Far Out Fangtooth to Creepoid

“We’re in the middle of one of our longest drives on this tour.” Nick Culp checks in by phone from somewhere up in Canada to talk about his recent move from Far Out Fangtooth to Creepoid. “I’ve known the members of Creepoid for, what, three and a half years? My other band did shows with them. Things started coming up about touring, but one of their members couldn’t go.” Later in the conversation, I will learn from guitarist Pat Troxell that they had all quit their day jobs to do Creepoid full time. It worked out for Culp, who now finds himself in the midst of an 80-day road run. “I feel really welcomed. There’s been no weirdness.”

Creepoid (not to be confused with the Creepoids, a Cali ska/punk band) is a fairly new band, having gotten started late in 2009 in Philadelphia. On record, this is a slow noise-rock band with all the timing and finesse of a sonic boom, and echo pilfered from a cathedral. “Live,” Troxell says, “we’re faster, louder, and stronger than what is on the records.” I tell him I love the sound they wring out of their over-driven amps. But Creepoid is traveling at the mercy of whatever sound man happens to be working each venue. “There wasn’t enough room in the van [for a dedicated sound tech],” Culp says, and it’s been hit-or-miss. “We’ve finally figured out what words to use to get the sound we want.”

I ask Culp if he’ll one day be a songwriter in the band (Creepoid has released two full-length albums so far). He thinks yes, but so far his touch has been light. “I wasn’t gonna come in and change what was already here.” I ask Pat Troxell if the sound of Creepoid today is the band he had hoped to create when they started. “It kind of is what we wanted,” he says, then adds, “no one has ever told us what to do.”