Shooting Blanks ... and the rock 'n' roll lifestyle

See Shooting Blanks July 8 at Rack 'Em Up in Buffalo Grove!

Lisa Balde | Beep Staff Writer
Monday, January 01, 1900

Any band wi

th enough grit to use a sexual malfunction for the all-important band name can’t be all that concerned with the more lucrative aspects of rock ‘n’ roll, let alone far sillier things like press photos or record labels.

Thankfully, and for the sake of anyone who’s ever uttered the words, “Oh no, not another pop punk band!”, these Elgin- and Chicago-based “drunk punk deviants” are not concerned about … much. And they’re all the better for it.

To be clear, Shooting Blanks hates – no, truly despises – pop band minutia. Especially if engaging in it means relegating themselves to the latest unspoken code of “successful” indie bands, a personal hell that vocalist Matt Hoffman says is the ultimate demise of these suburbs’ musicians.

Note: If you think you’ve heard this rhetoric before, from like 50 other indie bands, then you haven’t heard it from a band that actually means it.

These are the kind of guys who drove their second drummer to quitting, on tour, seven hours from home, because it would be "funny" and because the drummer "was one of those guys who was always kind of mad anyway.”

Furthermore, note the demise of the first drummer: “We told him the band quit,” Hoffman says. “Years later, he found our website." (Fourth and current drummer Scott "Scotty Hero" Fudacz isn't worried and says he's learning the ignore-the-band-image thing pretty well.)

Ah, the joy of beer induced apathy for the mundane!

And the music isn't bad either. Hinging on a power pop backing and bouncy vocals reminiscent -- not necessarily unfortunately -- of Blink-182, Shooting Blanks manages to pull off a simple sound fueled by balls-to-the-wall energy.

“That’s what’s wrong with rock ‘n’ roll,” Hoffman says during sips of beer, asking his band mates what ever happened to the sex-drugs-and-blow-job lifestyle. (He added the part about blow jobs, not me.) “Nobody’s insane anymore!”

“Or, if they are insane,” bassist Dave “Deech” Carlson adds from the couch, “they’re trying to look insane.”

“Exactly,” Hoffman motions with his beer bottle. He’s on his feet now, pacing around the living room of his Elgin ranch home. “For most local bands, the shelf life is nothing,” he says. “Just have fun!”

In Shooting Blanks terms, this means (not necessarily in any order):

1. putting out three, self produced albums without a record label,
2. mocking the label industry constantly for spending millions to cut records when this band can press CDs for next to nothing,
3. playing shows every weekend, getting sloshed and making new music without giving half their earnings over to the “man,”
4. never paying a professional photographer to shoot the band. (The photos you see here were taken at the back of a club before a set. They’re completely unplanned.)

As far as a mission statement goes, it’s kept Shooting Blanks up and running for more than six years, a feat not many anindie rock bands in Chicago’s suburbs can attest to.

“We’re just a joke gone too far,” Hoffman says. “We’re like the Spinal Tap of the local scene.”

He’s probably right. Yet somehow they’ve managed to pull it off. Shooting Blanks’ track record includes shows with the likes of Bayside and Taking Back Sunday. And six years running, wide-eyed, suburban teenage girls from all over still turn up week after week to hear the foursome’s screw-the-world/long-live-cock-rock tunes well into the night.

“It’s safe to say that even if you don’t like our music, you’ll still have a good time at our shows,” Hoffman says.

Shooting Blanks got its roots in 2001 when Hoffman and guitarist John Brey decided they’d had enough of watching other people get paid to drink on stage. They basically flipped for singing rights (Hoffmann says he had the slightly less terrible vocals of the two) and went at it. Just like that.

“Why not start our own band and get paid to drink,” Hoffman asks, clearly rhetorically; frankly this band would much rather be drinking a beer than watching other bands do it for them.

And although Shooting Blanks’ musical power pop technique is still important to them, it may or may not be sacrificed for a good time.

“We’ll keep playing,” Hoffman says, “until people want to stop hearing our music.”

Look from another EP on the horizon this fall from Shooting Blanks.

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