The Bay Area has been on a straight heater the last few years. A trend I feel is highlighted by the fact both days of this year’s Sound and Fury Festival were headlined by bands from the region.
Bite the Hand is a name that will quickly find themselves on that list. Today, No Echo features the East Bay outfit and their debut EP, Down Comes the Bay, which released to streaming platforms last week.
Down Comes the Bay is a classic ripper with a modern touch. It is as infectious as it is urgent, as punchy as it is unhinged and as groovy as it is pissed. A sonic companion perfect for such activities as circle pits, bombing hills and flipping off the cops.
In addition to the release of the EP, the group have announced an upcoming California weekend with Sabertooth Zombie that will serve as their first shows.
I emailed back and forth with guitarist Timmy Lodhi to discuss the new record and the origins of the band.
Who handled production duties on Down Comes the Bay?
The tracks were engineered, mixed, and mastered by our good friend and up-and-coming recording engineer Sam Hammond at Sonic Bloom Recording Studios. That fool was a blessing to work with and put so much time and energy into making this EP sound exactly how we wanted.
I played all the instruments except drums, which were recorded by our drummer Jared Cortland, and then Garrett (GVB) and I spent about a month or two writing and recording all the vocal parts at Soundwave Studios in Oakland. We also had our good friends Michael Bingham (Spiritual Cramp) and Cody Sullivan (Sabertooth Zombie) drop some guest vocals on a few of the tracks.
What is the backstory on the band?
I started demoing these tracks out during the pandemic. I had been out of playing music for some time and was looking to finally start my own personal studio project where I had full control of all the music, creative vision, etc. I knew I couldn't sing, though, so once everything was demoed I started shopping the tracks around.
GVB reached out and was super interested, ever since then, we've both collaborated super heavily on the vision for this band. We recorded the EP and got Travis (bass), Kwame (guitar), and Jared (drums) on board for the live shows and the rest is history. Now we just want to take over the world.
Your first shows are coming up with Sabertooth Zombie, how did that weekend come about?
The Sabertooth gigs came about pretty naturally. GVB and I have been really good friends with all of those guys for a while now. I also used to play drums in The Vibrating Antennas with JY and Cody. When we started this band, we knew it'd just be a matter of time before we played a show with them. I pitched the idea of a little weekend run with Bite the Hand/STZ to JY and after a little convincing we got them on board.
Our first two shows will be with them and I couldn't think of a better way to kick-off this project. Plus I know people go coo coo crazy for Sabertooth down in LA so part of me just wants to selfishly witness that.
Is a physical release planned?
No physical release planned as of yet! Hoping to get some hype and see if anyone's interested in putting this record out on vinyl.
We may do a limited tape run in the meantime but we just wanted to get our music out there ASAP. Everyone has some sort of streaming app, it's so easy to get music into people's hands these days. I didn't want to sit around and wait for a record plant to slowly press this.
Whats ahead for Bite the Hand?
Lots of cool stuff planned! We've got the two shows with Sabertooth, tons of good merch getting printed as we speak, more shows being booked for the winter, and I've already started demoing new tracks. We're ready to hit this thing hard.
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Tagged: bite the hand
