Tub Ring reaches for the perfect pitch

by Len Righi

The Morning Call (Allentown, Pa.) (MCT)

13 March 2008

If Rob Kleiner were a major-league hurler, there’s no doubt what his specialty pitch would be—the curveball. And contrary to accepted practice, he likely would try to throw it high and hard.

Kleiner is a musician, however, not a baseball player. But he still gets to confound expectations as keyboardist and songwriter (along with singer-lyricist Kevin Gibson) for edgy Chicago experimental indie-rock band Tub Ring.

Take for example, “No One Wants to Play.” The catchiest track on Tub Ring’s 2007 disc, “The Great Filter,” begins as a throbbing dance-rock tune surrounding a storyline about someone with repressive inclinations and a taste for power, single-minded to a fault, seeing rules as mere suggestions and willing to sacrifice friendship for political beliefs. Midway, the song musically morphs into a faux Spanish lamentation, then acquires, thanks to a dignified, melancholy-tinged trumpet solo, a Middle Eastern vibe, before folding back on itself, neatly suggesting the Inquisition and the war in Iraq.

“I try to throw a curveball into the songs as much as I can,” says Kleiner, discussing Tub Ring’s penchant for musical twists and turns during an interview from Louisville, Ky. “That (entire) song’s a curveball right there.” (Gibson, who later joins the conversation, demurs when asked about the song’s intent, saying he prefers it remain “somewhat ambiguous.")

The angsty “Friends and Enemies” is another instance of Tub Ring’s cagey mashupmanship. It kicks off with a Dick Dale/"Miserlou"-style surf guitar blast designed to wipe out anything in its path and lyrics about mania and control. Eventually the tidal pull of a majestic synthesizer sucks under both words and music, before spacing out amid music-box atmospherics.

“For our last record (2004’s `Zoo Hypothesis’) I was writing a lot of stuff that started out with keyboards,” says Kleiner. “This time I started out with guitar riffs, epic fast guitar riffs.”

Gibson says he imagined the lyrics as being sung by an obsessive person to the object of his or her fixation. “It could be boyfriend/girlfriend, or someone taking control of someone else’s life,” he says.

And then there’s “Killers in Love,” with both words and music by Kleiner. It begins with lush strings, twangy guitar and a chorus sung in French by SyriaK, vocalist for avant-garde Montreal extreme metal band Unexpect. Then it explodes into a punky pummeler that pulls back for Gibson’s screamo vocalizing.

“Serge Gainsbourg is my favorite singer of all time,” says Kleiner, “and I was inspired (to write `Killers in Love’) by his song, `Bonnie and Clyde,’ which he sang with Brigitte Bardot. The French vocals in the beginning are part of that idea. ... The song is about romance and blood.”

As a band, Tub Ring is in its third incarnation, with Gibson the only constant. The group began as a teen punk band in the early 1990s, releasing four discs from 1992 through 1997.

While still in high school, Gibson and Kleiner fell under the spell of Mr. Bungle, a California band that combined pop and rock with funk, metal and ska. “We would go to all the shows,” says Kleiner. “It was my way of rebelling against what was going on in the mainstream. Mr. Bungle had a horn section, big, crazy productions, lots of keyboards, strings, woodwinds and brass. That was cool for a rock band.”

The second edition of Tub Ring started coming together in 2000. Gibson recruited Kleiner, who at that point was a guitarist. “Kevin showed me some stuff Tub Ring was doing, and they needed a keyboardist, not a guitarist, so I switched,” says Kleiner. “I had studied many different instruments in college.” (He minored in music at Eastern Illinois University, graduating with a philosophy degree.)

The new lineup’s sound reflected Gibson’s and Kleiner’s Mr. Bungle obsession. While the early Tub Ring’s music was “silly pop, punky, jokey, a humorous kind of thing,” according to Kleiner, the next version was “a bunch of guys wanting to do serious stuff.”

But after three albums, including 2002’s acclaimed “Fermi Paradox,” the time had come again to shift gears.

So in 2005, Gibson and Kleiner brought in bassist Trevor Erb, drummer Chris Wiken and guitarist Jeff Enokian, who had played in the Fayetteville, Ark., experimental alt-metal band Corpslight.

“It wasn’t too weird of a transition for us,” says Kleiner. “Kevin and I always wrote everything anyway. What it boiled down to was, the other three were part of Kevin’s and my live show. They didn’t contribute to the artistic side of the band.”

“The band was falling apart anyway,” says Gibson. “The new guys helped breathe young life into the band.”

Despite Tub Ring’s longevity, the group continues to operate largely below the radar, presenting its volatile live shows in small venues for teen- and college-age fans who, converted by Tub Ring’s unruly gospel, spread it by word-of-mouth.

The makeup of Tub Ring’s audience is perhaps why Kleiner is reluctant to discuss his age, other than to say he is in his early 30s.

“I listen to the advice (record company) people give me,” he explains. “If you’re a 13-year-old and listening to music that is a little rebellious, it’s not good to find out the people singing about rebelling are the same age as your parents. If you find out you’re listening to rock music made by people your parents’ age, that could affect it.”