When we saw that there was a band from Lake Worth called the Toilets, we knew they were kindred spirits. Ellis D Traails heads up this punk-metal outfit, playing with Brett Ackling on drums and Robert Bernhardt on bass. All we wanted to know was if they were as fucked up inside as their name is divine.
Traails says, "We honestly set out to be the best punk band the world has ever seen, [laughs] I shit you not." He writes all of the songs himself, which he calls a hybrid of punk rock, death/black/power metal, and prog rock. Once the band formed, he says, "I was free
to write the most imaginative, beautiful, and brutal music I could." He forgot to mention that the music also has some sick lyrics. Their album, to be released in a month, will introduce you to the perversion, their original sound, and ways of thinking.
Traails notes on the matter of going to far, "I don't think there is any taboo that shouldn't be talked about, and all
risks should be taken. Always. We only use a small percentage of our
brain; why censor it? I say expand it. A lot of times, what we think is
wrong or right we simply do not understand, or we've just been conditioned
to think it's wrong or right."
Traails also played in the
"funk, reggae rock powerhouse" band the People Upstairs and a band with
another stellar moniker, Vaginal Disaster, which included all the same
Toilets band members.
itself, the Toilets is truly the only project that has been completely
me, no-holds barred and uncensored," he says. "I find beauty in the odd
and the offbeat. The strange and unusual turn
me on as an artist. If there is one universal appeal about the Toilets,
it is that there is not a band like us, our sound, our
songs, our poetry, attitude. We're cut from a different cloth." Perhaps
the cloth is one we might use as toilet paper? Bad joke. Serious subject.
They're big fans of playing at
Speakeasy, calling it "the one true spot for rock 'n' roll in Lake
Worth," and found a lot of love at Atlantic Brewery. Triple Threat V
Productions events are also something they value. Apparently, for the
singer and songwriter, "Intelligent crowds are a huge turn-on for me,"
adding, "The bottom line is that I truly love each and every beautifully
twisted creature that loves us and supports our art."
Traails is
a fan of videogame music, "from 8- and 16-bit systems. Anyone that's
played the two Legend of Zeldas for NES and F-Zero for SNES knows exactly
what I'm talking about." He also says he takes inspiration from
classical compositions, saying, "Those Japanese composers knew more about metal
than metal knew about itself." Apparently, the Toilets know more about themselves than one might think with a band name that is so perfectly gruesome.
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