Electronic Punk Band Sextile Makes Miami Debut at Gramps

Though Friday, April 19, will mark the Los Angeles-based dance-punk trio Sextile's Miami debut, the members of the band have deep Magic City roots. For singer and instrumentalist Brady Keehn, the connection is spiritual. "It was my idea to come to Florida finally," he tells New Times, adding that he's long been influenced by drum 'n' bass acts coming out of the Sunshine State.

For Melissa Scaduto, the Miami connection is far more physical and complicated. "I lived in Kendall by Dadeland Mall from 9 to 17. We got there just in time for Hurricane Andrew," she remembers. A graduate of Southwest Miami Senior High, she spent some time working at Coconut Grove Playhouse and even DJed at the bygone indie club night Revolver. Still, her Miami memories aren't so fond. "I was just a weirdo there," Scaduto explains. "They called me a rocker and a freak. My whole goal back then was, 'How do I get out of Miami?'"

Eventually, Scaduto moved back to New York City, where she was born, and met Keehn. "We met in McCarren Park in Brooklyn," Keehn says. "She introduced me to postpunk and taught me how to play guitar."

"But I didn't know how to play the synthesizer," Scaduto adds. "He taught me that."

Together, the pair set out to create what they described as dangerous music. "We wanted to make it dark at first; then we realized we wanted to make people dance," Scauduto explains. Looking back, the band sees their debut album, 2015's A Thousand Hands, as something of a failure sonically. "It was death rock, almost emo-ish — but you know even David Bowie's first record sucked," Scaduto says of the critique.

The members of Sextile are far more proud of the latest album, 2023's Push. "We reconnected to things we liked when we were younger," Keehn says, mentioning British bands from the late '80s, like Happy Mondays and the Stone Roses, as influences. "We wanted the energy that we bring to our live shows. There was also an urgency to create it in such a short amount of time."
That urgency was caused by a self-imposed deadline when the band scheduled a record release show before it had finished working on the album. "There's a big venue in LA, the Henry Fonda Theatre. They gave us a date, and we didn't have the record yet. We had to buckle down and make it," Scaduto explains. "We record and write as fast as we can. We plug everything in and go from there. Brady will then go behind the desk and spend more time structuring and mixing it afterward."

On the song "Crash," Sextile's members sought to replicate the baggy sound popularized by British dance-rock bands like the aforementioned Happy Mondays and Primal Scream but were surprised to get comparisons from another niche genre, shoegaze, which is best known for its dreamy feedback. "People say it sounds pretty and sounds like My Bloody Valentine, which I'll take any day," Scaduto says.

Another track, "New York," is fortified with fast-paced rave beats straight out of the '80s and early '90s. Much like its tempo, the band created it in a quick frenzy. "We recorded it in 15 minutes," Scaduto says. I had some notes in my phone that I wrote about New York. That was the city that brought us all together. We should probably write one about LA, too — LA deserves a song."

How about a Sextile song about Miami?

Scaduto laughs at the thought before considering how things have come full circle. "Miami had so much electronic music, and I was so opposed to it back then," she says. "I wanted punk rock. Now we're making electronic music — electronic punk music."
 
Sextile. With Donzii. 8 pm, Friday, April 19, at Gramps, 176 NW 24th St., Miami; gramps.com. Tickets cost $18 to $20 via eventbrite.com.