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The University News

Sweet tooth for 3TEETH

Sweet+tooth+for+3TEETH

Being the opening band on any tour is incredibly tough, and the stakes are usually high. You either give your best in the time you are allotted and win the crowd over, or put them to sleep and walk away with no new fans. Oftentimes, it is an audience member’s first exposure to a band when they are an opener, and first impressions are vital in the music industry.

All of these factors are only heightened when the band is playing arenas for the first time, opening up for one of the largest rock bands of the last 25 years. Yet, that is exactly what the band 3TEETH is doing on their run of shows with Tool this January. In a conversation with frontman Alexis Mincolla, he discussed the surreal experience of playing these type of shows: “It is so different from previous tours because the biggest show we had done before was two thousand people. Last night we walked out to four, maybe five thousand people, and that was the smallest show of the tour.”

In a discussion about the logistics and behind the scenes aspects of doing an arena tour, Mincolla said: “We are able to have a really long sound check, dialing in our sound, and not having to deal with some sound guy who doesn’t really know what he’s doing. Everyone is super professional in terms of the production side of the show, and that makes things easier.”

3TEETH is an Industrial rock band that released their fantastic debut album in 2014. Industrial music hasn’t been too prominent in the past twenty years, but the band is leading its charge. When speaking with Mincolla about their genre and its versatility he said: “There’s quite a few small industrial surges happening in Los Angeles, but none of them are really bands like us. Most of them are just a singer with some keys or a solo project. It isn’t often that there are four piece industrial bands.” This can happen though because, as he said, “Industrial is such an experimental genre. There are no bounds to it, no rules.”

‘No rules’ is the perfect term to describe 3TEETH’s music. They have a sound that is very heavy, but by no means conventional. Mincolla goes from speaking, to singing, to screaming all within a single song. The musical emphasis is spread all around with the keys, drums, and guitar breakdowns all being equally important in the makeup of 3TEETH’S songs. This unique sound is the final product of having inspirations from all over. “Early Ministry was a big inspiration for me” Mincolla said, “[Frontman] Al Jourgensen had tons of energy and was so dangerous in those early years. Somewhere along the way it kind of got lost though.”

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The band is now sharing the stage with Tool, a band that had a large influence on 3TEETH: “Their conceptual integrity and consistency was huge. The fact that they have been able to age gracefully and make songs that create this rabbit hole for their fans that allows fans to create their own meaning of songs. They convey it, not say it,” Mincolla said.

It is not only metal bands that influence the band, two of 3TEETH’s members are classically trained.  It is this smorgasbord of influences that ultimately helps create 3TEETH’s sound which is so uniquely theirs. The other aspect — a rather nonconventional trait for a normal band to have — is the way 3TEETH wrote their music. Mincolla shared: “I started this because I decided I want to make an art project built on the chasse of a band.” Because of this, their writing process “can start anywhere. It varies from song to song. Maybe one of us will design an image that will give an idea for a song name, or we’ll come up with a cool bass line or mod rack. Once there’s something that gives it a mood, that’s when the song starts to come about.”

In terms of what’s to come from 3TEETH in 2016, expect a new album around the summer. The album was said to be released earlier, however, that was before the idea of going on tour with Tool came about.  With an opportunity such as this, the band couldn’t pass it up. “We couldn’t have asked for anything better. There were no boos, and it was a great crowd response,” Mincolla chuckled at that last part when describing what the first show of the tour was like.

3TEETH play at Chaifetz Arena on Jan. 22, with Primus and Tool.  Although the show has been sold out since the day tickets went on sale, make it a priority to see.

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