If you’re a fan of Dada art movement, then Scheisster’s Was Ist Scheissters? is for you. The four-track, independent release hit the streets July 9 and is the brainchild of Austin Doty (guitar), Noah Taube (vocals) and Alan “Spanky” Iglesias (drums). “It’s on all the search bars,” Taube says. “Scheissters is a pretty unique word.” Doty says, “If you spell it correctly, results will come up.”
So what exactly is a scheisster, anyways? While Taube describes it as a naughty person, Iglesias has a different take: A scheisster, in the words of Iglesias, is a shithead. “It’s someone who doesn’t really care about the rules and breaks them all the time,” he says.
Iglesias’ interpretation of the word is more accurate to what the Scheissters are all about—maybe minus the shithead part. Inspired by Dadaism, the Scheissters are on a mission to make people question what makes music good. “I really like the Dada art movement because it’s all about critical theory,” Taube says. “It’s not so much about creating a nice piece or nice work or expressing your craftsmanship—it’s more about eliciting a feeling out of your audience and making them think, ‘Is this art? What makes this art? What about this is pleasing? What effect is it having on me?’”
Making the audience think isn’t just limited to questioning the nature of art; the Scheissters want to elicit many different types of feelings and reactions from their audience and create another level to listening aside from just enjoying music. “Humor is kind of a big part of what we’re trying to do,” Taube says. “Rock music is a good platform for that because it’s kind of founded on a bit of rule-breaking and naughtiness … It’s fun to push the envelope and walk the line … of just what’s appropriate.”
In this vein, subject matter is incredibly important to each member of the Scheissters. After previous experiences in bands where lyrics were meaningless, Scheissters aim to do something different with their music-making process. “We really spend a lot of time talking about what subject mater we want to tackle. We write songs with lyrics we can all find meaning in,” Taube says.
Catch the Scheissters at The Ice Haus Aug. 27, and check out their new EP wherever you get your music, such as Spotify or Amazon Music. Stay up to date with the band through their Facebook.