Denver-based up-and-comers Liquid Chicken don’t pretend to understand humanity but damn, do they know how to celebrate it. Their music favors those with skinned kneecaps, mysterious bruises, blurry stick-and-poke’s on their wrists, the beautiful and the hungover. Liquid Chicken understands that all these scars and markings caused by bumps in the night serve as evidence that we are alive and ready to live and laugh loudly and with the entirety of our beings. It’s music made to scorch the listener’s throat as they sing along, that’ll stave off a hangover and keep you high for just a little while longer.
The band recently spoke with 303 Magazine ahead of the August 18th release of their self-titled debut EP about finding humanity within debauchery, juxtaposing serious musical chops with tongue-in-cheek lyricism, the importance of humor and more.
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303 Magazine: A lot of the songs on the EP are raunchy but relatable, stories taken to the extreme but told with empathy, which becomes comforting in a way. How do you find that balance between debauchery and humanity?
Liquid Chicken: In our opinion, the most real showcase of humanity is debauchery. We’d be lying if we told you our goal wasn’t to be explicitly provocative, likely because that’s the music we find most exciting. I think our biggest fear would be making music that puts people to sleep so sometimes we make use of shock value as a means to that end. Whether or not that comes off as balanced is up to the listener.
303: To follow up about some of the stories, which are also told with a pretty healthy dose of poeticism, what’s your songwriting process? How much does personal experience influence your lyrics? Are these all retellings of things that’ve actually happened or do you take some creative liberties or a mix of both?
Liquid Chicken: Our songwriting process can be summed up as “collaborative democracy.” Each of us has full control over our own instrument, but at a certain point, once we start jamming with an idea, a dam breaks and more branching ideas start pouring out uncontrollably. Sometimes we can hammer out an entire song in half an hour and other times it may take months for a song to be fully pieced together.
Lyrics almost always come last. After jamming with an idea for a while, we usually have a solid vocal melody and a few words relating to a feeling or subject which then directs us towards the narrative of the song. Sometimes we have a clear-cut understanding of what that message is and sometimes that message is to just be as abstract/nonsensical as possible. It’s impossible for personal experience not to influence our lyrics and we enjoy letting our listeners choose what they deem is factual and what was imagined.
303: The musicianship on the album is next level. At times, the band switches time signatures on a dime, plays with tempo at others, oscillates between some straight rock and roll to intricate prog-type stuff. How do y’all craft your songs from an instrumental standpoint and do the lyrics affect what you play?
Liquid Chicken: If anything, the lyrics are more affected by what we’re playing than vice-versa because, as we said, lyrics almost always come last. When we are jamming with a new idea for a song, we try to
tinker with the dynamics, tone, rhythm etc. until we find what sounds best to our ears. We have
never claimed to be fluent in “music theory” and never will. We just know what we like. The downside of this is there is a lot of experimentation involved in discovering what sounds best. However, it’s the act of discovery and those “aha” moments where we really find fulfillment as musicians.
303: There’s an interesting dichotomy between the serious, heartfelt musicianship and the almost tongue-in-cheek lyrics, which feature some fantastic wordplay. How important is humor to you in your music and is there a certain philosophy you adhere to when crafting new songs?
Liquid Chicken: Usually when trying to chisel out a vocal melody, we sing vulgar lyrics in an attempt to make each other laugh. This first draft of lyrics usually dictates the vocal phrasing and rhyme schemes and the actual words sometimes bleed into the final product. So yes, humor is important to us, but we think our songs with more serious subject matter are strengthened by their contrast with our goofier lyrics.
303: From what I can tell, there are all kinds of influences on the EP. At times, I heard some early Sabbath, Pixies at others, some King Crimson thrown in for good measure. How much do you let influences affect you when making new music? Are they something you think about? Are there any in particular, whether it’s music, movies, books, stories, whatever, that you’d like to mention?
Liquid Chicken: The four of us all have incredibly diverse musical influences which are naturally at play when writing together. We wouldn’t describe it as directly affecting our music, but more as a natural sense of sound and emotion that has been cemented in our brains over time. Our influences aren’t something that we consciously think about, but sometimes when playing a guitar riff or a drum beat or singing a vocal melody, one of us usually comments “Oh shit, that sounds like [enter band name], hope we get big enough to be sued by them.” As far as specific influences go, it ranges from Tool to Tom Petty and anything in between.
303: Finally, besides the EP, is there anything else you’d like to plug?
Liquid Chicken: There are a couple of cool things coming up that we’d like to plug. First is our music video. We are shooting it in September for our song “Walking”, and expect it to be out in late October/ early November. The video is gonna be sick. Follow us @liquidchickenofficial or check out our website liquidchickenofficial.com for updates.
We’ve also got some shows coming up! Dates aren’t finalized but these will also be on our website and social media accounts.
Additionally, we wanted to let other bands know that if they’d like to play with us, shoot us a message! We are always down to work with other bands.
We also plan to record a full album in the coming year. In the short amount of time from recording to releasing our EP, we’ve come a long way, and already have a catalog of new songs we are excited to share. We always test out our new songs at shows so come see us live.
Lastly, if there is anyone in the music industry that likes what they hear, come check us out live
or send us a message. We have big ambitions and would love to make some new connections.