The boys of The Beets / Photo by Aubrey Stallard
THE BEETS MIGHT be one of the hardest working bands in town. Just over a year old, this Jackson Heights–based outfit plays so many shows—sometimes three per week for the past year—that it barely has time to practice.That kind of effort, along with a recent stint in a TV ad for clothing designer Cynthia Rowley’s Fall 2009 line, consistent buzz from all the right press and recent dates supporting Oxford Collapse has put The Beets at the top of several lists of bands to watch. Including, clearly, ours.
Denying any sort of hustle to “make it,” the band members credit luck as their only tactic: “We’re very hard working but we don’t see it as effort,” says guitarist Juan Wauters.
“For us, playing is really a friendship, commune thing.We’ve just been fortunate to have a lot of people ask us to do shows.”
Drummer Jacob Warstler adds, “For a while, we just said yes to everything and ended up playing some really weird shows, like at people’s house parties or in a hotel lobby in Boston.”
Wauters, a smiling, contemplative Uruguayan immigrant, and Warstler, a demure Michigan transplant and recent artschool grad, show a rare admiration for each other and describe a camaraderie that’s pretty much their band’s sound: group singalongs recorded in a bedroom via 8-track.
“We’re really lucky to play with good friends and get some recognition,”Wauters says. “We don’t stress, we’re all good friends, and we really like spending time together. It’s like we’re playing with each other’s musical idols. Like if you loved John Lennon and then got to play with him every day.”
The super lo-fi pop songs on the group’s debut album, Spit in The Face of People Who Don’t Want to Be Cool, garner comparisons to 1960s garage rock bands like The Troggs. An average of two minutes each, the songs are sloppy and muted but catchy, with boozy-sounding vocals not so much sung as yelled in unison.
The other voice in that chorus is bassist and makeshift manager/publicist/booking agent Jose Garcia, who went to high school with Wauters in Queens and who the other guys claim is just naturally inclined to taking care of their business—“None of us could manage the band the way he does,” says Warstler. Honorary fourth member Matthew Volz is credited as The Beets’ “official artist and muse” (it’s his artwork you see on the album cover) and he’s responsible— according to the band—for maintaining its image though he doesn’t play or sing. “Matt’s a good friend who we always bring to shows. We got sick of clubs giving us a hard time about letting him hang out and drink with us, so we just started saying he’s in the band,”Wauters laughs. “Sometimes he drives us around.”
Late August marks the beginning of the band’s first-ever tour, where it will be opening for Vivian Girls in 10 cities.The Beets played at SXSW and “a few shitty shows along the way to Austin” but this will be the first time any of the guys has ever been to the West Coast and they’re “excited.”
“It would be bad if people came to our shows with expectations,”Warstler shakes his head. “Our songs are loose so we can always play them spontaneously. Juan might go off on guitar and then Jose and I will follow him on drums and bass. We trust each other.”
> The Beets
Aug. 25, Death by Audio, 49 S. 2nd St. (betw. Wythe & Kent Aves.), Brooklyn, no phone; 8, $TBA
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