HELLO?    WE ARE !!!

! ! ! is pronounced by repeating thrice any monosyllabic sound. Chk Chk Chk is the most common pronunciation, but they could just as easily be called Pow Pow Pow, Bam Bam Bam, Uh Uh Uh, etc.

Biography Feb 2007:

!!! members Nic Offer (vox), Jerry Fuchs (drums), John Pugh (vox & perc), Allan Wilson (perc, synth, sax), Mario Andreoni (git), Tyler Pope (git), Justin Van Der Volgen (bass) and Dan Gorman (perc, synth) like to push their own limits. At times, this requires rigorous physical training. Rehearsing their third album ‘Myth Takes’ in a rented house on the “wrong side” of Nashville, the band began each day with a strict exercise regime. “We all lived in this huge empty house” remembers Nic. “Every morning we´d do a kung-fu workout, and after that we´d jam all afternoon and night. I think the neighbours thought we were a cult or something. One time the postman walked up to the door when we were all in the living room, in our short shorts, chanting and contorted into these weird sweaty positions. It worked, though: don´t mess with the magic”.

Nowhere is the magic more obvious than on stage. Formed in 1996 to play the all-night party scene in Sacramento, California, they´re still easily one of the most exciting live acts in the world. A 2006 UK arena tour supporting Red Hot Chili Peppers helped the band to further hone their performing skills. “We learnt that to play shows that big, you have to make the hooks hit harder.. I could feel us getting better every night”.

The last time !!! released any music was nearly two years ago, when we heard them doing strange things to Stephen Merritt´s morose indie staple ‘Take Ecstasy With Me’, turning it into a eight-minute long worldwide acid house classic: easily one of the best singles of 2005. “When we covered that Magnetic Fields song it taught us how simple it can be to write a song. All the best music is made when while discovering how to do something new. We were used to writing nine-minute songs, but playing something so simple made us rethink our songwriting”, Nic remembers. Now these dancefloor-destroying Pan-American dancing men have taken their trademark dance-funk sound into previously unimaginable territories. The ten tracks comprising ‘Myth Takes’ are denser and groovier than anything they´ve previous presented: a cut´n´paste sound-splash built from meaty basslines, spaghetti western guitars, African polyrhythms, electro house bleeps and Philly soul. It´s no exaggeration to say that there is no music like this being made anywhere else on the planet. With ‘Myth Takes’, !!! have stretched out to become truly peerless.

As the eight members are split between the east and west coasts of the US, the Nashville session was a welcome opportunity to reunite and make music all day for three weeks. “Usually when we jam, we try and let things go for at least an hour”, laughs Nic. “But sometimes we´ll get so into it that we´ll play for three hours and not notice”.

Surprisingly, the live audiences help shape !!!´s songs. “The songs are basically written four times” explains Nic. “We write them in the practice space. Then we test them on the road. Then we take them into the studio, and relearn them before we tour with them again. So they´re always evolving. Playing them on the road has a way of making everything gel. People come to see us and party and dance, so if that doesn´t happen, we´re not doing our job properly”.

Bassist Justin Van Der Volgen produced the record, threading the best bits of the Nashville house jams into a dense sonic patchwork that has as much in common with 70s Jamaican dub as 21st century club music. ‘Myth Takes’ features some of the sparkliest of pop, as well. “Really, all we want to do is play. If we could jam together forever without stopping, we probably would. We´re dedicated to chasing that elusive groove”.