Most often, drinking and hanging out inspires very little besides more drinking and hanging out. For the band Babewatch, however, it inspired a song … about drinking and hanging out. “Guys Hanging Out” was the first song they ever wrote, and it was exactly what they were doing when they wrote it.
After a handful of drunken practices, the band started playing drunken house parties, and eventually Santa Cruz clubs. Just recently, half of the band moved to the Easy Bay, and they’ve begun playing around the whole Bay Area. Basically, they’re trying to take the band seriously—without compromising their dedication to drinking and hanging out.
“Our music stays on the fun side of thing, maybe less explicitly than ‘Guys Hanging Out.’ Maybe it’s just a little more refined. It’s still lighthearted,” says singer/guitarist Peter Kegler. “We’re not writing any ballads yet.”
Their early tunes leaned heavy on the surf vibe, but their newer stuff is more of a mixture between garage-rock and indie-rock. The twentysomething members of the band, who all met at UCSC, joke about their music being “dad rock,” but there’s a kernel of truth to it. When main songwriter Kegler was a kid, the bands that mostly inspired him were the rock, garage and psychedelic bands from the ‘60s and ‘70s—music from his dad’s record collection. Other members of Babewatch grew up listening to that music, too.
“They wrote good songs back then. We all get together and go, ‘let’s do dad rock!’” Kegler says. “I guess it’s a deeper joke than I ever thought about.”
INFO: 9 p.m. Saturday, October 11. Crepe Place, 1134 Soquel Avenue, Santa Cruz. $8. 429-6994.
