Tub Ring: Accessible but still avant-garde
After four albums, Tub Ring is still out there searching for signs of intelligent life.
The band formed in the suburbs in 1992 and spent the '90s unleashing a number of demo cassettes and CDs. Their early style resembled the sort of punk/funk/pop/alt.metal that ruled the West Coast at the time (see Red Hot Chili Peppers, Primus and especially genre-hoppers Mr. Bungle). 2001 saw Tub Ring's first official album, "The Drake Equation," which boasted production by Trey Spruance of Mr. Bungle/Secret Chiefs 3 fame and the addition of keyboardist Rob Kleiner.
Although singer Kevin Gibson's adaptable voice remains Tub Ring's most identifiable facet, Park Ridge resident Kleiner's contributions coincided with a new direction. Slapped bass and abrupt mid-song transitions gave way to melodic, colorful concoctions, increasingly streamlined and shot through with space-age synth textures. With lyrics often inspired by science and sociology, subsequent CDs continued the band's idiosyncratic mix of cerebral exploration and spastic, sugar-fueled mayhem.
After a seeming eternity of self-promotion that yielded soda commercials, a video game soundtrack and MTV exposure, Tub Ring found a home among the other unclassifiable artists at Brooklyn-based avant-garde label The End Records. Last year's "The Great Filter," a title that follows Tub Ring tradition by referencing Gibson's interest in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI), introduced the quintet's most professional-sounding set to date and reached a larger audience than ever.
Fresh from a run with longtime buddies Mindless Self Indulgence, Tub Ring is currently on the road with horror-loving synthrock duo Creature Feature before hooking up with prog rockers 3 in the fall. Kleiner, who has also released solo recordings, scored video games and films, runs a recording studio and recently made a documentary about controversial Eastern Illinois University professor Doug DiBianco, somehow found time for a conversation.
Q. You've toured a lot for this album.
A. Yeah, we've done a lot of touring in general. We've usually done anywhere from 100 to 200 dates a year for the last six years or so. It's the best way to get your name out there if you're an independent artist, to do a lot of shows.
Q. What is "The Great Filter," and does it have particular significance to the album?
A. Well, our four studio releases have all been named after different theories about the universe and the existence of life throughout it. "The Drake Equation" was made up by Dr. Frank Drake, calculating what the odds are of extraterrestrial life. The "Fermi Paradox" was something disputing the Drake equation, and the "Zoo Hypothesis" and "The Great Filter" are other theories that compete with both of those. The lyrics of our songs are often based around science and physics and mathematics, but not necessarily about aliens or intelligent life forms throughout the universe.
Q. It seems that your coming into Tub Ring really helped the band solidify their sound.
A. Around 1999 or 2000 Tub Ring wanted to be a different band. Nobody wanted to do the stuff they had done previously. They added the keyboards and sculpted a new sound, but neglected to change the name. At the time, we thought it was a good idea to keep the 100 or 150 people in Chicago and the suburbs that knew the name Tub Ring, and we thought that was more important than just starting fresh. We kind of regret that because there are cassette tapes from the '90s that sound nothing like how we are now.
Q. You and Kevin had a more straightforward project called 3-2-1 Activate! before making "The Great Filter." Did that have a role in shaping the new material?
A. Kevin and I had been touring with Tub Ring nonstop since 2001, and it was always looked at as an avant-garde thing. Which is great, we love that stuff, but we listen to pop music, too. We feel like we're talented and we could accomplish whatever we wanted to accomplish, so we tried making some pop music. With 3-2-1 Activate!, we realized it was cool and we liked that vibe, but all starting over and trying to tour with the name changed did was hurt the amount of people that would come to the shows because they didn't know it was us. So we switched it back to Tub Ring and adopted a little bit of that more easily accessible sound for "The Great Filter." We wanted to try an album in that vein, which isn't to say we're going to make all records from here on out that way, in fact it's quite the opposite.
Q. Tub Ring's toured with acts like MSI and Dog Fashion Disco, odd bands that have built strong grassroots audiences outside of mainstream channels. Have you learned anything from observing how groups like that operate?
A. Not fitting in's been the scourge of our career. Places won't give us shows because they can't book us with pop bands or we're way too poppy for experimental stuff. It's been kind of a constant burden because we're all over the place, we're kind of chameleons. Sometimes, you wonder if it's worth the time and effort to market yourselves to people who maybe don't exist. Then you see successful acts doing it like this and it's encouraging. Mindless Self Indulgence has sold millions of records, but the pop world doesn't want anything to do with them. There is a market for this stuff, you just have to go out there.
Next show
With: Dance Club Massacre, Creature Feature, 48Sin
6 p.m. Aug. 28 at Beat Kitchen, 2100 W. Belmont Ave., Chicago
Tickets: $10 in advance, $12 at the door; (866) 468-3401 or beatkitchen.com