LA punks, The Last Gang is back with their second full-length record on Fat Wreck Chords. It was produced by Fat Mike of NOFX, Yotam Ben Horin of Useless ID, and Cameron Webb.

It’s been a couple of years since we last chatted with The Last Gang and despite the pandemic, or maybe because of it, we’re happy to present you their latest work.

RELATED: 5 Quick Questions The Last Gang [Punk in Drublic Preview]

“One listen to Noise Noise Noise, and you’ll discover a band who has not only pushed their musical boundaries in new and unexpected ways, but a lyricist in Red who has unlocked a new side of herself, spitting barbs both personal and political at whoever might listen. We’re obviously punk at our core,” she says. “People expect to hear something, and that can become tedious and somewhat boring. But when you throw somebody a curveball, if they hate it, that’s fine. But more than likely, they’re gonna go, ‘What is this?’ and it’ll pull them more into the album.”

Noise Noise Noise is nothing if not full of curveballs. The album opens with the “Guns Of Brixton”-esque title track, the first of the album’s many forays into guitar upstrokes and elastic basslines. The next curveball comes in the very next track, “WFTW,” the rare punk song that’s four minutes long, and feeling a little bit like Searching For A Former Clarity-era Against Me! with Red cramming as many syllables into her verses as humanly possible. It’s also one of many new songs elevated by lead guitarist Ken Aquino, making his recorded debut with the now-quartet.”  – [PRESS RELEASE]

We’ll take any curveball that Red and the rest of the band are willing to send our way.

The Last Gang Q&A

Thanks to Red for taking the time to answer our questions.

Can you tell us a little about the history of The Last Gang, how you came together, finding your place in the Los Angeles punk scene, and landing Fat Wreck Chords?

‘Robert and I re-formed TLG back in 2013. And we slowly acquired the members which we have today. We’ve all known each other from within the scene. We’re actually all from OC, and we have a pretty tight-knit punk scene here.

Robert, I knew from Johnny’s Saloon and we share similar friends. Sean played in a band The Fisters that we used to play with. And he was such a rad person and bass player that we HAD to steal him for ourselves. Ken worked with Robert at their day jobs, but have known each other from being in local bands and studio work.

We got straight up lucky signing to Fat. We had several avenues of contact for Fat, including from our producer Cameron Webb, but when a friend reached out to their general mailbox, it was pure luck that it was listened to by Pat at Fat Wreck. [The band] dropped a lot of cash into that first record as well making sure what we shopped around was good enough to hold merit. We took out loans and went into serious debt. We really wanted to make sure we created an album that we could die happy with, even if it didn’t get us signed.”

Who are your biggest influences?

“Joe Strummer has always been huge in my life. I used to try and emulate his foot stomp he used to do live. It’s also one of the reasons why I’m so drawn to Teles. My influences change as I grow too. I’ve noticed they revolve around lyricists and songwriters. I’ve had a huge admiration for Elvis Costello and what seems like an endless amount of ideas and words that flow from his brain.”

What bands/artists are you listening to right now?

“If you looked at my Spotify search history, you’d see Mayer Hawthorne, Penrose Records Vol 1, Easy Lover by Phil Collins, David Bowie, A Tribe Called Quest, and Minor Threat. But Against Me seems to ALWAYS be in rotation. Can’t go wrong with any of her albums!”

Tell us about the songwriting and recording process.

“Our songs start off with some sort of flicker, whether it be a melody, bass and drum riff, lyrical phrase… and it’ll evolve from there. During the process for Noise Noise Noise, we had the benefit of intertwining ideas with Fat Mike and Yotam. The songs that grew from a flicker of the intangible, were massaged and shaped into something even newer and pushed our limits of songwriting. We don’t want to overwrite a song, but we like to push ourselves beyond the obvious.

I look at it like this… if you take a pen and stand on your tippy-toes, how high can you make a mark on the wall? Ok, can you do it again but just a little higher? And then even a little higher than that? Then if you stand on the top point of your toes and stretch your arm straight up and hold the pen with the tip of your fingers, can you go just a little higher? You’d be surprised how far up from that original mark you can go.”

Is there an overall theme to the upcoming album?

“We write about what we know best, what’s going on in and around our lives. So this album is heavily influenced by the madness of the last few years. Lots of anger and frustration. Heartache from the apathy. A fire, an angst to break everything that’s already broken and start from scratch. We don’t consider ourselves a political band, but recent events affected all of us globally. So it was hard to not include politics in this album’s lyrics.”

Can you talk to us about the concept for the “Noise, Noise, Noise” video?

“We were thinking about taking a page from what Foo Fighter did for “Walk” and how they did a ruff scene by scene from the movie Falling Down. Noise Noise Noise is about nostalgia, so we were thinking of doing that but with Stand By Me. But then our videographer threw us a random curveball and suggested warriors. And we were like YUP THAT’S IT!!! We had so much filming in South L.A. and on the blue/red/purple LA metro line! Plus we did our performance shots at South Bar Customs. That place is always home for us.”

Do you do anything big for album release day?

“We had a listening party at Mission Bar in downtown Santa Ana. I made 20 cassette tapes of Noise Noise Noise and splatter painted them by hand that we gave out to the first people that showed up. Super limited, they look so rad. They match the colors of our splatter paint vinyl.”

How is touring different now, and how great is it to be back out on the road?

“Touring feels almost the same. It’s now having safety in mind first before anything. But even masked up, proof of vaccination or negative covid test….. it feels soooooooooo good. We just played PRB and our hearts nearly exploded.”

Is there any chance you’ll be coming to Toronto soon?

“We don’t have anything officially on the books. But we are MOST DEFINITELY coming back to Canada. It’s always a little tricky getting into Canada from the states. And with COVID, I could only imagine it’s gonna be that much harder. But that’s not gonna stop us. We’ll be seeing you hopefully soon!”

The Last Gang Links

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Trish Cassling

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Toronto Music Blogger