Skip to main contentMaking the best of this bummer called life.
[RAINY DAY] If the tone of Portland noise-folk trio Meth Teeth's debut full-length, Everything Went Wrong, seems a tad pessimistic, there are good reasons for that. For starters, the album's recording process nearly destroyed the band. It took three full tries to get it done, after the first two were interrupted by everything from members quitting to malfunctioning equipment. If the third attempt had failed, the group was ready to just scrap the whole thing.
"We were so fucking mad at these songs," says 26-year-old singer-guitarist Mattey Hubele, his round, bearded face framed by a black hoodie.
Clearly, a lot of shit indeed went wrong for the band. But life wasn't always this difficult. In fact, in its two years together, Meth Teeth has gone pretty smoothly. It wrote and recorded what would become its first 7-inch two days after forming in 2007. A month later, the band piled into a Dodge Stratus and left on tour (the band claims to have logged a jaw-dropping 10,000 miles), miraculously playing nearly every scheduled show. And that's not to mention that Hubele and drummer Kyle Raquipiso both managed to make clean breaks from their hometown in Tri-Cities, Wash., an area known for nuclear waste and—as the band name suggests—tweakers.
But then, last winter came. "I was living in a concrete basement with no heat," says Hubele. "So that helped piss me off really bad." Everything Went Wrong is a product of that period. The frustration shows: Although there are underpinnings of melody and ramshackle Americana, it's almost completely swallowed by analog fuzz; Hubele's languid, disconnected vocals are buried by heaps of distortion; songs have titles like "World is Going to End Soon" and "Failures Selected by God." Hubele says it's an album about "being bummed in the winter here and hanging out with crazy alcoholic girls who ruin your life." Considering when it was written, that's understandable. It also didn't help that at the time, Hubele was hanging out with a bunch of goths who "would talk about how being bummed is a way of life while taking huge bong rips and watching Tupac videos."
He laughs at the image, and it becomes apparent that maybe he isn't the giant buzzkill he appears to be. Hubele shrugs. "I think things are better now."
SEE IT: Meth Teeth plays Doug Fir on Sunday, Nov. 22, with the Dutchess and the Duke and Greg Ashley. 9 pm. $10. 21+.
WWeek 2015