L.A. Indie Rock Band Atta Boy at Eastside Bowl
The following is a press release:
L.A. indie rock band Atta Boy will be performing at Eastside Bowl on September 10, in support of their recently released album, Silt. Sharing a video for the title-track single. Watch + share the “Silt” video via YouTube.
Human connections are becoming rarer by the day, but Atta Boy – Eden, Dashel Thompson (keyboards), Freddy Reish (guitar/bass), and Lewis Pullman (drums) – has prepared for this moment since swapping favorite albums, running for School Council, and goofing around in middle school. Pulling their band name from a newspaper after eventually combining their skills to make music together in high school, they would never have expected those formative years to take them quite so far.
Three albums in and many miles later, arrives Silt. A purgatory-esque, liminal state of telephony and telepathy entwined, it sums up the complexity of remote collaboration as it captures the band’s shadowy moodboard flecked by singular sources of light. Like Lewis’ mono linoleum print artwork adorning the album sleeve where telephone poles with cables dissipate over a horizon, it’s akin to the band themselves pulling from all directions.
“The record swings between nature and elusive, unsettling moments of confusion and processing. Silt – the dirt – is where it all meets; it’s where we come from and return to; it gets on us, and we clean it off; it makes the path and clouds it,” Eden reveals. Yet its truth is transient, flickering like a loosely wired striplight before emitting its powerful surge of musical connection. “We’re playing together but have our own engines for why we’re playing,” tells Lewis.
The resulting record is a deeper exploration of the songwriting and recording process. Built with more pedals, textures, amps, guitars, and musical influences than they dared use before, the title-track began life from alternate tuning during an Adrienne Lenker School of Song workshop, and sonic surprises lurk like “Oh, Mama”’s regal horns or “Full Cloud”’s hefty fuzz. Inevitably, new sounds emerged when Dashel worked synths, and Lewis played Freddy’s drum kit instead of his own. “You’d expect a song like that to be played with sticks, so we doubled down using brushes instead,” he reveals, nodding to Big Thief and Eliott Smith.
Testament to connection, patience, trust – in each other and a process – particularly when sticking a spanner in tried and tested methods, Atta Boy, just like their music, only grow stronger with time. “A lot of the songs had been shelved; they weren’t ready, needed to grow and get figured out,” Eden suggests. The same could be said of the band. Dashel agrees; “It’s all down to deep roots… and phones… without either we’d never have been able to do this!” So, dial in, pay attention, and keep the communication channels open. Atta Boy is calling and now’s the time to listen.