Detective Frog told us about each track on their latest album, Vol. 1. Let’s see what they have to say!
Artist: Detective Frog
Album: Vol. 1
Album Release Date: October 31, 2023
- Invisible Man
Take me through Invisible Man. What came first, the lyrics or the music?
Ricky: The music. Almost always. Actually, no, I don’t even think it’s an almost: I think the music always happens first and then we start piecing it together afterwards. Like, you piece the lyrics afterwards.
Sometimes it’s a separate process?
Ricky: “Yeah, when we collaborate as a band, it starts with a guitar riff, sort of a guitar-forward sound. That’s always the first. But, independently, I do have a bank of lyrics. So ‘Invisible Man,’ as an idea, came when we had been talking about this monster marathon theme for the first album.”
So, some of the lyrics were preconceived?
Ricky: Yeah, some of the lyrics I’d developed ahead of time. But it all snapped together when I heard the riff and we started feeling out the syncopated rhythm of it, and the feel of the drums came in.”
Jacob: “I remember all I had was the chorus, like that riff in the chorus. And Ricky and I were both very frustrated. Tensions were high, and I think we’re about to wrap it up, but then we tried just one more thing, and that’s how we got the verse. And then it was kind of off to the races.”
Ricky: “Yeah, there’s like a little bit of space in the song, in the guitar riff. And I think we had something more complicated at first, and then it was like, no, no, pull it back. Just play that thing. And then like, palm mute it or whatever. And then the disco beat came through and just kind of carried it along and gave it this cool rhythm. That’s my personal favorite song right now.
“It’s definitely one of the strongest, I think.”
Bill: “I think that was one of the first songs you showed me, when we were just first jamming.“
Jacob: “Yeah, it was actually. And then ‘Crypt Dip’ was the one where we just locked in on it.”
So what’s Invisible Man about, lyrically?
Jacob: “A man that is invisible. You can’t see him.”
Ricky: “Yeah. I’m tempted to give that answer for all these songs.
“It’s just like… I don’t know – ‘It’s just about fucking movie monsters, move on,’ but I mean, we use the device of the monster and first-person narration is used in almost every song. So the songs are like a persona poem; they’re from the perspective of a character.
“So ‘Invisible Man’ is literally the invisible man, on a literal level, singing about the things that it means to be invisible. Like the day-to-day difficulties, the individual features of being invisible that you wouldn’t think about. But obviously there’s subtext that being invisible is about not being seen, and so… It’s sort of like this yearning, this kind of sexual romantic yearning, and then kind of juxtaposed with somebody who’s not being seen.”
- Machine Yearning
So in terms of all these monsters, where does “Machine Yearning” fit in?
Jacob: “Oh, that’s kind of like if you think back to a poster of all universal movie monsters, you always see one of the robots that are like [robot impression] “exterminate,” like the scary ones.”
Like Lost in Space, kind of?
Jacob: “Something like that. Yeah, the big glass tube and claw hands and shit. And so it’s essentially that, but what if it was a hot robot babe instead? That’s one of the few songs that’s not sung from the perspective of the monster. It’s like your love letter to a robot, you’re seducing this lady of gears and levers.”
Ricky: “It’s definitely the most on the nose. This one is just literally about, like, retro futurism hot chick robot, and then the song’s just about being with her.”
Jacob: “Usually with our songs, you can take it at face value, like it’s about a monster, or you can read deeper. But with ‘Machine Yearning,’ it’s straightforward. The door is red because we-”
Ricky: “Want it to be red.”
Do you have any insight into the writing process of that song, musically?
Jacob: “That’s actually the third or fourth rendition of ‘Machine Yearning.’ Each one was different. The original one was in drop D tuning, which we used to write in. Now we write in standard tuning. But through each iteration, something wasn’t clicking. The lyrics were too deep at some points, and then we found a more bouncy, energetic version. And then we decided it’s just about being with a robot lady.”
Ricky: “The drum part is a simple, caveman part. I flip my sticks around sometimes and play with the blunt end. It’s a driving beat with eighth notes on the floor toms. We de-complicated the song, and the lyrics just followed.”
Jacob: “We brainstormed funny ways to sexualize computer and technological terms. There were suggestions that were a bit too much, but we landed on lines like ‘make a mess of these keys’ and ‘control alt delete make the servos go weak’. There’s a lot of beeping in the song, vocally.”
- The Blob
Moving on to “The Blob.”
Jacob: “‘The Blob’ hits hard and takes no prisoners. Originally, I had something else lined up for it, but I didn’t think it would go over well. ‘The Blob’ is the only song on the album where I was involved in doing the guitar part. Ricky helped us construct the riff.”
Ricky: “Earlier on, Jacob was saying you can take things at face value or read into them. I think ‘The Blob’ is a good example of that. At face value, it’s a punkier song about dissolving people and absorbing babes. But you can also interpret it as being from the perspective of an abuser—like smothering someone. It’s the opposite of ‘Hold On Loosely’ by 38 Special.”
Jacob: “If you wanted me to be succinct about it, I’d say ‘The Blob’ is a beast of a song.”
Is there a part musically that really stands out for you, or any of you?
Ricky: “It has a strong power chord riff and a cowbell driving the verse sections with quarter notes. It keeps the song moving along. A lot of our earlier stuff that we wrote, before we got into the more theatrical elements, has this driving punk aspect.”
Jacob: “That’s one of the big takeaways from desert rock. Like if you’re listening to old Kyuss or Queens of the Stone Age’s first album, it’s all very driving without too many breaks.”
Ricky: “They called it ‘robot rock’ originally. We go for more of a ‘caveman rock’ vibe. I think they coined the term ‘robot rock’ because they were using repetitive rhythms from techno music, which is actually a key foundation of the desert rock sound.”
- Phantom of the Community
Alright, let’s talk about “Phantom of the Community.” Was it originally “Phantom of the Community Theater”?
Jacob: “Yeah, originally it was ‘Phantom of the Community Theater,’ but we shortened it for better visibility on streaming platforms. I often add ‘theater’ in parentheses when talking about it, though.”
Ricky: “I think this was a point of contention. I always leaned strongly towards ‘Phantom of the Community.’ That just sounds like it’s a fucking menace. Like, this song is literally about a Phantom of the Community theater.”
Jacob: “Right, instead of an opera house. Yeah, ‘Phantom’ I had been sitting on that riff for… I want to say almost my entire music playing career. At least those chords I’ve always wanted to use in something but never really got the chance.
“I had written it out originally as a skeleton waltz because I usually don’t veer too far from 4/4 timing ever, really, with the exclusion of ‘Phantom.’ But yeah, so I wanted to have a waltz and then I used these chords. They sounded pretty fucking cool Whenever we were jamming we always liked it, but for whatever reason, we never got around to fleshing it out.
“Then one day we did, That’s one song that came together really quickly once we sat down and focused on it. Really quickly.”
Ricky: “I mean, it’s also like a song that’s got a lot of parts to it. It’s got my favorite breakdown, like just instrumental bit in the whole collection. I think it’s all three of our favorite breakdown.”
Bill: “Yeah, that’s a lot of fun to play.”
Ricky: “It’s a lot of fun to listen to.”
Jacob: “I mean the outro is like, the whole thing is always building and relieving tension all at the same time, right?”
Ricky: “You like that – you like relieving tension.”
Jacob: “Yeah, and that’s as sexual as it sounds if we’re being totally frank here.
But no, it’s always building, relieving tension – I’m gonna say that a few more times. But the big crescendo, the payoff, it gets bombastic, it gets thematic. It’s juicy. It’s sexy.”
Ricky: “Yeah, the chorus has like that Misfits kind of crooning vocal portion.”
Jacob: “We’re like each half of the Phantom’s fucked up face.”
Ricky: “I don’t know, there’s something funny- The Phantom of the Opera is so grand. And, also you’re a huge fan of the opera.”
Jacob: “I am a giant fan of the ‘Opera. That’s probably my favorite musical. I’m a big Andrew Lloyd Webber fan. Not huge on Cats, but, fan of the ‘Opera. Whether it’s like, on stage on Broadway, or the movie remake with Gerard Butler, and that chick from Shameless, Patrick Wilson.
“The whole thing is absolutely beautiful. I was with the Juno Lyric Opera for a little bit in Alaska. And I’ve been trying to find a way to shoehorn my love for opera in, but none of it fits anywhere.”
Ricky: “We would always like fuck around doing Phantom of the Opera between sets and practice and stuff. So I think that must be how that theme came about and it’s just like, okay, what if you’re the Phantom of something shitty, like a community theater.”
Jacob: Community theater’s the worst. Any time you go into a fucking theater hall and you’re with, like, I don’t know, 10, 12 other assholes and you’re about to put on the world’s shittiest rendition of The Crucible, every one of them’s gonna get pissed when you fucking say Macbeth, cause it’s bad luck, right?
“And then without fail, someone’s gonna say that the fucking place is haunted. This place was built in fucking 2004, but, it’s haunted, you better leave the lights on. Every fucking time.”
- Ghost Cab
Tell me a little bit about “Ghost Cab.”
Jacob: “Fuck yeah. I love ‘Ghost Cab.’ I think I came to Ricky with the riff and then the chorus. I don’t know why, but it’s one of the more driving riffs.”
Bill: “Ba ba da da da-”
Jacob: “-Ba da da da da. And I was remembering an episode of Mighty Boosh where Vince, and, I don’t know, Howard goes to Ape Hell. And Vince has to take a taxi to get there.
“And so I thought that was a super fuckin killer idea to write a song about. And it’s not about the Mighty Boosh episode. That is where the inspiration came from.”
- Chromaticism
Jacob: “Is that the right music theory term? I also defer to Bill whenever there’s an especially music theoretical question. But yeah, it’s very chromatic, it’s very jumpy. I think I’ve said
jumpy already.”
Ricky: “I think there’s like this fun drum bit in that. It’s just I’m not a very technical drummer, but I know my way around a paradiddle. So I did something very loud, like a ride bell paradiddle that’s kind of become synonymous with the song. Absolutely.”
Jacob: “Yeah, it was electric in here It was like right here when he hit the ride-”
Ricky: “And then the lyrics are kind of fun because it’s like you start out with this theatrical thing where this guy’s wandering alone drunk on a road at night or something. He gets picked up by the ghost cab and the idea of taking somebody to hell in a cab. So it’s like, what would you see out the window on your way to hell? And that’s kind of-”
Jacob: “Into the bridge, right?”
Ricky: “Yeah, the bridge is just like a listicle of things you might see out a taxi window on the way to hell.”
Jacob: “Yeah, yeah, spooky monsters and stuff. Yeah, because it’s mostly chronicling like you’re getting picked up. Then we hit the chorus, talking about, ‘how much is this going to cost me?’
Yeah, it’s a fun one. That one especially doesn’t take itself too seriously. Not really any of our songs do.”
- Bedeviled
Tell me a little bit about “Bedeviled.”
Jacob: “Yeah. I was, all this time I cobbled together X amount of riffs and brought them to Ricky so we could start working on it. I was very excited hitting it because it’s it’s very in-your-face the whole time.
Ricky: “It’s like, if ‘Phantom of the Community’ is like the theatrical side of our sound, then ‘Bedeviled’ is kind of like the desert rock side.”
Jacob: “It kind of marches you down. That one being about the devil, sung from the perspective of the devil. There’s even a little marching bit, which, in my head was kind of like the actual march through the gates.
Like, ‘Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.’ I guess that one’s actually a little bit more serious.”
Ricky: “It is. I think the… The lyrics go into like temptation and all kinds of themes that are-”
Jacob: “Yeah, the devil’s not always who he seems or you don’t know who you’re dealing with kind of thing.”
Bill: “The riff itself is killer. I think that was like one of the first songs I was involved in, like, writing my part. And then, I don’t know, I was just kinda following the guitar on the verse section. But then when we got to the chorus, I had this little funky run up with the ba ba ba ba ba ba bow bow.”
- Crypt Dip
Fill me in on “Crypt Dip.”
Jacob: “That was a song that solidified Bill as absolutely the member that we need. The third, cause we were pretty dead set on being a duo.”
Ricky: “Absolutely.”
Jacob: “Bill came over to my house and we were kind of going through and he hit this, the same bass line that you’ll hear on the record, and for me, I was like, ‘Yeah, this is the direction we need. This is the guy we need to get.‘
“Yeah, this one absolutely fucking rips. It’s definitely a taste breaker. We try track by track for all of these songs to sound different, but still have all of our DNA in it. So you have some sort of consistency throughout, right?
“Cause we’re not like Disturbed, right, where it’s all the same song. We want all of our songs to be absolutely different, but still identifiable as us. And ‘Crypt Dip,’ I think, is a prime example of that, because we don’t have any other guitar parts or any instrument parts that go quite like it.
“Lyrically, that one is about giving someone one last chance to the, what, freshly dead babe?”
Ricky: “Yeah, it’s a dance-y song, and so it’s kind of got a swing to it, and it’s supposed to get people moving, and then the lyrics are literally about like a skeleton.
“This is where we, where we fit in the skeleton in the album, as a monster. So it’s like from the perspective of a skeleton that’s been in a crypt for a long time, and then in comes a fresh corpse into his crypt. And he’s like, because in the crypt, it’s like some kind of weird Tim Burton world where everyone can…Or like Toy Story, but for dead bodies.“
Jacob: “Like Night at the Museum, but they all dance instead.”
Ricky: “Yeah, it’s exactly like- let me back up, scratch everything I said, it’s exactly like Night at the Museum.”
Jacob: “Yeah, so it’s Ben Stiller in drag, gets dropped in and you have Robin Williams playing the skeleton. Current Robin Williams playing the skeleton.
And they bog you down. They dance.”
Ricky: “Yeah, it’s true. It’s about dancing with the dead body and like, okay, your time’s up, but you got one last night to dance but you gotta dance with me. It’s kind of a little bit creepy in that way. Yeah. Sort of a possessive old crypt skeleton that forces you to dance with him after you die.”
Jacob: “And you’re Ben Stiller.”
- Horseman
And now we’ve arrived at the one that’s really picked my interest. This epic 4 minute and 50 second long track called “Horseman.”
Jacob: “Woo! Fucking love ‘Horseman.’ I was exploring a little bit with the more samba, salsa-esque, rhythmic patterns. Bill and I sat down and worked a lot of the instrumentals out for this one. The lyrics kind of just, I did the chorus on this one, it just kind of fell into place. Ricky started hitting it with the unlatched snare, giving it kind of almost – is it timpani? Bongo?”
Ricky: “Timbales.”
Jacob: “Timbales. Yeah. Yeah. It’s sort of, yeah, it’s kind of just a… This one’s a little more serious, too. The ‘horseman’ refers to the Headless Horseman. Headless horseman. Yeah, ‘Ichabod Brain.‘”
“Yeah, so in the chorus, you know there’s a lit candle where my brain should be, right? Because of the jack o lantern head. So it’s fun there. We have a very fun… Another, You do a fun ride thing with the bridge in this one. Kinda, yeah, yeah. Some little bit of a shuffle-y kind of thing going on.
“This one was a last minute addition to the album. I think we had written it, fuck, in like three days, two or three days before.”
Ricky: “Felt like 15 minutes before we took it to the studio.”
Jacob: “But yeah, I think it came out great. This one’s very, very sexual. Not lyrically, but vibey. As opposed to the rest of the album. Yeah, the rest of the album is pretty well straight shooting at that. So we were kind of drawing on Bill’s Mormon influences.
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Bio:
Three strangers met by chance at a desert crossroads on a sanguine night. The resulting jam session became the humble beginnings of the greatest garage rock trio the world has ever seen. Ricky Business, lyrical genius and drummer extraordinaire. Bill Lizard, a guitarist so good they made him play bass. Jacob Riddle, writer of songs, shredder of axes, and vocalist renegade. Their powers collided to create a perfect storm of catchy riffs, harmonic melodies, progressive rhythms, and unbridled human coolness. Also they’re really hot.
Detective Frog’s sonic influences center around garage and desert rock bands of the early 00’s. Most notable are The Misfits, Audioslave, and Queens of the Stone Age.
