Interview with Cactus’s guitarist Asher Rogers

Ever heard of the genre of music Tropical Punk? No, probably not, but it’s a term you might be starting to get very familiar with thanks to a young and up and coming band from Nashville, Tennessee called Cactus’s. This band is so new that they’ve barely been together a year and already they’ve been touring like crazy and have had time to write, record and release a debut EP called, Tropical Terror. Cactus’s feature a colourful sound unlike most other bands out there, drawing on mood evoking and visual influences such as sand, deserts and tropical environments. Recently we were fortunate enough to speak to the band’s guitar player Asher Rogers and ask him a few questions about the band.

Cactus’s is a very new band having formed as recently as 2007. Can you offer us some details on how the band came together?
Asher: After playing with every drummer in Nashville I could find over the course of a year or two, I had reached the bottom of the barrel in my eyes and tried playing with a friend of a friend who I thought only played metal. That friend was Jru Frazier who just like me was withering away unable to find the right band mates. He had spent most of his life in South Korea and was in a pretty huge hardcore band there so I always assumed that’s all he plays. We got together and I’ll always remember the first time I heard him smash his drums, I thought, wow there’s no way I’m playing with anyone but this guy. From there we just started writing songs and searching for a bassist, after about six months of playing with every bassist we could find we had nothing. So I called up my brother while working a job on the road and said “if you want to start trying to learn the bass, I’ll send you what we’re working on.” Jru was back in Korea over the winter holiday so I took that time to try to teach my brother Sam bass in a month. He picked it up quick and you’d never know that to this date he’s only been playing about eight months!

Your band has a very unique sound which some refer to as tropical thrash rock. How would you describe the style of tropical thrash rock to someone who has never heard your band?
Asher: Our sound is supposed to be very colorful. Not colorful in the sense of silly or funny but colorful in the sense of mood evoking and visual. I always loved deserts and tropical surroundings and I hope that comes out in our songs. We don’t use guitar effects, background tracks, layered guitars or auto-tuned vocals and we don’t record things we can’t play live. We are a three-piece band with the belief of if you can’t play it at a show, don’t record it and pretend you can! Our music is supposed to be raw and realistic hence any reference to being punk or thrash. We try to keep visual concepts in mind while writing also. For instance, we’re currently writing a song called “Kamikaze Kangaroo” so we keep the concept in mind and write based on where that brings us in our minds.

Who would you consider to be your primary musical influences that have helped spawn Catcus’s’ very original sound?
Asher: There are only about 4 bands we all agree on loving, XTC, Pinback, Glassjaw and Deftones. We all like very different stuff ranging from Converge, The Pixies, and The Police to Crash Test Dummies and Randy Newman.

Not only is your sound original but so are some of your song titles which boasts names such as “Where Is My Skeleton” and “Perverted Shark.” Tell us, how do you come up with these far out song titles?
Asher: The song names come from the lyrics which have been crafted largely out of my hatred for boring, clichéd lyrics. In my opinion, if you can’t find a creative or new way to say something, why are you even saying it? Everyone knows about your heartbreak and the girl that left you and no one cares. If all you can do is spell it out in plain English like you’re listing facts then you’re not an artist and you should quit wasting everyone’s time.

Now on stage, you guys do something very unlike every other rock band out there by putting drummer Jru Frasier and his drum kit centre stage. How did this idea come about and why did you decide to perform in this way?
Asher: Jru has always set up his kit in the center and front of the stage. That’s how he’s played with other bands, that’s just his style. I really enjoy it personally because it breaks the traditional concept that the “lead singer” should be in the middle and the rest of the band doesn’t matter. I hate that. In this band, everyone is equal on every level. There is no un-important member, if we lost one we wouldn’t be a band anymore.

You recently released your debut EP Tropical Terror. How do you feel about how the EP has turned out?
Asher: The EP was fun to make and very quick. We had like a week to do it before I had to go under the knife in surgery for two hernias. The mixing process took a long time because all of us are so critical and controlling of our sound.

What was the writing and recording like for Tropical Terror? How long did you write for and where did you record it?
Asher: Jru and I had roughly written four songs before Sam was even onboard over the course of about six months. After Sam joined, we tweaked everything, pumped out a couple more songs and started playing shows. So by the time we recorded we had all the songs for the EP and we recorded it with my dad in the basement of the house Jru and I were living in.

Now rather than being a traditional four-piece, Cactus’s is a three-piece outfit. Do all three of you write the music together or is it more of the efforts of just one of the band members?
Asher: We all play equal part in writing. I usually will come up with a guitar part or a few and then Jru gets his hands on it and changes it or the format it’s in and structures most of the songs and Sam usually comes in and lays his parts within it. Everyone has equal say and input as well as credit for writing our songs.

What are your touring plans like for the next few months? Do you have a lot of shows lined up?
Asher: We’re going up to Canada for some show cases at the end of August and then we’re heading out for a couple weeks with our friends’ band Born Empty from Nashville.

What else does the band have planned for the rest of this year and in to 2009?
Asher: As far as the rest of the year and 2009 go, we hope to just play as many shows as possible and write tons more songs.  [ END ]