Let's be honest – you're probably not going to like Bucket of Nails. What's more, they don't want you to.
A duo consisting of brothers Patrick and Mike Bell, ages 15 and 19, the Bucket has perfected the art of pissing people off while still making people laugh. And the best – or perhaps only – way to describe their sound is underage spazzcore … that's really, really funny.
Making a racket that's close to a pure distillation of what it feels like to be an angry teenage boy, BON uses very few notes and rhythms to tie their sound together; instead, you get ear-piercing shrieks, lyrics intended for the bastards who have pissed them off and plenty of bad notes that are somehow annoying enough to seem endearing.
The brothers came up with the idea for the group while listening to Anthrax. "There's this song where you can't understand the lyrics and it's just a ton of noise," vocalist and drummer Patrick says. "We thought it would be funny to make a ton of noise and either make people happy or piss them off."
When they first started playing in early 2004, the boys brought their chaos to open-mike nights to mixed results. In every case, "some people got it, some didn't," Bell says. Before long, Bucket of Nails had gathered a following for their flamboyant stage shows and their first album was released. I Checked My Calendar … It's Doomsday features "songs" where the duo screams about stuff: drinking a lot of coffee and having to crap or, in one case, going off on The Beatles' "Blackbird" for not learning to fly.
These Bucket "songs" are often barely songs at all. Some were written during recording. As Patrick explains, if they felt like writing a song about lobsters, they pressed "record" and went with it. The result is an awkward and endearing mess. What's admirable is that during those impromptu recordings, Mike had chords ready, and Patrick could shriek in key.
When the whim strikes them, the Bucket pulls pranks to the same mixed crowd results. Recently, Patrick and Mike quietly appeared at a comedy open mike to read all of Dr. Seuss' One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish while a boombox played Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" behind them. While some enjoyed the Kaufman-esque ploy, others threw a fit.
The Bucket's new album, Bucket of Nails and Nico, comes out this month. While the record shows some growth in terms of actual songwriting, it echoes the same humor with the same kick in the ass.
"It's a joke, but it's a joke that's supposed to make people happy," Patrick says. "But if it pisses people off, that just makes me happier."
Bucket of Nails
with Marc with a "c"
8 pm Friday, July 22
Austin Coffee & Film
