If you’re trying to get a good band together, a lot of things have to click between members, from their availability to their aesthetics. While you can try to manufacture that kind of chemistry, ultimately it comes down to plain old serendipity. The thing about serendipity, though, is that it sometimes takes its own sweet time, as Daniel James, frontman for the Milwaukee punk power trio Indonesian Junk, discovered while seeking the perfect backing band to bring his songs to life. If he had to wait a while though, the results heard on the group’s new single, “Crimes,” were worth it.
“I was really trying to get a band together and couldn’t, so I was just writing these songs,” James explains. “I eventually just said screw it and decided to post the demos on Bandcamp with me playing everything.” It was progress, but not exactly sustainable, especially since, by the guitarist’s own admission, he’s not the most skilled player behind a drum kit. “I had to learn how to play drums to do it, so I joined another local band for the sole purpose of learning how,” he says, laughing, “and then once I was good enough I quit the band.”
After posting the tracks, James resumed looking for musicians to recruit with little success. “I don’t think anyone wanted to do what I wanted to do,” he says, “and I didn’t even know how to describe it, because it’s a mish-mash of all of my influences.” That changed when bassist Johnny Cyanide, whom James had met at an Alice Cooper concert some time before, heard the demos. “It clicked right away, I was like, ‘This is totally what I want to do,’” says Cyanide. “Somewhere in between glam, punk, heavier stuff, it’s right in the sweet spot between all that.”
Once the pair enlisted likeminded drummer David Barootian, the new Indonesian Junk set to work fleshing out James’ songs, which have a retro flair but sound fresh nonetheless, recalling the early days of punk before the term was set in stone and everything from tuneful power pop to hard-hitting heavy metal was fair game. “My main rule is that I want a song to be catchy,” James says. “I just set out to write the kind of music I want to listen to.” “A lot of punk bands get stuck by the rules,” Cyanide adds, “But with us, anything goes.”
With the songs suddenly at their full potential, the next step was getting them out, and there James, a record aficionado, used some quick thinking to secure label support for the kind of proper vinyl issue he wanted. “It’s a split release, between Some Weird Sin, which is a new label from Texas, and then Lost Cat, out of St. Cloud, Minnesota,” he explains. “I was planning on doing it myself, but both of them hit me up and offered to do a tape, so I introduced them to each other and got a split single out of ’em instead.”
You could get yours online or from your preferred local retailer, but the best way to buy the record is probably at one of the group’s unpredictable live performances. “KISS is my favorite band ever, so I want to put on a show,” James says mischievously. “I’m also really influenced by professional wrestling.” In any case, considering all the time it took to get the group up and running, James doesn’t plan on wasting any more of it, with a full-length already in the works. “After that we’ll see what happens,” he says. “We take over the world hopefully.”
Indonesian Junk’s “Crimes” 7-inch is streaming at indonesianjunk.bandcamp.com. The band plays Frank’s Power Plant on Monday, June 8 as part of a 7:30 p.m. bill with ZEX, Burning Sons and Shock Collar.
