This Ain't Grateful Dead or The Velvet Underground
IE Weekly
The Warlocks, a band unto itself, brings a different brand of psychedelia to the annual Clean Air, Clear Stars fest
By: Arrissia Owen
Growing up with a grandfather who owned a radio station and a mother who helped run the place, Bobby Hecksher couldn’t help but soak up the sounds of classic rock bands like The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. Surrounded by little else than alligator marshland, it was a welcome distraction for the Florida youngster.
But it was when Hecksher—who would go on to become frontman for psychedelic rockers The Warlocks—discovered punk rock, that his musical maelstrom began to evolve. He tumbled toward bands like the Butthole Surfers, the Minutemen, The Flaming Lips and Sonic Youth during middle school. Things started to click.
“When I heard those bands, I felt like I finally woke up,” says Hecksher, whose The Warlocks perform at the fifth annual Clean Air, Clear Stars Global Cooling Festival Sept. 23 to 24 at Pappy & Harriett’s near Joshua Tree. “I was gravitating toward that sort of music that had more song structure and was leading toward the psychedelic sound. It was raw and cool.”
Fortuitously, Hecksher’s parents packed up and moved to L.A. by his teen years. It was the 1990s and grunge was de rigueur, but he continually found himself drawn to the more experimental side of West Los Angeles’ music scene. One of his earliest gigs was as bassist on Beck’s Stereopathetic Soulmanure in 1994. That led to his time with performance art-rock ensemble Don Knotts Overdrive before joining the Brian Jonestown Massacre, adding guitar and bass on 2001’s Bravery, Repetition and Noise.
Brian Jonestown Massacre’s singer Anton Newcombe was instrumental in Hecksher’s transition to frontman status. “He was a bit of a maniac,” Hecksher says, reaffirming an already raucous reputation. “But when you got down deep and hung out with him, you realized he was really talented and very encouraging.”
It was Newcombe who helped instill in Hecksher the confidence to do his own thing, which inevitably led to his departure from the band for his own gig. “He was very different from a lot of the people I played with,” Hecksher says. Leaving was bittersweet.
“I had always considered myself a bass player up to then. From there I started writing and The Warlocks started from that.”
Hecksher was blissfully unaware of the little known pedigree that went with his new band’s name. “People think I had this huge thing about it, like I knew it was part of the Grateful Dead and The Velvet Underground’s past,” he says. “But back then, I really didn’t know that these other bands had been called The Warlocks briefly before.”
The name just sounded cool, he says. It had teeth and grit. “I always liked the way it sounded and the imagery fit what we were doing—it’s gloomy, dark and psychedelic,” Hecksher says.
The Warlocks are five albums deep into a career that has weathered various band members and three labels. The current lineup—Hecksher, guitarists JC Reese and Earl Miller, bassist Chris DiPino and drummer George Serrano—is on San Diego-based label Cargo Records. Its most recent release, 2010’s Rise and Fall: EP and Rarities, is a collection showcasing the band’s decade-strong feedback-fueled noise rock.
The label, which boasts a large roster that includes Brian Jonestown Massacre, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart and more, has a huge presence overseas, building on The Warlocks’ European fan base cemented during its time on Mute Records.
“We’re like The Beatles in France,” Hecksher jokes, as befuddled as anyone. “I asked some French fans to explain it to me once, and they just kind of said that it’s the way the words translate to them.”
The Warlocks perform with Adam Franklin and Bolts of Melody, the Black Ryder, Icarus Line and more at Pappy and Harriett’s Pioneertown Palace, 53688 Pioneertown Road, Pioneertown, (760) 365-5956; www.cleanairclearstars.com. $20-$30.
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