SAFETY NET
PLASTIC HEART
text KRISTIN WINTERS
photography LUNAFORA
One evening in Coachella at a backyard show, a large crowd gathers around a makeshift stage. The atmosphere is set with kids in flannel and tipped over Budweiser bottles. The wind is picking up and the girls wished they’d brought sweaters. Safety Net comes on and everyone whoops and cheers. The sound quality of the generator-powered stereo is at the mercy of the elements — the sand, the heat and the wind — but no one here seems to care: as long as the music’s loud and the sound is raw. Everyone’s ready to rage. A mosh pit swarms around Safety Net. Kids slam into each other and the band members themselves, thrashing and dancing, getting lost in the roar of the noise.
Weeks pass and Safety Net sets the stage at the gallery space, Coachella Valley Art Scene, before they embark on their summer “Bring Yr Dog” tour. The room is dim with red, green, and blue lights outlining their features against the black shadows. The backs of the audience become a black silhouette, quiet and standing still, awaiting the performance of their beloved local band. Carrick belts his heart out while Austin comes in with his bass, gliding across the stage in his Heelys. Cliff kicks in with the beat of his drums and brings the song to life. Everyone smiles and sways to the music, taking it all in. These shows seemingly paint a picture of two very different bands. But in truth, that is just the complexity of Safety Net. Carrick, Cliff, and Austin are desert punks releasing aggression through music, thrashing among the crowd on a brutal summer night. Yet in their quiet hours, they are contemplative young men, searching for meaning in the time and place of this isolated valley.
Coachella Magazine sits down in conversation with all members of Safety Net, who reveal their sense of humor, observations, and insight into the desert scene and what being a musician means to them.
I see you guys as one of the iconic desert bands playing right now. You’ve played in all the established venues out here and you have a strong presence in backyard shows. I could name a number of bands and influences I hear in your music, but can you guys describe what Safety Net sounds like to you?
Carrick: I feel like the three of us come from three very different music backgrounds — Austin comes from a ska punk background.
Cliff: I came from a really heavy punk hardcore background and I tend to swerve my music listening to a lot of electronic music.
Carrick: And I’ve always been into pretty chill stuff, so I’d say our music and what we’re trying to pursue is really hard to pinpoint a specific genre because we have so many different influences and other bands that inspire us. If there’s anything we can point it to — the term coined is “noise pop” — but it’s not necessarily that. We try to transcend that. After we write a song we really don’t want to compare ourselves to other bands.
Austin: Honestly, I just like the way our music sounds.
Every time we go for a new song, there’s a completely different feel to it.
How did you guys meet and come together as a band?
Cliff: I met Carrick after one of his solo performances, as MS Paint. About a week later I was going to a show with him up to Pappy & Harriet’s and I thought I was never gonna get along with this kid. We seemed to actually have a lot in common musically, but we argued at one point and it was awkward. But something about jamming with him just stuck with me and I admired where his tastes were skewed, and I thought it was worth trying out. Now we’re practically married to each other.
Carrick: (laughs)
Austin: I met Carrick because we were in Les Miserables together.
Carrick: I studied musical theater at COD.
Austin: Yeah, he was in Fiddler On The Roof.
Carrick: I actually first met Austin because I was taking vocal lessons in the vocal performance program at COD, he was under the same instructor. I didn’t know who this guy was. He had an afro and he looked like a Weeaboo.
Austin: I am a Weeaboo!
Carrick: (laughs) He would walk into the lessons and say, “Hey, sounds good man.” Later we became friends because we had Music Theory classes together. Cliff and I were jamming and it sounded hollow, so I asked him, “Hey, do you want to jam with us?” and that’s pretty much how it started.
Austin: Once we started jamming together, that was it.
Do you think the desert environment has affected you, good or bad, as an artist and your approach to your craft?
Cliff: I think it allowed us to be more fearless in expressing the sound that we play. Ourselves being fans of the environment and the scene, we try to keep up with what goes on around here as much as possible. But I remember early on thinking to myself that I didn’t know how well our sound would really fit out here, if it was really a “desert sound.”
Carrick: I love the desert and the way it inspires us: its beautiful. It’s so secluded, it’s like our own little paradise. There are a lot of good sounding bands in the desert scene: Active Kissers is a great band, and a new upcoming band, Slow Paradise, is amazing. We love playing out here. We love playing backyard shows because they’re all ages and I feel like the driving force in the desert is the youth.
Cliff: I think in places like LA or in larger cities there’s an impending fear of over saturation, where a band like us wouldn’t even get the light of day. Here, because of how tight-knit the culture and community is, it’s eager to find new things. This desert rock thing, whatever it means, is sort of reinventing itself.
Carrick: If you move to LA there’s 3,000 other people doing exactly what you’re doing. But out here, you really have the chance to be unique and achieve something. The desert gave the option to be as original as we possibly could.
Austin: I feel like that. The second I got into music I started a band and just started playing those backyard shows. That molded me into the kind of player I am today. I started off in a completely different area, I started off as singing in a ska band, and now I’m a bassist for whatever we are now. I just grew up with these kind of people. Backyard shows in the desert happen on the outskirts of town, in neighborhoods where you can get away with large crowds and loud noise.
Do you find that there’s a more dynamic mix of people in this audience that you wouldn’t find in other places?
Cliff: Absolutely. I’ve seen metalheads come to our shows. We even played DIY house shows with bands that are completely different. I admire that, because it shows that bookers don’t really have an agenda to attract a certain crowd — it’s more catered to trying to promote a venue of diversity and promote a coexistence of different interests. We’ve played shows like Coachellita where In The Name Of The Dead headlined, Batskinners played, and a rapper played at some point. Completely different genres of music, all homebred. It showcases what kinds of talent we have out here.
What sucks about being in a band or playing in the desert? Is there anything you would want to change?
Austin: I hate that a lot of the scene is 21 and up. There’s a lot of places we’ve played where, I’m still 20, and I’ve been kicked out of my own show. I feel like everyone should hear music — it’s music. Just let them hear the music! A lot of places we’ve played in other areas it’s all ages. Out here, the only time you’ll get an all ages show is a house show. Those are fun, but it should be everywhere.
Cliff: What sucks about being in a band? I dunno.
Carrick: Coordinating our schedules.
Cliff: (laughs) Yes. Obviously money is an issue, especially for a band of our meager standings that we’re at right now. The way the music industry is, and the occupation of a musician in general, there’s no promise of success. I came into it knowing that, so it didn’t really ever bum me out. But then you see how hard you’re working right now: all the driving, and all the bitching we do at each other, just all the work, and there’s still no heavenly light at the end of the tunnel that’s going to be guaranteed to you. In a way, that could be a total caveat to some people, and to others totally inspiring. To me it’s inspiring because it strips away any superficial motives. It’s more just allowing passion and allowing the release to speak for itself.
Carrick: Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think Coachella, the festival, is a bad thing. I think it’s great and Tachevah’s cool too, but I feel like since the introduction of Tachevah has happened and local publications are promoting “Battle of Bands,” it’s made playing music out in the desert a competition. We turn our focus on expanding outside the desert and touring rather than winning any competitions, because we believe art shouldn’t be a competition. Everyone who creates their own art does it a little bit differently, so you really shouldn’t compare it.
Do you think this competition has changed the dynamic in the desert?
Cliff: Absolutely. I think when music becomes a competition and that sort of attitude becomes the forefront of what musicians out here see and are given as this outlet, that it becomes this ambition for a lot of artists in the area, and an inverted influence. But it’s a false ideology to adopt when you are starting a band. Aspirations of musicians shouldn’t be to compete with others that you should be having solidarity within a scene. You should be more focused on expression and artistic integrity, pushing yourself and aspiring to capture the attention of people you admire outside of the scene.
I think that’s something we all stand by.
What’s something you want to see in the future for the Coachella Valley scene? Is there something crucial that needs to happen?
Cliff: I love the scene out here, I’m in love with it and I feel so fortunate be a part of it. I want to see good things happen for it. I want to see it thrive and really be a name for itself, so that one day people can talk about it the way they talk about the Seattle grunge scene, or the Mid-West emo scene, or the New York punk scene. I don’t know what it took for those places to really get to the point where they did, maybe it really was just places like CBGB, or bands like the Ramones or American Football to come out of the woodwork, or Nirvana blowing up out of nowhere. I think as much as we talk about Tachevah being a contest, I feel like it’s good that these huge entities are trying to tune into what’s going on around here. I would like to see them try to highlight more of this unique thing happening around here. I just want to see more solidarity across the press, and across the bands that play out here. More DIY venues, more collaborations on bringing in more bands to play here, not just locally, but bring in traveling acts all the time. To really have a real space, a good venue like the Troubadour, whether or not it fails or it succeeds. I think the thing that would be crucial and key is to just have everybody tune in and pay attention.
What does the future hold for Safety Net?
Carrick: After our tour I want to take a break from shows. I want to sit down and write, because once we got started we didn’t stop rolling. We really haven’t taken a break since we started playing shows. As far as the future goes, we’re focusing on expanding our sounds, not necessarily transcending genres, but just taking the time to write a goddamn song. I feel like we have so much more potential, we like weird time signatures and weird chords, and we want to experiment with that more. I hope after the end of our tour or June 5th is done we just sit down and just have a summer of writing.
Well, summer lends itself to that, since it’s too hot to do anything anyway.
Cliff: It’s when your nerves get fried and you’re frustrated, and you just want to take it out somehow. I think that’s how we wrote a lot of our stuff to begin with.
BAND: CARRICK, GUITAR, VOCALS / AUSTIN, BASS / CLIFF, DRUMS
LINKS: SAFETY-NET.BANDCAMP.COM