Acid Dad Electrifies AS220 on February 27

Brooklyn has always been a melting pot for live music. The 2000s saw the music scene there explode again with acts like TV On The Radio, Kevin Devine, The Hold Steady and numerous others putting out their best material and making the borough the epicenter for indie rock. The 2010s have brought changes to the area, but bands like Acid Dad are keeping Brooklyn’s underground community alive. The punks have their self-titled debut album coming out on March 9 via Greenway Records. To kick off their tour in support of the album’s release, Acid Dad will take the stage at AS220 in the heart of downtown Providence with Julep from Boston, local garage rock trio Harvey Garbage & The Flowers and noise rock artist Albert Demuth opening up the night.

Before the show I had a chat with drummer Kevin Walker about the band having their own studio, people in New York City going out on weeknights, the hustle that comes with recording and plans to work on Acid Dad’s sophomore release.

Rob Duguay (Motif): Acid Dad are going to be releasing their self-titled debut album on March 9. Where was the album recorded and who produced it?

Kevin Walker: I produced it with Vaughn [Hunt] at our studio in Brooklyn. I recorded the entire thing pretty much, and then we did the mixing and mastering afterward.

RD: I noticed it has this modern punk vibe that you hear from a lot of bands these days, but what made it interesting was this ’70s Lou Reed-esque laid backness about the whole thing. What were you guys trying to capture while making the album?

KW: Well, recording is kind of a hustle. We had the songs already written, but we didn’t track it all in one shot. I tracked the guitars and then I had the other guys come in and do their parts. Sometimes there were some voids to fill or we realized that the song was recorded too fast or vice versa with it being too slow. A few times a song would come out a bit different and then we would shape it into something that works. The laid back stuff came from what we originally recorded and then we went back to it to slow it down a little bit and it ended up working a lot better that way.

RD: With it being the band’s debut album, did you guys feel any pressure while in the studio? Did you feel that you had to get everything right or was it a very relaxing experience?

KW: No, it wasn’t relaxing at all (laughs). We recorded the album last January and we recorded it all the way through. Then we sat on it for a couple of months and I realized that I didn’t like the way it came out. It was basically recorded way too fast, so a few months later we went back to it and we explored new tempos and it was re-recorded in the summer. That’s what it is now, so it’s like phase 2 of what the band’s sound is.

The cool thing about having your own studio is that there’s no pressure to have every song totally fleshed out and all the details finished while recording. You can rewrite and make edits afterward; it’s not chill, but we don’t have that whole situation where you’re paying to rent out a studio and you have to get everything done in seven days or something like that. We were able to experiment as we recorded and while it took us a long time, we could also afford that luxury.

RD: What’s the music scene like in Brooklyn these days? It seems like there’s an ebb and flow of venues opening and closing where it becomes a yearly cycle.

KW: It’s interesting. I was just reading an article the other day about how Brooklyn has become a mini hotbed of clubs right now. We kind of caught the tail end of all the DIY spots being around a few years ago. When we were coming up, there was a shortage of venues and indie bands but now there’s a resurgence of venues popping up in Bushwick and Bed-Stuy. It’s been a pretty healthy scene now to the point where bands from here can have a pretty good show on a Monday or a Tuesday. In small towns and cities, folks usually only go out on the weekends while in New York, people are kind of out of their minds and go out every day of the week.

RD: After this tour, what are Acid Dad’s plans for the summer?

KW: We’re going to finish writing the next record and record it during the summer. We’ll have some one-off gigs and festivals, but we’re not going to do another big tour.

Event page for Acid Dad, Julep, Harvey Garbage & The Flowers and Albert Demuth @ AS220 on February 27: facebook.com/events/1192264780904265; Acid Dad’s Website: aciddad.com