Meet Max Pain and the Groovies

Every once in a while we stumble upon a band that is clearly just having a grand old time. Max Pain and the Groovies seems to be doing just that. 

A five-piece psychedelic garage band formerly of Salt Lake, this crew brought the party to New York. They may or may not take influence from a certain video game fellah, but do compile lots of good tunes into their own distinct sound. These boys let their hair down (literally) and are jamming the days away.  

Below, they provide an excellent selfie, discuss the melted bus that brought them to NYC, and recount their subway dream.

Lend these boys your eyes and ears after the jump…

JUMP.

A self-portrait by, Max Pain and the Groovies

Would you rather

have everything you wear always be three sizes too big or two sizes too small?

Out here in the big city, I think we would have to go everything three sizes too big so we could be looking all dead ass n shit. House real big, car real big...... you know how the rest of the song goes.

Some questions with Max Pain and the Groovies

Where did you all grow up and what brought you to New York?

We all grew up just outside of Salt Lake City, Utah in a suburb called Bountiful, and there are a bounty of Mormons there. The reason we moved out here was we were out on tour and our bus caught on fire due to us putting a large amount of starter fluid into a Diesel engine (you're not supposed to do that) We thought our bus wasn't going to start after the fire so we were like "guess we live in New York now." That lasted about 2 hours until we tried to start the bus again. The bus started first try with a bunch of melted parts in the engine and we limped back to SLC. On the way home we were talking about how fun it was pretending we lived in New York for a few hours and voted to move. 3 months later we sold literally all of our shit and came out here with instruments and a few suitcases of clothes each.

How did you start making music together?

Shane and Tcoy have been making music together since they were Knee-high to a pig’s eye. David Shane and Tcoy had a brief band called the peaks in high school and played Roky Erickson covers. After high school, Dallin and Tcoy began jamming as Rapid Fire Toll Booth and then Shane Dallin and Tcoy began Max Pain and the Groovies. They convinced David too start singing with the band and Kallan our long childhood friend joined the band after a few bass players. Kallan was key because he is on the same mental wavelength as us. You gotta be a certain type of person to not give a fuck and move across the whole country and give up your comfort zone for a band.

What is the worst tourist attraction in NYC? Why?

Easy, Times Square. Why do people go there to look at ads? We got enough ads poppin' up in our feeds to have any type of time for Time Square

What are your top three used emojis? Do you have any favorites?

Just looked at my phone top three are the fire emoji, blowing a kiss emoji and the surprised face emoji. I don't think we have a favorite just use them when we are too lazy to text our feelings.

Your music seems to take influence from a lot of psychedelic and classic rock. Are there any bands or artists that have really shaped your work?

Roky Erickson and Ween are the two bands we usually reference when asked this question. We could go into all the mumbo jumbo and intricate things that make these artists great OR you the reader can just go listen for yourselves and hear what we hear and how they have shaped us.

Do you collect anything? What is it and why?

I tell ya what we ain't trying to collect BILLS you can help us out by sending money to our PayPal @maxpainandthegroovies or a smooth Venmo to @David-Johnson-162 EACH DONATION WILL BUY YOU SOME GROOVY SALVATION

What is the best street food in NYC?

Chicken over rice DUH and for all you vegans out there just minus that chicken.

What would be your dream venue to play in the city?

MMMMMMMM the 42nd street subway station. We would sing about not going to see time square its just ads so stay down here and listen to us.

What is the next milestone you hope to hit in your career?

Starting a Max Pain and the Groovies Church

What were your first jobs?

Restaurant jobs I'm going to assume......Tcoy got fired from applebees for playing too much

You've got a history of playing house shows -- how do you bring that same sort of energy to a record?

gotta record it live baby and be sitting in the pocket of being buzzed enough to know what you're playing and buzzed enough to really enjoy it.

If the price was no object what would be the perfect bagel?

Dallin's is still just plain bagel with cream cheese. (insert rolling eyes emoji....guess we might have to change the previous emoji question-answer)

Any final comments? (This is your electronic soapbox for one last answer.)

Max Pain and the Groovies similar to PBS is brought to you by readers and listeners like you see the above questions to find out how you can make a donation and get your salvation.