The Subsonics are an Atlanta trio long known and loved for their “gutter glam” rock-and-roll style and stripped-down songs, often only one or two punchy and provocative minutes long. They’ve achieved international recognition and cult acclaim over their thirty-year career. Now, Brazilian label Mandinga Records has released the second iteration of a compilation of Subsonics covers, recorded by artists worldwide, called “You Didn’t Think We Could Take It Vol. 2.” “City Lights” host Lois Reitzes was joined by the Subsonics members Clay Reed, Buffi Aguero, and Rob Delbueno via Zoom to talk about their wild journey.
Asked about the secret to their longevity, the band responded with their characteristic enigmatic, winking rhetoric. “Disturbance, I guess?” offered Reed. “We’re all getting deafer, so we can’t fight as much,” said Aguero. But she quickly followed up, “Well, and we love what we do, and we love each other. That’s a big part of it.”
Reed described the humble origins of the Subsonics, meeting for the first time in the most rock-and-roll of sites, a dentist’s office. “The story is, I had broken a tooth on a microphone because I have all these little things I do, you know? And some of them involve breaking teeth on microphones. I was at the waiting room at the dentist’s office. Buffi was in the waiting room to get her teeth cleaned. As you do, you’re bored, and you strike up a conversation. One thing leads to another,” said Reed. “Buffy had, I guess, ‘quote-unquote an audition, sort of like a job interview, I guess and got the job. And it was April 1st we initially had the job interview; May 1st was our first show.”
The band immediately launched into an all-in, five-day-a-week practice and performance schedule. Eventually, the band traded out a previous bass player for Rob Delbueno, also known for his work in Man? Or Astroman? “I’m still the new guy,” said Delbueno, who’s been a member of the Subsonics for a solid twenty years. “I had known and met Buffi and Clay prior because our bands at the time had played many shows together and toured together. Being from the Southeast, we tended to want to stick together, particularly when we were out in the middle of nowhere, say, in the central United States, us Southerners had to stick together.”
Clay’s lyrics often focus on marginal characters and shadowy protagonists, giving the sense of an unreliable narrator involved in unsavory situations, all in a two-minute burst of music. “I’ve met a lot of interesting people, and had a pretty interesting life,” said Reed. “You know, if you go back to Shakespeare or the Bible, the interesting stories are the stories where bad things happen to people with problems. Those are interesting stories. Those are the compelling people.”
