Photo Credit: Samer Ghani
Whenever Flat Teeth see a bottle of Larceny bourbon they’re reminded of recording their first EP. The band discovered the whiskey while tracking their debut Winter House, and by their account, they drank their fair share of it. “Larceny is how you end up with 16 tracks of gang vocals on a song,” marvels guitarist/backup singer Andy Kosanke. “Andy, strangely, sings a lot louder when he’s drinking Larceny,” singer/guitarist Nik Stoehr notes.
Flat Teeth formed a couple of years ago from the ashes of a dormant band. Four-fifths of the group had played together in Twelve Ounce Prophet, a folky indie act that they originally set out to resurrect. When Kosanke joined the group, though, they decided to start a new project, one with a louder edge.
“I started playing music in my early teens, mostly pop-punk then punk before I found out about bands like The Cure and The Smiths and stuff like that,” said Kosanke, who also plays in Milwaukee indie-rock group Paper Holland. He was excited about the chance to tap his aggressive side. “With the other bands I play with, I usually play pretty clean guitar, so being able to use overdrive and distortion without it seeming totally out of place is awesome,” he says.
Set for release Sept. 29, Flat Teeth’s Winter House EP positions the group alongside some of the city’s more exciting new rock bands. From Versio Curs’ achy guitar-pop to Telethon’s Joycean punk and Vanity Plates’ bratty pop-punk, a lot of the best new bands coming out of Milwaukee’s indie-rock scene have a distinctly emo-ish tint, even though none of them could be labeled emo outright. And so it is with Flat Teeth, who spike their melodic rock with feverish guitars and overheated vocal harmonies. On the jittery “Elevator Eyes” and its fist-pumping title track, Winter House channels the spirit of classic Saddle Creek releases, thanks in part to Stoehr’s creaky, Conor Oberst-esque warble, which sells his lyrics with due conviction.
Stoehr credits the band for giving the songs their kick. “Most of them begin as folk songs, really,” he says. “I’ll write the songs or the ideas, and most of the words, and I’ll bring them to band practice and these guys will totally change them into something different—which is awesome. They change them in a good way. I usually just write songs so they’re something I can play at home on my own. It’s the band that turns them into something bigger.”
Flat Teeth doesn’t have much of a live track record yet. They’ve played just one show, an August date at Cactus Club, but they hope to pick up the pace soon, starting with their EP release show on Saturday, Sept. 29. “When we first started, we were just getting together when we had the time, since everybody was busy with their own stuff,” says Kosanke. “Now it’s a weekly thing. We want to be selective about the shows we play, but we’re really committed to getting out and playing a lot more.”
Flat Teeth headline an EP release show Saturday, Sept. 29, at Cactus Club at 9 p.m. with Versio Curs and Live Tetherball Tonight.
