June 23-29, 2005

music

Crazy Sexy Cool

POP OPPORTUNITY: Zolof is on tour with Reel Big Fish.

Zolof The Rock & Roll Destroyer wants to put a booger on you.

by Patrick Rapa

Enough of the strumming and the shoegazing, people. Enough of the coked-up, commiserating, co-dependent rock bands with their retro-effects pedals and rocknerd homages. We need something fun and infectious, and we really need it right now. My fellow Philadelphians, it's high time we embraced Zolof The Rock & Roll Destroyer, the catchiest band in town. Pretty much every tempo is upbeat, every synth hook is perky, every guitar change is a bubbly excuse to pogo. Even a hurt and angry post-break-up song like "Words for Now" has a damn whistle solo. But it's hot cute, not puppy-love cute. Rachel Minton's got a knack for catchy, ribald choruses, and verses that sound a lot like choruses. On 2004's The Popsicle EP (Eyeball), she blurts out confused lines like "You make me look like I sound like I'm crazy!" and makes it all feel like a familiar and euphoric place to be. Look alive, people.

City Paper: How much effort do you put into making your choruses catchy? What's your attitude toward the chorus?
Rachel Minton: Well, we usually write around a melody. The chorus has got to be fun and make us want to hear it more. If it's not striking, we abandon it and move on to something else.

CP: Some songs, like "The Hot Situation" and "Argh… I'm a Pirate," are straight up happy-in-love songs. Is love in?
RM: They're more about having fun with someone. Being a pair of cute little devils together. And sex is always in.

CP: Isn't it weird to be so unabashedly upbeat, when so many bands are cynical downers?
RM: We don't think music should be taken so seriously all the time. I'm glad we can be part of a balance. We write and play what makes us happy. It's not bubblegum and candy bars all of the time. It's more like, let's say I fall and break my arm. We'd be more inclined to say, "Hey, check out my bum wing," rather than harping on our bad luck. Sometimes our songs are happy and content in a roundabout way, with lyrics like "It's not gonna be OK, but it's OK." Regardless, we always want to rock.

CP: Are you the sworn enemy of emo?
RM: Who even knows what that means anymore? I'm sure people have called us emo at some point. We don't have the boy/girl drama that I associate with emo bands. Our songs are stuck more at the maturity level of the boy punching the girl in the arm and wiping a booger on her because he doesn't know how to express his fondness for her.

CP: What's the Zolof philosophy?
RM: Don't be a joke but don't take yourself too seriously.

Zolof The Rock & Roll Destroyer play Thu., June 30, 6:30 p.m., $20, with Reel Big Fish, American Hi-Fi, El Pus and Punchline, Theater of Living Arts, 334 South St., 215-922-1011.