ALEX WALTON PLAYS THE FURRY FRAT (BOSTON) ON FRIDAY MARCH 18th – 8:30 PM – WITH THE CALENDARS, WILL MC HEEL, AND G. GORDON GRITTY. GRITTY CAUGHT UP W/ ALEX. SEE BELOW:

q1 – YOUTH AGAINST SATAN , thank you for this. Please introduce yourself(s) however you wish – is this an individual or a collective effort? According to some slight research, it appears that 2017 was the starting point with Hands Highway. Is that right on or was there stuff before then associated with YOUTH AGAINST SATAN. 

My name is Alex Walton, and I started Youth Against Satan in 2018 as an impromptu “record label” in order to create an overarching collection for the various musical projects I had done up to that point, namely Hands Highway, Semper Games, GSB, and under my own name. As time progressed, I started releasing music by my friends through it.

q2. Relatedly to the above – sorry if it’s come up a bit before in past interviews and media spells – South By South Wests and things – but the name YAS stands out. If you are at liberty to talk more on that. But if not, I was, too, wondering if Boston has always been homebase, if it is currently? 

We are called Youth Against Satan because we are vehemently against Satan, Lucifer, the Dark Lord, forces of hate, evil, nihilism, unTruth, and as such, we try to create love, good, purpose, striving towards the Truth In All Things. There’s so much shit out there that wants you to kill yourself, and we want to work against that. This doesn’t mean to be saccharine and gleeful at all times, I think you know what I mean. Redeeming, not deprecating. A song can save a life.

I started YAS in Boston, yes. Where it will go, if it goes anywhere, I am not sure. I’ve never been so good at predictions.

q3. Amazing music by the way. Noise pop, Proto or Post punk, surf, a little garage spirit that’s right up our alley so I’m inclined to think we’ve been missing the boat on your stuff – Group Sounds, Alex Walton, etc, etc – ; pre-pandemic were you playing shows in Boston / touring? Feel definitely free to give a run down/description or timeline of YAS associated bands. 

All of us have not played as nearly as many shows, pre- or post- killer virus, as we would have liked to, this city is rough for booking and short for venues. There were a small handful of GSB performances before and a handful after, but GSB has run its course and has been dismantled for the time being. AWSMASB (alex walton shame music all star band) has been getting a decent amount of shows, but people in this city need to wake up and book our other artists like Vim and Grilltones. We have had a lot more success booking and playing shows in New York with our friends John Variety and Matt Danger Lippmann (who incidentally just played a fantastic show here last week with Winkler), but it’s still rough out here.

q3a. Have YAS releases all been digital or any tapes, vinyl, other mediums at play? Any upcoming releases?

All digital file transfers as of yet, but there are plans for vinyl, CDs, a Group Sounds Band movie, a Youth Against Satan restaurant, Vim Jordan 4s, Jaden Cruz McDonald’s Signature meal, a SHAME MUSIC video game, Michael Grill AR-15, etc etc. whenever we may be given enough money to make it happen.

I am in the midst of producing a secret Jaden Cruz project, as well as a new Alex Walton ep/album/something with some remixes and special guests which should release sometime this spring. Lots of music videos.

q4. Alex Walton Band is playing at Furry Frat Friday March 18th – anything we can or cannot expect? Based on some bandcamp listens I so much feel the basement energy and getting in that spirit. Any preference of these underground gigs to their aboveboard counterparts? 

Expect a lonesome desert town in a pink glow. Expect an overabundance. Expect to find the love of your life. Expect seeing someone on stage fully invested in Quixotic ideals of pop music as art. Come with mirth in your heart and wish for nothing, you’ll find what you really want. 

The places themselves do not matter as much as how they sound. Most “venues” in Boston have not ideal sound people working much less than ideal PAs and try to run your entire band through a couple of shit monitors. I prefer all the elements to speak for themselves in an intimate space. I like playing at bars that give me drink tickets.

q5. Want to shout out what I see as a love of Alan Vega, Devo — is there a general kinship of protopunk & stuff of the like? And other modern musical favorites or even older, obscurer, whatever, things like that you feel aligned with on some level? 

Proto, post, whatever, the goal of pop music is transcendental Truth, and these descriptors mean nothing except division and abstraction away from this goal. We all want the same thing at the end of the day, to make someone somewhere at some time listen and feel and understand and be understood. I appreciate those who can create deep immediate significance from the most primal and obvious, and I don’t have much patience for “complex” and erudite music that loses what makes this all work. 

I am aligned with Groucho Marx, Harpo Marx, Chico Marx, Zeppo Marx (in that order), Arthur Rimbaud, Candy Darling, Egon Schiele, my bandmates Brendan and Jaden, everyone on YAS (especially Vim), Winkler, will.i.am, Liam and Jori from Comet Pond, the Modern Warfare 3 ads with Eminem, John V Variety, Lou Reed, Matthew Danger Lippmann, Takashi Mizutani, Patrick Gray, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Adrian Borland, and all other truth-telling liars and previous incarnations of myself. 

Duty Now For The Future,

Alex Walton