Meatbodies

Meatbodies are guided by the guitar and vocals of Chad Ubovich, a longtime fixture on the California garage punk and new psychedelic scenes who leads the band through an exploration of various types of guitar rock. They started off being influenced by punk, hitting hard while still delivering poppy melodies, then expanded into more psychedelic-inspired territory on 2017's concept album Alice. After some tumultuous years, the band preserved and extended their six-string tendrils in the direction of shoegaze, dream pop, and '90s alternative on 2023's Flora Ocean Tiger Bloom. The band initially came together in mid-2012, when Ubovich was playing guitar in Mikal Cronin's road band. While Cronin was in between tours, Ubovich began playing shows with a handful of friends who included Cory Hanson of Wand, Erik Jimenez, and Riley Youngdahl, using the name Chad & the Meatbodies. Ty Segall was impressed with what he heard and released a cassette-only collection of home recordings on his label God? Records. The tape quickly sold out, and in 2013, Segall recruited Ubovich to play bass in his band Fuzz. Meatbodies' work caught the attention of the In the Red label, and it released two songs from the now out-of-print tape on 7" vinyl in early 2014. Later that year, the self-titled Meatbodies album arrived. While Hanson, Jimenez, and Youngdahl participated in sessions for the album, Ubovich put together an official lineup of the group for subsequent touring. He was joined by Patrick Nolan on guitar, Killian LeDuke on bass, and Ryan Moutinho on drums. After the album's release and tour, Ubovich went back to his sideman duties, playing bass on Fuzz's 2015 album II and touring with Mikal Cronin. After adding new bassist Kevin Boog and releasing the "Hibernation" single in 2016, Meatbodies went back into the studio to record their second full-length, Alice, a concept album revolving around light subjects like war, sex, politics, and religion. It was released by In the Red Records in early 2017. After touring behind the record, Ubovich got off the treadmill that had pushed him to chemically fueled exhaustion and dedicated himself to a more sober lifestyle. The result was a flood of writing and recording that gave birth to an album with drummer Dylan Fujioka; it was all set to be mixed when the pandemic hit and put the project on indefinite hold. During lockdown, Ubovich happened upon a lo-fi demo that he and Fujioka made in 2018 and decided that, with a little mixing, the songs would make up the band's third album instead. Delving into shoegaze, spacy Stereolab territory, and gnarly hard rock, 2021's 333 was the band's most diverse effort to date. Meanwhile, as pandemic restrictions began to loosen, Ubovich went back to the album that he had begun years earlier and spent some quality time in the studio working to complete it. Unfortunately, after the sessions ended, he was struck ill and ended up in the hospital for many months, after which he had to learn to walk and play guitar again. His goal for a full recovery was a Fuzz tour that had been booked before he got sick; he managed to achieve that goal, and when he got back home, he oversaw the mixing of the album that was now titled Flora Ocean Tiger Bloom. Released by In the Red in early 2024, it saw the band delving deeper into shoegaze, dream pop, and the kind of widescreen alternative rock popularized by bands like Jane's Addiction and Smashing Pumpkins in the '90s while still retaining hints of psychedelia and metallic noise.
© Mark Deming & Tim Sendra /TiVo