Words: Callie Petch
“Fun.” That’s the word which Greg Katz, vocalist/guitarist of Los Angeles indie three-piece Cheekface, most uses during our 40-minute Zoom interview together ahead of his band’s first full UK tour.
He uses it to describe the two sold-out London shows they played last year which precipitated this trek. He uses it to describe their relentless touring schedule which has seen them criss-cross the US a few dozen times already. He uses it to describe their songs; sardonic, witty, bouncy indie jams which all sound like instant unmistakeable classics in the same way that Dismemberment Plan, Cake, and They Might Be Giants songs do. He uses it to describe the guiding ethos behind his and bassist/vocalist Amanda Tannen’s writing process from beginning through to album #4, It’s Sorted, which surprise-dropped in January. He uses it to describe their striking uniform visual designs, all done by graphic designer Tannen. He uses it to describe the act of playing on-stage with Tannen and drummer Mark Edwards. And he uses it to describe our conversation at time’s end.
A not particularly varied word cloud. But it speaks cleanly and directly to the appeal of Cheekface. Katz, Tannen, and Edwards are all in their 30s, having lived full industry lives beforehand – Katz as an A&R, Edwards in various L.A. bands, Tannen in mid-00s indie buzzers stellarstar* – and, in Katz’s own words, considered themselves retired musicians when they finally connected. Rather than overthink things or stress themselves out trying to play wider games and ride trends, they chose to just do whatever came naturally and felt most fun to them. So, you get big bright power pop jams about suburban paranoia (“Popular 2”) sitting right next to hip-shaking LCD Soundsystem groovers with a pre-hook where Katz shouts “we found your social security number on the dark web” (“Grad School”). A wry playground chant about America’s obsessive interference in the Middle East (“You Always Want to Bomb the Middle East”) follows a 90-second interlude that’s just the trio yelling “a big cup of noodles” over and over again (“Noodles”). Gigantic hooks, funky basslines, charmingly dinky keyboards, and dryly-delivered vocals are a given on every song, which makes the slight variations all the more noticeable.
Cheekface are indeed fun. A hell of a lot of fun. An ever-growing cult fanbase with their own self-chosen moniker, Cheekfreaks, can attest to that. Katz doesn’t want to speculate on why their fans are so passionate – “the way they connect is the way they connect, and it’s for them to talk about…” – but, speaking for myself, it’s that honest authenticity. You can tell that these guys are just being their genuine dorky selves at every turn, having as much fun making this music as I do listening to it. It’s infectious, it’s charming, it’s Cheekface, it’s sorted.
Below, Katz talks about how the songwriting process hasn’t changed in the five years since debut Therapy Island, his shock at these songs finding a loving home, the decision to just release whatever whenever, and whether or not The Colour and the Shape is better than Nevermind.
Photo by Pooneh Ghana.
This interview has been lightly edited for flow and clarity.
First proper UK tour coming up. Excited?
Yeah, I’m really excited! It’s cool that we make this weird music and then we get to go play it for people on the other side of the ocean. It’s really awesome!
You did two sold-out dates in London last year. How did you find the energy at those shows? Were you surprised that so many people came out?
In some ways it felt like being at home. It had the energy of the Cheekfreaks that we are used to from playing in North America. So, it felt nice to feel like that on another continent.
Is there a reason why now is the time that you’ve been able to organise a full UK tour? Did that one Twitter account finally bully you into doing it?
*laughs* That’s exactly what happened! Next question!
Bullying works!
So, we did those two shows last year with a company called Crosstown Concerts who afterwards went “hey, anytime you wanna come back, just let us know!” Maybe a week after those shows, Manchester Punk Festival reached out and asked “you guys wanna come do the Fest?” If we can book a few more shows, hopefully we can break even, so we went right back to Crosstown with “you remember last week when you said that you’d have us back anytime? *laughs* They wrote right back saying they were right on top of it. And now we’ll be there in just a few days!
You surprise-dropped It’s Sorted back in January after releasing singles throughout 2023, which all ended up being on the then-unannounced album. Similar sort of deal with Too Much to Ask in 2022. Is there a methodology to when and how your release? Or do you just drop songs when they’re done and turn it into an album when you’ve got enough of them?
That’s pretty much it, there’s not a lot of calculus. We’ll try to write a song and, if it’s one we think we like, we’ll record it right away and try to get it out as fast as we can. We are not the kind of people who wanna wait around on music that we’re excited to share. For some bands who are on a record label, the label will be “it’s gonna take us this amount of time to put your album out because we have other releases that take priority or our vinyl pressing time slots have all been filled.” For us, though, as soon as an album’s done, we can just put it out.
You’ve all had prior experience in the industry trenches. Do you think that’s influenced your “no bullshit” ethos?
Just because we’ve all been round the block, we don’t have that feeling of “if we sign to a label, we’re validated and then everything will go better!” *laughs* We’ve all been on labels and found that, while there is that little moment of validation when you sign, afterwards it comes back around to “are you making the music that you wanna hear and do other people like it?” That has nothing to do with a label or external validation. It’s just about being creative and doing something fun with your friends. If other people wanna hear it, you’ll get to do it even more! And if they don’t want to hear it, then you won’t get to do it quite as much!
I personally really like the fact that I can go to bed, wake up one morning and find there’s a new Cheekface song available to listen to. Especially in contrast to how much of the rest of the industry forces artists to go “we’re gonna put out a new song…. in three weeks!” and then it’s about drip-feeding the artwork, then the name, then the same 15 second snippet on TikTok…
For some people, stuff like that is really fun. For others, they don’t like it but do it because they feel like they have to. For us, the whole point of this band is to have fun. So, if something’s fun to us, we’ll do it regardless of how good or bad of an idea it is. If something doesn’t seem like it’d be fun, we just won’t do it even if it seems like “a logical thing to do;” we’ll skip it. We try to stick to that ethos, it’s why me and Mandy started writing songs together in the first place.
What would you say makes a Cheekface song? Is it really just “whatever’s most fun?”
Pretty much! There’s not a lot of external reasoning to how we write songs. Mandy and I get together in the practice space, pick up a guitar and trade riffs. When we land on something which feels good to us, we’ll record a loop into Garageband and take turns spit balling lyrics and melodies. Once we have a lyric or melody that sticks, that’s where a puzzle mentality takes over. “Oh, we have that one word, so now we can finish this section… this bit goes well here” and that’s basically the process. At the end of writing, if we are on the right track, there’s a feeling like the puzzle is done. If we don’t, we might come back to it the next day, or the next month, or year, or it’ll die on the hard drive. Not much to it. If there’s a bit that sounds cool, or a lyric that makes me or Mandy laugh, it will end up in the song cos you wanna keep the parts that are fun when you’re having fun.
Now that you’re on album four, would you say that process has changed at all or has it calcified and you’re feeling more like yourselves with each passing year?
I’d say the second part is probably right. With every song and every album, we figure out more and more what this project actually is and how it works. We kind of refine it, though some reading this interview may be like “‘Cheekface’ and ‘refinement?’ Those two words don’t make sense together!” Nonetheless, we figure it out more and more every time we get together to make something.
Is there a sense that you’re slightly pushing the boundaries of what a Cheekface song could be with each album? Like how “Don’t Stop Believing” is just keys and vox.
That one was just us following that sound to see if we can do a song that sounds like this. And that’s where we ended up with. On every album, there’s a few little detours where we see if we can do other stuff mainly cos it’s a surprisingly little adventure as a band. Can we do a 65-second hardcore song? A two-minute hymn?
Or a 90-second song where you just yell “a big cup of noodles” over and over.
Or can we do a dance record, how does that work? As writers, as a band, it’s just fun to go on these little adventures. Whether or not people decide they’re our best songs or our worst songs or somewhere in between, that’s not the point. It’s just interesting to try it.
Coming back to that guiding star of “do whatever we personally find fun.” Then that old cliché of “if other people like it, great!”
You know what they say about clichés, they’re all true!
How did the Cheekfreaks moniker come about for the fanbase?
Someone on Twitter a few years ago just tweeted at us “we are Cheekfreaks now, you’re welcome” or something like that. *laughs* Cheekfreak is fun, it rhymes, it works! A fanbase name has a special place when it’s created by the fanbase rather than the artist.
Were you shocked when you started getting big fan reactions to your songs?
I found it completely shocking that anyone has connected with the music whatsoever. A lot of people when they start a band or music project, they think “I wanna get popular, and I wanna make a living, and get signed to a record label, then I’ll play Coachella and Glasto, and get a Grammy and a platinum record…” This project, for me and Mandy, none of those things were crossing our minds whatsoever. It was just “let’s get together and write a song and have fun playing it, and if we write enough maybe we’ll go record them.” Because that’s the place where they came from, it remains a total shock to me that people connect with it and it means so much to people. I’m a music nerd, I know what it’s like when you connect with a project, and now our art is like that to other people!
I love the unified visual art on the covers of all your releases by Mandy.
We take a lot of pride in creating it! Mandy’s a one-of-a-kind illustrator and designer! She’s done all the record art, cover art, and merch. When we started the project, I had some ideas on how I wanted things to look and gave her those ideas. She came back and went “OK, I tried those, but I also had this idea too” and she had drawn comfort food in pen and coloured pencil on this stark white background looking iconic and I went “oh, that’s it, all my ideas are stupid compared to this!” *laughs* So, we ran with it. As we got into making more music, Mandy’s muse went “let’s keep that white background with an icon, but let’s shift the icon to different things.” I’m mostly a spectator. The most feedback I give is suggesting our name be in red instead of orange.
My Aspie music brain gets a little satisfaction on the visual consistency between projects. Like The xx covers…
I always think of those Descendants covers with Milo and the same typeface, or Black Flag and the same typeface across records. Or Bad Religion, the next great L.A. punk institution after Black Flag, using the same typeface as Bad Religion. Those things that tie together a band or community or scene; the harmony in my brain is set off by that.
I also love that you drop B-sides compilations with each album. It’s Sorted is still recent, but when can we expect that companion EP with a fun punny name?
*laughs* They’re coming! We don’t have a date yet, but I feel like they’re due… It’s like the teacher gave me homework and the homework is to get them out!
*laughs*
We’re hoping April or May, but they may fall into Summer. They don’t have a name, they don’t have a cover, but the music is there, we just gotta get around to it. Between learning a new show, our record release week stuff, pop-up store, getting everything ready for the UK tour… we haven’t gotten to those pesky little things like “name the next release” yet!
Well, now I feel like I’m bullying you into overwork…
*laughs*
How difficult is it to keep your head straight on-stage with all these wordy, deceptively-intricate songs that you bash through near-two dozen of every night?
Playing a show is interesting. It’s the only thing you can think about while you’re doing it, you can’t get distracted. My brain does not let me be distracted. Even if it tries to wander, it comes right back to the guitar and the vocals, listening around to the bandmates to stay in time with the drums and bass. I have no choice but to be present. I personally don’t get nervous playing a show, regardless of what show it is. I get nervous for lots of other things, but not playing a show! Mostly it’s just really fun. Really, the hard part is loading and unloading a thousand pounds of gear and merch every night. Sitting in the van can be boring, but it’s not very hard. There’s a natural amount of wear and tear and exhaustion from playing every day, but mostly from the loads and unloads…
Whereas on-stage, instinct sort of takes over?
Yeah, kind of. In a way, making the music’s the instinct and being alive to what’s happening in the space is the variable. How I’m gonna relate to a crowd of 700 is different to how I’m gonna relate to a crowd of 80. Not in a good or bad way; playing for 700 people is fun, and playing for 80 people is really fun too. But the way that I’m gonna interact with the audience and my bandmates is different. When we’re in a large hall, we have to increase the size of the gestures for it to be visible to people in the back, versus when we play in a bar and everyone can see every little facial expression. You learn to communicate differently in that context. Neither one’s good or bad, but in terms of what makes the show different it’s about the shape of the room, the lights that are on, the crowd and what they’re doing.
Are there any songs in particular off the new record that you haven’t played yet but are excited to give an airing?
Everything off the new record! “Fringe” we played a lot, “Popular 2” we’ve played a few times… But I’m psyched to do “Life in a Bag,” “Hardcore Scene,” “Largest Muscle,” “Plastic,” “Don’t Stop Believing.” I’m REALLY PSYCHED to do “Do My Thing” and “Grad School.” Any of the songs that are hip-shakers, the Cheekfreaks love those and we love to play them cos we also love a good hip-shaker.
What other music are you currently listening to?
I’ve been listening to McCoy Tyner, especially Nights of Ballads & Blues. I love bebop piano, but McCoy I hadn’t gone down the rabbit hole on until recent. The last few days I’ve been looping The Colour and the Shape by Foo Fighters and trying to wrap my head around whether it’s a better album than Nevermind; the comments section can decide if I’m right or wrong. I went back to one of my favourite albums: Nightbirds by LaBelle, who did “Lady Marmalade,” produced by Allen Toussaint. It’s this greasy, soulful, New Orleans R&B record. For those who haven’t heard it, definitely put it on; it’s a first-listen album, where you put it on for the first time and go “holy shit, this is fucking AWESOME!” And then I’ve been listening to Pinback, especially Summer in Abaddon. But they’re one of those bands where if I tweet I’ve been listening to them, 60 Pinback guys will pop out of the woodwork in the replies like “YES, BRO!”
You’ll have my Dad on side about The Colour and the Shape than Nevermind, at least.
*cackles* NO! NOT THE DAD OPINION!
Cheekface are touring the UK from today until 31st March. You can check out the dates and buy tickets here. It’s Sorted is out now on New Professor Music.
Callie Petch is doing this for the thrill of it, killing it. You can read more of their work over at callumpetch.com.
