Music + Theatre + Blender = Death is not a joyride

words by Nick Courtright
photos by Randy Cremean

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    Lead singer Kacy Ritter isn’t kidding when she says, “We’re trying to push the boundaries of what’s normally expected from a rock band.”  Neither is multi-purpose player Lionel Gonzalez when he declares that the band’s approach is “not from the same planet” as pretty much all other music gathering attention these days.  After all, the five members of Death is not a joyride wear animal masks on stage…and they use abstracted and cutesy-creepy visuals as a major part of their performance…and their stage act is one that could comfortably be called “carnivalesque”…and they have an album whose thematic conceit is so ambitious it’s borderline overwhelming.  And that’s not even mentioning the onslaught of poppy/ happy/ terrifying prog-punk they use to stun and dance-ify their audience. 

   All this may sound like quite a bit to handle, but that’s exactly the point. DINAJ aims to, as Ritter puts it, “involve as many of the senses as possible, to really get the message across.”  It’s rare to see a band so thoroughly incorporate theatrics into their approach: any band that cites acts as diverse as Pink Floyd, Marilyn Manson, and Sleepytime Gorilla Museum as influences brings up all sorts of interesting, graduate school-ish questions.  Questions like, “how much can a band focus on the visual arts on stage before the music stops being the main act?”  And “where is the line drawn between the aural experience of hearing a song on a disc and seeing it live?”  And, perhaps most dauntingly of all: “can pushing the limit theatrically make a talented and sonically intriguing band into merely a traveling sideshow, or worse, a simple novelty?” 

    As one might guess, the Austin quintet—whose debut LP, The Human Zoo, acts as the foundation for their present incarnation as “Humanimals” —has good answers for all those questions.  Violist Andrew Noble, who holds a Master’s Degree in Music Theory from the University of Texas, says, “Maybe you could make an argument that we’re trying to distract people from the actual music, but, really, the actual music itself is pretty unique.”  He’s right on that one, as a short list of the band’s melting pot of genre influences includes goth, post-rock, electronica, industrial, and even classical.  “Eventually,” says Noble, “we’ll have jazz, too.”  Taken all together, it makes The Human Zoo, not to mention the live show, a rollicking roller coaster ride of alternating visceral effects: beauty and ugliness, atmosphere and orchestration, relaxation and suffocation, in addition to any other number of polarizing adjectives. 

   “One term that we really like,” says bassist and founding member Joseph Salazar, “is ‘avant-pop’.  Our music is definitely outside a few boundaries, but there’s still a lot of accessible moments to it.”  As for taking that music to the next level by wearing masks on stage, and building a concept album that includes a three-part opus on “Willie the Gorilla”, Noble laughs, “Well, I guess that’s where the term ‘experimental’ comes in–whatever that means.  But musically,” he continues, “It’s not what-the-fuck experimental rock.”  Despite that clarification, it’s evident that the band knows they’re operating a bit outside the box when drummer John Gouda says, “the music just doesn’t seem weird to me,” and the rest of the band laughs. 

   While most critiques of Death is not a joyride are wholly positive, one review questioned their ability to get their live appeal across on an audio CD, and Noble readily acknowledged that it was fair criticism.  And Ritter goes along, saying, “Touring is important to us, because us sending a CD to someone is not enough to get across what we want people to gain from things.”  And that is that communication—in all its forms—is as valid at a concert as merely playing your instruments. 

   “There is that concern,” Ritter continues, “that we could be pigeonholed as that band that wears animal masks, but for us this is a phase of what we’re doing.  We’re not going to be wearing animal masks for the next X amount of years.”  While DINAJ is coy about their next project—the joke was that it would involve prosthetics, or bionic arms—there’s little doubt their envelope-pushing is not going to stop.  Gouda, who says he’s seen “punk bands that agonize over every clothing decision,” finds the band’s all-senses approach liberating, because “you don’t have to worry about being perceived as cool.  You just have to make sure you’re in tune and having a good time.” 

   Like many bands nowadays, means other than friendship led to the creation of DINAJ—lead singer Ritter and violist Noble were drawn into the act via ads in the Austin Chronicle.  Ritter, in fact, contacted founding member Salazar on three separate occasions before they finally chose to go all in with the collaboration.  Noble tried out for the band as a lead guitarist, but piqued the band’s interest when he mentioned that he also plays viola.  Says Noble: “So that was it for me being lead guitarist,” and the band has never looked back. 

   When the possibility of signing to a label comes up, the band is understandably ambivalent.  Not only are they unconcerned with grasping at a label’s acceptance—noting that labels often get involved only when it will be of greater benefit to them than to the band—but Noble also acknowledges the band’s rather limited marketability. “I can’t imagine anyone’s going to take on an art-rock experimental band that’s about making progressive rock operas—that’s about as far out of the commercial realm as I think you could conceive,” he explains.  But that seems to be beside the point, as Death is not a joyride is doing just fine on their own. 

      When it comes down to it, the band is most interested in having a great time, and providing their audience with the same.  While discussing the name of the band, Ritter inadvertently stumbled upon a sort of mission statement, saying, “A lot of people spend their lives living towards this grand thing that’s going to happen at the end of their lives, but really, life is supposed to be the joyride.  Death’s not.”  And as far as broadening the horizons of rock and roll is concerned, not to mention giving concert-goers a hell of an interesting live show, the word “joyride” seems just about perfect.