Hi, everyone! A short while ago, I gave a call to Chad Ubovich, the lead singer and guitarist of the Monrovia, CA-based garage rock band Meatbodies. Founded in 2013 as Chad and the Meatbodies, the band has released three studio albums together. Ubovich has an extensive background in music, as he has been making music since his high school days. During this time, he also met his close friend, famous garage rocker Ty Segall. They continue to collab together, and he plays bass in Ty’s band, Fuzz. Sitting down with Chad was an amazing experience, and I am fortunate that he gave me some time for an interview.
bazzreviews: Which artists or albums had an influence on you to start a music career?
Chad Ubovich: There’s so many artists that I could name, but I feel as if it’s ever-changing. I’m constantly finding different musicians that I am being inspired by.
br: I heard you have been close friends with Ty Segall for quite a long time- how did you guys first end up meeting each other?
C.U.: I met Ty when I was either sixteen or seventeen. I played this Battle of the Bands in my hometown, and I won. Some guy approached me and told me he can start booking shows for me in LA. At this one show, we played with was Ty’s high school band. They were from Laguna [Beach, CA] and played a lot of surf rock. Both of our bands had the same structure: keyboards, guitars, and drums. It was like, oh, s--t, here’s this other band that’s playing weird psych music. I remember asking myself, “wow, who is this?” because they were really good. We talked for a while and then we became friends. I think if you look really hard on the internet, there’s probably an old mySpace of mine saying, “Met a really cool friend yesterday, his name’s Ty”. After that, we played a few shows together, but then we lost touch during his college years. He was up in San Francisco, and I hear people saying, “we got to go check out this guy, Ty”. I said I knew Ty. I went up to go see him and we reconnected from there.
br: I see you have been involved in a lot of side projects throughout your career, but when did you decide create your own band?
C.U.: I had a couple different bands going for a long time in my 20s and in high school. After I finished college, Mikal Cronin asked me to joined his band and I went on tour with him. What would happen is that I would be touring with them, and then another band, and then another band after that. I’d be on tour for almost five months, come home for a week, then back out on tour for another five. That was happening for close to two years, and I didn’t really have a lot to do. I moved all my stuff back to my mom’s house, and I found an old computer I had in high school. I just went on it and started recording music on it, and that got the attention of a lot of different people. It shifted from making tapes, to making 7-inches, and then to a full LP.
br: What is the significance behind the band’s name?
C.U.: I had a band that went by a different name for a while, but then another band came up that had the same name as mine did. They played the same circuits as us, and booking agents started getting confused. People were booking them instead of me, and I thought I would need a new name. I had a roommate at the time, and she told me that I should change our name to “Meatbodies” or “Chad and the Meatbodies”. I wasn’t sure what that was. She explained that she was reading the Scientologists describing a body in this world as a “meat body”. I thought it sounded cool, so I put it on the back burner. When I was recording a year later, I figured we’d try the name. Once we got signed by In the Red, it changed from “Chad and the Meatbodies” to just “Meatbodies”.
br: Can you describe how the band typically makes a song?
C.U.: I think songs stem from stuff that I’m making. I’ll typically write a lot, and we’ll either sit down as a band and play things I make all together. We’ll throw out the ones that sound like crap, and change the ones we like. Sometimes other people bring little stuff to me, we’ll work on it, and I’ll add to it.
br: What do you value more- lyricism or production value and instrumentation?
C.U.: I think if you know what you’re doing, you can make almost anything sound cool in the studio. I work as a producer, so I value that. The real paint and paint brush comes from getting the right sound down. At the same time, you need to make a song with lyrics that mean something to you.
br: Do the members strive to get something right in the studio or prefer improvising?
C.U.: It’s gone many ways. There’s been different versions of Meatbodies over the years, who knows how many more time it will change? Each studio experience is not the same each time. Whoever is with you at the time really decides what the music will be like. For the first album, I had my friend, Cory Hanson, come in and work on the album. We had the money to make it, but we didn’t know what we were doing. We first started by finding some cool keyboards, and Cory sat in a room playing them for two hours. I put it on tape, and we used that session’s keyboard recordings for interludes on the album.
br: What are some of your favorite songs to perform live?
C.U.: We’ve done a lot of covers, but we haven’t found one that we really like yet. As far as our songs, we get stoked playing songs off of Alice. The crowd loves it when we play stuff of the first album, but it’s really draining for us.
br: Do you have any projects coming up with either Meatbodies or any of your side projects?
C.U.: For me, there’s always something in the works. I know there’s talk of Fuzz (Ty Segall’s side band) making another album. I’ve done a lot more production and recording a lot of bands recently, but I also have a project that I’ve been working on for a while.
br: Can you tell me a little bit about what your solo project has in store?
C.U.: It’s pretty slow, quiet, and sad stuff. I feel like there’s a side of me that’s a lot less hard and fuzzy like Meatbodies, and I’m trying to bring that out on this record. It has a lot of dream pop and shoegaze elements.
br: What music goals do you have for the future?
C.U.: Honestly, I just want to be as weird as I can be. I want to stay true to myself and never make music for other people. I am always down to challenge sound and what people want to think of me as a musician. I don’t really want to become a washed up piece of crap.
I'd like to thank Chad once again for giving me the opportunity for an interview. I really love a lot of the music he makes, and I hope you guys will go and check it out! I also appreciate you, my readers, for reading this article. More great content is coming your way soon!
Want to hear some of Meatbodies' music? Go to https://open.spotify.com/artist/21ltygJ3rGHmnqaUzqnsku
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