Bodega Brings Its Art-Rock Storytelling to Gramps

Ben Hozie admits that his songwriting process is a bit outside the norm.

"I write the words first, which I hear is rare for songwriters," he tells New Times. "I find my melodies get more unusual when it's dictated by syllables."

Regardless, it somehow works on Our Brand Could Be Yr Life, the latest effort from his New York City art-rock band, Bodega. It's a continuation of the quitents rebellion of the Brooklyn indie-rock scene it spawned from. "For so long, indie rock in Brooklyn was dreamy and slow. We wanted to make it fast again, punky and fun," he explains.

Before his turn as Bodega's vocalist and guitarist, Hozie started as a drummer.

"I was in ten bands before Bodega. I drummed in so many bands," he says. "I realized if I wanted to sing my own songs, I had to pick up the guitar."

Soon after that realization, he picked up his axe and started the band, then known as Bodega Bay. "We named it after the town where the Alfred Hitchcock movie The Birds was set. For some reason, people kept thinking we were a surf rock band," Hozie says. "Since a lot of the postpunk bands we were into, like Television, Wire, and Magazine, had one-word names, we dropped the 'Bay.'"

Hozie is also an independent filmmaker (he's even got an IMDb page), and his four other bandmates are just as into film as he is. Naturally, a song on Our Brand Could Be Yr Life is called "Tarkovski," named after the Soviet auteur Andrei Tarkovsky. But beyond the apparent tributes, many of the album's tracks attempt to paint a cinematic picture for the listeners.

"Every song is like a scene or a short story," Hozie explains. "The song 'Webster Hall' is about two characters at the Manhattan venue. One guy is having too much fun at the show, screaming out every lyric, spilling people's overpriced craft beers. Then, after a guitar solo, you have the perspective of a couple being harassed by that guy, ruining their night. It's a comment on fandom gone wrong."
You better hope that song isn't a prophecy for when Bodega makes its Miami debut at Gramps on Thursday, May 2.

"It's my first time ever to Miami, so it's the show I'm most excited for, and I'm not just saying that because I'm talking to a Miami paper," Hozie says jokingly. "All five of us are high energy. I try to imagine my younger self in the audience. Sometimes, musicians think the audience has it out for you and is looking for your flaws. I try to think my ideal fan who cares about your songs is out there. I play that mental game: If I was them, what would I want to see? Or sometimes I imagine my heroes are out there like Shakespeare, Godard, or Perry Farrell."

For Hozie, Perry Farrell and his bands Jane's Addiction and Porno for Pyros have been a source of inspiration for him over the years. "My first name is Ben, so for a long time, my email was BenCaughtStealing," he says. "They had that art punk thing, and a metal element, and psychedelic and classic rock and mixed it all together. They led me down so many musical paths, from X, the Doors, the Minutemen, Velvet Underground, and the Grateful Dead."

Another influence for Bodega was its Brooklyn peers Parquet Courts, whose member Austin Brown produced the band's debut album, 2018's Endless Scroll.

"We were super influenced that they were also writing lyrical rock, so much that on the first album, we tried to rip them off on two songs, but Austin didn't hear that at all," Hozie says. "He said to him it sounded more like the band Parquet Courts was ripping off."

Bodega. With Capsule and Mold! 8 p.m. Thursday, May 2, at Gramps, 176 NW 24th St., Miami; gramps.com. Tickets cost $16 to $20 via eventbrite.com.