imagine sticking your guitar cable into a meat loaf and the tone that comes out is [approximates sound].

Ava: On top of being interested in the music, you’re learning how to play songs that other people have made and you just go from there learning to play the songs that you listen to. And now we can listen to songs from all decades: the deep cuts, the nuggets, where it’s cool to post a YouTube link on your Facebook ten years ago—the song no one knew about. Things that weren’t brought to the masses are now accessible in a different way, so I feel like that’s why people are able to feel inspired by stuff. 

[The lights begin flickering in our tiny room]

Alex: We’re being haunted.

Beej: Jack.

Ava: He’s like, “When are you gonna say it?”

Antonio: “Who said meathead?”

It’s like that Tages song you guys had on your Instagram once.

Ava: “I Read You Like an Open Book”? I love that song. Aren’t they from Sweden?

Yeah, we’d have never heard that!

Ava: [sings] “Yeah, yeah, yeah.” It’s like the Turtles.

The Turtles are the other band I was thinking of a lot while listening to you guys. That Battle of the Bands record. 

Ava: That record is so good! “Buzzsaw,” now that’s a meat-head song. 

That record is like listening to Ween. 

Antonio: Dude, Ween are so good, I love them

Beej: I was literally thinking about giving Ween a chance the other day and I told TY [another band he drums for] and they were just like, “No.”

[Antonio and I spend 3 or 4 minutes convincing Beej not to listen to his TY bandmates and to accept Ween into his heart]

Antonio: Anyway, the heavy stuff in my life led me to a lot of the pop stuff as a teenager. 

Beej: So now it’s just: “Rock'n'roll is cool.” [everyone laughs]

Beej, you produced the record right? 

Beej: Yeah, for the most part. We all were bouncing stuff back and forth, but I was the one who…

Made it sound the way it does?

Beej: Yeah.

The record sounds so authentic to you guys without trying to sound authentic to an era. To me it was the “la la las” on the first track or the “wah wah wah” on the third track that really made it click. How important was it to get those little things right to serve the whole? 

Beej: How we went about making the record was we recorded all the bass tracks at once and then they started working on all the vocals and overdubs a couple months later. 

Alex: And we got really into Black Ops 3 Zombies. [everyone laughs]

Beej: And I think in all of the original tracks there wasn’t any of that ear candy, it really just happened in the overdub process. I thought it was pretty important to keep it. “Cocamoda” has those “wah wah” moments and I think Antonio and Alex had a lot of cool stuff that they’d question. I think the “wah wah” Antonio did not want. 

Antonio: We did a different version of the “wah wah.” Maybe we said a different word? It was a lower harmony and I remember it reminding me of Harry Nilsson. 

Beej: And we like the Nilsson records and Ram by Paul McCartney and all these really human-sounding records. It doesn’t matter how you produce the records, at the end of the day you’re putting mics in front of a source. And the source is us, so it sounds like us. 

Antonio: It was cool to have Beej do the album, because he’s recorded a bunch of his other bands [TY, Fen Fen]. So he knows how to record right to analog or with digital or using both—working smarter not harder. I remember when we were writing songs, he was like, “hey, who’s recording the album, because I wanna record a band that’s like the ’70s.” Not clean, but…

Beej: ’70s hi-fi!

Antonio: Yeah! And also he’s just a wiz at it. [they all applaud]

Beej: I’ve always just recorded punk bands or bands that I sing in, and I don’t sing like these guys. [laughs]  I thought it would be cool to do an album where I’m not afraid to just shove the vocal right up in your face. 

Antonio: I was afraid to. [laughs] 

Beej: Instead of just burying it in effects and making it sound like guitar or something. 

Ava: [robotically singing] “Take me back to the future.”

Alex: “Common man, scum of the earth.”

Alex and Ava: “Only wants to multiply.”

Ava: Beej has so many recordings, but…

Alex: Future Drugs is so cool.

Antonio: Future Drugs!

Ava: There’s one Future Drugs album that he recorded and produced, it’s like 95% all him and it’s probably like the coolest record ever.

Alex: It’s really good.

Antonio: It’s recorded so well, too. I feel like my “meathead” thing sounded mean. 

Ava: But you’re saying it as a meathead. You’re like baloney, or salami.

Beej: I’m confident in the words I say. Put ‘em all in there. Cancel me, I dare you!

Unlike Fen Fen, TY, and COFFER, this is one of the first Detroit things that I really love that I can send to a lot of people in my family and be like, “You’ll really like this.” How do you guys feel about that? 

Alex: I love hearing that we’re family-friendly. 

Antonio: That’s very much a thing. My parents like music, but they’re Albanian, so they never knew rock’n’roll. They knew I was in Mod Lang for a long time and they’re like, “Hey, what’s up with your music?” and this was when our album was pressed and I realized I never sent them the album. I sent it to my mom and she was like, “Oh my god, I love it!” She sent it to my family, because it’s like poppy and my other band was more like rock shit, like garage rock…

Meathead shit.

Antonio: It was meathead stuff, and my mother’s not a meathead.

Ava: That’s a Frank Zappa song. [everyone laughs]

Antonio: My mom sent it to my aunts and uncles and I was at a family party, everyone was hanging out in the garage, and I walked in and they were all listening, and I was like: “Stop.” I get so embarrassed. 

Beej: Ava’s band, you could share that with your family. 

I showed my dad Shadow Show. 

Ava: But have you played the records in reverse? 

Oh, I gotta do that.

Antonio: Just be prepared.

Beej: It’s like Little Nicky

Ava: Yeah, the Chicago part. 

“Oh my god, Chicago kicks ass!” [everyone laughs]

Ava: It’s really great to have a broad audience and, although it’s not intentional, there’s nothing wrong with it being favorable to many people. The more people that you can communicate with who have a positive reaction, that’s just a beautiful thing to put out in the world. We’re not intentionally making music for your mom, but your mom will probably like it.

Beej: That’s a good promo!

Alex: [to no one in particular] I’ve been making music for your mom.

On the second or third album you guys definitely need to have a song that’s really stupid. I’m talking “Happy Jack,” “Magic Bus,” “Yellow Submarine…” [Everyone laughs and Ava starts singing “A Quick One While He’s Away.”]

Antonio: We’re working on something.

Beej: We’ve got some silly stuff.

OK, good, I was listening to “Supersonic Rocket Ship” and I was like, “This is what they need. A really stupid song.”

Beej: You could be our manager.

Ava: Yeah, every ’60s band had a shanty song or some shit. If not a shanty, perhaps a jaunt. Or, if not a jaunt, probably like a doo-wop fuckin’ thing. There’s one song in every catalogue that’s like, “Why are they talking about sailin’ on a ship?” There’s this album by a band called July and there’s one track [“Jolly Mary”] that’s so fucking awesome but the lyrics are like: “Sailing on a ship and the captain and the doot doot beep beep,” but it’s the most psychedelic shit you’ve ever heard. 

Alex: I think it would be good to write a song about that. “You could be our manager.” [singing] “You could be our manager, we’ll have you join the band.” 

Ava: [singing] “And if you are someone’s mom, you could be our momager.” [she stops] Are you getting this?

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