Monet Wong (L’Assassins, guitar)
SPB: L’Assassins definitely utilizes style as an element of the band in addition to the music. How do you feel the two are intertwined?
Assassins: It’s funny that we seem to be able to get asked this type of question a lot - even though style is intertwined almost universally with every band: even eschewing style is a conscious "style choice" of sorts i.e. undoubtedly appearing to "not care about style" sends a specific image message, does it not?
I think that what people are noticing is that we have a "different style" than others particularly in the Minneapolis scene -- i.e. I think we all know what the au courant hipster band uniform is without necessarily acknowledging it -- how many times have we not been able to identify actually which drummer or guitar player that is under that beard and shaggy head of hair?
With that said, for L'Assassins, really it comes down to a few things: We take seriously that people are coming to "watch" as well as hear a band, so why not have some fun with it? Secondly, we really just like to dress like we do. We are dressing to entertain ourselves. Regardless of being in the band or not we'd be rocking aspects of the L'Ass look. We're also carrying on tradition of our influences: garage rock (roots rock of any kind really) is derivative by nature in all aspects. Being influenced by bands like the Cramps both musically, as well as stylistically, is not exactly something we're trying to hide. L'Assassins are more about being in your face, rather than trying to get across a subtle message. If people find that refreshing, all to the better.
