Strawberry Fuzz Ushers in a New Era for LA Surf-Punk
Indie-punk band Strawberry Fuzz will trash your house, drink all your beer, bum your last cigarette and leave you begging for more. Their songs tell sprawling stories of the LA punk scene, countercultural aggression and their desire for destruction. The band is composed of Colby Rodgers (vocals), Dashel Dupay (bass), Kris Miller (guitar), Alex Arias (guitar/keys) and Andy Warren (drums).
Strawberry Fuzz are no strangers to inciting high-energy mosh pits and captivating their listeners from start to finish with complex and confessional work. With their standout presence in the LA punk scene, the band unveils their debut three track teaser that introduces their fuzzy Californian punk sounds and influences.
Staying true to the authentic and boundless spirit of DIY, Strawberry Fuzz independently taught themselves how to play their instruments, produce their records and have a lively stage presence.
Their latest releases “Wasting My Time,” “East Of The 405” and “Something” is the sound of punk without boundaries of any kind, alongside ushering in a new era of heavy music that’s reckless, in-your-face and confrontational. Unapologetic with their hardcore approach, the three drops are Strawberry Fuzz’s strongest statements to date about their influence: the local surf-punk scene, the unforgiving riffs of Modern Lovers and the aggressive attitudes of Black Flag all interlaced into one commanding sonic assault.
Produced by guitarist Alex Arias and the band, Wasting My Time is a 3-song taste of what’s to come on Venice Beach-based indie-punk band Strawberry Fuzz’s debut album release. Building on the reaction to 2021’s collection of raw demos, Fuzztapes Vol.1, the band documents their experience in the dirty underside of LA life, from sniping at the scene kids on the eastside of LA to calling out the elites of the Westside beach cities – as well as critiquing surf conditions. Strawberry Fuzz aren’t looking to reinvent the wheel, more to slash the tires and Wasting My Time is a perfect introduction to their misdemeanors.
Strawberry Fuzz’s electrifying live shows and vocal prowess are perfectly captured on their debut demos Fuzztapes Vol. 1. Now back with a full length record releasing, they continue to rip up stages and whip up pits all along the West Coast, embarking on a short West Coast tour before returning to LA for headline shows this winter.
Photo by Jason Kramer
[UNPUBLISHED]: Thank you for sitting down and talking to Unpublished Magazine. I'm super excited to talk to you about your upcoming singles after building up on your raw demos. Our readers would love to get to know you and your music more. For any of our readers who aren't familiar, how would you describe your guys' music?
[STRAWBERRY FUZZ]: We always coined it as surf-punk, but there’s more layers to it and is more melodic.
[UNPUBLISHED]: What artists inspire you either lyrically or instrumentally, whether that's just music you love to listen to or that you pull inspiration from into yours?
[STRAWBERRY FUZZ]: Modern Lovers and old school Black Flag. There’s also a huge influence of 90s alternative, it’s always present everytime we write.
[UNPUBLISHED]: You’re part of LA’s DIY and punk scenes. What do you love most about the scene and how would you describe that energy and the people that go to your shows?
[STRAWBERRY FUZZ]: That’s what helped us, the scene itself, especially our shows around the Venice area or downtown. It’s insane, the pits are nuts. There’s so many people that we don’t know that are there to get wild, jump around and throw beer. So I think that's what's helped is people wanting to come to a fun show to meet the people that go to a fun show because it's just a really cool, fresh scene of kids that want to listen to new music. The west side doesn't have many bands that are doing something out there. Right now, everything's on the east side, so that was also the other tactic with this band was let's stay in the bands area and just make our footing out here and give something for the kids out here to just go to a party. The cool thing is we don't always need to be in a venue, it's like if you have a house, we will come and play it and be prepared for it to be destroyed.
[UNPUBLISHED]: I would love to know more about “Wasting My Time” and the creative process behind that.
[STRAWBERRY FUZZ]: That was an older song that we've just never done a demo for, but the demo was shit and we just never pulled the trigger on actually making it onto the album. “Wasting My Time” has always been like a highlight of our shows. So I was like, fuck it, let's give it a try. Just within pressing record, day one of making the actual record, four days later, it was mastered and ready to go. We just feel like we wrote a new version that time and just bam, just like it appeared and we were just really stoked on it. Lyrically, it's just a one long rant stream of consciousness and there's no real storyline to it, but that's kind of just how we made it, like we were drinking and we press play, and it was just all one freestyle take. We tried to write to it, but it didn't have the same raw energy. So we just kept the first crappy run of lyrics and that's what kind of made the song unique.
[UNPUBLISHED]: What was the inspiration behind “East Of The 405”
[STRAWBERRY FUZZ]: It just started out as a joke with our friends, like if there’s a party downtown, fuck that, we never go east of the 405. We’re always in Venice and we jokingly wrote the song and made the hook be “never go east of the 405” and it felt good enough to continue writing. The recording we try to keep pretty cheeky, like it literally says fuck Strawberry Fuzz to open the thing. The guitar solo is like just a bit of ‘is that a child playing or is this like some punk ass kid,’ and it's meant to be fun and cheeky. It definitely makes fun of us and is a shout out to one of our buddies Dave who is pretty strict on not going east to the 405.
[UNPUBLISHED]: Your track “Something” touches on the spectrum of city life versus your hometown. How was your experience writing that song?
[STRAWBERRY FUZZ]: We have so much history and all those little beach towns, like even going through Pedro and growing up skating in Pedro and then in Hermosa, Redondo, like I love those cities and kind of live throughout the South Bay. Growing up in Manhattan Beach, I've just always hated Manhattan Beach because it's so easy to hate. The most rich of the rich and there’s not an old-school beach town, so it just felt right to middle-finger Manhattan Beach.
Photo by Van Corona
[UNPUBLISHED]: Do you guys have a favorite song to play live and why is it your favorite?
[STRAWBERRY FUZZ]: “OUT TO LUNCH” is always fun and the crowd interacts the most for that one. Anything where the crowd just starts going crazy like “BABY.” “BABY” is the last song on the Fuzztapes and the last song in our set. We play it last just because it's like 50 seconds of a straightforward punk and that's the one where people know it’s the end of the show so the mosh pit gets the craziest.
[UNPUBLISHED]: How have your friends and fans reacted to your releases and how has that support been like?
[STRAWBERRY FUZZ]: I think everyone really liked it. That first album, we only put it out because we had a show. We had a bunch of demos and just put it out and it was great for us because there's so much material on there, rather than a song or two that we just happen to like, so everyone has a little place in their heart for some song. Everyone's got their favorite song and we run with an unusually large crew out on the west side and we always get a good response from our releases.
[UNPUBLISHED]: How are you feeling in this current era of your guys' career? What does the rest of the year look like for you that you would love to share with the magazine?
[STRAWBERRY FUZZ]: We're on tour right now, and this is all of our first time doing a tour with this project and it's just cool to see people show up, those that have never heard of us and they're actually getting out. I think it's just the beginning. I think we're excited to see how far we can take this thing. It’s been so much more fun than we could’ve ever imagined. It’s been amazing and a good response from everyone and the new cities.
[UNPUBLISHED]: What’s your favorite part of touring?
[STRAWBERRY FUZZ]: It’s been really fun after hours and going to new towns and having a completely packed bar. It's a wild feeling. We didn't know that anyone knew us here.
[UNPUBLISHED]: What is your wildest dream as a band? If you can have one thing happen, like a milestone or dream collaboration you hope to achieve, what would that look like for you guys?
[STRAWBERRY FUZZ]: It would just be in years from now and be able to still do it. Longevity for sure is a good thing to hold onto, and that we can keep this up and not kill each other.
[UNPUBLISHED]: Is there anything that I didn't ask that you'd want to add?
[STRAWBERRY FUZZ]: We have an album coming out called God Bless The Kids in late January, so all these new singles are adding up to it. We are also playing the Troubadour show on Jan. 17 and there’s going to be a release party for it. There's no real structured storyline behind God Bless The Kids, it's just whatever we feel that day when we're making songs, so when you listen to it, it's going to be all over the place. The quality is high, like it's something that will last a bit longer than Fuzztapes just because there's just more love put into it, so it's all the coolness and all the good stuff about the first tapes but with new, shiny elements.
