t.a.c.k., the new orleans trash can punks who love fishing dads

Boom - chuck - boom - chuck. That’s the sound that my dad’s beat up old station wagon makes on the days that it feels like starting up. “Boom - chuck - boom - chuck” is also how T.A.C.K. guitarist Roach describes the simple beat that drives almost all of the New Orleans duo’s songs. T.A.C.K.’s rotary phone microphones and a trash can lid placed tactfully on top of a snare drum add a similarly endearing grit to the duo’s mixture of country twang and primal weirdo punk.

Neither of T.A.C.K.’s members originate from the New Orleans area, but the two musicians have found father figures and new identities here. Roach and drummer Stella, real names redacted, have adopted personas inspired heavily by the local dads who love fishing after a hard week. Most shows feature the two members performing in old trucker hats with built-in sunglasses; their shirts brandish bold statements like “I fought the lawn and the lawn won.” Behind these characters’ humorous image is a minimalistic boot-stomping sound that pairs well with lyrics ranging from fun road trip adventures (“SHOTGUN”) to mental health crises (“REPAIR MAN”). 

T.A.C.K. bang out eleven songs on their first full-length TACKLE. Roach and Stella pack the album’s 17-minute run time tight with jagged baritone guitar, trashy drums, and plenty of shouted vocals. The band’s sound is far heavier than the local country scene that initially brought the duo together. Simultaneously, their nonconformist execution positions them closer to the fathers of many disgruntled youths than uniform-adorning punk purists. Over coffee, Roach and Stella opened up about finding each other, adopting new personas, and the logistics of filming a music video on a moving truck speeding down the highway.

What is the T.A.C.K. aesthetic?

Stella: It was originally just trucker hats and then I was at home in Arizona and I found this trucker hat from the ’80s that had sunglasses attached to it and had a fish on it. I went back and gifted it to Roach. Two shows in, he lost it. We played at a dump and he freaking lost it. I forced him to buy one off of eBay. For a while, I was wearing one that didn’t have the sunglasses attached. Then I took a look on eBay and found a different one that was also blue and white and had the sunglasses.

Roach: Basically, the look is trying to be like St. Bernard Parish, [specifically] Chalmette, dads that hang out in front of the Tractor Supply. A lot of times we like to joke that the band was founded in the parking lot of the Tractor Supply near Violet, Louisiana. It is kind of a fishing dads vibe.

Stella: But simultaneously, an old married couple that can’t stop bickering with each other. [Roach laughs]

Roach, you mentioned Violet. Did you grow up in Louisiana?

Roach: No, I grew up right outside of Cleveland. 

Stella: We’re posers. 

Roach: I’ve been here since November 2017, but I grew up in Cleveland and played in a lot of punk bands over there too.

Stella, what about you?

Stella: I was born in Arizona, but I moved all over growing up. I went to college in Savannah, Georgia and then made my way here. I’ve been here for about five years.

Not being from New Orleans but having spent a while here, what is your impression of the city’s underground scene?

Stella: What's funny is we actually met at a country show because Roach typically plays in country and Cajun bands. When I moved here, I accidentally ended up in the country scene. I’ve always loved country music, but I only play punk music. We ended up at a party and were chatting. We started talking about punk music and laying out our favorite bands. Both of us were like, “Oh my god. You’re my musical soulmate!” That meeting point in the country scene and that a lot of our friends play country and Cajun was a huge influence in why we lean into the twang. Through building T.A.C.K., we entered the punk scene. We weren’t really that deep in the punk scene when we started playing punk music together. I didn’t really know what was going on here. When we started playing, it was kind of like, “Oh, OK. This is what we’ve got.”

Roach: I had played in a punk group here named Chardonnay. But as far as the punk scene, I wasn’t really super active. I feel like New Orleans can be very cliquey. There’s the Ninth Ward punks over here and you’ve got the Uptown punks. There’s a Mid-City scene. I’ve enjoyed getting to play punk shows that have a mix of these people I wouldn’t necessarily see in day-to-day life.

Stella: A lot of our favorite people are not people that it would seem like we would be closest to. That’s what is fun about T.A.C.K. We still play with country bands sometimes but we’re obviously way harder on that bill. When we play with thrash or doom metal type stuff, they’re like “Alright. Y’all are going to play first because you’re so soft.” [Roach laughs] It’s sort of funny because we don’t really fit into anything, but we love getting to play with all the people and getting to enter into all these different scenes and be modular in that way.

Roach: I appreciate more weirdo punk.

Stella: Dummy Dumpster. When we saw them, we were both holding each other with tears in our eyes.

Roach: Growing up in Cleveland, all my favorite bands were people who, just looking at them, you wouldn’t know that they were punkers. They were just normal dudes but they had the craziest, weirdest, most unique punk bands you’ve ever heard. I like all kinds, but sometimes the really hardcore stuff can get a bit repetitive for me. On those bills, they’re like, “You aren’t the heaviest band on the bill so you can go first.” Sorry we aren’t heavy enough for you. [laughs]

Stella: We aren’t in all black and super angsty. I think that leans into the T.A.C.K. aesthetic: us both being people who don’t necessarily come off as super into the punk scene visually. Aesthetically, the punk bands that we love are people who have day jobs. They’re just weirdos who you would never suspect.

Roach: It’s poking fun at the conformity of punk.

What were some of the bands that you were mentioning when you realized you were musical soulmates?

Roach: The big one was Country Teasers. Whenever I find someone that knows of them, let alone likes them, I’m like “Woah. That’s awesome.” Another big one for use was the Gories from Detroit. Those are two of my favorite punkish bands.

Stella: And then C.C.T.V. and I’m a huge Pussy Galore fan. I had been pretty much obsessively listening to a playlist that had all those bands on it when I met him. He was like “Do you know Country Teasers?” I was like, “Someone hold me!” He came to a studio where I had a drum set. I had never played drums before and was learning to play. I had a metal trash can with a lid next to the drum set. He was like, “What is this?” I was like, “Pussy Galore has a trashy set. I’ve always had this trash can next to the set in hopes that it might work.” He sits down on the drums and just picks up the lids and puts it on the snare. It fits perfectly and he just starts playing. I was emotional. On half of our songs, I’m hitting a trash can lid. It’s a sound that is such a specific language that it was like, “This person understands what I’m trying to say with the drums.” It really helped us define some of our sound.

T.A.C.K. has a really interesting mic setup. Could you talk a bit about that?

Roach: We were just going for lo-fi vocals. They’re old rotary telephone mics. We’re definitely not the first to do this. It’s been done many times before, but I was essentially just trying to get that lo-fi sound without having to bug the sound guy or having to deal with a vocal effects processor. I’m sure if I found the right hot vintage mic, it would be easy, but those are expensive so I was like, “I’ll just get these phone mics.” It kind of stuck. I wonder if one day we’ll ever evolve from the phone mics.

Stella: I’m scared. I love that I can just sit down and be like, “I’m good. It sounds cool already. You don’t need to touch it.”

Roach: We’re starting with a shit sound and trying to make it sound good instead of starting with a good sound and trying to make it sound like shit. [laughs]

David Sabludowsky of D. Sablu recorded both your EP and album. How has that process been since you have an unorthodox setup?

Stella: David is exactly the kind of punk we love, an absolute weirdo. I remember he came to our first three shows. We played our second show ever with [David’s band] D. Sablu. After our first show, he was like, “I want to record you guys. I can hear it. I can see it.” He just understood. He is unorthodox as well so he was able to come in and be like, “I have no idea what I’m doing, but we’ll figure it out.” I was like, “Cool, I still don’t really know how to play drums and we’re going to record this.”

Roach: He recorded us on a 4-track Yamaha cassette recorder. Some of my favorite punk recordings are 4-track recordings, of course.

David uses a 4-track recorder in a way that goes beyond just using it out of bare necessity. He knows how to get a little freaky with it.

Roach: I think we were even a bit minimal for him. He was like, “You know we have a few more tracks if you guys want to add anything else! Any effects or overdubs? Extra vocal tracks?” We were like, “No. It's good. Leave it like that.”

Stella: Roach is the one who is all about sound. He is tweaking things constantly. He’s a perfectionist. I’m like, “It’s good. It’s done. It’s just how the universe wanted it. It is what it is and I’m not going to obsess over it.” He’s like “Let’s do it again. This needs to be louder. This needs to be lower.” And I’m like, “I’m going to freak out.” [laughs] I think it’s good that we’re so similar but we also contrast in what we do. He has this creative brain when it comes to sound that I do not have. I have this creative brain when it comes to visuals. I’m a graphic designer so I do all the art for T.A.C.K. It helps create this full entity.

Stella, how does T.A.C.K. compare with your day job work in graphic design and branding?

Stella: T.A.C.K. is pure pleasure, even though sometimes it is business. It’s been fun because we accidentally created these characters Roach and Stella. We’re both private people. You’re going to go on our Instagrams and see a bunch of selfies. You’ll probably find one single photo with our faces for every five years. We’re just not like that, so it was kind of a way for us to have a mask on but not leaning too hard into it. He’s super calm, cool, and collected, but when he’s Roach, he’s so talkative and charismatic. Whereas I’m very talkative and charismatic, but when I’m Stella, I don’t say shit. Stella is pissed. It creates a dynamic where we’re leaning into totally different sides of ourselves.

Roach: People are sometimes like, “Jeez, I didn’t know you had that in you. You were screaming and dancing around!” I’m usually more of a quiet guy.

Stella: In comparison to the design work I do, I do a lot of work for other bands and I like to work heavily within the community so it’s still very relevant to what I do, but T.A.C.K. is fun because it’s totally our own invention. I enjoy finding new ways to lean into the Chalmette fisher vibe we have without it feeling too cliche. Johnny actually fishes in Alaska and he loves fishing. He’s really good at it! There’s parts of the T.A.C.K. aesthetic that are actually very real for us!

Was T.A.C.K. supposed to be a two-piece from the start?

Roach: The whole thing was a very, very happy accident. After we started talking to each other and realized we liked the same bands, Stella had said how she wanted to start playing drums. I was like, “I would love to mess around and play some electric, heavy music. Let’s come over and jam.” The only reason I play baritone guitar in T.A.C.K. is that it was the only electric guitar I had at the time. She had this really fancy delay pedal that I had no idea how to use, but I noticed it had two outputs on it. I was like “Woah. I think I could use this as a splitter.” I plugged it into the amp and into the bass amp. She was like “I want to learn how to play drums,” so I was like, “Do this. [imitating a drum beat] Boom - chuck - boom - chuck!” We started messing around and that was T.A.C.K. pretty much.

Stella: Yeah. That beat he taught me is pretty much the only beat I’ve played in T.A.C.K. so far. I’m slowly evolving, I promise. But our inspirations were the Gories and all these primitive bands. What I like in sound is a very raw and one-two beat anyway so it felt very natural for me. It was an accident that I then started singing. I’m trying to learn drums and now I’m kind of the lead singer for this band. That’s really hard to navigate so I stuck to the one beat.

Roach: You want to be in a band and don’t know how to play drums? Who cares! Just play! We’re going to do it anyway!

Stella: We thought we would have a bassist at one point, but we got booked for three shows in a row during Mardi Gras, literally three days in a row. We had maybe four or five songs that were very short so it was probably a ten minute set…We were just like, “Fuck it. Let’s just do it.” People were so responsive to it. The sound that [Roach] was able to achieve and all the texture that was in it with the trash can lid, the mics we use, the splitting, the baritone guitar actually filled up a lot more space [than we anticipated]. Also, we’re very particular. I trust no one else. [laughs] They could come in but they’re doing what I say because I don’t trust anyone but him. [laughs]

Last year, you shot a music video on a moving truck for “P.L.F.” from your prior EP. What was that like logistically? 

Roach: It was a hot ass day. It was like 100 degrees out. We had to borrow my buddy’s truck and we had trouble getting it started. It didn’t have a license plate on it so we had to take that off of another truck.

Stella: We argued a lot. That was a dark day for Roach and Stella. 

Roach: We drove up to Bayou Sauvage on [Highway] 90 and realized that she forgot a snare drum so we had to drive all the way back.

Stella: It was really hectic but it was a vision that I had for a long time. I wanted to play in the back of a truck bed going down Highway 90 because that song is about me being like, “Fuck all this. I need to go do a day for me.” I text him sometimes that I’m having a P.L.F., which just means I’m leaving and I’m going to the beach. I always drive down Highway 90 so we’ve got to be driving down Highway 90 [in the video], catching the vibe.

Roach: It was definitely a little bit sketchy. You probably can’t get away with something like that if you aren’t in southeast Louisiana. We didn’t have any problems.

Stella: We were literally just driving down the highway. We had our friend Rett Rogers, who is awesome and works with a lot of musicians around town, do the music video. He did it on Super 8, which is why it has this sort of grainy, flickery thing. He was super game. He was sitting in the back of the truck, leaning and almost falling out of the truck, while we were playing as our friend Bekah Raye was driving us. Roach doesn’t like to admit that he is an incredibly creative person. He had a lot of cool visions of us playing on the side of the road and how that was set up. We got some pictures that day. We had to lift all of our gear onto this raised concrete platform that an old house was probably on so that we could get a picture where he had the vision. So much of what we’ll do is I’ll come with a core idea and then he really helps seal in that T.A.C.K. vibe by putting a tire or gas can somewhere important.

One last thing. Does T.A.C.K. stand for anything?

Stella: It does not.

Roach: It does.

Stella: You say that but we never agreed on what it stands for.

Roach: Tactical Armor for Children and Kids.

Stella: I don’t like that. That’s very triggering. I say Teaching Angry Children Karate. It’s much more positive. He was like, “I love C.C.T.V. I love the acronym name. I want something that could be an acronym.” I just walked up to him while we were at a show and whispered into his ear, “What about T.A.C.K.?” Everything about T.A.C.K. was just easy. We found each other faded and just bickered our way through it. It all fell into place super easy: the vision, the characters, the things we wear, the jokes we say on stage. It’s such a part of who we are because it was strangely effortless.

Roach: We’ve played around with having side projects with more than two members. T.I.C.K. would be a three piece. T.O.C.K. could be a four piece.

Stella: T.O.E. Come on bro! [laughs] T.I.C.K., T.A.C.K., T.O.C.K.? T.I.C.K., T.A.C.K., T.O.E.!