An Interview With Bryn Bennett & Alex Necochea of Bang Camaro

Photo by Laura Barisonzi – Courtesy of Bang Camaro

Boston-based hard rock ensemble Bang Camaro has been at it for a long time. Now 18 years into their journey, the group’s two leaders, Bryn Bennett and Alex Necochea, are unphased, still hyper-focused on reaching the proverbial summit as their heroes have before them.

It hasn’t always been easy, nor is managing a stable of musicians that currently includes 25 members… or thereabouts. Less we forget the upwards of a dozen past members. But no matter, the game hasn’t changed, and the end goal remain the same – to rock as hard as they can, for as long as they can… on their own terms.

To that end, Bang Camaro is working on new music and is said to be in the studio milling away on their latest record. In the meantime, we’ve got a tasty new bit of guitar-driven grandiosity to feat on in the form of their single, “We Know You Know.” And so, if you’ve managed to miss Bang Camaro to date, consider this your call to arms.

Taking a break from the studio, Bryn Bennett and Alex Neocochea dialed in with ClassicRockHistory.com to discuss their origins in music, the evolution of Bang Camaro, guitars, gear, and what’s next as they forge forward.

Can you recall your first guitar, how you obtained it, and if you still have it?

Bryn: My first guitar was a Harmony with a sunburst finish that my father bought at Sears. It came with a little battery-powered amp. From what I remember, it was actually pretty easy to play, even though I had no idea what I was doing. My mom and dad both played, so they taught me a few chords, but I didn’t pay attention, which I probably should have.

I just wanted to learn how to play “Shout at the Devil,” so I got to work on that. I hadn’t grasped power chords yet, so I think I just played the general idea on the A string. If I turned up the amp all the way, it distorted in this weird rattling kind of way, so I would just turn it all the way up and play single-note versions of songs I could pick out by ear. It must have been horrible for my parents.

Alex: When I was 12 years old, I bought a white Stratocaster from Sears that came with a 3w amplifier made of plastic. I wanted to play the drums, but my family lived in University housing, which meant relentless loud thumping and banging noises were out of the question. That summer, I worked in an office that sold ads in the Yellow Pages and came home with almost $200, which I used to buy that guitar because it was the only rock instrument I could afford. It also looked like Jake E Lee’s white Strat, so that was a big bonus. I think I traded it to a schoolmate along with my tape copy of GNR Lies because I thought Axl was not cool. I still want to be a drummer.

Bryn: I didn’t know we both had Sears guitars and battery-powered amps! How did I not know this?!

Alex: You did! Your memory is shit.

What were the first riff and solo you learned?

Bryn: I think the first riffs I tried to play were “Shout at the Devil” and “Iron Man,” but I was just playing them with single notes. After I learned about power chords, my world really widened. I think the first song that I could play somewhat correctly was “Paranoid,” although the quick little parts in the main riff gave me trouble. Before YouTube, someone either had to teach you something, or you had to figure it out by yourself. I wish I was born a few years later, so I would have started playing guitar with so much more knowledge at my fingertips.

I think the first solos I learned weren’t even real solos. I had a book called Heavy Metal Lead Guitar, Volume 1 by Troy Stetina, that came with tablature and a cassette tape that showed you how to play the parts. I didn’t have the ability to play the solos of my guitar heroes yet, but Troy slowly taught me the basics of what I was trying to do. So, I think my first solo was “Open Fire” by Troy Stetina. I think I could kind of play it, but I couldn’t get the sweet metal tone he had, so my artificial harmonics were pretty weak.

Alex: It was the opening riff to “Rock of Ages” by Def Leppard. I had my first guitar for a few months before a family friend suggested I tune it. I didn’t know what that meant. She showed me the standard tuning, and it then occurred to me that the Def Leppard songbook I bought years earlier (for the photos) had tablature. Some trial and error later, I was picking my way through the main riff and chorus using inverted power chords. It was a revelation, and from there, my learning and aptitude for the instrument took off.

As for solos, it was probably something by Frank Hannon. The early Tesla records loomed large on my turntable when I was first starting out. Frank has a wonderful legato and melodic style reminiscent of Peter Frampton. Learning his solos was a go-to because they weren’t hard to understand, and he incorporated licks that go back to Chuck Berry and Carl Perkins, which is a must for any player getting into the game. Thanks, Frank.

Who most influenced your sound, and how is that best illustrated in your style?

Bryn: This is a really difficult question for me to answer because I have no idea what my style is. Over the years, people have told me that they always know it’s me when they hear me playing, which is pretty cool. I never would have expected that have my own voice, but I guess that I do to some degree.

There are some things in my playing that I know I have ripped off from people over the years. I always loved the staccato muted picked lines that Randy Rhoads and Zakk Wylde did, so I tried to emulate that. The first time I remember thinking about it was when hearing “Crazy Train” on Tribute and hearing the pentatonic lick in the solo that Randy changed live from a hammer-on kind of thing to a machine gun-sounding picked part, and I said, “I want to sound like that!”

I think there is also a little George Lynch in my playing in the way that I hit artificial harmonics way too often. I love altering the sound of the notes slightly so it’s not a full-on squeal, but it’s not just the straight note, either. I did that a bit in the first verse of “Too Fast to Fall in Love.” I also love his use of blue notes in his solos, which I think I emulate to some degree at times.

Alex: Going back to nearly the womb, it was my Dad’s penchant for top-volume rock ‘n’ roll and parties with his degenerate friends that cemented the Sex Pistols and rock’ n’ roll and punk rock as a thing which I later understood as a way of life. When it occurred to me to pick up an instrument so I could get closer to the music I loved.

Up until that point, that included Def Leppard, Quiet Riot, Duran Duran, Van Halen, Michael Jackson, Weird Al, Twisted Sister, Tesla, Night Ranger, and Ozzy, I banged around on that SEARS guitar accumulating and emulating the riffs of Steve Clark, George Lynch, Randy Rhoads, and Jake E Lee. That gave way to players like Alex Skolnik, Kirk Hammett, Marty Friedman, and Dave Mustaine when I started consuming thrash metal in early high school.

When Grunge and Alternative music became part of the mainstream music scene, I jumped at it excited that I didn’t have to learn the modes or any fancy seventh chords to get into it. Kurt Cobain said I didn’t have to. Over the next 15 years, I discovered and studied players like Steve Malkmus, Jonny Greenwood, Adrian Utley, and Graham Coxon.

There’s an abandon in the troubadour-guitar style in players like John Lennon, Thom Yorke, Mark Linkous, and Neil Young that I find alluring and certainly comes out in my playing. The openness in spirit and darkness in note choices and rhythms, to me, is the same as metal and heavy music. It comes from the same place. When I pick up a guitar, I’m trying to channel my obsessions for Randy Rhoads’ perfection, Jake E Lee’s precision, Jonny Greenwood’s heavy hand, and Graham Coxon’s weird feedback.

Tell me about any original music you’re working on.

Bryn: We just finished writing our third album, which came together very much by chance. Our song, “Push Push (Lady Lightning),” was picked by James Gunn to be part of the Peacemaker soundtrack, which got the band talking again about music. I hadn’t picked up my guitar in 10 years, but Alex, Doz, and I got together in a room, and ideas just started getting thrown around. Before we knew it, we had 13 new songs written, and then we started the recording process, which I find a lot more difficult than actually writing the songs. Writing is easy and fun. Recording is tedious and anxiety-inducing for me.

I’m not sure if my writing has evolved since I didn’t write anything for over ten years. I generally come at songs for Bang Camaro with very grandiose concepts like, “I’m going to write the ‘Iron Man’ for this generation,” and then see if I can pull it off. I guess it’s questionable if I’m successful or not, but that’s generally how I work. I’m not much of a “guitar riff” guy. Alex is way better at that.

One thing I really like about Bang Camaro is that we have known each other so long we basically speak the same strange musical language. I can text Alex something like, “Can you play the diggity-doot-doot-diggity part more like Jake E Lee would?” and he knows exactly what I’m saying.

Alex: Where Bang Camaro is concerned, our songwriting has always been concept driven. What that means is we typically come up with a title, lyric, and/or a similar touchstone for what we want to create and build it from there. For me, it’s interesting to create a framework for what I want to do and then fill it in.

One of our new tracks, “We Know You Know,” is a good example of this. I knew I wanted to write a response to “I Don’t Know” from the Blizzard of Ozz record, so naturally, the first thing we did was flip the title and make it plural since Bang Camaro is an army. From there, we needed an A chord, some 16th notes, and a few inverted power chords, and the rest pretty much wrote itself. A lot of the material I’m writing for the band follows some version of this process.

What songs and recordings that you’ve done so far mean the most to you, and why?

Bryn: “Push Push (Lady Lightning)” will always mean a lot to me since it was Bang Camaro’s first “single” and the first song of ours that received much attention. It was also a mix of Alex, Doz, and I adding our own voices to a song that came out better than what we would do individually. It started when Alex brought a guitar part into practice that sounded a bit like Dokken, which was something I never would have come up with.

It was just a great riff, which turned out to be the verse; then, we added other parts on. I came up with the beginning because I always loved Chic and Nile Rodgers, and I guess that our hard rock band needed some disco in our opening riff. That song has led to so many opportunities, like being in video games, TV shows, and movies. Plus, it was always fun to watch the crowd clap along to our middle breakdown part. Just fun overall.

I also love “Thunderclap” because it was one of the first things Doz ever recorded for Bang Camaro. When Alex and I first came up with the concept for Bang Camaro, we didn’t know who to ask to play bass because we didn’t know who else was a closet hair metal fan. It was kind of something you didn’t discuss in our indie rock circle.

We asked Doz because he played in a band with Alex before, and he sent back “Thunderclap.” It was this crazy bass solo that made Alex and my eyes pop out. I mean, we couldn’t play those parts on guitar. It’s funny because the two other people we thought of asking, Mike Nastri and Michelle Paulhus, are now singing in the choir on the new album.

Alex: “Pleasure (Pleasure)” from Bang Camaro’s first record was memorable for me. Having spent my adult life ignoring the pop music I liked in grade school, it was a fertile time for our writing because there was a lot of inspiration to mine from our early youth. It’s obviously an homage to “Photograph,” and we took the harmony-chord idea from that song.

But we moved it a step further by requiring three rhythm guitars to correctly pull off the main riff. It was also ahead of its time because Bryn wrote a lyric-generating bot that helped us finalize the words. He named it Mutt Bang. Mutt Bang served us pretty well in those early years, and it never asked for points on our recordings.

What are some of the challenges of having so many bandmates, and what goes into that approach?

Bryn: It seriously makes everything a challenge. Everything takes 10x times as long and costs 10x times as much. It’s also the reason that we’re not just another hard rock band, though, so it has all been worth it. I didn’t know half of our choir before the band started, and I ended up making lifelong friends because of the band. I play Dungeons and Dragons with Nick [Given] and Morgan [Brown] every Friday online, which is basically what kept me sane through the COVID lockdown.

The biggest downside is that Alex and I ended up what we called “middle managers,” where we spend way too much time doing things like planning practice times and scheduling instead of things we want to do, like writing songs and playing. We probably should have gone to college for our MBAs before trying to assemble this band. Instead, it has been total chaos.

Alex: In the past, having so many bandmates was an exercise in herding fall-down drunk lions while being a fall-down drunk lion. Bryn, Doz, and I never made any money, and lots of girlfriends and wives got fed up. Nowadays, there are challenges, but they are mostly regulated to figuring out when people can get together and who exactly is in the band.

Everyone has typical life situations, family, mortgages, lawn waste, membership dues, and expanding waistlines that keep our heads on swivels, but the music and the band don’t suffer for those things. If anything, having a happy Bang Camaro is easier now that we don’t have to tour and worry about making a living at it.

How do you balance the want to craft quality songs with the desire to shred?

Bryn: In Bang Camaro, I have tried to push through the limits of taste and minimalism to a new space of pure creativity. It was generally the idea that singers would sing the verses and also stand in front of the other band members, but not in Bang Camaro. No, if we want to shred in the verse while the singers wait around for their chance, then that’s what we do. If we want to shred from the verse into the pre-chorus, we’ll do that too.

Sure, we may want to slow down a little bit here and there, but that’s just so our faster parts sound faster. And honestly, that’s the trick to any great rock song. Whether it’s speed or dynamics, you can’t always be on 10 because 10 becomes boring after a while. So, you have to trick people by dropping them down to 3 or 1, so you can blast them in the face again later.

Alex: I can’t shred, and don’t even pretend to. The important thing in our music, to me, is the purpose of it – I make these songs with my friends who understand what I’m trying to make and help me make it and vice versa. The band gives us the opportunity to span time together, and that’s good enough for me. Crafting a quality song, if we do it, is icing on the cake. Bryn and Doz [Dave Riley] are writing some of the best material of their lives, and it inspires me to contribute and keep up. It’s a beautiful thing. You asked about shredding… I’m terrible at it. If shredding is required, Bryn has it covered.

What guitars, pedals, and amps are you using, and why?

Bryn: I am pretty minimal when it comes to gear. For guitars, I use Gibson SGs for a few reasons. First of all, I deal with some pretty nagging tendonitis in both arms, so anything I can do to make it easier for me to play, I take advantage of. The light weight of the SG makes it easier on my left shoulder, and the shorter Gibson scale length makes it easier on my left hand. I’ve practiced my picking so much on the SG that my right hand also benefits from the consistency. I like the cutaway for access to the higher frets, and I like the growly tone.

My main amps when recording the new album have been a Marshall JCM 2000 Dual Super Lead for most rhythm tones and my ’90s 5150 combo for the leads. I like the classic tone I get out of the Marshall that is bright and clear for the rhythms. I like the 5150 for the leads because of the sustain and smoothness I get from the 5150, although I keep the gain at 5 or lower because it’s such a beast. And I generally don’t use any pedals or FX. We’ve been recording using the Torpedo Captor X’s for speaker emulation, which has been amazing.

Alex: Homemade Partscasters mostly with Seymour Duncan and Arcane pickups, a Gibson LP, an ’82 Fender Custom Deluxe tele, and my ESP Georgie, which is a George Lynch Burnt Tiger model with a carved top; the neck is enormous, and it never goes out of tune. Amps I’m using these days include a 50W Plexi clone by Benjamin Fargen (Fargen Olde 800), a Mesa DC-10 bought back in 1997 set to 120W, a VOX AC30 w/ Alnico Blues, Lab Series L5 for solos, and a Fender Deluxe Reverb for clean and reverb sounds.

My effects are constantly changing. I’m currently using a Morley Mr. Scary Wah, MXR Chorus, Joe Gore Octavia, Strymon El Capistan tape delay, Death by Audio Reverberator, Analogman Prince of Tone (this is almost always on), Benson Preamp for solos, BOSS SD-1 for solos, SBS stereo tremolo, an ’82 BOSS Flanger for the Killer of Giants feel, and a Vibronaut vibe by Lovepedal that I’m not sure works 100%, but it adds some syrup when needed.

What are your most immediate goals, and how do you plan to make them a reality?

Bryn: The immediate goal for me is to finish our new album. We are over halfway done with tracking everything, and I’m pretty happy with how it’s all coming out. In order to get to this point, I had to relearn a lot of techniques and strengthen my fingers again after taking so much time off.

It was kind of a cool process because, as I relearned, I spent a lot of time on YouTube watching people’s techniques and actually improved the way I picked them. I can play faster and more consistently now than I could back when we were recording our first two albums. I wish I could go back to my younger self and give him some advice, but I guess time machines could probably be used for better things.

Future goals are basically to try to get the word out that Bang Camaro is releasing music again and get people to hear what we’re up to. Our social media kind of decayed after taking ten years off. TikTok wasn’t even around when we were touring, so we have to play a bit of catch-up in that respect.

Alex: I try not to get bogged down with goals. Bryn is good about letting me know when I need to finish my guitar solos for mixing. I hope Bang Camaro fans like the new material. I think it’s the best stuff we’ve done.

What’s next for you in all lanes?

Bryn: As far as music goes, I’m not sure. I’m not sure where Bang Camaro goes from here. Maybe we’ll keep on writing and recording in the future, but for right now, we’re just trying to finish up this new album and release some hopefully memorable songs.

Alex: Retirement. Maybe actuarial school.

Photo by J. Harrington – Courtesy of Bang Camaro

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