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| Oh, man. Memories... |
Who They’re For
On the most basic level, fans of hard rock, but it gets a little complicated from there. At the Drive‑In’s sound is aggressive, no question, but it possesses a subtlety that goes beyond the indie-rock, semi-traditional loud/soft/loud pattern; the vocals and instrumentation combine in melodies qualities that contrast against brash, staccato elements, as well as the ones that, for lack of a better word, crash or even collide. There’s a violence to it, on some level. Some more advanced descriptors - and from a couple places.
First a note: whereas you get “just the facts” on some Wikipedia pages (e.g., bare lists of album releases and tours), some editors give a little love, not unlike mash-notes from a doting fan. For instance, their Wiki-editor dished this helpful breakdown of At the Drive-In’s sound:
“The band's guitar-playing, in the majority of their songs, is characterized by unusual chords, a fast tempo, and a quiet-loud-quiet song structure. While Jim Ward and Paul Hinojos provided the rhythmic structure of the song, Omar Rodriguez-Lopez often played more experimental riffs and melodies over the top. Effects were heavily used by Rodriguez-Lopez, especially on Relationship of Command, while Ward used the keyboard to create melody, often switching between the guitar and keyboard such as in "Invalid Litter Dept.”
Or, for simpler name-drop description from a 2017 piece in The Guardian:
“...they looked and sounded like a post-hardcore version of MC5 crossed with Os Mutantes.”
If those names don’t ring a bell, here are some influences (from Wikipedia): Indian Summer, Swing Kids, Fugazi, Sunny Day Real Estate, Bad Brains, Nation of Ulysses and Drive Like Jehu.
A Little More
At the Drive-In "started in a ditch" in the mid-1990s when Cedric Bixler-Zavala met the first person in El Paso, Texas who took leaving El Paso as seriously as he did, a guitarist named Jim Ward. (Fun aside: Bixler-Zavala briefly played in a band with Beto O’Rourke…yes, that one, but decided he wasn’t serious enough; he still had very kind things to say about O’Rourke in a 2017 interview with Las Vegas Weekly). They added members piece-by-piece (which takes a bit, actually), and Omar Rodriguez-Lopez came in early, but, once they had enough members, that hit the road and just started going, show after show, EP after EP, tour after tour after tour. The process started with the Hell Paso EP in 1994, followed by the Alfaro, Vive Carajo! in 1995 and they took the songs, first, all the way around Texas, then all over the country, using a 1981 Ford Econoline van as their chariot.
On the most basic level, fans of hard rock, but it gets a little complicated from there. At the Drive‑In’s sound is aggressive, no question, but it possesses a subtlety that goes beyond the indie-rock, semi-traditional loud/soft/loud pattern; the vocals and instrumentation combine in melodies qualities that contrast against brash, staccato elements, as well as the ones that, for lack of a better word, crash or even collide. There’s a violence to it, on some level. Some more advanced descriptors - and from a couple places.
First a note: whereas you get “just the facts” on some Wikipedia pages (e.g., bare lists of album releases and tours), some editors give a little love, not unlike mash-notes from a doting fan. For instance, their Wiki-editor dished this helpful breakdown of At the Drive-In’s sound:
“The band's guitar-playing, in the majority of their songs, is characterized by unusual chords, a fast tempo, and a quiet-loud-quiet song structure. While Jim Ward and Paul Hinojos provided the rhythmic structure of the song, Omar Rodriguez-Lopez often played more experimental riffs and melodies over the top. Effects were heavily used by Rodriguez-Lopez, especially on Relationship of Command, while Ward used the keyboard to create melody, often switching between the guitar and keyboard such as in "Invalid Litter Dept.”
Or, for simpler name-drop description from a 2017 piece in The Guardian:
“...they looked and sounded like a post-hardcore version of MC5 crossed with Os Mutantes.”
If those names don’t ring a bell, here are some influences (from Wikipedia): Indian Summer, Swing Kids, Fugazi, Sunny Day Real Estate, Bad Brains, Nation of Ulysses and Drive Like Jehu.
A Little More
At the Drive-In "started in a ditch" in the mid-1990s when Cedric Bixler-Zavala met the first person in El Paso, Texas who took leaving El Paso as seriously as he did, a guitarist named Jim Ward. (Fun aside: Bixler-Zavala briefly played in a band with Beto O’Rourke…yes, that one, but decided he wasn’t serious enough; he still had very kind things to say about O’Rourke in a 2017 interview with Las Vegas Weekly). They added members piece-by-piece (which takes a bit, actually), and Omar Rodriguez-Lopez came in early, but, once they had enough members, that hit the road and just started going, show after show, EP after EP, tour after tour after tour. The process started with the Hell Paso EP in 1994, followed by the Alfaro, Vive Carajo! in 1995 and they took the songs, first, all the way around Texas, then all over the country, using a 1981 Ford Econoline van as their chariot.
