At a meager 1:22, “Treatz”, a track off of the Atlanta-based punk outfit Lowbanks’ new EP The Dogs, doesn’t have a lot of time to waste. Fitting, then, that the tune dives straight into a haze of shouted vocals, fuzzy distortion, and ear-piercing guitar leads right away, making its intentions clear and assertive. The raw punk energy, however, is balanced out with almost poppy production and convivial mood that’s bound to connect with live audiences.
Lowbanks’ singer and guitarist John Gaffo tells PopMatters, “‘Treatz’ was the first song we wrote after our second guitarist quit and we started playing as a trio. We were kind of swimming in uncharted waters at the time, trying to write parts that would fill up the space and sound full when we played live. Our songs became more raw and energetic as we stripped them down, and we just kind of ran with it. Originally ‘Treatz’ had this long intro that practically doubled the length of the song. We tried recording it with this producer who really didn’t get what we were trying to do, and it came out sounding really flat and dead and boring. So we decided to rerecord the song with our friend Trey Rosenkampff for The Dogs. He suggested we scrap the intro and add all these weird psyched-out synths and pitch shifters to fill out the sound. It turned out way better than we’d imagined. Lyrically, it’s just a dumb rock & roll song about drinking, getting trashed and falling in love. Which is super cheesy and lame but it’s easily one of my favorite songs to play live—just catchy, fun, loud and fast as hell.” LISTEN HERE…