When Joshua Nee and Andy Gibbs of Thou arrive for a late lunch near campus, they fit in with the carefully disheveled twentysomethings around us. It is hard to imagine such a powerful roar that reaches so far comes from these guys, as unassuming as they are.
In ever-widening circles, Thou is considered a metal band—though guiatarist Gibbs begs to differ. “We are just a heavy band,” he says. “A slow and heavy band. We’re not masculine or tough enough to be metal dudes.”
Nee adds, “I think, in attitude, this band goes out of its way to be anti-metal.”
The sound of Thou is what one might imagine came from a dinosaur that found itself sinking in the La Brea tar pits roaring out to the trees. Vocalist Bryan Funck passes by screaming on his way to existential bellowing as the band’s dirges bring to mind Nirvana or Black Sabbath tracks cast in lead.
Once the salads and a round of beers are ordered, Gibbs and Nee get to explaining what they are about. “The lyrics are half Dungeons and Dragons imagery, half political commentary, using that imagery to convey political ideas,” says Gibbs. “Bryan (Funck), who writes all the lyrics, is a big nerd. He’s into figurines and all that.”
Gibbs describes the band’s ethical core as, “not being in a band for profit or fame. Not as much a business as we are keeping our music alive for the people that want to hear it, playing near them, and keeping our record prices low. We want to be more like the people we are playing for, not elevating ourselves above them.”
When asked if that isn’t the point of rock music—to become something bigger and louder than you are—Gibbs offers, “I think if you do that, you are kidding yourself. You’re still just that person. Some achieve a true delusion of thinking they are something they aren’t and wind up in a weird bubble of grandeur.”
Last year Thou performed high profiling shows with underground powerhouses Sunn O))) in Philadelphia and New York. The band toured the United States and the UK, and in August, NPR streamed the band’s latest CD Summit on its website. Yet the group stays connected to where and who they are, namely on the EP Baton Rouge, You Have Much to Answer For.
“Bryan had a song and I had a song,” Gibbs says. “His was going to tackle the negative aspects of Baton Rouge”—Funck was feeling the frustrations of maintaining a modicum of order in the often unruly world of house shows—“and mine was to take on the positive stuff.” Funck moved to New Orleans, and Gibbs started putting on shows here. He felt the same frustrations and so was born his tune “By Every Hand Betrayed,” which flings this accusation: “Your wasted potential surrounds me, binds me, suffocates me.” Out of this din, the song offers up two solutions: “Decimation may be our only saving grace. Or will we stand eternal?” The instrumental “Baton Rouge, Louisiana” becomes a cataclysmic hum of hissing static and Apocalypse riffs.
Dark imagery in music like this is often misjudged as the hopeless nattering of complainers. In fact it is more often the melodramatic, yet hopeful exhortations of individuals looking to step outside their norm. “I think with most of the stuff we write about, (the lyrics) are an extreme take on how we feel about things,” Gibbs says. “(Baton Rouge’s underground scene) has an exceptional sense of self-loathing, and I think, maybe for good reason. There is so much about Baton Rouge that is anti-culture, or anti-art, even though there is a lot of good stuff here too.”
In many regards, Thou is the Baton Rouge band that has made it, an example of creating one’s way in the world. “We finance 98% of what we do,” Gibbs says as he gets philosophical on the idea of “making it.”
“I think the way we do things is not for everyone. Most mainstream bands are not going to be satisfied with the steps we take. I’d say those bands that wanted to do this, they’d have to drop their pretense and their sense of making it. It’s only through dropping all that you can begin to do something.“
Thou offers most of their music for free online. Thou does sell sometimes-elaborate vinyl pressings at cost while on tour, with just enough markup to keep going, holding onto their punk DIY ethos while creating well-crafted artifacts. “A lot of people have a notion that ‘punk’ means that it has to be crap, hastily thrown together,” Gibbs says. “Our idea is that it’s ‘punk’ to do things right.” noladiy.org/thou
