Local Q&A-- Fungi Girls

Out of all the new local bands I've heard this year, very few have struck a chord quicker than Fungi Girls, a Cleburne noise pop group that possesses musical taste and talent far beyond what is typical of their ages-- 14 and 15. Yes, you read that correctly. 14 and 15.

Of course, I realized that these guys were pretty young the first time I encountered their Myspace page, but I had no idea they were THIS young until I asked them a few questions for the first installment of a new feature, Local Q and A (something you'll be seeing here on a regular basis). If you head over to Fungi Girls' Myspace page and check out "Into the Cosmos" and "Crystal Roads," you'll realize just how surprising their ages really are-- the group's music calls to mind the Siltbreeze sound of bands like Psychedelic Horseshit, Times New Viking and U.S. Girls, as well as a bit of the shoegaze pop recently popularized (again) by Deerhunter, but they also pack their brief songs with a few charming touches of 90's slacker a la Dinosaur Jr., Yo La Tengo and Westing era Pavement (meaning Swell Maps by proxy), resulting in a batch of songs that are sloppy, noisy and chaotic while retaining a pleasant, poppy warmth that truly sets Fungi Girls apart from similar groups. We wanted to learn a bit more about how these dudes got to be so cool, and here is what they told us:

Could you give us some background info on the band? Names, ages, where you're from, etc.

I'm Skyler Salinas. 14. From Cleburne, Texas, although I grew up in California and Nevada half of my short life. My bandmate is Jacob Bruce. 15. Grew up in Cleburne, Texas all his life. Somehow, we've mastered the "art" of being able to play scene metal and terrible radio country songs, jokingly of course. This goes on a lot during practice. It'll even go on for hours if we feel like it.

Fungi Girls is a duo, right? I just wondered because I saw three people playing at the Muscle Beach show. If you guys are in fact a duo, what made you want to do it that way? Was it just necessity, as in you couldn't find anyone else you wanted to play with in your town, or was it a purposeful decision that less is more?

Yes, we're a duo. That third person was our ex-bassist, Barrett Green. We kicked him out due to some personal conflict between him and I, in addition to him starting to lack in dedication. After we kicked him out, we ended up being good friends again, but Jacob and I decided to stay a duo. Jacob and I are more so on the same page of what we want in our sound, and we both have nearly identical taste in music. Besides that, us two just work together much better as a two-piece.

How long have you guys been playing music? Did you play in any bands before Fungi Girls? If so, what were they like?

I've been playing music since I was 10 or 11, starting in school band. About a year after that, I started playing the drums in addition to that and it took off from there. Jacob has been playing music since he was 12 or 13, starting on guitar. I played in two bands before Fungi Girls, a punky math rock band called Lego Theory with my buddy Deryck, and then Jacob, Deryck, and I were in a improvisational noise rock band called Zooz. Neither bands played any shows nor were there any releases or anything.

Could you tell us a little bit about your songwriting process?

It usually starts with me coming up with a drum rhythm, then Jacob adds a guitar part to go along with it, we decide on the song structure, then afterwards add vocals. Very simple. Our songwriting process ends up being very slow, though, because we usually end up fucking around a lot.

Your recordings are very noisy and lo-fi and raw. Is this a stylistic or aesthetic choice, or is it just the result of recording a quick demo? Or to put it another way, are you recording the way you would if you had an actual "budget" to spend money at a studio?

It's both stylistic and aesthetic. We both love lo-fi recordings, whether they be from newer bands or older bands. We don't ever plan on changing that characteristic. But in addition to that, we are in fact on a budget. Neither of us are old enough to get jobs yet, so we have to bum money off of our parents. That's kind of out of the question if you're wanting studio time.

I enjoy pretty much every single band that you list on your influences section on your myspace page. Can you discuss some of your favorite bands and the ways that they might have inspired you to start a band and play the kind of music that you do?

Psychocandy-era Jesus And Mary Chain, Henry's Dress, Times New Viking, You're Living All Over Me-era Dinosaur Jr., and Psychedelic Horseshit are our probably our main influences. We both LOVE anything that could be considered noise pop. Whether it be melodic/harmonic noise or atonal noise and feedback, there's just something about blending noise with pop music that really gets us off.

I think its interesting that you list John Coltrane as an influence. Obviously you aren't playing jazz, but I wonder what kind of influence he has on you guys musically?

I was the one that listed him and Art Blakey as our influences, as they're more so mine. Jazz drumming really influences me and makes me strive to be the best drummer I can be. But yeah, obviously we're not doing anything complex or jazzy, but I try my hardest to incorporate small amounts of jazz drumming into our songs. Usually it's just little drum rolls that are barely noticeable. Besides that, though, Jacob and I just really appreciate the brilliant musicianship of jazz and hope to show good musicianship in our songs. Although we do love the newer, noisy pop bands like Psychedelic Horseshit and Times New Viking, sometimes we get agitated with their lack of good musicianship, especially the former.

It seems like you have a knack for writing pop songs and burying them underneath everything else you do musically. Do you aim to write catchy pop tunes, or does it just come out that way?

We definitely aim to write catchy pop tunes. As stated before, we're huge on noise pop, as well as just pure pop music like The Beach Boys or The Mamas and Papas.

Who are some of your favorite local groups? What do you think of the local scene in general?

Orange Coax, Silver Shampoo, Wax Museums, Scoff, and Landon's (from Muscle Beach) drone project Glazed Glitter. I personally don't think the local scene is all that great, but it is very homey and tight knit. More particularly the Denton scene that is associated with Muscle Beach, 715 Panhandle, Bunker Hill and the like. As for Dallas and Fort Worth bands, I really don't think there's much hope for either city at the current time. I haven't heard (of) any decent bands coming out of either city in a while.

Do you feel like there are really very many limitations to starting a band in a small town like Cleburne these days? It's not as if you have to travel far to find good music anymore, so other than obvious logistical concerns with playing shows, etc., is anything else holding you back there, culturally or otherwise?

No, not really. We get uhhh...persecuted occasionally, I guess, for being quite different than the mass amounts of rednecks, Abercrombie guys and girls, and scenesters around here. But, it doesn't bother us all that much. The only big downfall of living here is we don't really have any supporting people if we want to set up a show here. We have a small group of ten friends or so that supports us, but that's about it. The rest of the kids here are into shit like Lil' Wayne, Toby Keith, and Bring Me The Horizon.