The Potential Lunatics: Not kidz bop

PHOTO by CECILLE SIMONS-ARAYA

If the Potential Lunatics were 15 or 20 years older, we might lend them the same skeptical ear that perks up any time a band cites Nirvana or the Pixies as significant influences. But unlike the rest of us, singer/guitarist Emma Simons-Araya can’t remember the day Kurt Cobain died—can’t even begin to, actually. She was born the following year.

Where a typical 14-year-old girl might rattle off the names of all three Jonas brothers with ease, Emma, who arrives at our interview sporting Manic Panic blue bangs, a red plaid skirt and a Pixies shirt, immediately recognizes the shirt I’m wearing just for the occasion, a faded black tee with “Show Me Your Riffs” emblazoned across the chest: “Corin wore that!” she exclaims, referencing the original shirt worn by Sleater-Kinney’s Corin Tucker. Emma missed their 1994 debut by a few months, too.

“I definitely like ’90s music, [but] it’s not like I remember it or anything,” she says. “I mean, I was born in 1995, so I wasn’t really there to experience it—but from what I read, it was awesome!”

Younger brother Isaac—turning 12 in January—joins Emma in the band on drums, an instrument he first picked up at age 9 after six years spent toying around with a glockenspiel (“I stopped because I didn’t know how to actually play it,” he says). Growing up, music was all around them, says Isaac: mom Cecille’s parents were jazz musicians, dad Cisco plays guitar and you may know uncle Tom—Tom Araya—from Slayer.

Cecille and Cisco played the Beatles for young Emma and Isaac, but it was sister Aubrey (older than Emma by 10 years) who first introduced them to punk and riot grrrl. After starting out on bass (“[I was playing] the Ramones, which isn’t really ‘good-playing’ bass, but kind of more like punk bass”), Emma asked Cisco to teach her guitar: “I wanted to learn how to play a song for my friend Grace because she was moving, and so I learned how to play ‘Good Riddance’ by Green Day.”

And then, after “playing music together for like our whole lives,” as Emma puts it—initial jams took the form of lip-synced Rancid sing-a-longs set to air guitars and air drums—the two decided to form a band in September 2008, writing punk/grunge songs that are definitely not kidz bop (“I wanna be the one who smiles as you play,” sings Emma on the simply fantastic “Deranged Love Song”). Though early audiences assumed otherwise, anyway: “This one guy was like, ‘Wow, what is this, the school talent show?’” Emma recalls. “[Afterward], we were just like, ‘Whatever.’ We got up and left!”

Many shows have since followed (including one last month that saw the band covering Sleater-Kinney’s “Modern Girl” and Hole’s “Doll Parts” and another with a Taylor Swift cover—“Yoouuuuuu Belooooong Witttthhh Meeeee,” Emma reenacts in a monster growl) and an EP, too. A full-length album is on its way in the new year. As for a tour: “Ahhh I wish!” says Emma. “My parents are all, ‘Can’t do that—I don’t want to be stuck in the car with you guys!’”

Well, someday, maybe. Unless infighting doesn’t get the better of the Potential Lunatics first: “Usually when we have fights it’s about who’s going on the computer,” says Emma. “Like, ‘Hey, it’s my turn to go on the computer!’ ‘No! I’m playing a game!’”

THE POTENTIAL LUNATICS WITH THE OUTSKIRTS, LOS SANGRONAS Y EL CABRON, TOY ATTICA, ANGUSTIA AT THE RIOT GRRRL XMAS CARNIVAL THE SMELL • 247 S MAIN ST • LOS ANGELES 90012 • 213.625.4325 • SUN 8PM • $5 DONATION TO BENEFIT DOWNTOWN WOMEN’S SHELTER • ALL AGES • THESMELL.ORG

Tags: Long Beach, Music, pixies, sleater-kinney, the potential lunatics, the smell