Consumables are a New York-based art rock band. Their latest record, Infinite Games, is out now on We Are Time.
Ben Hozie fronts the New York-based band Bodega; Kyle Crew and Miles Fox are the guitarist and bassist, respective, of the also-New-York-based band Consumables. Ben produced the new Consumables record, Infinite Games — out now on We Are Time — so to celebrate, the three sat down to catch up about it.
— Annie Fell, Editor-in-chief, Talkhouse Music
Ben Hozie: So, we’re talking about the record that came out today — and I say “today” because we’re recording this on March 7, so obviously it will have already been out when the piece comes out. But my band, Bodega, has an interesting connection with Consumables because one of our very first shows once we changed our band name to Bodega was in 2016 at Alphaville with Kyle’s old band that were called Casual Chaos. I was pretty smitten with them when I first saw them, and we’ve been long friends since. One song on the new Consumables record was a Casual Chaos song — track one, “Keys to the Cell.” And one of my stipulations of producing this record was, you gotta dig up that song “Keys to the Cell,” because it’s so catchy and wonderful.
Kyle Crew: Yeah, cheers. That was at the old Sunnyvale venue.
Ben: It wasn’t at Alphaville?
Kyle: No, it was at Sunnyvale. And you guys didn’t even have another guitar player at the time. So, yeah, the link is pretty ancient.
Ben: Miles, when did you start playing in the band?
Miles Fox: Maybe 2019. We hit it off, started playing shows, and then the pandemic hit and it got slowed down.
Ben: So tell me about the gestation of the concept and the material of the new record. It’s kind of a concept record, right?
Kyle: Yeah, it’s a concept record. We had some infighting with a band member before, and when they departed, we became a three-piece again. And we had this idea about infinite games — basically, finite games have boundaries, a clear set of rules. In infinite games, the game is just to keep it going. And that was kind of an epiphany like, “We gotta just keep the game going.” You gotta lose some battles for the bigger picture, which is to continue the play.
Ben: Yeah. So, relationships are not about winning and losing.
Kyle: Exactly, you don’t have to win every fight. We liked that idea, and we liked [the phrase] “infinite games,” and we said, “That’s going to be the record.” So a lot of the songs were written through that prism.
Ben: What was the first song that you remember writing with that concept? I mean, obviously “Keys to the Cell” goes back to 2016, but what would have been the first song that you wrote with that concept in mind?
Kyle: “All Work No Play” was probably the first.
Ben: One of the more interesting things about this record is Kyle was originally the leader of the band and wrote all the songs, and you can really hear that on the first EP. But Miles, who’s sort of the Paul McCartney in the band, in that he plays bass and is — maybe I can say this? — the most accomplished harmonically — you play the keyboards and can sing harmonies really well.
Miles: I’ll take that.
Ben: Miles started singing and penning songs for this record. The first single, “Great Design,” is your song, and “Emotional Speedball” is your song, and there’s several others. When did you start writing songs in your life? Did you sing and write in other bands?
Miles: Not as much, but during the pandemic when I was locked inside, I started a song group online. Every week, I got a bunch of musicians from all around the world to make songs together. And at that time I only played bass, and I hated having bad songs, so I really pushed myself to try to get better. And actually, some of those tracks like “Great Design,” “Messages,” “Emotional Speedball” — a lot of them were written during during this song group that I did.
Ben: Well, that’s great.
Miles: But, yeah, it all came together like we were saying earlier. We kind of hit a low point once we locked into this three-piece after our old guitarist left. I remember sitting at Anchored Inn drinking a beer with Kyle, just being like, “What are we gonna do? Should we keep this thing going?” And then that’s when he talked about the infinite and finite games, and we’re like, “Is this a finite game or is this infinite?” We thought it was infinite, and that’s when I stepped gear up to try to compete with Kyle and push each other to expand and make the album.
Ben: So for people that don’t know, Anchored Inn is a bar in Brooklyn. It’s kind of like a metal bar. They reference it in the lyrics of “Infinite Games,” and it’s just right down the street. Anchored Inn is where most bands would go after practicing, right?
Kyle: Yeah, that’s where you go and you fight with your band members.
Miles: Break up, start a new band minutes later.
Ben: So when did you start playing with Hector [Guillen], who’s the drummer on the record?
Kyle: I guess it was before the pandemic, because when we had our first show back, he was already playing. That derailed us for a little bit, as with everyone. The song “Hope Is in the Eyes” is kind of about that interim time of just waiting for things to return.
Ben: How did you link up with Hector? Because he has an interesting background. He played in prog rock bands in Panama, right?
Kyle: Yeah. I met someone at an art gallery and was just saying we’re looking for a drummer in conversation. She says she knows someone — because Hector also does painting and is in the art world — and he came in and just killed it.
Miles: Yeah, it was pretty funny because he comes in and I’m like, “So what are you doing out here?” And he’s like, “I’m actually a champion Muay Thai fighter of Panama, and I just fought at Madison Square Garden.” He takes out his phone and shows all these crazy pictures of kicking people in the face. Then he plays incredibly, we’re blown away by his playing. And then at the end, he goes, “Alright, nice to meet you guys.” Stands up, drinks his whole tallboy of beer, puts it on the ground, crushes it perfectly in one step, and just walked out of the room. We were like, “We need this guy.” [Laughs.]
Ben: That’s amazing. So, once we really started working together — which would have been, I want to say January 2023 — I basically just started going to your practices. I’m fairly new to producing. I self-produced a lot of my own band’s records, but the first record I produced was from my friend Brook Pridemore, who’s a solo singer-songwriter in New York, and I’ve been wanting to produce more. So then when Kyle reached out to me about doing this record, I told him, “I’m not really an engineer type. I’m not really someone that’s going to be fussy about microphones or gear or whatever.” I’m kind of an old school producer in the sense that I like to focus on songwriting and arrangements. So basically the process was, I would go to their band practices, just listen to them play their songs that were works in progress and take notes, and then help with the arrangements and with the actual songwriting. A lot of the time, you guys would have a really good A section and maybe even a good B section, but then I would say, “OK, this song needs a bridge,” or, “This song doesn’t really have a discernible hook,” or maybe, “This song’s too long, let’s cut it in half.” So my producing model would be kind of like the George Martin type, where it’s more focused on the band in the room. And then the actual engineering of the record was done by our friend Adam Sachs, who mixed it and did a great job downstairs at his studio.
Kyle: I remember asking you to come put some ears on a couple songs. I know you were going to maybe film a movie at that time, so you were like, “I don’t know if I can devote that much time to it.” But then the movie, for budget reasons or something, got pushed back. So then you came in in a very granular way, which was awesome. Miles and I always talk about, we went to the Ben Hozie School of Rock. [Laughs.] The three of us spent a lot of time in this room rearranging, putting hooks to things, distilling the essence of the song down to its simplest form. We learned a lot from you.
Ben: What are some of the things that you learned?
Kyle: I think one of the things we learned is just rewriting things and not living with it the first time. You know, cutting things down. A lot of singing stuff.
Ben: Basically one of my goals with working with these guys was, I wanted to not just make a punk record — I wanted to bring a pop sensibility to this band. Which I know they already had, but I really wanted to highlight it by getting them to sing a little bit more. Sometimes their intuition — especially Kyle’s, I would say — would be to just shout or rap or speak text. And oftentimes that’s the right approach, but not always. It’s a personal journey that I’d gone through with Bodega, too, kind of transforming from an atonal punk band to one that has more melody.
Kyle: So “Ten Toes Down” became that.
Ben: Yeah. All good rock bands and all good rock records, I think, have to have a ballad. Do you remember when I had you guys write a ballad?
Kyle: Yeah, I tried to sneak one past you.
Ben: They tried to cheat on their homework — because I said, “OK, your homework for this week is you guys each write a ballad.” And they came in and they just had slower versions of songs that they had already played me. And it’s like, “Guys, these aren’t ballads. A ballad doesn’t just mean you play slow.”
Kyle: So then from that, “Ten Toes Down” came, which is a love song to my girlfriend and the art director of the band, Rebecca Marley.
Ben: Becca painted the album art.
Kyle: The album art, our outfits on stage, the backdrop that we use often. Her fingerprints are all over it. I always say, when she came into the fold and when Dylan [Joyce], the other guitar player after we finished the album, came into the band, it really just solidified.
Ben: Well, he plays on the record a little bit, right?
Kyle: Yeah, he plays on “Dry Rot.” He has a couple awesome licks in there, and we just had to go back and add him in for that. In retrospect, I wish he was around before because he’s such a smokin’ player.
Ben: Yeah. He has a band called Balaclava.
Kyle: Yeah.
Ben: Let’s talk about sequencing a little bit, because the record — it is a little bit like a concept record with the infinite games thing, but not exactly. It’s not like a rock opera or anything. But one of the more impressive things that you guys managed to pull off, I think, is how well it flows. And when you finally get to the last track, the title track, it really does feel like a culmination. But, maybe tipping to Hector’s prog rock roots, there are kind of proggy moments. For example, Miles, your song “Messages” kind of morphs into more like a skate punk song. It’s like a little triptych, almost, where there are multiple compositions but they’re sequenced to be one piece to be performed. How did that happen? Do you remember?
Miles: I don’t know. I think I always just write songs in twos. Whenever I write a song, I always make a similar song. Like “Great Design” and “Emotional Speedball” — I was really into this synth sequencing. Same thing with “Messages,” I was just like, “This needs to go somewhere,” and went up to “Lost in Translation.”
Ben: Were those written together? I can’t remember.
Miles: Yeah, they were written together.
Ben: I think it was a strong choice to separate them into two tracks. It’s very effective.
Kyle: Yeah, the sequencing — we had 20-something songs and riffs. Some weren’t fleshed out all the way through, but we ended up recording 18. Then it felt like the album just kind of wrote itself. The sequencing of it felt like it had to be a certain way. The six of these songs that didn’t get [included], maybe we’ll put out on an EP. I think they’re really strong songs, but the sequencing kind of revealed itself and what it felt like.
Ben: I remember a concept I presented to you guys was, let’s basically make two records that are each nine tracks long, and then you decide from that 18 what the best 12 would be. We did pretty high end pre-production demos. I’m a big believer in pre-production. If you record a DIY version of the record, then you can hear what is and isn’t working with the arrangement. I feel like one of the best things musicians can do in general is record themselves, even when you’re just practicing, because when you’re just playing in a room, it’s always going to feel good. But when you’re out in the world listening to a voice memo of what you did in the practice space, you have a totally different reaction to it.
Kyle: Yeah.
Ben: What about the song “Needed It”? That’s almost like a hardcore song. Where did that come from?
Miles: Another one of those low points at Anchored Inn, checking our emails. [Laughs.] We were getting turned down by festivals and not getting the gigs that we want, and we just walked into the space and started screaming, “We needed it! We needed it!” And just had kind of a meltdown together.
Ben: Well, that seems to be one of the lyrical themes of the record. “Great Design” is about this as well, sort of other people’s expectations that are put upon a band. And not even just a band — like, persona. How to act and be in the digital world, adapting other people’s notions of success.
Kyle: Yeah, that’s omnipresent.
Ben: So there were two other guest musicians on the record — unless you include me. I know I’m in there somewhere on some of the guitar parts.
Kyle: A lot of guitar licks that you put on there. Your fingerprints are all over the record. Some of the lines that you came directly up with.
Ben: Kate Mohanty, who was a collaborator of mine in the past, plays saxophone on “Infinite Games.” There’s violin also that you can hear on “Keys to the Cell.” Who played that?
Kyle: Katie Pollock, also known as Milk Mother. She plays violin at Carnegie Hall a lot. She’s my old neighbor, so I had her just come over and put some violins on some things.
Ben: And why did you want to have these auxiliary people? That’s kind of rare to have on a debut album. Usually debuts are just like a statement, usually minimal by design. It’s one band thrashing out their first set of songs or whatever.
Kyle: Well, on “Keys to the Cell,” it felt like there was a lot of space there. And to fill it instead of with feedback and guitars, it was nice to have some violins, which is not typical of post-punk records.
Ben: Let’s talk about post-punk. Do you think of yourself as a post-punk band?
Kyle: If you want to put that label on us, sure.
Ben: I mean, you did. You put it on yourself just now.
Kyle: It’s shorthand, but it’s such a broad range. It’s almost like saying “rock & roll.”
Ben: Right. Musically, how do you guys think of yourselves? Nobody wants to put a genre tag in there, but let’s just talk about other records and other bands. What are some of the Consumables pillars?
Kyle: I think for Miles and I, the Venn diagram is probably Wire Chairs Missing. We both love that kind of stuff. And X. So it’s post-punk. But even contemporaries — I mean, Bodega was an influence.
Ben: I hear Parquet Courts on “Keys to the Cell,” and I hear a lot of Minutemen. But also, you guys totally do your own thing. And I think one thing that really distinguishes Consumables — and one thing I really tried to bring out on the record with you guys — is that you’re really more of a garage rock band. That really distinguishes Consumables from the British post-punk bands, in the sense that there is still a connection to Chuck Berry, there’s still a connection to the blues and classic jangly two guitar attack a la Velvet Underground, a la Modern Lovers, Devo. All the American art punk bands, they have a connection to jangly garage rock. Whereas a lot of the British stuff is more austere. You know, I’m a big proponent of the the American version of that, which is a little more loose. I definitely feel it’s in the spirit of things that are purposefully loose, and the groove has a lot of boogie, push, pull. Even when it’s fast, it’s still loose.
Kyle: Yeah. That’s perfect.
Ben: Hector’s playing, for example — he uses the cowbell a lot on the on the record. It’s kind of his signature thing. You hear it on “Great Design.”
Kyle: Yeah, that’s probably his Latin influence.
Ben: See, I always associate it with boogie blues rock or something. Is there a southern rock connection at all? Because you’re from Arkansas. You’re definitely a blues guitar player.
Kyle: I learned blues first. The Rolling Stones were my favorite band, and I went back and listened to Howlin’ Wolf and all these old blues dudes. R.L. Burnside and the Hill Country stuff. And then got turned on to post-punk stuff — the Fall and Wire. Pavement. That’s where I kind of started.
Ben: Can we talk about the story behind “Keys to the Cell”? You were briefly incarcerated, right?
Kyle: Yeah, I was. I wouldn’t classify myself as a dealer by any sorts, but I was giving a little bit of weed to a few friends. One of the friend’s girlfriends wore a wire on me, and the long and short of it is I got sentenced to six months in county jail.
Ben: And what year was this?
Kyle: This was 2010.
Ben: This is a while ago, in Arkansas. Way before marijuana got decriminalized nationally.
Kyle: The landscape was much different, yeah. Especially in small town Arkansas, in a college town.
Ben: Well, you didn’t tell the best part of the story, which I think speaks to your character: They said, “You can do the same thing and wear a wire and go find us whoever you’re getting your pot from,” and you said, “No, I’d rather do the time.”
Kyle: Yeah, well, it was a friend. So I’m not going to go wear a wire on a friend. I just don’t think I could live with that. That would weigh on me a lot.
Ben: Yeah. I hesitate to use the word “defining,” but it’s one of the more important episodes in your life, because I know you have an interest in legal reforms.
Kyle: Yeah, I went to grad school for sociology afterwards. I was fascinated with the criminal justice system and how unjust it really is. And when you’re in there, you just see how many people don’t need to be incarcerated, and how much of a moneymaker it is and a fetishism for punishment that we have. So a lot of lyrics still come from that experience.
Ben: Near the end during one of the guitar breaks, you throw in a “Like A Rolling Stone” Bob Dylan reference — “Now, you don’t talk so loud, now you don’t seem so proud.” I always thought that was clever and fun. But why did you do that? And how does it relate to “Keys to the Cell”?
Kyle: Honestly, I don’t even remember writing it. [Laughs.] It just sounded cool. I’m a big Bob Dylan fan, and it felt like it fit. It was a little riff there, and I think I was just trying to put lyrics to it, and I just used that maybe as a placeholder, and I was like, “Oh, it kind of fits.”
Ben: Miles, talk about “Great Design.” The lyrics of that, what are you getting at? Because there’s some pretty hard hitting lines in there.
Miles: I don’t know. It came from a place of turmoil — you know, being a young man living in New York City can kind of be an assault on you. So I think I was lashing out at all the people I was hanging out with, like SoundCloud rappers and influencers and models and their apartments. I was just getting getting overwhelmed.
Ben: What do you hear in the record now? What does it speak to you now? Because it’s been done for a long time now. We took a while to find the labels to put it out.
Kyle: Shout out Fierce Panda and We Are Time. Thanks for putting it out. I think one of the things we learned is—
Miles: You ain’t gotta be so tough all the time.
Kyle: We can be a little tender.
Ben: Yeah, we had that big discussion about “Ten Toes Down.” I was like, “Look, a good ballad is tough. There’s a toughness that comes from willing to be vulnerable like that.” And I think that’s what a lot of punk bands get wrong. They don’t understand that the best punk bands have a soft side to them, and that makes them, paradoxically, even tougher.
Kyle: We got we’re got a bunch of other stuff we’re already playing now, and we’re injecting some of that ethos into other things going forward.
Ben: That’s great. Can’t wait to hear what you guys do next.
