Atlantic Thrills - Vices

Hailing from Providence, Rhode Island, The Atlantic Thrills are a fantastic rock'n'roll band blending together their own brand of garage rock filled with fuzzy psychedelic riffs, reverb drenched surf anthems and raspy 50's inspired doo-wop punk ballads. 

The band was formed in 2010 by Eric Aguiar, Daniel Tanner and Mark Ferrara. Their self-titled debut album was released February 4, 2014 on Brooklyn's Almost Ready Records and their sophomore record, "Vices" was released last year. The band is currently working on its third album.

Yours truly had a very interesting chat with Eric and Daniel:

1) What can you tell about Atlantic Thrills? How long are you guys together as a band? Were you in other bands previously? Who is playing what in the band?
Eric- I think we started in 2010...  or at least thats when we played our first show.  Dan plays guitar / vocals, Ref plays drums and I play bass / vocals.  When we go out on tour we sometimes get our friend Rafay (from Ravi Shavi) to play rhythm guitar.  We've all had other projects.  I did hip hop before this.

Daniel-Yeah, we're definilely a group of complicatedly silly and soiled characters... I played drums and/or guitar in a few bands as a teenager.. Mostly punk and  indy shit.  I've also been djing  for 20 years or so. A lot of turntablist / weird bass heavy music..
Ref (a.k.a. The Minister of Reference) was also a hip hop mc before drumming for us. We all met through hip hop. I believe ref also played drums in a metal band or two in his early years.

2) To what kind of music did you listen to as teenagers and does it still influence your today work? What was your favorite band as a teenager? Name 3 bands that you consider still have a influence on your own work today.
Eric- I listened to mostly punk and hip hop early on and got into 60's garage punk/psychedelic rock in my later teens.  Beastie Boys have always been one of my favorites. Beastie Boys, Wu Tang Clan, Velvet Underground / Lou Reed still influence me a lot.

Daniel- I'v always listened to all types of music..Anything from Doo-wop to electronica to hip hop and anything in between. I was really into The Beastie Boys and  Dead Kennedys when I was a teenager. But, I also liked a lot of indy and idm. Like Shellac and Squarepusher. I take a lot of influence today from Chuck Berry, Hendrix, and Wu-tang..

3) Is there a main composer in the band or is everybody involved in one way or another?

Eric - I do a lot of writing on my own, but everyone has their own ideas and puts their own touch on the final product.

Daniel - Eric and I both have our own songs that we write, but , we write a lot of the stuff together.

4) About the new record "Vices", can you explain the title? And what's the connection with the artwork on the front cover?
Eric - We chose the title "Vices" because it summed up both the process of making the album and and its content.  The album art was inspired by the Tibetan book of the dead.  There's a whole story behind the enlightened skeletons dancing - it's called Kinkara I believe...  I always really loved the image.  I didn't want to literally show what most people think when they hear the word vices, so this image seemed to fit well.

Daniel- To me it's about the things that both hold you together and tear you apart at the same time.

5) The Atlantic Thrills are described by some people as a "garage" band. Do you agree with

this label or do you consider there is way more than that?  
Eric - I guess it depends on your definition of "garage".  For me garage is a very loose term and can include a lot of different styles of music - surf, blues, psychedelic, punk, folk, doo wop, etc.  We draw inspiration from all those styles and "garage" is kinda what glues it together.

Daniel - I'm not a big fan of labels. To me, I just play what comes naturally and what ever comes out, comes out... But, usually it falls somewhere on the "garage" spectrum.

6) Do you have a new video on youtube  featuring a track from the new LP?? 
Eric - Yeah, the title track VICES is up.  Our friend Rafay Rashid shot/directed/edited it.   There's also a video for Bed Bugs which we did ourselves.  We were able to pull off both video's with zero budget.



7) What can concert goers expect at a The Atlantic Thrills gig? Are you playing any famous cover songs? 
Eric - Lots of bourbon, bodily fluids, occasionally psychedelic cookies, piñata guts flying everywhere...  Things have a tendency to get wild and belligerent at our shows.  We often play Los Saicos at the end of our set.  It's one of our favorite bands and always a great way to end the party.

Daniel - Yeah, we like to have fun.. Sometimes we play something silly but rockin'. Like Beastie boys or Steppenwolf. It's all about the mood of the party.

8) Does Providence, Rhode Island have a long history of garage bands, that goes way back to the 60's?
Eric - I've stumbled across a few while digging around online, but I'm definitely not an expert on the history.  The Barbarians were from Cape Cod which isn't too far from Providence.  We covered "Are You A Boy Or Are You A Girl " at one of our first shows.

9) Anything you wanna add?

Eric- I think that pretty much covers it.  We are currently working on our 3rd album - likely to be released before the end of 2017, and hopefully we'll tour Europe by then as well.

PURCHASE IT HERE : https://atlanticthrills.bandcamp.com/