Droids Attack! - 2013
An interview with Droids Attack singer and guitarist, Brad Van, about the 11th Annual Maximum Ink Halloween Spooktacular!
by Mike Huberty
October 2013
Droids Attack Live!
For the past ten years, Maximum Ink’s Spooktacular has featured everything from GWAR-affiliated MOBILE DEATH CAMP to art-rockers MR. GNOME to a Star Wars-themed Halloween bash. This year, Madison area bands will perform tributes to their favorite artists on Friday and Saturday October 25th and 26th. The Saturday lineup includes longtime Madison hard rockers, DROIDS ATTACK performing as grunge pioneers, THE MELVINS. Together for 30 years, THE MELVINS and their charismatic (and slightly crazy) leader, King Buzzo, have provided the connective tissue that led to the formation of bands like NIRVANA and MUDHONEY, as well as attracting even the mighty GENE SIMMONS from KISS to play bass for some sets with them at Lollapalooza. We talked to DROIDS ATTACK’s singer and guitarist, Brad Van, for a little bit about the show and what attracted them to make their set a tribute to the semi-obscure but incredibly influential band.
“They’re an inspirational band for me.”, Brad says. “Their stuff is challenging enough to pull off where it keeps things interesting too, and that’s the kind of band we like to take on when doing these one off tribute sets. We’ve been listening to them in the van for years now, so if we haven’t bonded over them yet, this gig will cinch it!”
With a name like DROIDS ATTACK, humor is obviously baked right into the band, and it seems that bands like THE MELVINS, whose bizarre sense of humor led to songs titled “Pick It n’ Flick It” and “Chief Ten Beers” (or titling an album Kurt Kobain and changing the name to Prick after Cobain, their longtime friend and supporter, offed himself in 1994) that he would naturally be influenced by them. “Yeah, I’m not sure if that comes from listening to bands like them”, he says, “or from me just being a cynical, sarcastic prick. I don’t know if we’re nearly as clever about it (author’s note: subtlety might not be one of DROIDS’ strong suits when they’ve been known to have a dude in a robot costume bumping into audience members during the show), but we definitely enjoy tossing a lot of inside jokes and humor into what we’re doing. We’re all laughing most of the time we’re hanging out together, so that’s really where it comes from.” And Van closes that sensitively, “I can appreciate some songs about feelings and strong messages, but we’re just not into that.”
DROIDS was one of Madison’s busiest and most prolific bands throughout the last decade, with showcases at South by Southwest in Austin, Riot Fest in Chicago, and opening slots for bands like NASHVILLE PUSSY and VALIENT THORR. Things have been quiet for them lately, but Van is looking to get the band back into motion. He says the’ve been working on “mainly getting this next album out. We’ve been sitting on it for awhile. “We’ve made some changes in the line up adding Darwin on bass, and since then it’s taken us about a year or so to get all the demo-ing for it done. We’re all very busy. Darwin (bassist) has got The Frequency, I’ve got my classic arcade I run out of Rossi’s Pizza, and Tony (drums) been traveling around the world like some kind of high society adventurer. We’ve been spread pretty thin. Right now we’re looking for studio time to lay everything down, and in the meantime we’re also writing again and our show schedule is picking up. It’s been a pretty chaotic last few years with the band, so it feels good to be getting back on track.” And with shows in Oshkosh, Chicago, Wausau, and Green Bay in addition to the Spooktacular in the next month, there’s plenty of chances for Max Ink readers to check them out.
Other acts on Saturday include I AM DRAGON performing a (in their words) a “not so top-secret set of covers” for the night and also Madison’s SKIZZWHORES doing a joint tribute to JOY DIVISION and BIKINI KILL. That’s probably going to be an interesting mashup between two very different shades of rock, English Post-Punk and Pacific Northwestern Riot Grrl. As for what the audience is in store for at the Halloween show, Van says to expect “Rökker Vodka, everything else is a surprise.”
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