Protruders 1, Your Crappy Computer Speakers 0

Joe and Isle used to live in Sackville, New Brunswick, a small city in Eastern Canada, and play in Kappa Chow. They're now in Toronto, the country's largest metropolis and playing in Protruders, a noisey, discordant band that work within the realms of distortion and anxiety.

Their new cassette, Lively Time For Snake Skin Reading is both aggressive and weird. Basic production that's recorded at some ridiculous volume only adds to the angst and fidgety anxiousness.

Jonah Falco, who recorded their first tape Untucked in Nantucket, likens their sound to the electric eels, Tyvek and Home Blitz and their the stripped down guitar rock continues in the same desperate nature.

Take a listen below and read a chat we had with Joe.

Noisey: You used to be called Kappa Chow. Is the name change a rebranding or are you a different band?
Joe: Kind of both. The songs are all different and Ilse and I are the two common members. I'd say there was an aesthetic shift and we moved and got two new members, a lot of people seemed to think it was dumb to change the name, but a lot of those same people have changed their tune after seeing the new band.

Jonah Falco compared you to electric eels, Tyvek and Home Blitz. Are they some of the kind of bands you listen?
Electric Eels and x__x are both big influences. I'm actually about 100 pages into that new Brian McMahon [electric eels] book which is pretty cool so far. Just the way those bands play counter to the logical or predictable elements of the rock band is inspiring. There is definitely a slight change in tact in the lyrics and stuff in our band, but I think that has more to do with our cultural context and how and what being subversive or aggressive means now. Definitely a fan of the weird side of Ohio though (Rocket From the Tombs, Mirrors, Pere Ubu, Devo etc.). I really like Tyvek too for a lot of the same reasons, they aren't predictable like so many others and have a unique and wide approach that somehow all fits together. I'm not too familiar with Home Blitz.

Toronto seems to have a pretty healthy music scene right now. Besides hardcore punk bands are you getting to play with many other likeminded bands?
Yeah, there are some great ones. Some that come to mind are Plasma Lab and Wolf Cow. I mean they are punk in my books, just not hardcore bands. It's also been cool to see luminaries of nearby scenes like Simply Saucer and Nihilist Spasm Band still honking away, live in the flesh, Toronto has a lot of people that are weirdly focused on things I couldn't care less about too. A lot of the shows we've played have been with friends from out east or elsewhere in Canada. But I haven't lived here that long so I don't know, but there are definitely pockets of people both new and old that are doing what they do regardless and killing it.

Besides being bigger how does Toronto differ from Sackville?
It's pretty opposite in a lot of ways. There isn't as much of a ladder in Sackville. If you're around and don't horribly suck or offend everyone you get a chance. Here it is kind of hard to even get a show. But they aren't all that different either in terms of what gets played and Toronto starts to feel kind of like a small community pretty fast. One thing I've noticed, it might be bullshit, but it seems like what is hyped in Toronto is different to what is hyped 'from Toronto' outside Toronto.

It's a self obsessed city and everyone else outside of it doesn't necessarily have access to the ground level of interesting stuff going on within it. But whatever gets picked up by the indie-rock industrial complex that's here dominates nationally. Also a lot of bands here don't play out, they just play here constantly, whereas on the east coast people usually get around within the Maritimes.

Where was the video filmed?
At our friend Micah's jam space in Montreal. The song was released last August on our first tape, probably written around this time last year when we first started rehearsing the band.

The name of the tape is intriguing what snake skin reading refer to?
It's kind of open but evocative hopefully. In one way it's a reference to the design of thing, which is all acetate and spray paint and has different transparent layers to it. On the other hand snakes shed their skin like people with identity and I've been going through some shit where I always run my mouth out of nervousness and I regret everything I say after and think everyone hates me. Its like the perfect combo of being self absorbed and paranoia. So I guess its kind of about dealing with people. But it also makes me think of some kind of sexy or decadent material and the feel of it or the perception of the seductive leathery finish of the objects/people/environment around you.

'Lively Time For Snake Skin Reading' is available now through Bandcamp. 

Images: Provided by band