Goofy and aggressive: Plain Oatmeal brings a comedy-grindcore combine to the Holland Mission
6 min read
Grindcore—an excessive mixture of punk and steel—will be intense.
There’s guttural screaming; incomprehensible lyrics being shouted over blast beasts and down-tuned guitar-chugging; and band names like Napalm Demise, Pig Destroyer, Cannibal Corpse and—excuse my language—Anal Cunt.
And now we have now the grindcore trio named … Plain Oatmeal? Sure, it’s true—and it’s secure to say this Reno group is out to perform one thing completely different.
Gus Rivera, Joey “Boey” Stout and Tucker Rash make up Plain Oatmeal, a band the place heavy punk collides with nonsensical and humorous lyrics, creating the funniest mosh pit you’ll ever be part of. Their self-titled launch affords the Demise Grips-reminiscent “Spit in My Mouth,” that includes an Autotuned rant about McDonald’s ketchup packets, whereas follow-up album Foolish Loopy Love is full of moments of a few of the heaviest music you’ve ever heard, together with tune names like “Beef Supreme” and “Paper Bag.”
Expertise this distinctive combine in individual when Plain Oatmeal performs alongside Golem, Extremely and Mescaline Maniacs at 7 p.m., Saturday, Feb. 25, on the Holland Mission.
“There are numerous phases of Plain Oatmeal, and this contemporary model is certainly the longest-lasting,” Rash mentioned throughout a latest Zoom interview. “Plain Oatmeal began initially, earlier than I joined the band, with Joey and Gus right here.”
Stout elaborated: “Gus and I had been in highschool collectively, and we used to take heed to loads of the identical music, and we’d make a bunch of movies. Then we began making an attempt to make music. He was enjoying Fortnite one time and acquired killed by somebody named Common Soup. He thought that will be form of a cool band identify and mentioned, ‘What if we did Plain Oatmeal or one thing?’”
Added Rivera: “Plenty of our influences again then had been issues like Nirvana, and that was form of it, however these days, we use bands like Dystopia and heavier stuff like that to essentially affect our sound.”
After a couple of pre-pandemic releases, Plain Oatmeal determined to take issues extra significantly.
“Early in 2021, we had been all dwelling collectively in the identical home, and we began actually making an attempt to deal with our sound,” Rash mentioned. That’s once we launched that self-titled album. We’re hella happy with that album, as a result of it’s type of the start of us coming into our new present sound. I really feel like we’re beginning to play a little bit heavier, and making an attempt to put in writing the songs that we need to hear and have enjoyable with it.
“Issues actually accelerated for us later that yr once we performed Holland’s Halloween present because the band Mayhem. We lined them, and studying these old-school, fast-black steel songs taught us the self-discipline we would have liked to really domesticate the form of music that we’ve been eager to play this entire time. … Every little thing after that, like Foolish Loopy Love and the cut up with Golem (Petri Dish), was us actually making an attempt to put in writing the form of heavy shit that we needed to take heed to—and I really feel like we actually succeeded.”
Rash mentioned the band needs to encourage “an vitality” in individuals.
“In terms of hardcore, grindcore, powerviolence, it’s very easy to fall into the identical type of tropes and simply type of rewrite songs which have already been written time and again,” he mentioned. “I believe what’s cool about Plain Oatmeal is we take the foundations from these sorts of songs, however we’re nonetheless prepared to have enjoyable and be goofy and make it a extra distinctive sound. We attempt to domesticate one thing that you simply haven’t essentially heard earlier than. … We need to make one thing that’s not solely enjoyable to play, however a minimum of a little bit forward-moving, and has vitality and ethos.”
Combining these seemingly polar-opposite worlds got here naturally because the trio grew nearer. As Rivera put it, the trio “opened up our interior oat.”
“We share a extremely distinctive friendship that I actually recognize,” Rash mentioned. “Once we write songs, we don’t really want to place a lot effort into it; we form of simply blast out a tune in 20 minutes or one thing, and we’re at all times fairly stoked on it. I really feel just like the three of us have an identical mentality with regards to creativity. We’re not essentially making an attempt to take ourselves too significantly, and crucial factor for us is that we’re having enjoyable ourselves. Happily, that vitality interprets into what different individuals understand after they take heed to us, or after they come to our exhibits. We’re not making an attempt to be robust guys; we’re not making an attempt to be the toughest of the hardcore or no matter. We’re simply making an attempt to have enjoyable.”
Among the comedy in Plain Oatmeal’s lyrics will be missed, as a result of the vocal phrasing is usually screams. I requested for a few of their favourite strains from songs, and Stout picked: “Microsoft microwaves are lies / My Minecraft is mine.”
Yeah, the lyrics are bullshit. However the band members mentioned that it’s particular bullshit.
From “Hospital Kill,” Rash chosen: “‘SpongeBob SquarePants / Clifford the Crimson Canine / SpongeBob is my dad and I really like him / Take your GED.’ That’s one among our gnarliest songs, too, when it comes to the breakdown, and the truth that Joe is screaming about SpongeBob being his dad whereas we’re enjoying that—it’s so sick to me.”
Yeah, the lyrics are bullshit. However the band members mentioned that it’s particular bullshit.
“You relieve that strain from your self whenever you’re not making an attempt to make one thing too severe,” Rash mentioned. “Sort of counterintuitively, you find yourself creating one thing that feels a little bit extra truthful to no matter you’re making an attempt to specific. … This band may be very cathartic, and it’s like a launch each time we play a tune.”
A Plain Oatmeal reside present options extra vitality than laughs.
“It will get violent,” Stout mentioned. “There are loads of kicks and punches, individuals leaping on you and drums being thrown.”
Added Rash: “In a enjoyable means. Nobody’s actively making an attempt to harm anyone. We completely break shit, however the factor is, the violence or the aggression or no matter is nothing that we’re making an attempt to do. We’re not saying, ‘Oh, dude, wouldn’t or not it’s sick if we tackled one another onstage?’ If we had been to plan out our performances like that, it could really feel so contrived. It’s only a pure expression of the music, and the physicality of it simply comes effortlessly and finally ends up being fairly aggressive.”
The band attracts a youthful, intense crowd.
“There’s hella younger people who find themselves tremendous into the stuff that we’re doing, and I’m actually super-inspired by them,” Rash mentioned. “These are excessive school-aged youngsters who’re significantly taking cost and main the following wave of music in Reno and music basically. … I don’t take accountability for these items as our band, however it’s fairly obvious that we’re on the very starting of a brand new scene or new motion or a brand new appreciation of heavier music. I simply really feel like loads of youngsters are Plain Oatmeal followers, and so they’re like, ‘Dude, we are able to make this shit, too.’ That evokes me and makes me need to preserve making stuff.”
One instance is Golem, with whom the band is enjoying on the Holland, and who’s featured on Plain Oatmeal’s cut up EP Petri Dish, launched late final yr.
“They’re a few of the highschool youngsters we met as a result of they had been coming to our exhibits,” mentioned Rash. “They’re making an attempt to make their very own tackle mincecore (an easier model of grindcore), however all of them are good rappers. … We frolicked with them one time whereas we had been about to report the cut up collectively, and we’re like, ‘Let’s simply all learn some bars and put a beat collectively and make this humorous tune actual fast.’”
Plain Oatmeal will carry out with Golem, Extremely and Mescaline Maniacs at 7 p.m., Saturday, Feb. 25, on the Holland Mission, 140 Vesta St., in Reno. Tickets are $8. For extra info, name 775-448-6500, or go to hollandreno.org. For extra info on Plain Oatmeal, go to instagram.com/plain_oatmeal.
