Suburban rage: Ring Finger No Pinky screams ‘Annoyance Displeasure Hostility’
Promising new punk band rising fast playing loud drawing crowds
HARK!
I hear…suburban rage…
When I think of a young-but-timeless punk band called Ring Finger No Pinky, I keep pondering a then-young Seattle band.
Fifteen years ago, back in September of 2006, I interviewed Robin Pecknold and Skye Skjelset in a Capitol Hill (then one of the hippest areas of Nirvana Town) cafe. Story here.
The two grew up in suburban Seattle, where they started a band with a dumb name, which they quickly changed to something both simple and mysterious. Back in the fall of ‘06, the two and their three bandmates had only played a handful of shows as opening acts; six months later, a Crocodile Cafe crowd demanded an encore after their first headlining show.
Right around then, Sub Pop—which before that launched Nirvana, Mudhoney, the Shins and many other Northwest bands—signed Fleet Foxes. Pecknold quickly became an indie-rock star, with the band eventually getting Grammy nominations.
Will Ring Finger No Pinky follow a similar path?
You never know…
This upstart Phoenix band is far less commercial—more aggressive "Touch Me I'm Sick"-era Mudhoney than laid-back Fleet Foxes.
While only a master Tarot card reader knows how far RFNP will go, the sharp rise—even during the pandemic—of these suburban ragers is impressive.
Ring Finger No Pinky screaming live
For instance, Ring Finger No Pinky is on the holiday show bill December 18 at the prestigious Nile Theater, alongside Fairy Bones, KRXS, Veronica Everheart and Bethany Home.
This is right around two years after Ring Finger’s first show. That was Nov. 10, 2019, at the Trunk Space.
“It was sold out…we got all our high school friends to go,” said singer-guitarist Griffin Brown, during a HARK Valley Zoom interview last week.
The show went well…maybe too well.
The cheering crowd demanded an encore.
“We weren’t ready,” drummer David Erickson said with a laugh that tossed his impressive hair, which looks like a mass of coiled springs.
“We had like four songs.”
Their Pinnacle High School mates Ethan Wolfe and Joe McCauley were also in the band, though those two have since gone off to college; McCauley took part in the Zoom interview and rejoins the band on breaks.
Brown and Erickson remain hunkered down in the Valley, taking community college classes on music and production and pushing ahead with RFNP.
Those two go way, way back: kindergarten days.
They were close buds, until…suburban catastrophe.
“We used to be pretty good friends. Then I was at his house and I broke his Mexico poster with a dart,” Brown said.
“And he tried to get me to lie to my mom about it,” a snort-laughing Erickson added.
Brown was …never…invited…back!
“Then like in middle school and high school,” Erickson continued, “I used to piss Griffin off on purpose to see him react–”
“What are you walking about, dog?” Brown jumped in. “You broke my phone screen like three times!”
They drifted apart, becoming more head-nod acquaintances than running buddies.
Until Brown decided to break the upscale-high school ennui by starting a band and needed back up; “David was the only drummer I knew.” So he invited the hyper Erickson to join. They had some rambunctious practices and tossed around stupid band names: Orange Flavored Catastrophe…Earth Creosote…
Then, as McCauley recalled, Griffin was showing Wolfe how to play a chord. “Hold it with your ring finger,” he said, “no pinky.”
“That’s our band name!” Erickson declared.
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Lately, the kindergarten-buds-turned-high-school-frenemies have been on a writing rampage.
Last month, they recorded what is on my Song of the Year shortlist:
“Annoyance Displeasure Hostility.”
How it came about, according to Brown, started with “something I saw on Twitter or some shit… A couple days later I was sitting around smoking or whatever and just felt really inspired to start writing the rant you hear on ‘Annoyance Displeasure Hostility.’”
After his stream-of-rage writing, the band was recording some other songs for an EP and as an afterthought decided to see what “Annoyance Displeasure Hostility” sounded like.
“We made that song in about 30 minutes,” Brown said.
“It was good that we didn’t overthink it,” Erickson added. “But that’s why it’s like all over the place.”
“Kind of like a conspiracy theory freaking out,” Brown finished.
And they shot a terrific video— ”Office Space” meets Devo. See it here.
Wouldn't want to be that TV screen...
On the Zoom call, I went around the horn, asking Griffin what he was most annoyed by.
“The way people drive, it’s getting crazy,” he said.
And what is Erickson most displeased about?
He walked with his phone into his bedroom to display a night table filled with Goldfish packages.
“I hate the crinkly sound Goldfish make when you open them,” he said, noting he eats a bag a night before bedtime.
Telling McCauley he doesn’t seem like a hostile person, nonetheless I asked what makes him most hostile.
“My landlord just raised my rent,” he said with a grimace, eliciting sympathetic groans from his bandmates.
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Last year, Ring Finger No Pinky released its debut EP, with five songs, including “Napalm Sticks to Kids” and “Rat Soup”; one reviewer (Amelia Vandergast, on A&R Factory) called “a volatile infusion of grunge and anarcho-punk, complete with a chorus which is as infectious as COVID-19.”
The band already has another EP in the works and “more coming next year.”
Stay tuned…
Check out a portion of the Zoom interviewed that was on Facebook Live here.
Hot new: Ring Finger No Pinky is on the rise