Frankie and the Witch Fingers isn’t a complacent band by any means. With each release, the LA psych-punk band builds upon its visceral, psychedelic garage rock, melting music’s partition of genres until you can’t tell where one influence ends and another begins.

With seventh album Data Doom, the group steps into one of its most ambitious chapters yet, toying with grooves straight out of Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew era and the feverish polyrhythmic drumming of Afrobeat pioneer Tony Allen. It’s a cauldron of styles, and Frankie stirs it up just right.

Asked about Vegas, the quartet—longtimers Dylan Sizemore (rhythm guitar/vocals) and Josh Menashe (lead guitar/ sax/synths) plus newer additions Nikki “Pickle” Smith (bass) and Nick Aguilar (drums)—have a handful of great memories. There was the time they stumbled onto an ’80s night at Downtown’s Oddfellows, where everyone sang so loudly it was basically karaoke. And who could forget last year’s show at Artifice, when they incited a circle pit so large, it resembled a human whirlpool. “I hope that happens again,” Smith says.

Ahead of the band’s September 9 gig at the Usual Place, we caught up with the band to talk about the making of Data Doom, how film scores influence the Frankie aesthetic and more.

What’s the story behind the name Data Doom? Dylan Sizemore: It goes along with the loose theme of the album, which is about futurism and where things are with technology. But we also just liked the sound of it. It’s pretty percussive—Data Doom. It sounds like a drumroll.

It definitely has a technological, dystopian vibe. Are we in a dystopia right now? Josh Menashe: Definitely. Especially post-pandemic, or in the middle of the pandemic, the phone and social media became the norm. This media that was meant to be supplementary to real-world interaction became the default. And I think it kind of happened without people knowing it. It’s weird and scary, but also kind of cool.

Nikki Smith: That’s why that show Black Mirror hits so hard. It really shows just the barest next step of what [the] technology we all have could become. I think we’re on the precipice of a dystopia if we don’t work on it, if we’re not aware of it, if we’re not intentional about it.

DS: I think that’s everyone’s existential thought in a way. You definitely can’t fear it too much, or fight against it too much, because it’s gonna happen regardless. All we can do is change our relationship with it on a personal level until it becomes a bigger social issue, which I think it is. A lot of people now are aware and talking about the dangers of what we’ve gotten into with technology. It’s a tool. You can utilize it, and it does take us further, in many ways in a positive way. But we tend to hone our technology into capitalism and control and things like that. It’s a double-edged sword.

This is the first Frankie album to include your rhythm section. When you went into these recording sessions, did you set out to specifically highlight their talents? JM: We’ve gone through a few drummers, and Nikki’s only our second bass player, but every time we have someone join, it’s kind of in a transformative period where we are working on a new album. We’ve always had the mindset of, instead of making them fit into what we’ve been doing, we meet them halfway. Let’s come together and see what this new amalgamation of humans can create.

DS: When Pickle and Nick came into the group, we had a lot of conversations about what we all liked individually, but also what we liked as a group. I felt like we started there musically, and even in the writing process, it was very communicative. Definitely, we were trying to highlight everyone’s strengths. This is a really rhythmic album, because you’ve got two amazing rhythm players. It just pushed us into that creative zone.

Was there a particular song on Data Doom that pushed you out of the box? NS: As the first time writing with this band, I was super outside my comfort zone. This was so much more technically challenging than I’ve ever been asked to step up to before, especially on “Mild Davis.” I remember being like, “I’m never gonna get the timing of this.” Now, it’s completely second nature, and it’s really fun to play on these off-beats. It’s a really supportive and creatively uplifting environment to be in.

JM: With the song “Doom Boom,” we really tried to make that more of a recorded piece, one that we weren’t planning on playing live and really focusing on the sonics of. Rather than getting a guitar tone, we were like, “What’s the craziest synth sound we can come up with?” I remember Dylan at one point even singing like a synth sound. You remember that, Dylan? Being like “whaaa, whaaa, whaaa.” That was a cool way to create that we hadn’t really done before. Start with the sound in our head, not just assume that it’s going to be a guitar or a bass—start with just a pure sound and then create it from there.

I love the music videos that have come out for Data Doom. But the super sci-fi “Futurephobic” scared the hell out of me with that maniacal Ronald McDonald. How did you come up with that concept? DS: Media Pollution and our friend Taylor [Leach], who goes by Slim Reaper, killed that. I was going through a period of mainlining [David] Cronenberg movies, ’80s horror and Robocop. And it was like, that would be awesome to make something in that vein. The Ronald McDonald idea was something that’s symbolic, like a godhead of hyper-capitalism, but it’s also nostalgic.

Does film inform your actual music at all? DS: I think visually for sure, and we work with so many awesome artists that seem to share the same interests visually that we’re into. Even talking about the album cover, there was a lot of talk about Alien and [H.R.] Giger—just different visual artists and films that we resonate with. That’s definitely a big part of the visual aspect of the band.

NS: Josh has scored some soundtracks. I know Nick’s super into collecting soundtrack vinyl. We’re all fans of soundtracks, so that resonates with cross pollinating with film.

Do you have any favorite soundtracks? NS: (Laughs) There’s this movie from the ’80s called Legend with Tom Cruise in it. I grew up as a little teenager just obsessed with the Tangerine Dream soundtrack for that film.

JM: I love Danny Elfman, all the weird quirkiness he conjures, whether it’s The Simpsons or Edward Scissorhands. It can be really whimsical and goofy, or it can be really dark, but still have a tinge of whimsy.

DS: Suspiria is really cool, too, the Goblin soundtrack. It’s perfect synth horror.

This is the 10-year anniversary of the band. Looking back on all you’ve done, what moments stand out the most? NS: ZZ Top. I wasn’t in the band at that point, but I got to come on the road, and I was like “This is so surreal. Frankie and the Witch Fingers standing on the stage of a stadium opening for ZZ Top?” That felt really surreal for me.

DS: There are so many present moments where we just remember playing dirty basements to 15 people. Now, we’re playing a big music festival or we’re traveling to Europe, and all these things we get to do that we feel really fortunate about, especially when you look back and think about how it used to be pretty rough (laughs). Still fun, but a little more grimy.

JM: The band started as a recording project, then we did some really small tours for two or three years. It’s been a real slow climb. So every step of the way, we’re acting like we’ve been there before, but to each other we’re like, “Oh my God.”

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