"Zero forethought paired with immediate, impulsive dedication," is what Andrew Pescara, vocalist of Los Angeles hardcore punk band Gottlieb tells No Echo when asked how they came together. "I was a lonely-as-hell transplant to L.A., and one night I threw up some flyers around town. 'LET'S START A BAND. Writer with good lyrics and terrible voice looking for musicians.' The first four responses became the first lineup. One of the guys caught it at a punk shop, two more on instagram, another on Reddit."
Gottlieb eventually released two EPs despite experiencing a revolving door when it came to their lineup. "[Bassist] Dylan [Marquez] and I remain as the two original members (which is a point of masochistic pride for both of us), but we really don't think of the band getting professional until after we added [guitarist] Mike [Carnarius] and [drummer Dave] Chessey last July."
Andrew is clear on describing Gottlieb's sonic approach. "Eclectic, catchy, aggressive, and diverse. We're proud to call ourselves a capital-P Punk band amongst the current hardcore resurgence.
"The four of us have zero overlap in our music tastes, and that comes out in our sound. We've put our most hardcore-inspired breakdowns at the back half of poppy, alt.rock tracks. We've put our GEL songs next to our Fontaines D.C. ones. The only influence we all agree on is Ceremony; not because of their sound, but because of their ambition."
Gottlieb's most recent single is called "Sidewalk":
"'Sidewalk' is the first song we've truly written together with the new lineup. It's capping off a series of three singles that we released throughout the summer, which has been received well by folks who enjoy a broad spectrum of punk shit.
"We're the proudest of this song out of our entire discography because we tweaked it while playing it live for about 6 months. This gave us a level of engagement with the song that we're likely never going to back away from; it's the product of chemistry with each other, with the sound, and with the crowd that we've never experienced before. We also got to collaborate with a photographer named Michael Joseph to make the cover (whose work I love dearly), which is dope."
Gottlieb will be opening for Single Mothers and Monk this coming weekend (Oct. 4th) at The Sardine in San Pedro, California, aka the birth place of the Minutemen:
"We'll just be returning from our Pacific Northwest tour when this article drops, so we'll likely be trying to book in other regions of the country if that goes well! But the main thing coming up is heavy writing mode. We want to capitalize on the chemistry we've built from a busy live calendar in the past year, and from the last three singles. Can't announce what the next release will be exactly, but we're preparing for a split."
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Gottlieb on social media: Instagram
Tagged: gottlieb
