A partnership between two East Bay scene vets who first met when both were volunteering at venerable Berkeley punk venue 924 Gilman Street, Street Eaters features the talents drummer/vocalist Megan March (Before The Fall, Neverending Party, Wild Assumptions) and bassist/vocalist John Mink (aka John No or John Geek, the founder of Geekfest and S.P.A.M. Records more recently known as lead singer for Fleshies and Triclops!). Embracing a spare sound built around March's propulsive drumming, Mink's distorted bass lines and the two members' kinetic vocal interplay, Street Eaters offer up a set of bracing, politically charged anthems on their brand new debut full-length album Rusty Eyes & Hydrocarbons (Bakery Outlet/Plan-It X Records). The duo paid a visit to KTVU studios this week to play some of the songs off the album (see video and audio in sidebar) and discuss their formation and creative process.

KTVU.com: You first started working together in 2008?

Megan March: I think…yeah, that’s about right. Three years ago.

John Mink: March of 2008.

KTVU.com: Were you originally thinking that you would work as a duo, or did you think you would start with a more traditional band set-up?

Megan March: I think that we wanted to play music for fun -- as I think more music should be – and so we just started playing together as the two of us because it seemed the most convenient. We also were really excited about the idea of being able to tour in a small 1990 Toyota Corolla and not have to buy a huge van. Also just the idea of being able to be like Hey, do you want to practice? Sure, let’s do that instead of watching TV. So that’s kind of what we decided to do. Also I think we were excited about playing as a duo and trying to use the challenge of just having bass and drums and vocals musically to fill in the space and dealing with those limitations.

John Mink: And we share record collections. I mean, she has her own and I have my own, but we have them in the same place. She has a million records that are amazing that I've wanted for years. [Laughs] So we basically go through each other's records and have a lot of the same aesthetics and taste and ethics. It dovetails pretty nicely. In a sense, we’re so musically close in that way that it would be kind of difficult to have anybody else in the unit, because the compromise would be hard. So the way it is pretty much all of the things that we want to do pretty much come together pretty nicely. There’s not a lot of disagreement musically at all.

KTVU.com: John, you played bass when you were singing with Triclops!

John Mink: With one string!

KTVU.com: Yeah, with one string and it was a more of an effects-heavy, ambient sound that you were getting. And with Larry [Boothroyd, Triclops! bassist who has also played with Victims Family since the early 1980s], I don’t know how you would fit another bass player given what he does…

John Mink: You wouldn’t. [Laughs]

KTVU.com: So I wanted to ask, how long you’ve been playing bass? Street Eaters kind of opened my eyes to the fact that you’re a pretty kick-ass bass player. You’ve been in bands for forever, so were you already playing guitar or bass or drums in other projects?

John Mink: I’ve only played bass. That’s the only other instrument I’ve ever played, besides singing. I played in a band called Harbinger back around ten or eleven years ago where I was a tyke with two of my buddies who were a little older and a little more experienced punk-rocker dudes. That was a pretty fun band. I think I’ve learned a lot about how to play since then, but I don’t think I really play bass like a base anyway.

So in that band, I was still trying to do a lot of staccato stuff and play it a little like a guitar and it didn’t sound quite as good. It still sounded fine because the songs were really good and those guys were great. But in this, I think it’s kind of came into its own more because there’s a lot of filling in space, all the empty space that would normally be filled by a guitar and a bass and trying to make as much ambient noise as possible to really fill up that whole guitar and bass space that would normally be taken up by individual instruments. So it’s kind of idiosyncratic and I’m not sure whether it would translate to a band were I was just playing bass with a guitar player. So thank you! I’m glad you enjoy it. It’s really fun and it makes sense with her drumming and our vocals for sure. It has kind of developed on its own. That’s how I’ve gotten a little better over time.

Megan March: I think we’ve both sort of worked our own instruments to fit the band itself, because I play drums differently in this band than in any other band I’ve ever played in.

KTVU.com: That was something else I wanted to get into with Megan. I’m familiar with what John has done in Fleshies and Triclops! but haven’t really heard the bands you’ve been in. I was wondering to what extent is the duo different from your past experience as far as singing and songwriting and actually playing drums while singing lead…

Megan March: This is the first band I’ve ever played drums and sang in as one of the main vocalists. In a way I had to relearn how to play drums for that, because you have to be more conscious of your breathing and also how you write your drum lines to fit with different parts of the song for singing. So it definitely has changed from that. I’ve been in other two-piece bands before where it was just guitar and drums, but I wasn’t as much of a song co-writer and definitely not as much of a singer. I’ve also played in bands singing and playing guitar too, so I have sung, but not with drums. It’s one of the most amazing, liberating experiences to be able to sing and play drums at the same time, because it’s a complete body experience. I really enjoy it. It’s been a lot of fun.

John Mink: And you’re a good guitar player too. She plays guitar and sings in Wild Assumptions. I’m working with a talented lady. It’s kicked my butt into shape [laughs].

KTVU.com: When we were talking while setting up your gear, we touched on a couple of other bass/drum duos like Big Business – though they’re not a duo anymore – and Lightening Bolt and John brought up Heavens to Betsy. Though they're actually a guitar/drum duo, one current band that shares some similarities with Street Eaters in my mind as far as the sound dynamic – especially the harmonies and interplay of your vocals – is the U.K. band Blood Red Shoes. They're going for more of a Pixies-ish thing with less vocal counterpoint than you use, but I was wondering if you were familiar with them?

John Mink: We've heard of them. They've been mentioned in a review or two.

Megan March: In that British mag...

KTVU.com: They are British and they have a pretty substantial buzz overseas. Not so much here so far, but I saw them at the Rickshaw Stop and there was a pretty big crowd. The guy in the band is one of the best singing drummers I've seen, though Megan is definitely in the same league from what I just witnessed.

John Mink: I'd love to see them.

KTVU.com: Another reference I hear as far as John's bass tone is NoMeansNo...

John Mink: Oh yeah. Definitely. We both love NoMeansNo. Clearly something that we both really admire and enjoy. Even though that's a three piece, the bass and drums are kind of dominant. The guitars are a lot of texture as much as anything else. They definitely something that we've both listened to for years and adore. And also lyrically I feel a lot of touch points with them and similarities too. They're really good at drawing in the political and personal and making it resonant for what they're doing and for how they express themselves. It doesn't sound contrived or separate from them as individuals. We always try to mingle the meta and the micro together into something that's relevant to us as individuals. We think about the bigger issues and we try to figure out how they impact our lives. And they're really good at that too.

KTVU.com: As far as the songwriting, how does the process work? I'm figuring that it's collaborative, but I can hear John's voice as far as the political and scientific elements that I also heard in Triclops! I guess you can't take the anthropologist out of John and I always found that scientific aspect to the Triclops! lyrics interesting...

John Mink: I went back to college in between some of the later Fleshies stuff and the Triclops! stuff and so going back after the normal college age I may be a little more fascinated by some of those things...

KTVU.com: So are you each bringing ideas to the table separately?

Megan March: It's different from song to song. Some of the songs we wrote together in the same room just playing music; jamming it out and trying to put everything together. There's been other songs where I'll write a bass line and I'll show it to John and then he'll write more parts around it and then I'll come in and write drums to go with it. And then there has been other times where John will come up with a really rad line and then we'll play on it for a while and write a song from there.

Lyrically, it's the same way too. One of us will come up with a general idea for a theme for a song and then we write the lyrics sometimes even line-by-line together. It's a pretty powerful way of writing songs. I've never been in a situation where I could write songs like that with another person where we're on the same page so much that we can share our thoughts on paper and also musically like that.

John Mink: Co-writing lyrics is definitely a very intense experience and very rewarding. And it's also neat in this band I think that lyrically -- since it's come at a time in both of our lives where we've kind of done a lot of editing both as individuals and in terms of music that we play -- I think we're both less afraid than we have been in the past to be more a little more straight forward with what we want to say and not necessarily hide it behind too much obscurantism or metaphor. I mean, metaphor is great. We use a lot of metaphor as well obviously, but sometimes you want to be relatively blunt about your point and what you want to say and...

Megan March: And your beliefs...

John Mink: And your beliefs. And it's an urgency and there's something to it where we just feel like there's certain things we really want to get off our chests. And sometimes we just want to say them in a very straight forward manner. And it's nice to be two people in that as well because we're generally getting towards the same point. There's not somebody sitting in the corner being passive aggressive and kind of being bummed that you're being so straight forward about something that they might not feel exactly the same about. So it's really nice, because we can just be like 'We really want to say this.'

And I guess between the two of you, you can really refine your message and hone it to exactly what you want to say...

John Mink: It's deliberate. It's very deliberate.

Megan March: It's been really empowering and encouraging too. Because -- at least personally -- I feel like I've been able to say so much more that I've been wanting to say and sort of speak out against silences. We write songs about domestic abuse, women's reproductive rights and other personal issues. Health care. Just things that a lot of people in a lot of art scenes don't really talk about or are afraid to. And so it's been really great to be able to put that to music and get conversations started.

John Mink: We pass out lyric sheets at our shows too, just to make sure people get the point.

KTVU.com: That's not too common these days.

Megan March: Nope!

John Mink: We used to be inspired by it when we would see it as kids, so we kind of wanted to help bring that back.

KTVU.com: One thing it took me a while to notice about the new album is that the song "Two Heads" is actually a Jefferson Airplane cover. How did decide to do a cover of that song?

Megan March: We were on tour with our buddies Shellshag, I think it was about a year ago, and we were in the back of their van and we were listening to a bunch of mix tapes and stuff. And suddenly the Jefferson Airplane song came on and my ears perked up. I was like 'This song is so grunge!' you know? I said 'John, this song rules! You could play this on bass and it would totally make sense.' That's when we started thinking about it.

We're not huge fans necessarily of that band per se, but we really like that song. It's a great song.

John Mink: It's Bay Area heritage...

Megan March: Yeah! So why not?

John Mink: Also its from the album After Bathing At Baxter's, which I guess is sort of like the really weird, super psychedelic record that came out after Surrealistic Pillow, which has all kind of crazy stuff on it.

KTVU.com: It's definitely left field enough. I'm not a huge Jefferson Airplane fan either, but your version made me want to hear the original...

John Mink: It's good! It's really good.

Megan March: It's witch-y.

John Mink: It's very witch-y. They had some really quality moments that band from time to time. And that's one of the quality moments for sure.

KTVU.com: With the album coming out and your partnership -- as both a couple and a band -- being first and foremost, this is obviously going to be your main focus. Are you going to keep working in your other bands as time allows?

John Mink: Yeah. Megan has Wild Assumptions and Fleshies is kind of eternal. It's very adaptable to people's various changing life circumstances. It's been around for a long time, so that'll keep going in some form or another. We'll probably end up doing another record in the course of a year. Other projects are great as time allows. We've been keeping busy as heck just trying to keep things going in general. You've got to schedule time carefully it what it comes down to...

Megan March: But it's worth it. It's totally worth it. Playing in my other bands helps. The more music you play, the more it informs your other music. I sing and play guitar in Wild Assumptions, so to sing from that perspective as opposed to being behind the drums helps with the songwriting.

John Mink: It's good for the mind.

Megan March: And it's fun to play music with other people too. We love playing music with each other, but I think that to share influences with other people just makes everyone's music stronger.

John Mink: I'm sure I'll be collaborating with old and new collaborators on and off for the rest of my life.

KTVU.com: I have to ask this as a fan: Is Triclops! pretty much done?

John Mink: I'm not sure I can really comment on that. But we'll see.

KTVU.com: Because I'm not turning 50 for another 8 years, so maybe by then I might be able to convince you guys to get back together to play if I throw a party...

John Mink: There's some really quality projects coming out of those guys though. Christian [Beaulieu, Triclops! guitarist] has been working on Liquid Indian and a whole new thing he's been working on with Cedric from The Mars Volta and Mike Watt that's supposed to be pretty crazy.

Megan March: I can't wait to hear that.

John Mink: And Liquid Indian is awesome. It's like a crazy soundtrack for the mind. Phil [Becker, Triclops! drummer] has been doing Pins of Light, which is a mind-blowing band that I have yet to see live with Phil, but I've heard amazing things. I think he and Christian are doing something together too. And Larry's still doing Victims Family and keeping busy. I think White Pee is still doing stuff. It's a very active group of people. We all love each other as musicians deeply and I think there's a lot of excitement around continuing to be active as musical beings. So who knows? Who knows?

Street Eaters play their record release party at The Knockout in San Francisco on Thursday, July 14, 9 p.m. $5Learn more about Street Eaters