Q&A: Meet garbagebarbie, LA’s New Favorite Band
PHOTOGRAPHY BY EMILY ENTZ
If you live in Los Angeles, you’ve definitely seen their name spray painted all over the sidewalks of Silverlake and Echo Park. If you haven’t, it’s time you get acquainted. LA-based genre-blending band garbagebarbie has been making some waves in the indie rock scene in a unique, theatrical way.
The band consists of Fletcher Milloy (singer/guitar), Daniel Karasev (drums), Anson Knopp (bass), and Braedon Huff (guitar/keys), a group of best friends whose musical talents speak all for themselves. Through their raw energy and uncomfortably pleasant lyrics, they own any room they’re in.
Truth be told, garbagebarbie isn’t just a band; they’re a musical journey that invites their fans to explore the depths of emotion and thought through their music. I sat down with the band to discuss their new single “lovemachine” and what fans can expect to see at their upcoming show in Los Angeles June 25.
PLEASER: garbagebarbie obviously is a unique name, where did it originate from?
FLETCHER MILLOY: I took shrooms at Disneyland, and I noticed this 70-year-old woman wearing lime green just walking through and I immediately thought, “garbage barbie,” so I wrote it down.
DANIEL KARASEV: It was honestly a placeholder, but then we realized it was actually a really good name. Actually, I think it was the only one. [laughs]
What’s the meaning behind your newest single, “lovemachine?”
FM: Masochism.
BRAEDON HUFF: It’s very raunchy and fun. I was at Lux Central in Phoenix and I took some of Fletcher’s lyrics that he had already written and I just wanted to write words that are uncomfortable to say, the kind that feel gross in your mouth, that sort of thing.
And what are some of those words that you kept?
FM: “Spit soak marinade”, “lick you dirty clean”, we really were trying to see how much we could get away with. [laughs]
BH: “Making love to a stove top serenade.”
DK: I have no clue what that means.
BH: We just wanted it to sound weird, it doesn’t necessarily always have to have meaning. We want people to be like, “What the hell are they talking about?” It does have a simple, catchy chorus though.
Where do you pull inspiration from as a band?
DK: I think everyone pulls from different things. We all have a similar music taste but then we have our own pockets.
BH: That’s what makes our writing process fun too, we pull from so many different things whether it’s like, Fletcher the night before watching a movie and gets an idea, or Anson hears a song and wants to try something. Dan could be listening to a certain album at a certain time and really likes something that another band did. We combine all of those ideas and make them our own to put them into whatever we’re working on at that moment. It’s a really cool way to write, I don’t know a lot of bands that do that the way that we do and it just makes really productive sessions for us.
FM: I feel like even though we come from different pockets, we all collectively chase uncomfortability, so that’s what inspires us the most. So, anything that sounds kind of uneasy to listen to, Dan will produce it a little bit more, Braedon will play something in an unconventional way. Anson will mess with a bass tone. We love irony in lyrics. We live just very weird lives, so there’s a lot of words we’ll hear on a daily basis to pull from. Edgy but still accessible.
What do you feel garbagebarbie represents within you individually?
ANSON KNOPP: For me, I’ve been in a lot of other bands, so this is the first group that feels the closest to the music that I would make myself even if I wasn’t in a band. This is the closest musically authentic thing to me where I just feel like I don’t have to change the way that I like to play or approach writing.That’s kind of what I dealt with in the past, just being told we can’t write or do something because that’s not the type of band we are. It’s nice being artistically authentic to myself and it’s still in line with how everybody else feels.
BH: All of this encompasses the community that we have. All the people that we hang out with, all of our friends, those people are also garbagebarbie to us because they’re like family and have been there since the beginning. The community aspect is really important to us. We wouldn’t be playing the shows that we’re playing if we didn’t have those people behind us.
DK: And a lot of people that support the band we met at Crawford’s. They aren’t music people, they’re just locals we met who ask us when the next show is and of course they’re there each time without fail. We were sitting at Crawford’s eating after our first show wondering where the next one would be and the owner came over and told us we should do a show there, and we did. It was such a special show for us.
What’s been the most memorable experience as a band so far?
DK: One of my favorites was opening for Mickey Darling at The Troubadour. The first time we got good crowd interaction was that opening spot. The fans were great. That was the first time that we got a taste of that. We were nobody to those kids and they were just down for the music and down to be there.
BH: They treated us like family.
FM: For me, playing The Troubadour after those first six months of playing live shows and to have Mickey Darling open that door for us and just to get that response gave us so much confidence to keep moving forward.
You guys have had a couple different themes for shows where your audience gets to dress up too, your most recent one being prom night. How do themes at your shows affect your performance?
AK: I feel like it helps us almost play better. It helps me play better because obviously I’m still Anson, but a different version where I don’t have to be so wrapped up in my own head because I’m just someone else that night. I get to be unhinged and do and say all the things that I wish I could during the day.
BH: We keep saying, ‘Let’s just be an exaggerated version of ourselves on stage’.
FM: We actually have stage fright a little bit too. This is the first group that I’ve ever sang in, so I think you almost have to turn on this persona. It’s scary being on stage especially in such a tight community too, but we all get up there and all are just so tight with each other. Outside of bandmates, we really are best friends, so we can be our weird selves in front of each other. That’s what we encourage, that we want to see.
What can we expect to see at your show in LA on June 25?
FM: We’re doing a live on TV thing which will be cool.
BH: We’re kind of playing into AI right now in a faux talk show type thing and I think people are really enjoying it.
FM: We had this idea of “Live on TV” — what would it be like if we were on Letterman. We love the funny use of AI and pointing out the absurdity of it. So, we downloaded Letterman’s voice and started typing random things, then thought, “Oh, what if he interviewed us?” It went well so we’re kind of just reupping it in a certain way.
AK: The next chapter of the Letterman story. [laughs]
BH: I think it’s a way for people to not just go see live music. It’s a whole theatrical show too, which kind of adds another element and gives people a real reason to come. They’re not just going to come see a band, they want to see us do some weird sh*t. People like that!
