LEXI FUNSTON OF THE PARANOYDS
The genre-mashing weirdness of L.A's guitar-and-keyboard provocateurs The Paranoyds melds perfectly in their latest release Carnage Bargain. A ten track power slog carved out between lifelong friends Staz Lindes (bass/vocals) and Laila Hashemi (keys/vocals), Lexi Funston and drummer David Ruiz.
The four piece have been making waves in the L.A garage scene for some time and hearing their take on the scene both past and present is informative as to where their roots originate “L.A has had so many decades of inspiring scenes. We've always looked up to the L.A bands from the late 70’s and 80’s like X, The Germs, Black Flag, The Cramps, Slash records etc. It'll be super interesting to see how L.A bands come back after our "Covid Gap Year,"-hopefully it'll be more colourful and diverse line-up wise.”
In what “was pretty male dominated in the punk rock/alternative scene” it takes three girls + one dude to shake things up and deliver an album that takes much from the past but alters the punk trajectory with well-crafted and lyrically savvy tracks. Determining if the album had a central theme that features throughout Lexi states “I think we're a pretty observational band. I would say a lot of friendships, experiences, relationships, etc. inspired many of those songs.”
On that topic of their sound and the importance keys play in the overall dynamic of the bands signature sound, which is particularly evident in tracks such as ‘Carnage Bargain’ and ‘Egg Salad’ Lexi speaks for the band when saying “We are super inspired by Ray Manzarek and classic organ tones, and that's pretty much what you're hearing on ‘Egg Salad’. Organ tones like the Farfisa or Vox Continental combo organ were a big inspiration for all of our early songs, like ‘Egg Salad’. As we continued to write we had to learn how to balance the instruments so that keys were contributing but not completely taking over certain songs. That's why Carnage Bargain has a bit of a different tone than we're used to. For that one, we used the Arturia Microbrute which is a bit more synthy but still has some punk organ influence.”
No record is without its certain challenges and in the case of The Paranoyds, “the main challenge we faced was everybody getting time off from work to record this album. We had to chip away at it for a bit. I think we just had to accept our natural process and stop comparing it to other band's recording stories. We did our thing and it was perfect.” Upon completion of the tracks comes the all import track list and selecting the sequence of each track. Undertaken in a typically lo-fi way Lexi simply says “we all sat in the car and used the same process as making a mixed CD basically. Staz was away and had to chime in via text but it was basically just making sure it all grooved and flowed to its best ability.”
To really catapult a tune into the collective conscious in a saturated space, a brilliant track isn’t enough and often needs the aide of an equally captivating video clip. The single ‘Egg Salad’ is as catchy as they come with tinges of the aforementioned bands but also nods to the likes of The B-52’s, The Gun Club and CSS. This bitches brew of punk, new wave and garage bursts from the auditory to the visual in the clip produced by 18 year old Peruvian Nicole Stunwyck. Reminiscent of Mark Robson’s 1967 film of love, tragedy, excess and addiction, Valley of the Dolls “The music video concept was all thanks to our director Nicole. The beauty pageant represents the idealizations of fame and pop culture by our young protagonist, and her fantasy and desires ultimately end up being what destroys her.”
For the time being, watching The Paranoyds creative video clips and listening to their amazing record Carnage Bargain will be as close as we get till the global pandemic lifts but that doesn’t stop Lexi from recalling some recent touring highlights “we were really lucky and toured at the beginning of 2020. We had some INSANE shows on that tour, including a hardcore-esque pit in Dallas and a sweaty, sold out, humid ass, sweatbox show in New York.”
When the one defining thing that music provides Lexi that nothing does is that of ‘pleasure’, it is a cruel fate not to be able to catch The Paranoyds at a capital city venue or slot on a festival bill anytime soon but all good things to those who wait and when it comes to watching The Paranoyds deliver Carnage Bargain on stage, it is worth the wait.
