You’ve probably heard the name Balks if you’ve been following the Simpul Records circuit over the last few months. They’ve been on bills with The Crawlouts, Dumpster Fire, and Karate Riot ever since they blasted onto the scene with a debut EP a few months back. Since then, the EP has evolved into a full album called Bad Manners, and they’ve upgraded to headlining local and out-of-state shows.
I love hearing about creative places where bands figure out to play, and Balks have a fun one. Barbiere Devino is a fun spot in the foothills just north of Downtown. By day, it is a barber shop owned by Balks drummer Chris- but on Sundays it’s a practice pad and lounge for the band. They play in a tiny 7’ by 7’ room, which gets “really fucking loud” according to Dan, the bassist. I didn’t get to see it in action because there was a massage going on upstairs.
I met with the band here, where they showed some great punk rock hospitality (that is, shots and Bud Light) and we talked about their history, their future, recording, and partying. What a fun bunch of guys.
S.U.: How did you guys come together as a band?
Nick: A little over a year ago, two years ago at this point, Chris and I went into the studio to do some solo tracks, just because we hadn’t played in forever, so after that we decided to keep it going ad create a band. We’d all been playing in each other’s bands for a long period of time, so we brought in Dan and the rest is history. We’ve really only been a band together for about 14 months at this point.
We’ve always been pretty punk affiliated. Chris has been in some ska bands, but as far as Dan and I go it’s always been punk. The songs that Chris and I recorded a little while ago were a little more rock, but when we had this opportunity to be in a band again is was just about, let’s do what we love, and start playing punk again.
Do you still have that dream of making it big ?
Chris: You can be as big as you want. We’re just doing what we wanna do. I mean sure, if we could play more shows that are more… larger? But whatever, we’re just doing our thing.
Dan: There’s always a dream.
Nick: I think the expectation of what that “making big is” is more defined for us, as far as what that looks like. Do we want to be on the road 200 days a year? Probably not. But we’re doing Montana shows and some other options, there’s no reason that we can’t still hit the road and do things, just on a smaller scale. We still take it seriously, we have our merch line and our record out. It’s just kinda fun. Not at least pushing ourselves to do more will make it stale, so we’re always going to try to live that 20-year-old dream to some extent.
Chris: Now we’re just 40, and we have more money and better credit.
Nick: Well, more money…
What can you tell me about recording Bad Manners?
Nick: We recorded it with Andy over at Chop Shop.
Chris: I love recording with that guy.
Nick: Yeah, we’ve known him for forever, he understands how to record punk, but has a lot of tricks up his sleeve. We recorded drums on tape, using an old-school tape machine, used older amps, so the album is really raw but there’s a kind of a vintage sound to it. It’s really stripped down. There are tracks where the tape sound leads it in that we just didn’t take out.
Dan: Because it sounds really good.
Chris: A lot of people have to put filters and processors on to capture the sound that we got. We did it the way it used to be done. And how it should be done. To record it all onto tape, it’s the only way I’ve wanted to do it. Recording straight into Pro Tools just sounds more filtered and fake, in my opinion. You can’t fix it in editing, you have to be able to play it right. It makes you have to be able to play your fuckin’ instrument. Know your part, play your part. If you can’t play it, well, practice it and play it again.
Nick: It allows for the humanity to be in the songs, too. You know, there’s small aspects in my vocals, where there are small clips but it was a good take. You know, that’s how it’s gonna be live.
Chris: It’s also the first time we didn’t play to a click track. Which is weird. Everything was written to a click, but we didn’t record with [one].
Nick: Yeah, just do it how it is live. So I think the album comes off raw, but it definitely has more of that.
So the whole thing was done on tape?
Nick: No, just the drums and guitars.
Chris: He still put it through Pro Tools for post production.
Nick: You can mix it all to a board, but it’s painstaking. There is some software on guitars that we used in the back that we used for layering, and we still mixed everything within Pro Tools, so we have the convenience of some of the modern stuff but we’re still using vintage Sennheiser mics for amping guitars. Bass, you normally just run in, so we kept that a little more current. There’s definitely a mix of the two things for when old-school can be a little too tedious. And we don’t have recording budgets, so we have DAYS.
[Chris], You mentioned partying pretty hard in Portland. Do you guys still rock out?
Chris: I have to wait until after I play. I play and then I party.
Nick: We want the shows to be quality, but also we want to still be able to enjoy everything. It’s just about prioritizing it.
Chris: Well maybe I’ll have one or two before a show, you know. And then I can party on the stage.
Dan: I gotta drink my nerves away, I’ll be honest.
Chris: I can’t be like, fuck I’m kinda drunk, and then go play a show. I mean, to say I can’t doesn’t mean that I really can’t. I prefer the way I play when I if I’m not. In my mind it’s more entertaining for the people watching. Hey, the show on the 20th is a Saturday, I don’t have to work the next day.
Dan: I do!
Nick: Yeah, that’s a party day!
What’s next for Balks?
Nick: We’re doing a couple of Montana dates…
Chris: June 2nd and 3rd
Nick: Bozeman and Billings, Missoula, then we got a show for Chris’s 40th at the Shredder. After that, I think we might hit the studio. Chris has got baby coming in October so it’s gonna be whatever we can get in before that.
Spud media 