The Pinx’s Adam McIntyre takes us to the school of rock

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The Pinx’s Adam McIntyre takes us to the school of rock

By Scott “Let’s Rock, Let’s Rock, Let’s Rock Today” Belzer

ROCK AND ROLL. Screaming those words isn’t just a bit from Family Guy making fun of KISS – they’re a battle cry for all things young, beautiful, sexual, and rebellious.

It’s hard to remember that fact with subgenres, subsubgenres, and wannabe critics (see: me) parsing everything out to the most minute detail. Rock and roll, after all, is about the complete opposite. It’s about pure freedom and emotion. So maybe it is just about screaming “ROCK AND ROLL” while Gene Simmons is talking.

To find out for sure, we chatted with The Pinx’s Adam McIntyre – an Atlanta rock veteran who’s been barnstorming and soundchecking for more than two decades. Among other things, Adam offers wisdom on band longevity, not sticking to preconceived notions, and letting the music guide you first and foremost.

You’ll be able to check out The Pinx and ask Adam all the questions you want this year at Fuzzstock Festival V, taking place on June 7 at Boggs Social & Supply. Buy tickets today. 

1. The Pinx! Rock and roll! It’s pretty evident in your music, but in your own words.. what does that term – (rock and roll) – mean to you?

It’s an energetic, urgent, and sexual form of music that came out of blues and boogie with a little country thrown in. It’s an American art form that we not-so-subtly gentrified when it came back to us from England.

  1. What is The Pinx? What’s the project’s origin story?

I moved here from Nashville after being so out of place there for ten years. I started off as a blues guitarist in Alabama but in Nashville I thought I was a mod, writing three minute  powerpop songs. A band called Les Honky More Tonkies roped me into their outfit where I stuck out like a sore thumb but I learned how to have fun, and we toured all over this half of the country, and when I moved here I decided to make a project that would be able to do the same kind of thing and just keep the good times rolling. My solo albums had been a scattershot of randomness from pop to psychedelia to indie rock, which was enough to confuse people.  When I moved here I decided all my rock and roll songs would go into this one non-confusing project.  Turns out there’s enough variety within the genre to keep people confused, though!

  1. Two decades. Five albums. A couple EPs. Even a couple music videos. Most bands don’t make it out of the garage, let alone sport a career for that long — and with that big of a catalogue. What’s the secret to you guys’ longevity?

I haven’t died. If I hadn’t stopped drinking that would be a different story. The musical partner I’ve picked up along the way, we try very hard to respect each other and respect the people kind enough to play with us. Everyone makes errors in judgment and communication but if your goal is to have a band for a long time, I’d say your best bet is to believe in your people and love them and let them prove you right.

  1. How would you describe The Pinx’s evolution during that time? How has the overall sound changed?

We’re revisiting that first album lately, especially since our drummer grew up on that one. It’s so reckless and feral, and gradually we’ve become so much more professional and polished. Both things are great but too much of one end of the spectrum without the other is a little “blah” to me at the age I am now. We’re working on sliding that scale back and forth for each song now, because without that “feral” side, rock and roll is just … safe.

  1. Is staying to true to the “original” sound a high priority these days? Or do you embrace wherever inspiration takes you? I mean, 2009 (when Look What You Made Me Do was released) was a long time ago!

No. I knew I was an idiot when I made that record and never would have wanted my older self to be tethered to it, but being able to reference it and how much fun it was? Yeah. The joyfulness and the testosterone is a handy beacon.

  1. With subgenres, subsubgenres and subsubsubgenres all the rage these days, do you find it difficult to keep The Pinx’s sound straight up rock and roll? How do you keep from veering too far into punk/garage/alt-country waters?

You don’t worry about things like that when you’re writing one song. I worry about things like that when I’m choosing the songs that we’ve written to put an album together. Sometimes it will become apparent that we’ve got four songs from one corner of the genre and that’s just not representative of who we are as a whole. We contain multitudes, and the center is big. There’s loads of room to be really genuinely weird all over the place, and we try to dabble with a lot.

  1. Along the same lines – what bands or musicians fuel that tank? Who’s the band’s biggest inspiration when crafting pop-blues-centric rock and roll anthems?

We definitely don’t have “one”.  Everything begins with a song, with no agenda at first other than serving the idea. Something will happen, I’ll start humming a melody in the car, tapping the steering wheel, recording a voice note and then run home with ideas and then by the time I look up and send Chance a demo of the idea I’ve been working on, I’ve started realizing “gosh this sounds like a lost song from Exile On Main Street” or more recently, one song was definitely a Spoon vibe. Chance hears it and has a totally different impression and brings his perspective to the table. Each member of the band has a slightly different take on my very clear idea and suddenly it doesn’t really sound like Spoon anymore. It doesn’t sound like Freddy King, The MC5 or Tom Petty anymore. That’s not a failure of the system but a feature.

  1. How has that changed over the years? Do you gravitate toward the same artists (let’s face it, some albums never get old) or constantly seek out the latest and greatest like the rest of us addicts?

I’ll always love Jellyfish and Led Zeppelin. But those bands only made a few hours’ worth of music. At some point, even if I’m stubborn and want more new music from the same old year, yeah, there’s so much I’m still discovering. Most 70s music fans of Zeppelin and Floyd don’t even know about The Pretty Things, but they’re right there in 1970 doing the same quality work you crave. Tired of your Rolling Stones records? The Flamin’ Groovies did amazing records parallel to theirs. Wish you had just one more Beatles record? Try Fanny. Jeff Tweedy of Wilco wrote a song called “The Late Greats” about 20 years ago about some of the best music never leaving peoples’ bedrooms, and truly a neverending amount of amazing music that you have never heard has always existed, both within and outside of your immediate tastes. Some of my absolute favorite artists I enjoy now, I didn’t even know about when I was 18. I had no idea about Shuggie Otis, for example. I hadn’t fallen under the spell of Eddie Hazel of Funkadelic. Dungen, my favorite band, didn’t even exist when I was 18.

  1. What’s the secret to a good music video these days? Is it all glitz and glam? Just a fun day with buds? A mix?  You guys have done a couple at this point – “Break Your Heart” and “Is That What You Want”. What were those experiences like? Where were they filmed?

Well, I think we’ve done a lot more than that, but yeah those from the most recent record were both shot by the same team, Tim and Ben of Big Pond Pictures. Music videos are generally not inherently fun to shoot. Tim and Ben however were amazingly organized, which cut out a lot of the not-fun parts for us. They were extremely professional and hired good people, which again elevated the production and cut more not-fun parts. And how I like to work with creative people is that if I have an idea, I tell them the idea. Then I let them make it happen without getting in their way. It’s a lot easier and faster to make something for someone when they’re not constantly coming back and saying “No, not like that”. If they have questions, I’m here. If they’re in the flow, I’m not going to step in and stop them. Unless things start going over budget. But that method of “let creative people create” will serve you well, if you’ve come to the right people. If you want a Van Gogh, go to Van Gogh, don’t ask your buddy who owns a camera to shoot your video just because they can and you think they should. Find an artistic fit and unleash it.

  1. Where’s the coolest place you’ve toured? What venue sticks out in your mind? Who’s the coolest band you’ve worked with?

I am writing a book about this and I have to step outside of The Pinx to answer this for myself as a sideman. While Shepherd’s Bush Empire in London is incredibly gorgeous and magical, I sometimes wake up from a dream that I’m playing at The Bataclan in Paris again. I would love to take The Pinx there. We would kill. I know we would. We’ve had a really good time playing with some fantastic bands, some of whom you’ve never heard of and made the biggest and most lasting impressions but I will share with you a moment that you can box up and take home and remember: when I opened for Living Colour at Variety Playhouse, I spent much of the evening talking to Vernon Reid. Right off the bat I told him I had a poster of him and his guitar on my wall when I was eleven. And I told him how I really wanted to go with my dad to see them and he didn’t take me. Vernon was so kind to me that evening, he just never asked me for space and kept chatting with me. But during their show, when it came to the break before the “Cult Of Personality” guitar solo, Vernon looked right at me and started shredding and maintained eye contact with me through the whole thing. He just poured all that energy into me with a little wink and a grin so easily and knowing it meant so much to my eleven-year-old self.

  1. What sort of unique offerings does Atlanta have for musicians like yourselves? Does it offer anything special to this blend of rock?

I’ve been here doing this band for 18 years, and you might as well ask a fish what water is like. I will say that when I moved here from Nashville, I went from feeling like an outsider that could do nothing right to immediately being embraced for being my true self very quickly. Some folks feel the opposite here. And sometimes I lose my mojo. But every day I think the point of being an Atlantan is to check to make sure you’re showing up as your real self and give them that in abundance.

  1. Along the same lines, what Atlanta venues should The Pinx fans be scoping out for this type of sonic experience?

The venues that are currently most friendly to us are Boggs and the Star Bar but it’s always changing and we are not the arbiters of quality. The sonic revolution is happening in living rooms, basements, DIY venues, every local venue, just go to a show somewhere and start following what you liked, and then when you get home see where they’re playing next. Rely on social media to NOT tell you what you need to know. Rely on friends and ears and get to know the booking people around town and ask them “Hey, what’s coming that I should check out?” and don’t accept a prepackaged answer.

  1. What can folks expect during your show at Boggs?

Our most energetic, feral shows in a long time are happening lately. And we are also digging deeper emotionally, so the show is, I think, more of a ride lately.

  1. As Atlanta veterans, what sort of advice do you have for aspiring musicians?

Once upon a time I divided music into “good music” and “bad music” but I realized a few years ago during lockdown (when I made three drastically different solo records in a few months), there’s only music and silence. We should all be grateful to have music. We are all in that club, the same club, and it’s time to appreciate as much of it as we can and learn as much as we can. It’s okay to be in awe. It’s okay to admire musicians you have nothing in common with. Relax a bunch, and remember how good it feels to create music… okay now, all the other stuff? Remember it’s not important. When the music business tries to break your heart, just remember that the only part of it that’s real, that counts, is creating something, and the feeling it gives you to do that.