Green Banana spoke to Ren (drums & lead vocals) and James (bass guitar & backing vocals) who are the fantastic Sheffield punk duo Get the Fuck Outta Dodge.
How would you describe GTFOD to the uninitiated:
Short, sharp shocks of dirty booming bass, bastard beats, shouts, yelps and help, help, help. GTFOD are like special ops commandos, we sneak in and assault your ear drums then melt back into the shadows before you even know you’ve been violated.
Why the name GTFOD?
Ren: Why not? As sayings go that’s gotta be up there with the greats hasn’t it? I’m sure most people have used that phrase at least once or a version of that ilk.
James: It’s an accidental statement of intent and it fits our sound and ethos. We’re not doing this to make money and with a name like ours that’s quite clear haha. Also it sorts the wheat from the chaff as far as people who listen to us. If you are offended by the word fuck, then clearly this band is not for you!
Does having Fuck in your name cause any problems?
Ren: If there is, we don’t really know about it, apart from the Facebook police who made us change our name to Get The F Outta Dodge, which is fine, we don’t really care.
Ren, you play drums and sing lead vocals. Isn’t that rather physically demanding live? And would you describe yourself as the Phil Collins of punk?
Ren: Haha! Don’t! I had to fight some major demons over the whole fucking Phil Collins thing when I opted for the head mic. Other drummers like dude from Death From Above do it with a mic stand but I needed to move more, plus I kept hitting the mic stand because I’m rubbish.
Yeah is a killer live, if I was singing it think it wouldn’t be as bad but I’m more or less just yelling over the drums. James is excelling in his onstage patter which gives me a 20 second break….
James: I like to think of Ren as an Easy Lover, he’s the consummate professional in the susstudio, he can’t dance and he’s constantly lost in a land of confusion.
Ren: For Fucks Sake James.
James, how would you describe yourself?
James: Hairy, average (at best) bass player. I like music fast and loud and despite my stage demeanour I hate having to socially interact with people ;-)
How would you describe each other?
Ren: James is the eye candy with a fetish of trying to get as far away from me as possible when playing live. I don’t mind though as he writes some of the dirtiest riffs to come out of a Thunderbird.
James: Ren is a clever twat, and I mean that as a compliment. He may
not be able to play drums very well, but he can turn his hand to
anything. We need a website, ok ren’s made one. We should do some
t-shirts, ren learns how to screen print etc etc. We’ve know each
other for sooo long that we are family and I know I can rely on him
to do things that I can’t (or won’t) do haha
What is your process of writing and recording songs?
Ren: Dunno, depends. James writes the riffs and I do the drums and lyrics that’s as standard but sometimes I just listen, do my bits and then bring it to practice when its done or we sometimes just make the riffs work at practice. Never given it much thought.
We usually record demos/E.Ps/Covers LP’s ourselves remotely on shitty Ipads and broken macs but pop to a studio to treat ourselves for proper albums
James: Yeah, like Ren says, there’s not a whole lot of thought that goes into other than, is it loud and fast and would we listen to it if we weren’t in the band.
GTFOD really embrace the DIY ethos. What kind of set up do you have for releases and merch?
Ren: My house is just full of junk to make stuff. We have both cassette and CD duplicators so that we can make our own physical releases. I have a toy Japanese plastic lathe cutter that we used to release We Make The Future Here on 5” vinyl.
Then I have a basic screen-printing setup so that we can make our own merch at any point. I do have a badge maker somewhere and I can make vinyl stickers too but they are both a bit rubbish.
What was the first music you ever bought? How do you feel about that music now?
Ren: The first music I bought was LL Cool J’s Bigger and Deffer (BAD) as my mate at the time said if was a rip-off of Michael Jacksons Bad. It wasn’t, so that doesn’t really count so I followed that up with Crushin’ by the Fat Boys, which I still stand by now.
James: My first real purchases were Sting’s 7 Days, Anthrax Sound
of White Noise and the Prodigy, No Good (Start the Dance), which
gives you a good look in to my psyche haha. I’ll stand by Anthrax
and the Prodigy, but Sting can get to fuck.
What is on the horizon for GTFOD?
Ren: We have a new 4 track E.P coming out soon which is an awesome collaboration with a totally amazing artist kiYOmi. She has taken 4 of the tracks from Its Not Our Fault That Your Boyfriends Stupid, re-written the lyrics in Japanese and punked the fuck outta them. Its going to be special!
We are also working on a new covers LP and have a split release planned with Das Kapitans too.
Interview by Thomas Imposter
Follow Get the Fuck Outta Dodge on Twitter or Instagram and check out their music on Bandcamp