Marked Men.

EVERY ONCE IN AWHILE, even if you listen to tons of new music, there's a clarifying band, a band that makes you go, "Fuck. This isn't just good. This isn't just great. This is monumental." It's so good that you don't want to cheapen it by tacking a label on it. Denton, Texas' Marked Men are such a band. On first listen they're great; they take the best of punk and the gold-era AM pop of Ramones rock and roll, but that's just the tip of the missile. Wait and listen. See the explosion come out the other end--a lone vapor trail, high above the madness. The Marked Men are plain-clothes rockers without a hype machine. They're dirty-finger-nailed DIY musical scientists who don't need to prance and yelp to convince you of their rockitude. They're too busy making monsters of songs--monsters that do almost all of their talking--and the proof's in every note they've committed to wax. It won't make you cooler if you listen to them. Just listen. That's the biggest reward: something worth listening to carefully.

I'm being totally serious: What "hidden" stuff do the Marked Men do? It's beyond proficiency and technicality. If it was just that, we'd all listen to classical music and call it a day. I've listened to the albums and seven inches innumerable times, and every single time, something new hits me in your songs. How?

I immediately felt really flattered that someone would think of the Marked Men that way. The thing is, though, I don't know how to answer these questions without coming off like we take ourselves too seriously, like we're a bunch of pretentious fucks. What you're pointing to has a lot to do with with the goals of the band. I want the band to have those kinds of qualities. The music that I end up liking the most has something that draws me in, like I'm being let in on a secret. I love hearing the dirt. Whenever I'm writing a song--I can't speak for Jeff--I try to find something that makes me uncomfortable, something that pisses me off, something uncool, that I really shouldn't put out there, and then I use that. What I don't like is posturing. I think you can tell when a band is just posturing and not being genuine. It seems like they bought into the program: '77 punk, garage rock, pop punk, or whatever.

Jeff and Mike and I have been playing in various bands together for about 10 years. That makes it pretty easy for us in terms of writing songs and just knowing how to work with each other. For me, playing in the band is a good place to be, whereas in most of the other aspects of my life, I'm not comfortable in my own skin. Playing guitar and singing is easy. But, at the same time, it can also be self-abuse. We just finished recording a new album. We record everything ourselves. We're meticulous and obsessive about how we want each song, but there's also the element of chance. Every time we record, even when it is in the same room using the same mics, it's always different. There are a million factors. There's no taking it back. After we were finished mixing, it was like I had just taken the best shit ever. My bowels felt clean.

I've seen you guys play live several times and there's some definite magic that you pull off.

I really don't think there is anything hidden about the Marked Men. Sometimes when we play a show it works, sometimes it doesn't. If there's any advantage that we have as a band, it's probably Jeff. Even though I play in a band with him, I can say that I'm a big fan. He has really good ears. He hears things other people don't. He's really good at adding other guitar parts and vocals that are just below the surface and are not apparent on first listen. Joe is a badass bass player and just a badass in general. And when it comes to proficiency and technicality, I think that Mike is one of the best drummers around.

You, Jeff, and Mike have pretty intense day jobs. Do you think that--considering what you do on a daily basis--that playing music is a type of therapy; a healthy way of dealing with the day-to-day grind?

Mike has also done the same kind of work as well. In fact, he probably has had the most stressful job out of all of us. He used to work as a Mental Health Tech at a psychiatric hospital on the adolescent unit. I worked at the same hospital for awhile, but I worked mostly with severely mentally ill people and on the ER unit. Now Mike's a counselor. Jeff and I have worked with people with mental retardation for many years. Most of the people I have worked with are in the profound-to-severe range of mental retardation. Right now, my job isn't too intense because I just do a lot of paperwork, writing behavior management plans and stuff like that.

It's interesting, but I think that it's pretty easy to get burned out doing work like this. There's a lot of frustration involved. Playing in the band definitely helps. It's something to look forward to. I don't know if it's exactly healthy, though. It may help me keep my head straight, but it sure doesn't help me have more money. That's a pretty big source of stress. I think you have to be a little bit crazy to play in a band. Just like everybody else who does this, it's hard for us to have any kind of regular job, no health insurance, very little money ...

Why don't you guys ever print the lyrics with your releases? Is the "shadowiness" intentional?

Writing lyrics is a pain in the ass; something we just have to do. I like some of our lyrics when they are sung, but whenever I read lyrics they always seem stupid. I'd rather people just hear them instead of read them. It's a weird thing. For Jeff, I think that the shadowiness may be intentional. He's a real private kind of guy. For me, when Chris and I started the Reds, he was like, "Well, I can't sing"--which isn't true--"so you're gonna have to do it." I understand that some people really listen to the lyrics, but it's not the most important part to us. I think you can get the idea without knowing exactly what is being said. It's like getting hints.

Is it true that Jeff was a musical prodigy as a kid?

Yeah, pretty much. He started playing when he was about 13. He took lessons from this guy named Dug, who later became the guitarist for WASR He had poofy hair, Dug would write out a song for Jeff in tablature and then Jeff would take it home and figure out that the guy had written it down wrong, so he had to figure it out himself.

What's the one thing--aside from music and aside from work--that keeps the individual members grounded and happy?

Who said we're grounded and happy?