Words By
GAVIN HEANEY
Photo By
TAKUMI MCINTYRE
Pat Beers is devoted to the freak out.
The Schizophonics’ frenzied frontman leads the group with electric swagger — diving and rolling across the stage, stopping only to sing into an upright mic stand that he kicks over and catches, then windmills to the ground to grind a guitar solo.
His long hair and seventies blouse are doused with sweat instantly, and his moves are wild and unending. He is an uncanny combination of dynamic frontman and guitar god, dropping into the splits with a mic stand in one hand while pulling off one-handed solos with the other.
There is possibly no one else in the history of rock who embodies James Brown and Jimi Hendrix, Iggy Pop and Pete Townshend, simultaneously.
“I think my move is the amalgamation of doing one-handed solos, but combining that with the freak out,” Beers said. “We are devoted to the freak out.”
Schizophonia is a term coined by composer R. Murray Schafer to describe the split between an original sound and its electroacoustic reproduction — a disembodiment, where sound is severed from its source.
It’s a fitting name. The transmission of hard-grooving rock n’ roll flowing from The Schizophonics’ tumbling live act seems impossibly at odds with reality; you simply cannot believe your eyes and ears.
Audiences have suspected sleight of hand, convinced that technology must be involved somewhere. But one night after a San Antonio show, when a brazen heckler wouldn’t let it go, Pat Beers revealed the man behind the curtain.
“This big guy was just getting really aggressive, calling Patrick out for playing backing tracks,” recalled Lety Beers, Pat’s wife and band drummer. “Security kicked him out, and after the show Pat went and found him — still covered in sweat — brought him backstage, plugged in, and started doing hammer-ons and pull-offs on the guitar, showing exactly how he does it. The guy apologized and thanked him.”
The Schizophonics’ rhythm section brings a fierce female energy to the band. Lety is a self-taught drummer whose warm smile betrays the fact that she is perhaps having the most fun, banging out dirty drum rolls with just the right tinge of trashy canniness.
Her technique looks effortless, which only adds to the band’s mystifying effect. Sarah Linton completes the trio with gritty, groovy bass lines that twist out the dance party and provide the roll to Beers’ rock.
The thruple are so compatible they feel like family. Packed into their minivan on long tours, they share every duty — driving, booking, designing one-of-a-kind merchandise like screen-printed vinyls.
The band formed in 2008 after Pat and Lety moved to San Diego from their hometown of Casa Grande, Arizona. Lety booked Pat’s very first show in Tucson.
“My girlfriend and I were the only people in the audience,” she laughed. “It’s crazy to think back on that now.”
She’s since booked them at top-tier venues and festivals worldwide, including a show at the Hollywood Palladium opening for Jack White — who hand-picked the band himself.
Backstage, actor John C. Reilly approached them, vinyl in hand, praised their set, and showed up at their very next show.
The accolades are well earned. Since forming, the band has played hundreds of shows across fourteen countries, opening for The Damned, Devo, The Hives, and Cage The Elephant along the way.
Their recording output matches the relentless road work. After a run of singles and an EP on Munster, Ugly Things, and Pig Baby Records, they dropped their debut full-length Land of the Living in July 2017 on Sympathy For The Record Industry — a record that proved the songs could hold their own without a stage beneath them.
Their second LP, People in the Sky, arrived in 2019 on Pig Baby Records, recorded with a team that included Dave Gardner of Hot Snakes and Pierre De Reeder of Rilo Kiley — serious company for a band still most famous for what they do live.
Then came Hoof It in 2022, their third LP and arguably their most ferocious — eleven straight rippers recorded by Dean Reis of RFTC, pairing smart songwriting with pockets of psychedelic production that prove the band’s sonics are equal to their spectacle.
Perhaps the greatest magic trick in rock n’ roll is the ability to do two things at once. Sing and play. Hold rhythm and lead simultaneously. Multiply the music until it defies arithmetic.
To a screen-fed society conditioned to doubt what isn’t digitally assisted, this kind of raw human alchemy reads as illusion. We are so overexposed to the spectacular that we’ve lost the instinct to believe in it.
The Schizophonics are the cure for that. They are messy and raw, human to the bone — and that’s why they will get under your skin.
“I don’t really care if I mess up a lot, or hit all the notes,” said Pat. “That’s what the actual world sounds like, and I just want to give people something real from our heart and soul.”
In May, they bring their freak out to the BeachLife Festival in Redondo Beach. Do yourself a favor: put your phone down, step to the front, and let The Schizophonics split you in two.
The Schizophonics played BeachLife May 1. See BeachLifeFestival.com for more info.