The songs on Citric Dummies’ latest EP Trapped in a Parking Garage—“Look Out World (I’m Eatin’ Arby’s),” “Driving a Piece of Shit,” “Sit at Home and Die,” and the title track—blister past ya in the span of just seven minutes, leaving in their wake a lingering delirium of rusted out cars, self-loathing shoppers, and serial killers with Horsey Sauce on their fingers. Fast as hell and wickedly funny and a little stupid—that’s the Citric Dummies ethos, summed up in four tracks.
The trio of Drew Ailes, Sean Albert, and Travis Minnick will kick off an upcoming West Coast tour at 7th St Entry this Thursday, accompanied by the killer lineup of Yambag, Surrogates, and Buio Omega. Ahead of that show, we sat down with frontman Ailes to talk about how the band wound up opening for Jack White (twice!), which of their songs have been partially ghost written by Kevin McDonald from Kids in the Hall (seriously), and the upcoming EP tentatively titled Split With Turnstile (which is very much not a split with Turnstile).
I’m curious about these Jack White shows. How exactly did those come to be?
So, this is like, some things I know, some things I don’t know. I think what happened is, I don’t know why, but Jack got this revolutionary idea to have local support for their shows. I don’t know why every band isn’t doing this, but it was the first time that I’ve seen a huge artist like that just kind of hitting up random bands. I think someone at Third Man went to somebody and said, “Hey, can you make a list of good bands in these cities that could open for Jack?” And we ended up on that list. I got a text, and it was like, “Hey, you want to open for Jack White on Wednesday? I can put you in touch with him.” It was just very casual, for a show two days later, and they were all extremely cool and nice and really went out of their way to help us with stuff they didn’t have to. And Jack and his band were all really nice, I talked to him about Faith No More for a couple minutes and got some photos taken.
That’s when I realized that we knew a lot of the bands that were opening for him—like, out in Seattle, this band called Fan Club who are some friends of ours, and then this band called Beef from Cincinnati … I think he’s just literally being like, “Hey, there’s cool music out there, let’s get some bands paid and some extra attention.” And it’s funding our West Coast tour coming up, pretty much.
He seems like a net positive for music, to me. That’s a pretty cool and weird thing to do in 2024. You don’t have to be doing that.
I don’t understand why every band isn’t doing it! Bands that are pulling in massive fanbases and pretty much have their expenses covered, why not have local support, assuming there’s decent local support out there that makes sense? Like, that All American Rejects show had a local band on it, and it’s cool that they did that. Hopefully they paid them well. Foo Fighters, come to Target Center and put a local band on there. Just do it. Just put a local band on. We’ll see, maybe he starts a trend.
I want to try something stupid, which is: I love your song titles very much, but they’re also very out of pocket. I’m going to rapid-fire some of them at you and I want you to react and/or explain yourself. Let’s start with “Doing Dope at Chucky Cheese.”
Oh, I’m glad you asked about that one! So, a friend of mine named George passed away a few years ago while homeless. He’s a really, really cool guy who used to really love my old band, Brain Tumors. He was super intense; I think a lot of people thought he was scary and off-putting, but if you talked to him for more than five minutes you’d realize he was a super smart, nice guy. But he told me this story about how he worked at, it was like ShowBiz or something, because he’s not from here. And he had to do the children’s birthday thing and get the kids all psyched up. So he’d go to the bathroom and do a bunch of speed, and he’d come out and do the birthday song, and kids would freak out and jump around with him while he’s all amped up. And then he’d be too high, so he’d go to the bathroom and shoot up heroin.
I’m not sure if he got fired for that? I feel like maybe he passed out in the bathroom or something. And he knew the song, too. I started writing it before he passed, and there was a part where I wanted him to do the birthday thing over an instrumental song. But yeah, he passed away.
I’m so sorry to hear that, that’s too bad. Still a great song!
That’s probably the only good story you’re going to get out of any of these.
We’ll see—what about “I’m Gonna Punch Larry Bird.”
So that’s Pat, Pat Dillon from Bermuda Squares and Joust, who was also in Brain Tumors with me. Pat left the band earlier this year and Sean, who recorded our stuff, joined, so we don’t get to play some of those really fun Pat songs. That song, I remember Pat explaining it to me that he was watching a documentary and just realizing what a piece of shit Larry Bird was. I think it was, like, a feud with him and Dr. J where maybe Dr. J did punch him in the face. So Pat was kind of like, “If I ever had the chance, I would also throw a punch at Larry Bird.” The lyrics are like, “He’ll probably kick my ass, but that’s alright.”
It’s a really good one. I tried to get Kevin McDonald from Kids in the Hall to write those lyrics, originally. I bought a Cameo from him. I spent like $30 on a Cameo from Kevin McDonald, and he gave some of the lyrical inspiration. I keep doing that. I keep hitting up Kevin McDonald for lyrics.
That’s really not a thing I would have expected, but I love knowing that.
I love The Kids in the Hall! And I hate writing lyrics. Why not give someone cool some money and force them to write lyrics for us?
How about “I’m Gonna Kill Myself (at the Co-op)”?
I go to the Wedge all the time, and—whatever, I go to the Wedge all the time. And they’ll play some good music, it depends on who’s got control. But this one day they were playing Blues Traveler’s “Run-Around,” and this woman was, like, singing it to her baby and shopping through the aisles. And I just thought that was a despicable thing to witness. I just liked the title—obviously I’m not going to do that. But there’s this horrible part of me that’s like, “What if I just, right on the spot there, beat myself to death with a cucumber in front of these people listening to a Blues Traveler song?” I think I have a lyric about being stabbed with parmesan, or something.
It’s a very hard cheese. Could probably do some damage.
Yeah, especially that rind. You could get infected, too, if you survive. Probably got a lot of bacteria.
This one feels self-explanatory and more relevant than ever, but how about “The Kids Are Alt Right”?
That was just me trying to find a funny play on words. We’ve written like 80 songs or something, more now, and when you’re in a band that writes two-minute songs, or a minute and 30 songs, you just run out of ideas pretty fast. So that one, I think that was probably about nothing. But there is an interesting tale around that song. So Bad Religion came out with an album or a song called that as well, and we have a record called that, and we have a song called that on that record. I was on the internet joking around and saying that they clearly heard us and stole the title, which of course is not true. Bad Religion’s not paying any attention to us.
But then I found that there was this other band in Connecticut called Intercourse, and they had a song called “The Kids Are Alt Right.” And they actually made a post like, “We got ripped off, blah blah blah.” So I just started talking shit to them, like, I thought we were joking around. But then it got really serious, and they were getting really mad at me. Eventually I realized the dude was not joking around, and we were not having a good time. Funny enough, several months later, someone asked if we’d do a split with—there’s a band from here called Intercourse as well. Those are friends of ours. So we got asked to do a split with them, and I was hanging out with Kelsey, and I mentioned it, and she was like, “Oh, I haven’t heard about that.” That’s when I realized the label was actually asking us to do a split with that band from Connecticut, by total coincidence. So I had to hit up the guy from the label and be like, “You should ask this other band if they really want to do a split with us.” They said no.
These are yielding surprisingly fulfilling answers.
Well, you’re picking good ones.
What about “Look Out World (I’m Eatin’ Arby’s)”?
OK, that one means nothing. There’s a lot of ad agencies and marketing groups here that have an in with Arby’s, so if you’ve got that Arby’s money, you’re doing alright. I think I was thinking, “Oh, we could sell it to Arby’s,” or something. There’s this band that I love called Country Teasers, they’re long gone, but they had a song in a Subway commercial, and I don’t know if I was going for that necessarily, but I was like, “That would be pretty funny, maybe it’ll make its way over to Arby’s.” But then I started sitting down and writing the lyrics, and as my mind works, I could come up with nothing but horrifying scenarios. I think that song is about a dude who’s a serial killer? Or murdering people? But the only way he gets to unwind is by ordering Arby’s. It’s a guy, covered in someone else’s blood, sitting in his car, choking down a Beef & Cheddar.
I feel like that’s—if I’m Mr. Arby, I want that song connected with my brand for sure.
The title’s perfect, but then also it sounds vaguely threatening. Or like, maybe you ate the Arby’s and now you have horrible indigestion and people need to watch out for you, because you’re stinkin’ the place up.
“Driving a Piece of Shit”... what kind of car do you drive, Drew?
Well, I got a newer RAV4 recently after a lot of hemming and hawing.
Wow.
But! It’s been a 2003 Toyota Highlander for a long time. Before that, it was a Toyota Sienna from around the same time, but I totaled that by punching it. I punched it once, and I learned if you punch a car in the right place, the airbags deploy, and then the car is worthless. I was trying to punch the car in a place that wouldn’t affect it, because … I left a mop at Target, and I hate going to Target, it’s a terrible experience. I left a mop in the self checkout line, and when I realized it I was so mad, because that’s the whole reason I went there. I just hit the side panel of my car, and it hit me in the head with a bunch of airbags. But yeah, now I’m driving kind of a nice, normal car.
Let’s do one more: “Being Male Is Embarrassing."
That’s just something I’ve always felt, like, ever since I was a little kid. All the typical, watching a pretty lady walk down the street and uh-huh-ho, all that shit has just always made me feel awful, ever since I was very small. And I’ve been uncomfortable with that my whole life. At the same time, I am male, and I’m a complete dumbass, and most of it’s not very—if you read the lyrics, it’s not things that I do. But there’s a lot of shame associated with it, it’s a big conversation. Being human is embarrassing, but being male in Western culture is, I don’t know, it’s so stupid. All the things you’re expected to do.
Masculinity is a prison!
Yeah, and men made it. Men made the norms for this shit, and we don’t want to do it. The only people who care about whether you have a cool car or a huge dick or whatever seem to be other men. It’s all fucked.
I do want to ask, before I let you go, one more sort of name-related question, which is: You called the last full-length Zen and the Arcade of Beating Your Ass—are you actively trying to get sued? Because I know you’ve also tentatively titled the new EP Split With Turnstile.
What are you talking about? “Split With Turnstile” is just about how we no longer use those devices to board buses or rides at amusement parks.
Zen Arcade, I think the rights to it are still owned by Greg Ginn of SST, who probably Googles himself. He’s a maniac—did you see the new lineup of Black Flag?
Oh, the children?
Yeah, like, probably 18, 19 year olds. But yeah, Zen and the Arcade of Beating Your Ass, that was not supposed to be the title of that record. The title was supposed to be Altars of Sadness, and we were going to parody the cover of KISS’s Love Gun, which if you don’t know it off the top of your head, it’s KISS on an altar being worshipped by scantily clad women with KISS makeup on. We were going to have us on the altar, and then instead of the women, we were going to have famous rock stars fawning over us. But the dude doing the art, he didn’t seem to understand what the request was … We had a week left, and that was an album title that had been in my head for a long time, and I realized the artwork could be as simple as replacing the people with a silhouette of some hockey players beating each other up.
I think it works.
It works to at least get people thinking we’re Hüsker Dü for a minute. I’ve heard some stories of people half-drunk at Extreme Noise, about ready to buy the record, and then they take a closer look or sober up in the mid-shopping experience.
Anything else you want to add before I let you get back to your day here?
Man, I wish I had thought of something really valuable or meaningful. Um, more people need to start bands and play fast, even if they’re not good. I have been playing bass now for as long as Citric Dummies has been a band, and when I started I could not play anything. I’m 42 now, so that means I started playing in this band at 32—couldn’t do it, but I had people around me who could play their instruments. Anybody can do it, if you want to. Write some bad songs. Bad songs are the best songs.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Citric Dummies
With: Yambag, Surrogates, and Buio Omega
Where: 7th St Entry, 701 N. First Ave., Minneapolis
When: 7 p.m. Thursday, May 22
Tickets: $15 at the door or $20.59 online; more info here
