by Marcella Ortega
Daily Lobo
A few years ago, Unit 7 Drain came out of the woodwork.
"We were basically living in makeshift homeless camps in the woods, practicing on generators from people's tool sheds," guitarist and vocalist Harry Redus said. "We lived in places in central New Mexico like La Joya, which is really, really nowhere. Veguita, Corrales - all these places that are rural farming communities."
The band played a set of its experimental tunes at Burt's Tiki Lounge on Saturday. Redus, guitarist Tony Wissing and drummer Chris Newman started the band in 1999, and over the years became regular performers Downtown.
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"We started the Albuquerque bar scene at Sprockets," Wissing said. "Then the people who worked there had connections to other bars, and we started getting shows all over town. That was really good. Before that, it was really hard to get any kind of shows."
In October, the group released Lists. The fist six tracks on the album are new.
"The last six are a retrospective of songs that have been the most popular ones over the seven-year history of the band," Redus said.
Bobby Tucker, known as Little Bobby, plays the synthesizer for Unit 7 Drain.
"Today, I would have to say that my favorite song is 'Panes of Glass,' and that is because the lyrics are about dead pets," he said. "I had a dog that died a few years ago, and Harry (Redus) wrote that song a couple of years later. It made me think of that. It's just something you can relate to, and the beat is really good."
Tucker, who paints his face for each show, said he loves Albuquerque compared to his hometown of Waco, Texas.
"It's very religious, Republican, white and redneck," he said. "I escaped when they weren't looking. I took off and landed here in Albuquerque. I felt like there was a band here calling my name."
Bass player and vocalist Ella Vader joined Unit 7 Drain in 2004.
"It's kind of like there is this stereotype where if there is a girl in the band, she is the bass player - the token female bass player - and she is there to like sort of make the band more attractive or something," she said. "It's been really important to me that I was a good bass player, and that I hold my own on the bass, and it wasn't that I was just a girl. These guys are like my closest friends, so it is really easy being in a band with them. And they are all really brilliant musicians."
Wissing said the stereotype was a concern when Vader was trying out.
"We really wanted to see how she sounded before we knew," he said. "Harry (Redus) had started showing her some songs, and by the first practice, she knew four."
Redus said even with the addition of female vocals, the band has preserved its Unit 7 Drain sound over the years.
"The original concept was to combine really noisy aggressive music - more noisy than heavy metal, crust or hardcore and sort of experimental - and try to combine that with pop music in some way," he said. "I think that has always been evident on most of the stuff."
