Car Seat Headrest, from left: Andrew Katz, Seth Dalby, Will Toledo, Ethan Ives. Photo courtesy of Matador Records.

An Interview with Andrew Katz of Car Seat Headrest

The Seattle-based drummer, Instagram “content center” and video game creator on his and Will Toledo’s creative endeavors, the music media, and productive (semi-)sobriety

Katie Ingegneri
houseshow magazine
Published in
23 min readJul 2, 2019

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by Katie Ingegneri

Editor’s note: It would probably be helpful to review my piece “Ultimate Music Media Trolling: 1 Trait Danger x Car Seat Headrest’s ‘1 Trait High’” either before or after you read this piece about Andrew.

Introduction: Andrew Katz, King of Drums, King of #Content

The day has arrived. Houseshow Magazine is finally featuring an interview with Andrew Katz, drummer for Seattle-based indie rockers Car Seat Headrest and the mastermind behind their fan-favorite, electronica-rap-comedy side project 1 Trait Danger. It’s been a minute since I’ve gotten to interview someone in one of my absolute favorite bands and write about it, so let’s just say I’m pretty psyched, and hopefully you are too! Or why else would you be reading this?

For the past few years, as Car Seat Headrest broke out of the backseat to build a cult following on Bandcamp and then to indie-mainstream success, the bulk of the conversation has focused on the project’s prolific founder, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Will Toledo. But Car Seat Headrest in its current iteration has been a proper band since at least 2015-ish, featuring Ethan Ives on guitar, Seth Dalby on bass, and Andrew Katz on drums.

It seems like destiny now that Will, a Virginia native who moved all the way across the country to live in one of America’s great music cities, Seattle, found the West Coast-based Andrew via Craigslist listings for local musicians. Andrew’s skills on the drum set would elevate Car Seat Headrest’s indie rock to an arena-ready sound — but as I learned when I became a Car Seat Headrest superfan and in our conversation, his role and output have become so much more than that. Let’s stay on the drumming for a sec, though.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, “Beach Life-in-Death” is the Millennial-and-after generation’s “Bohemian Rhapsody.” Will’s signature early-career epic from 2011's Twin Fantasy deserved no less than a killer drummer who could give it the hard-rocking sonic backbone it deserved. Comparing 2011’s “Beach Life-in-Death” to the 2018 full-band version and the recently released live version on Commit Yourself Completely highlight Andrew’s musical offerings to the project: insane precision, relentless stamina (have you noticed how long Car Seat Headrest songs like BLiD are?), and a ready willingness to scream “EAT BREAKFAST!” and more when needed. Andrew’s drumming provides shapes, corners, and grounding for Will’s cerebral, emotional lyrics and guitar feedback — turning homemade indie rock into real motherfucking rock and roll, the kind you didn’t think existed anymore.

But it’s not just that Andrew is one of the best (I can hear him half-jokingly say something like “no, I’m the best”) drummers in the game. There aren’t many rock bands who balance critical acclaim, selling-out-big-rooms popularity, and being refreshingly silly content creators on the Internet — but the guys of Car Seat Headrest do, thanks to Andrew and his many talents. From holding it down on the drum kit to putting out multiple albums on behalf of his comedic project with Will and the rest of the band, 1 Trait Danger, Andrew also learned how to code his own video game as part of 1TD’s #content offerings, and ensures the band never lacks for a quirky and entertaining social media presence. It’s all pretty wholesome when you think about it.

If it’s not obvious by now (at least if you’re a current fan who already follows him and the band on social media), Andrew is a very funny and unique dude whose down-to-earth conversational style and laid-back, Pacific Northwest vibes belie his versatile musical talent and unexpected interests — from a genuine love of fist-pounding EDM music, to comedic voices, vignettes, and videos on Instagram that feature him taking on random characters (sometimes with the assistance of Snapchat filters) like stereotypical jocks, middle-aged parents, disaffected goths, and mustachioed hillbillies, or cutting together 30-second storylines featuring all the members of the band and their touring crew — for no reason other than a few minutes of laughter and escape, for themselves and anyone watching. There are very few musicians who can compete with this level of creative output and sheer fucking entertainment, and it makes me eternally glad that I got on the Car Seat Headrest bandwagon three years ago.

In our cross-coastal conversation — me in Massachusetts, Andrew in his Seattle apartment — we discussed a whole bunch in under an hour:

  • How he and Will each bring their own unique musical strengths to the creation of 1 Trait Danger’s funny tracks, Andrew coding his first video game “Cossett’s World” in conjunction with the release of 1 Trait Danger’s second album “1 Trait World Tour” earlier this year, and the inspiration behind the album, which pokes fun at the many absurdities of life as a touring musician;
  • Why Car Seat Headrest barely drinks and parties while they’re on the road (and why they’re better off musically, and health-wise, because of it), opting instead to channel their energy into continually creating new music and #content;
  • And, of course, Andrew’s beef with Kevin Parker from Tame Impala. (Actually, we didn’t discuss that nearly enough.) He seems to like Mac DeMarco though.

(By the way, “1 Trait World Tour” is a hilarious album that deserves more space than I can give it here. I’m trying to get a piece about it placed in a “real,” non-DIY media publication, but no luck yet — is it because no one, especially the music media, knows how to actually laugh anymore? (“Does anybody remember laughter?” — Robert Plant). I guess I would expect as much from the folks who took “Stoney Bologne” as a “real” song. See also this recent Tweet from Andrew:

(Ignore the unhighlighted “follow” button, screenshot from work Twitter!)

Anyway, we also discussed Andrew’s youth, where I asked him about whether he had belonged to any particular kind of group or scene, and he said “I’m one of those weird people that never really found like, a scene,” and how he dabbled in everything from being a band geek type to playing football, while finding ways to entertain himself and his friends. I can definitely relate, as a former orchestra kid and general nerd who also partied at house shows (very occasionally). It’s maybe why both Car Seat Headrest and 1 Trait Danger have such broad appeal—all ages and types of people can find something resonant in their music, whether you’re the captain of the football team or a hacker who’s never seen sunlight. Andrew is a funny combination of both, a breath of fresh air in a time where most people take themselves, and their work, and their social media presence, and their personal #brand, way too seriously.

Click through to Insta to see my personal album of video #content from the world-changing 1TD show in Brooklyn, September 2018.

Andrew proved that his talents extend to being a frontman when I went to Brooklyn last September for 1 Trait Danger’s only live show to date at a small show and bar space, where they performed “1 Trait High” and debuted a few songs that would be released on “1 Trait World Tour.” If you didn’t know the guys on the stage in a variety of costumes (Will in gas mask, Car Seat Headrest touring partners Naked Giants in wigs) were the band who had just sold out two nights at the 1,800-person-capacity Brooklyn Steel, you’d wonder why you were drinking in some random bar while a clearly non-teenage-person rapped about a party in the back of his dad’s SUV (“I’m in seventh grade, and I’m 15, and fuck you”). It was so entertaining and fun and definitely worth the cold I came down with on the four-hour bus ride back to Boston. I sincerely hope they bring the 1TD live experience to more audiences.

The world is in desperate need of not only more Car Seat Headrest albums and shows, but more 1 Trait Danger #content like albums, revitalizing their satiric media site DirtPlug TV, and endless videos from Andrew and his willing crew of Will Toledo and company for as long as the Internet exists. I can only hope Andrew continues to find inspiration in both the mundane (getting locked out of the car) and the exceptional (being a member of a high-profile touring band) as he continues to entertain us. Because in these dark times, laughter — and music — is more necessary than ever.

Keep reading for my conversation with Andrew!

A photo of the 1 Trait Danger show in Brooklyn that I jacked from fellow fan Ariella Markowitz, I’m the one to the far right in this picture.

Conversation with Andrew Katz, Spring 2019

Katie Ingegneri: That was such a fun show, do you think you’re gonna do more [1 Trait Danger] shows?

Andrew Katz: I think someday, hopefully. It’s kinda hard because those kind of shows are probably only gonna happen — unless 1 Trait becomes seriously its own thing — those are only gonna happen on days off from Car Seat shows. But maybe someday, who knows! The plan is obviously to play more shows in the future, but we have nothing solidified as of yet…

Did you get a chance to play [“Cossett’s World”] at all? I sent it to a lot of people to test it out, and even people who play video games can’t figure it out. Which is kind of the point of the game, but I like the game cause it has a lot of parallels to the album — like the guy you see on the screen, that’s Multiple Computer Mark. Eventually you’ll start to put the pieces together — he’s the guy helping you out through the game. There’s tidbits, and when you beat the game there’s some secret shit for ya…My guess is almost no one will beat the game.

I stumbled on Stoney Bologne’s grave…and the tile staircase…So this was your first game that you coded?

First game I’ve ever even attempted to make, yeah. It was a month of total hell, cause I had to learn how to code, and make a game in the same month. But I’m proud of how it came out. I also think it’ll be fun to see if anyone can actually beat it, cause it was designed to be extremely difficult. I love playing games — I’d never made one before, so it was a fun experience for sure, and now I know how to make them. I doubt I’ll ever do it again, cause it was the worst month of my life.

How did you decide to make that with this album?

Well, you know, the last album we did the flash drives — we had that little folder of crazy bullshit you had to sift through to find some hidden songs. So I liked the idea of a game, like you release an album and you have an accompanying game that you can play while you listen to the album or whatever, so I was like well, I gotta step it up this time from just files and folders — I’ll just make a fucking game.

Do you think this is targeting a certain audience?

It’s definitely gonna be a certain kind of person that’s gonna beat it. For sure. Cause I mean, I play video games a lot, and my friends play a lot of video games, and I sent it a lot of my friends who play a LOT of video games, and they were like “fuck this game, I can’t beat it, I’m not playing it anymore, most frustrating shit I’ve ever done.” So whoever beats it is gonna be a very specific kind of person. But it is beatable, you can beat it. I know that.

How did 1 Trait Danger start in the beginning?

1 Trait Danger wasn’t called 1 Trait Danger in the beginning, it didn’t really have a name. It was just kind of me making shitty beats on my computer, and I remember, the first one I made, it was either “Stoney Bologne,” or “Saturday’s For The Boys,” one of the two. And I remember I was at Will’s parents’ house when I was making “Stoney Bologne,” in Virginia, laying in his sister’s old bedroom, cause that’s where I would sleep when I stayed there. We would stay at his parents’ house when we went off to Europe, cause it’s close to the airport. And so I was laying in the bed, and his sister on the wall had all these old teen girl posters that she had up when she was younger, so she had like Zac Efron with all these funny cute pictures with hearts on them, and then one of them was a big picture of Obama…and I had this beat made, and I had this shitty little microphone and I was rapping into it, and I’m looking at this wall and I just see Obama, so that’s where I had the callout for Obama from.

So I made that song…I think I made that one first, we made “Saturday’s for the Boys” in Australia…and we had driven through France, months earlier, and seen the 1 Trait Danger, 2 Traits Securité sign, which roughly translates to “don’t tailgate people on the highway,” so 1 Trait Danger is like one car-length is bad, you want two car lengths, that’s good. So we saw that sign, and Will was like “that’d be a great name for a band.” So then we had these songs sort of forming, and we were like okay, let’s just make this 1 Trait Danger.

And I really wanted to just, every time I made a track, just release it, and Will had the foresight — cause he’s one of those visionaries that has an idea — and he’s like “no no, you can’t release these, you need to save these and we’ll put them all out as an album.” I was like “fuck, man, come on, I wanna put it out now.” But I’m so glad that he didn’t let me…his role in all this 1 Trait stuff is quality control. He’s very good at knowing what’s gonna be decent, and what’s gonna suck, so I sort of bring a bunch of shitty ideas, and he’ll sift through them and fine-tune them for me. So the idea of making this into an album was another Will idea. So that is the origins.

I was curious about how you write the songs — I know you work on them together cause I’ve watched your livestreams and everything.

Usually how it goes is, I’ll just sit on my laptop and make a beat, or I’ll come up with just some repetitive line that’s funny. Like when we’re on tour, we’ll just be snapping and singing dumb shit, like “I want to die, I want to fucking die” [from “On Tour With Eddy (Yo Tengo)” on “1 Trait World Tour”]. And then it’s like, we’ll put that in a song. So we’ll have a beat, and then I’ll start putting this stuff in the song, so I do nearly all the production. And what I suck at is song structure, which Will is fantastic at. What I suck at is the bigger picture, which Will is fantastic at. And so I bring these shitty little ideas, and I’m like “Will, put chords behind this” or “Will, what do you think could make this sound better?” And that’s what he helps with.

And then you just grab the other guys as needed for vocal stuff?

Yeah, I love Ethan, he’s so great just for anything I need in terms of these stupid little ideas, he’s always down. Like Instagram videos, “yo Ethan, I gotta film you,” “Oh yeah, sure.” “Ethan, yo, come say this fucked-up line into this microphone,” “Oh sure.” Like, he’s perfect. So that’s great. And Seth, of course, anytime I need him…he’s a little more shy obviously, but he’s also down to help for sure.

It’s such a great multi-media thing you have going here, with your Instagram videos, the albums, DirtPlug…you should totally run with it, make more videos, you know.

Yeah, time’s an issue, that’s kind of why DirtPlug died, cause we were kind of getting stretched thin — there’s only so much you can do. So I remember with DirtPlug, we were like if we wanna not write the articles anymore, let’s just put out a call for journalists, so I messaged looking for interns or whatever, and I actually got a ton of people that wrote back and gave me example music articles. But they were all so bad, no one got what DirtPlug was as a joke, no one understood it. They all understood it was some form of comedy, but they didn’t get that it was satire, really, so no one was sending us satire stuff, so I was just like, okay.

I mean, DirtPlug is not dead though, maybe “dead” was the wrong word — DirtPlug is in hibernation. Tim Schenectady will be back, I guarantee it.

So what’s the progression now [with 1 Trait Danger]…you got Tim Schenectady, and all the music journalism criticism and all the weirdness — Alien Boy, Obama — on the first one, and now you got the new one, where 1 Trait is going on tour?

Exactly. So the first one was a weird, future high school, about bullying, essentially, and this one is 1 Trait, moving on to the next phase — they’re becoming real musicians, they’re on tour, and this album is the hardships of being a musician on the road. So it’s almost like the shit we experience as Car Seat Headrest, in a way, cause we actually are touring…that’s why these ideas come from. Like “Fly, Play, Travel, Play, Fly,” it’s like fuck, every fucking day I wake up and do the same shit over and over and over, so we made a super repetitive song called “Fly, Play, Travel, Play, Fly,” a million fucking times. So this one is just about going on tour, hence the name “world tour.”

It sort of seems to me like a “Ziggy Stardust” rise and fall, like he landed on Earth and became a rock star, and then it all fell apart…

Cool, I like that.

Like a larger concept album again, a tragicomic opera about festivals — cause when you were talking about Mac DeMarco [in “Glass Boys (Midday Festival Set)”], I was reminded of when you guys were on stage sitting with him, he had you sitting at a table?

Right, yeah, that was in Paris.

Festival livestream screenshot courtesy of myself

So are you guys like buddies with him?

Oh, I can’t stay he’d even know my name if he saw me, but we’ve met, and we’ve chatted. He knows the band, obviously, I think he’d remember Will. And he is a genuinely, really nice guy, almost too nice — like one of those people where you’re like, “is this real,” like no one’s that good. He really is nice, he’s so personable, which makes me hate him! No, he’s fantastic.

But he is just like, the epitome of a great festival act, right? No one’s ever had a bad time watching Mac DeMarco at a festival. Super easy listening music, really great stage presence, so I’m like, who better in an album about being at a festival — so like that middle chunk of the album is “Glass Boys,” the Mac DeMarco “Midday Set,” then you got the headliners and the late night set. So it’s like, who else would you have on stage at 3 pm at a festival? It’s always Mac DeMarco.

Right, yeah — and then you name-drop [Tame Impala’s] Kevin Parker, and Beach House…

Yeah, yeah, everybody knows Kevin Parker, and Kevin Parker and I have beef going way back, so he had to be on there.

I think that’s what’s so fun about this project — you’re taking your real band, and you guys are very successful in all your touring and festival playing and everything, but then you still wanna make fun of everything with that, and with Pitchfork…

Of course. This is our outlet. Because 1 Trait is so unknown, we can kinda say whatever we want and get away with it. If this was coming out of Car Seat’s mouth, people would be rolling in their graves, you know?

Yeah, they can’t handle whenever Will tweets about anything…

Exactly, so 1 Trait is a fantastic outlet for us.

Are you also working on Car Seat songs on the road?

I can’t say that I am very much…it’s mostly Will, he’ll be mixing stuff on the road. When we’re in Seattle we record some stuff. And then Will will mix it. I’m gonna try to help him mix and probably master this next album [editor’s note: wondering now if he was referring to “Commit Yourself Completely” — which hadn’t been announced when we talked — cause Andrew is listed for exactly that in the credits], or at least I’m gonna give it a shot and we’ll see how it sounds and if it sucks we’ll send it to a real pro. But in terms of me helping Will with those songs, I’m not writing those songs, I don’t really have the vision, so me trying to produce them doesn’t really make much sense. But he surely works on them on the road, and he’ll play stuff to me and I’ll say, “oh I like that,” “I don’t like that.”

And then you guys are just entertaining yourselves with 1 Trait and all that.

Oh yeah, 1 Trait is a great way to keep busy. I think 1 Trait, more often than not, just annoys everybody, cause I bust out my computer and my recording rig and I’m like “hey, come over here, listen to this” or “hey, come over here, help me record this” or “hey, can you help me with these chords” and I think most of the time everyone’s kinda pissed at me. The same with the Instagram videos, people are trying to chill out, and I’m running around with a camera and shit. But I think in the end, everyone can appreciate the final product, so they’re okay putting up with it.

So back when you were younger, were you like a music kid, or a theater kid, or a gamer…

I’m one of those weird people that never really found like, a scene. I was never really in any scene — I was never a theater kid, or a gamer, or a music kid, I always just put my toes in a lot of ponds, I guess. So when I was really young, I wanted to be a professional skateboarder. So I tried skateboarding, I got a skateboard, and I fucking sucked! I could barely ollie after like three years of desperately wanting to be a skateboarder. I bought how to skate videos on VHS and shit, I was really trying to get into it. Uh, that didn’t work.

So I always fairly athletic — I played soccer, and basketball, and football, and I also sucked at those, relatively speaking…so I was like okay, guess I’m not gonna be a pro athlete. So in sixth grade, I got into the band class in middle school, and said okay, guess I’m in band now, started playing percussion, took to it, liked it a lot, but never thought I’d be pro.

Growing up, I had this group of friends who all liked to play sports, all liked to play video games, all were kinda into music…it was a very weird group of people that weren’t ever in a specific scene, like I never went full-force in any direction, I’m just into a lot of different shit I guess. It’s interesting thinking about my childhood, like I never belonged to any scene, but that’s why I’m still friends with these guys, 20 years later — our group was really close because of that, I think.

A thing me and my friends do is we love making up characters. My old roommate Garrett, who was actually on a Skinny Teeth track — have you listened to Skinny Teeth? It’s an old solo project I had, it had a song called “Chilly Love” on it, and the reason I bring that up is because he’s the type of guy that’s down to do funny voices and be weird too. So my old roommate Garrett, and my current roommate Aaron and I, had this list of weird characters and voices we would make, and that can kill hours in my friend group, just fucking around, making up voices and shit. But none of us ever did theater, you know, we were never theater people. It’s kind of how we are, I guess. (Editor’s note: “Chilly Love” has a deceptively mellow early 2000s indie rock sound with hilariously NSFW lyrics, you need to listen to it right now.)

I don’t think you see too many bands doing like, funny stuff that you guys do.

Yeah, luckily those guys — I can’t say they’re fully on my level, cause I think I annoy them a lot with it, but they’re always down to do funny shit. Like Will is always down to do videos, Ethan’s always down to do videos, Seth’s down to be the funny silent guy, like it’s a really funny dynamic we have. And I’m glad those guys like comedy as much as they do, cause I would kill myself on tour if we couldn’t fuck around and have fun, it would just be so boring. And none of us like to party or drink or anything, like some bands fill that time with partying, and social shit, but we hate social shit, so our fun outlet is these bits of comedy.

Like on tour, we’re laughing all the time, something or other is hilarious, it’s how we survive, I guess — it’s through comedy.

It’s pretty rare you see a band that doesn’t drink at all, like we don’t even have alcohol in our green room. If you don’t tell them, they will assume every person in a band likes to drink, but that comes out of your paycheck, you’re paying for that alcohol at the end of the day, so we’re just like…“we’re not even drinking a single beer, let’s just not have it in here.” That’s how little partying we do.

So you’re almost on the like, straight edge side of things.

Well, when I’m home I’ll drink a beer, and I’ll smoke a joint — I got high as shit last night, it was fun — but like, on the road, it’s different. When I’m at work, you know…you’re at work. When we first started touring, I used to drink before shows, like a couple whiskey and Cokes or whatever, and I’m like, I’m just playing worse than I should be, so that ended quickly. And then it just sort of turned into, like “I don’t even want a beer, what’s the point.”

That’s really interesting. So Will’s not a drinker, either?

Oh, absolutely not [laughs] — if anybody’s not a drinker, it’s Will. I mean, every once in a while we’ll go out to dinner and he’ll get a cocktail or something, but like, if he were to drink heavily at all he’d feel really shitty the next day, he gets bad hangovers and headaches and stuff. And as you get older, that stuff intensifies too. I can drink, but when I’m in tour mode I don’t really like to.

Maybe that’s why you guys are so good at what you do and the music you make.

I’d like to think that’s part of it, for sure. As far as band issues go, I think a lot of bands struggle with substance abuse. And luckily for us, it’s not even part of the equation. Like the biggest issues we’ve had, is like, we’re 20 minutes late to soundcheck. If that’s the biggest issue in your band, I think you’re doing pretty well.

Yeah, absolutely. So you and Will have known each other for a while now? When you did you start playing together?

I met him at the end of 2014, so we essentially started playing together at the very beginning of 2015. We first jammed at the end of 2014, he came over to my place and he was just showing “Beach Life” and shit and I was just playing whatever to it, cause I thought were just jamming, and he was actually showing me his songs, I didn’t really realize it. And then I went and looked at his Bandcamp and was like “oh shit, this guy’s for real.” Yeah, so I’ve known him for almost five years.

I am still curious about the music angle, like 1 Trait being more EDM and clubby, is that the kind of music you’re more into?

Yeah, I like EDM a lot. I’m also weird in the sense that I don’t really listen to that much music — I almost never sit down on my couch and put an album on and listen to it, which is kinda weird, most musicians are not like that. I just get song recommendations from friends, or my roommate will put music on, he’s really good at seeking out music, and I’ll just listen to little tidbits here and there. But I’ll seek out some EDM every now and then, and I’ll put on my own playlists at home sometimes.

I really do like EDM and I think EDM is the future of music, it’s the direction that is all music is sort of being pushed in — I don’t think regular guitar rock music is gonna die per se, in the same way that jazz isn’t dead, that orchestral music isn’t dead, but I think those will be put on the back burner slowly as computer music progresses, and I think it’s important for any musician to understand that, and if you wanna stay relevant it’s good to test out those new musical ventures.

That, and the fact I just think EDM is dope as shit and I love dubstep drops and stuff like that. So I like to practice making it, cause I think it’s cool, and I think it’s important to have those skills in digital audio making, like in Ableton, or Logic, or even GarageBand, cause these days it’s kind of necessary. And I think Will also understands that, so I think Car Seat Headrest music is reflecting that slowly as well. Really, all it comes down to is it’s easy to make music on a computer, and EDM is the music you make on a computer, cause you just have electronic samples and midi instruments and so, and that’s kind of how it works. But I love EDM, like Skrillex is dope as shit, I could listen to Skrillex all day.

So would you make like a “serious” EDM album?

If I was good enough…I’ve tried making more serious EDM songs, but they all just kinda suck. So when your music sucks, right, you need to add another element to it, so comedy is a great filler for having sub-par music — you can make the song more digestible by adding the comedic element to it. Take almost any 1 Trait Danger song and take the comedy out of it, they would just be kind of shitty songs. [laughs] So it’s a necessity.

I think if I really took like a year to make a cool album, yeah, I could probably make something decent, but it’s just not as fun to me, it’s more fun to do it this way, and it’s more laid back — you just kind of bust it out on the road, and don’t worry about the quality too much, and just make something funny and entertaining and be done with it. But maybe someday, I dunno. Maybe as my skills progress, who knows.

Yeah, it’s so different from the indie rock kind of stuff. Anything else you want people to know about this album?

They better fuckin’ stream it like a million times, or they’re fake-ass fans. Anybody that considers themselves a 1 Trait Danger fan should have this album playing on Spotify on repeat for like six months — when you sleep, put it on — you can turn the volume off but have it playing — we’re trying to pad stats here, so play this shit.

I’m really curious to see what people think about it, cause I think the “1 Trait High” was a lot more relatable to the fan base, cause I know a lot of kids that listen to this are actually in high school. So I think a lot of people were like “oh this is funny, I can relate to this.” I don’t think as many people are gonna be able to relate to an album about touring, but I think they’ll still find the comedy in it, cause it’s not like super esoteric shit — like anybody understands “Fly, Play, Travel, Play, Fly,” it’s not that complicated. But we’ll see.

And I hope people like the game, too. Cause I put a lot of fuckin’ work into that game. I was seriously in my room 12 hours a day working on that for like an entire month, it was insane. And there’s almost nothing to show for it, like it’s such a bad game. But I went from the ground up, I had zero skills and had to just learn how to do it. So I’m proud of it, and I hope people like it.

And at the end of the album, it sounds like 1 Trait’s hanging it up…

Yep, well, you’ll just have to wait and see what happens with that.

Listen to 1 Trait Danger at 1traitdanger.bandcamp.com.

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Katie Ingegneri
houseshow magazine

Writer, editor, music fan & curator. MFA — Naropa’s Jack Kerouac School. BA — McGill University, Montreal. Founder of Houseshow Magazine.