Norman punk band is in a PERPETUAL ‘FUGUE STATE’
Limp Wizurdz member talks ‘Breaking Bad,’ hitting the road
They’re called the Limp Wizurdz, but you better believe they take the band seriously.
Singer and guitarist Taylor Young, 22, fronts the Norman-based punk quartet and would tour nine months out of the year if he could.
“We’d love to do it full-time, but unfortunately we lack the money to do so,” Taylor told The
Oklahoman via email. “Jeff Simmons is a car mechanic, Rodrigo Serrano is a cook at Pepe Delgados in Norman, Frankie Kump is a full-time chemical engineering student at OU and I’m going to OCCC for a degree in IT while I work at a pawn shop. With that said, we devote everything we can to the band.”
Simmons (guitar), Kump (bass), Serrano (drums) and Young have been playing together since 2012. The band’s newest and most refined effort “Fugue State” lands Jan. 6 via Stress Engine Records.
“There’s no telling what the new year will bring,” Taylor said. “We’d like to see another release and some more touring, the latter being more uncertain. We’re already two songs into a new release, so I’m pretty sure we will do something else by the end of 2017.”
Limp Wizurdz will playan all-ages show at the Opolis, 113 N Crawford Ave., 8 p.m. Friday alongside RLSS and Flock of Pigs. I caught up with Taylor to discuss the fresh Limp Wizurdz EP, “Breaking Bad” and writingmusic with his best friends.
Q: Listening back to your earliest recordings, I noticed how they were enthusiastically lo-fi. How did you progress to an album that’s so polished?
Taylor Young:
Our original recordings were definitely lo-fi. Partially because we didn’t know anyone who did high quality recordings and partially because we didn’t care. It feels great to have some high quality recordings under our belt but also a bit weird. It makes you view your songwriting from a different perspective. Flaws and highlights show themselves a bit more, so it’s a blessing and a curse depending on how picky of a person you are. We originally recorded “Cough!” with Tyler Garcia at 33rd Street. We did this (latest) version and the rest of “Fugue State” with Colton Jean at Stress Engine.
Q: A handful of the songs on the upcoming record are also re-recorded. What is it about a song like “Cough!” that made you want to take a second crack at it?
Young:
We re-recorded “Cough!” for a few reasons. The biggest being we wanted a concise and cohesive sound for this EP. “Cough!” had already been released as a single, and we planned on putting it on our next release, regardless. Once we started recording “Fugue State,” we decided it fit better with a re-recording. Tyler did a fantastic job on the previous version, but we just felt like we wanted to re-do it. Another smaller and more personal reason was that I wanted to try some different harmonies. “Spooky” was re-recorded just because we had extra studio time, and it’s sort of our cult classic song if we ever had one. People like it live and it doesn’t have a proper recording.
Q: Are you sharing a lot of the songwriting duties with the rest of the band?
Young:
It used to be almost all me and Jeff, but Frankie and Rod have come out of their shells more and more as time has gone on. Frankie wrote all of the instrumentation for “Jeff’s Checkers,” and Jeff split lyrical duties with me on that song. Rod seems to always have some sort of impact on the structure of a song. As a whole, there are plenty of times where someone steps in and throws a twist on a riff. Frankie tosses me lyrics from his journals from time to time as well. We’re a pretty tightknit unit. Another thing worth mentioning is that Colton assisted us some as well. Tiny things here and there, as well as some lyrical changes and ideas. He was invaluable in the recording process for us.
Q: Fans of the AMC show “Breaking Bad” would likely notice the album title is a nod to the episode where Walter White invents an excuse for disappearing to cook meth. Are you fans of the show?
Young:
The actual relation to “Breaking Bad” is only a small part of it. We (minus Rodrigo) are all huge “Breaking Bad” fans, so it was a cool homage to something that we all enjoy. The big meaning behind the name is this: We are all 21-22 years old. The world is constantly pushing its will on young people, and that isn’t always a bad thing. Sometimes you don’t know what is best for you and someone with a different perspective can help you out. However, this entire stage of life can feel really overwhelming. No matter what happens to any of us individually, I feel like we will all look back when we are in our late 20’s and think, “Wow, did that happen? I changed a lot, I accomplished a lot and now I’m here. But it doesn’t really feel real. What next?” Then we will look back again in another sevenyears and do the same. Life is kind of like a perpetual fugue state, whether it’s good or bad. You always look back and wonder how you made it through.
Q: The album artwork for “Fugue State” is excellent. I like the retro comic book style. What can you tell me about how that came together?
Young:
I’ll be honest in saying that no one in the band can really take any credit for that. Colton Jean and Roger Betka did the artwork. Roger’s an artist from Los Angeles that Colton Jean tracked down for us. He did a fantastic job. Colton kind of controlled the visual direction of the record, and Roger contributed the painting of us on the bikes. They did a great job. We couldn’t have asked for anything better.
Q: I know you’re hitting the road soon. How important is it for you to get this music outside of your home base in Norman?
Young:
We’re super excited to hit the road. We always meet tons of random people, but the most important part is sharing our music. That’s the entire point of being in a band: To share your vision and art with other people. The internet is a great thing and is probably a bit more effective at sharing our music, but nothing beats seeing a band from out of town play a show in a house or a dive bar. I don’t think anything online, or even on recordings does our live show justice. I try to stay grounded and realize that I’m just doing something that thousands of other people are doing, but at the same time I definitely feel like our energy during our live performance is something else. I feel such a connection with this band. All of these guys are my best friends. When we’re playing and we’re really going off, it’s a hard thing to beat. I hope that what I feel is what other people see us doing. I hope it translates well.