Nearly every song from the offbeat hip hop group Don’t Talk to the Cops! begins as an inside joke within the group, but by making each song built around a catchy hook, they’re in essence letting their audience in on the joke. It’s a matter of inclusion that gives you some insight into one of the most exciting bands to come out of the Northwest in recent memory.
Don’t Talk to the Cops! are a sort of offshoot band from Mash Hall, comprised of the same members, djblesOne, emecks and Larry Mizell, Jr., who goes by Gatsby or El Mizell on stage at various times. Don’t Talk to the Cops! differs in that it features djblesOne and emecks as the MCs. Aesthetically, it’s much more like a punk rock group working within hip hop than a hip hop group working in a hip hop scene – and that’s for the better. DTTTC! is set to release its excellent sophomore album, Let’s Quit, on Out for Stardom with a CD release party on Saturday at the Baltic Room. Each member of the group says it’s more focused than its almost-equally brilliant, left-field debut Regular Show.
In an interview with the group at a Capitol Hill coffee shop, emecks said, “I would say this album defines us more as a band. The last one was pretty much like our little project just for fun.” Mizell agreed, saying “I think this album is the story of their relationship, even how it’s sequenced.”
Bles says the defining characteristic of the group is that they’re carefree and hope to incite the same abandon with their fans. He says, “This time around, especially me and her, we’re a couple of idiots together.” Elaborating, he told me, “We like to dance around and have a lot of fun. We just laugh all the time. This time we made jokes about what we talk about everyday or what we joke around about everyday. I would say the overall vibe of the album is just to let yourself go. I wouldn’t necessarily say dance, or funk or hip hop, but just to have a good time. It’s a lot of different sounds going on at the same time because we’re all into different kinds of music.” It shouldn’t surprise anyone that they all cite a house show in the U-District with rock bands TacocaT, Cold Lake and Police Teeth as their favorite show to date.
The first single from Let’s Quit was released last week. It’s different from a typical single in that it’s only 94 seconds long. It’s called “Swag Treated Treated Swag” was inspired by the dialect from their friend, Chicago producer/DJ Hollywood Holt. Bles explained, “He’s from Chicago and they say ‘treated’ as a way to say ‘gotcha’ or whatever. But it was also at the same time that saying ‘swag’ was really popular and people were saying it after everything. We noticed that he would say them both. If he said one, he’d have to say them both together. So if one of us said one of the words, someone else would have to say the other one.”
Hollywood Holt remixes Regular Show favorite “Girls Buy Me Drinks” and rhymes on it for Let’s Quit. Of that song, Bles says the inside joke behind that hit, one of the catchiest songs from the first album, is that, “after the first Mash Hall [Emecks] played with us, after the show everybody ignored us but girls were lining up to buy her drinks. She ended up throwing up in the parking lot of a Taco Bell after that. So many girls were buying her so many drinks that she was throwing up.”
Another song from Let’s Quit is “Murderburger,” which has its own hilarious trailer preceding it, but it’s also inspired an actual burger, which will be available at the new-ish Capitol Hill burger joint Lil Woody’s from the day of Let’s Quit CD release party until Let’s Quit is released on February 14.
If the music of Don’t Talk to the Cops! sounds like it was made with a DIY spontaneity, it likely was. Bles tells me, “One song, ‘I Don’t Like Rachel,’ was one take. I was upset about something earlier in the day and I just ranted it out. In the beginning, the beat is just me clapping. ‘Cold Nuts’ was recorded in ten minutes and it was us literally messing around with the keyboards and stuff. Most of the lyrics you hear are just us making stuff up and being idiots.”
While Larry Mizell, Jr. isn’t as prominent in DTTTC! as he is in Mash Hall – he is its DJ on stage and rhymes on Let’s Quit’s closer, the wild “Puke Party” – Bles credits him with the genesis of the band, for turning him onto to the music that would inspire the group. He says, “Right before Don’t Talk to the Cops!, this guy took me to see TacocaT. I was already a fan of TacocaT but I hadn’t seen them before. I had also seen Butts (for the first time), so I had seen (Seattle DIY punk bands) TacocaT and Butts in the same night and then this guy took me to see MIA in concert and I thought, ‘I want to do both of these together.’”
If it’s the story of emecks’ and Bles’ relationship, there’s a sweetness underneath, with Bles rhyming on “Someday I’m Gonna Be Rich,” “I can take you shopping, but I can’t buy you everything, but I think you look in everything you own, whether it is off or whether it is on.” On the Let’s Quit opener, Bles said in our interview, “The first song on the album is called ‘I Like Nerds’ and I was teasing her one day, saying [things like] ‘your kisses taste like math, your kisses taste like social studies.’ So we turned that into a song.” Emecks then explained, “It started out with me saying that I like nerdy guys and that’s why I like you.”
It’s the seeming simplicity of the songs and how irresistible the hooks are make Don’t Talk to the Cops! one of the easiest bands to like on first listen. Combine that with the carefree ethos and high energy performances and chances are, people seeing DTTTC! for the first time will be humming the choruses to “Girls Buy Me Drinks” or “Swag Treated Treated Swag” to themselves. As Larry Mizell, Jr. put it, “It’s sort of like for us, when you go see a band for the first time and you don’t know the words, but everyone knows the hook. It’s the best.”
{Don’t Talk to the Cops’ CD release party is Saturday, February 4 at the Baltic Room with Purple & Green. 21+, 9pm, $10 tickets available here.}
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