Amish Electric Chair Charges Up The Athens Music Scene
By Dani Purcell, Senior Writer
Amish Electric Chair’s country fortress glows from high on its hilltop location. Electric guitar riffs and floor toms pulse through the walls, still audible from the road. The door squeaks open. Letters and junk litter the piano in the foyer. A blazing furnace casts the room in a soft glow. Cars explode on a muted television behind Scotty Tuuri’s drumset. Bassist John Sava and singer/guitarist Neil Tuuri stand in front of a massive black wall of equipment, while friend and former bassist Mike Costantino sips a Pabst Blue Ribbon in an armchair.
Neil hands me a thick pair of protective headphones and tells me I will probably need them. The band apologizes for the lack of seating and explains that the couch has relocated to the backseat of their van. So begins the practice.
Scotty lays heavy on the snare, but divides his attention equally among his toms, creating a more roundly percussive sound. When his mouth is not pursed in concentration, he displays an open-mouthed grin. Sava keeps strangely excellent posture and bends both legs in a constant power stance. His fingers race across the fret board, articulating calculated and complex bass fills indicative of his talent as a lead guitarist. Neil backs him with rhythm guitar sections, his ragged barks crackling through the speakers.
The threesome keeps individual interactions minimal in gesture; they rely on verbal communication. The instant they stop playing, AEC members return to their usual banter – attempting corny jokes, cunning with puns, mostly dirty.
The band spouts off bands it has been compared to, such as Anti-Flag, old AFI, Alkaline Trio. Amish Electric Chair embodies stylistic components of nineties pop punk, yet incorporates miniscule traces of other genres in its songs; Neil’s gravely, scratching vocals suit post-hardcore, and Sava’s metal-based training sneaks through in his compositions. Unlike its slightly corny predecessors, AEC just sounds too pissed off to compose love ballads – of any sort. The band constructs songs addressing issues with the world at large with sing-a-long choruses over chord structures reflective of traditional punk.
Just as I go to scribble, “they don’t make mistakes,” the Tuuris slip on the intro. Sava and Neil briefly discuss the mistake and refuel with swigs of PBR. It is the only time during the practice the band plays anything twice; AEC blitzes through its originals with energy and precision. They don’t play anything twice because they don’t need to.
Once the group finishes, AEC members excitedly show me the station in their kitchen where they recorded. They admit that their kitchen contains an Appalachian delicacy, fresh squirrel meat.
Scotty yanks a Tupperware filled with pink chunks of flesh floating in its juices and teasingly offers me a taste. I decline, which spurns the boys into a miniature discussion stigmatizing trendy vegetarians.
“We don’t like to play Athens; we’re not vegan so people hate us,” said Scotty. AEC insists squirrel flesh tastes like “black metal chicken.”
The band members trek back into the living room and sits in their respective places. Sava perches atop his amp and Neil paces back and forth. Sava takes the forefront and Neil busies himself in playing bongo drums, then switches to banjo and finishes with kazoo.
Amish Electric Chair’s true beginning is “fuzzy” for the Tuuris. The two and Constantino appropriately began with covers of Pennywise’s “The World” and AFI’s “This Secret Ninja” The group practiced and stagnantly floated for a few years, shifting in and out a few bassists. In the summer of 2008, AEC lost its bassist.
“The major problem was that he got married and moved to Texas without telling us!” said Scotty.
AEC had three shows scheduled, so Sava joined the Tuuris for practice.
“Neil and I worked together at the Pita Pit, and I was always joking with him, like, ‘Yeah, I’ll fuckin’ play bass!” said Sava. “I never played bass in my life – I played lead guitar in a fucking shredding death metal band.”
Sava learned eleven songs in a matter of days and immediately played three live shows in a four day span. He then joined the band officially, and began managing the band’s public relations and booking. In September 2009, he sent the band’s most recent recordings to several record labels and received mixed responses from each. Plan-It-X could only promise its name, and "Jade Tree told (AEC) to fuck off” while Asian Man, which has released albums from Alkaline Trio and the Lawrence Arms, essentially said, “you’re not our style.”
When Sava read the GC Records’ FAQ, he apprehensively asked to send in AEC’s press kit, as the FAQ stated “the chances of us signing your band are less than you becoming a millionaire rock star.” Days later, he received an e-mail with a glowing opening statement and after a few more correspondences, an invitation to sign to the label.
Amish Electric Chair’s second album, Straight. No Chaser., is scheduled to release nationally on November 16. Its members plan to record and release a full-length in 2011, and aspire to tour the United Kingdom and Japan. It departs from Athens for its winter tour with a show in Pittsburgh, Penn. on the first of December and will travel from Florida to Texas to Tennessee. The band completes the 16-day tour in Cincinnati.
All three members, between bouts of laughter, manage to reconstruct the events of past tours, including the night they earned/rightfully took an air freshener as monetary compensation. After playing at a small church in Dalton, GA, the band realized someone accidentally loaded an extra guitar with its equipment. AEC returned the guitar to the venue, but the guys admit to stealing an air freshener from the church bathroom to mask the scent of spilled Red Bull in the van.
After playing the show, the band agreed to give two young ladies rides home, and insists the girls “made us drive around in fuckin’ circles.” The mattress in the van’s back half worked against them; one of the young Georgians attempted to seduce Scotty in the backseat, who resisted her advances.
“I think she was like, 15!” Scotty giggles. “And she was wastey!”
The police then “profiled [AEC] on a fuckin’ roadblock” and asked if they had been drinking.
“Yeah, we just played for a bunch of fuckin’ 15 year olds in a fuckin’ church fuckin’ venue, pretty much,” said Neil said. “We were in the damn Bible Belt, for sure! Playing at a church for a bunch of 15 year olds, God.”
The band claims one Conneaut, Ohio venue housed “this sketchy-ass room, and this bed just completely covered in shit backstage.” When AEC only received half of its ridiculously low guarantee, the band decided they deserved a consolation prize: a gumball machine. The left option is filled with Runts, and the right, with a rainbow of jumbo gumballs. But, the boys admit the machine does not work and the candy has not been replaced since they acquired it.
After this chat Amish Electric Chair parades outside, where Neil’s future recording studio stands partially-erected. Next to the skeleton of a building, the threesome huddle over a steel trap and giggle like a pack of teen boys. The trap contains bait: several decapitated squirrel heads. AEC aspires to catch larger prey soon, perhaps raccoons.
Amish Electric Chair tears up The Union Sunday evening with The Red Army and Uzuhi at 10 p.m.
