According to a long list of gig-goers around the nation it was the funk-dance frenzy of the USA’s !!!.

In case your lingo is lacking, !!! is intended to translate into any three repeated sounds like ‘boom boom boom’, ‘na na na’ or the most commonly used ‘chk chk chk’, a reference to the subtitles in the movie The Gods Must Be Crazy. And while you may think USA is a little broad, covering a range of musical geographies, this is exactly what !!! do. Their members hail from everywhere from Sacramento to Portland to New York City.

The diversity of backgrounds that combine to make !!! is a key element in their mysterious and unpredictable persona, something vocalist Nic Offer touched on when WB interrupted his visit to “the Steve Irwin Zoo” recently.

“We just brought in a new guy (drummer Paul Quattro) from Pittsburgh. Him and I stayed up late the other night and I played him tunes from my iPod and he played me tunes from his and he’s coming at it from a totally different perspective and playing me stuff I’ve never even considered. So it’s great to have him in the band and see how that element is going to shape itself. We actually took him in because we thought he had a style that was different to ours and we wanted to kind-of co-op and see what he could do.”

The personnel changes since their last visit don’t end with the sticks, as the bearded figure of percussionist/vocalist John Pugh has made way for a leading lady in Shannon Funchess. Offer was thrilled with how smooth the change has been for the band.

“(John) definitely had a really strong presence that I enjoyed working with on stage. I think Shannon has really stepped in where he left off and she brings us something really powerful too. We really got lucky because she was just someone we asked to sing on ‘Heart of Hearts’, and we got her just because we knew she could sing and we had no idea that she was a great performer as well.”

Pugh even offered the idea that he felt he had escaped the army after leaving !!!, due to the strict discipline involved in being in the band renowned for their kung-fu workouts.

“I never really would’ve put the words discipline and ‘chk chk chk’ together,” laughed Offer, “I really don’t know what he’s talking about!”

!!! are still riding the success of 2007’s Myth Takes to venues around the world. More a year after its release, we asked him how he felt now and what surprised him about the reaction to the album.

“Uhh, that it didn’t sell as much as Thriller!? No I think we were really proud of it, we feel like the success was justified and I think we thought it would’ve done better. We’ve been touring on these songs for a year now and they still sound really good to us which is pretty exciting but you know, whatever, we’re proud of the record and we’re glad that it’s dance.”

Dance so much so that Offer and his regularly varying number of band mates are back in the country to head up the We Loves Sounds festivals alongside DJs and electronic acts galore.

“It’s very strange but I think it’s becoming more common to see bands at those sort of festivals. I remember that there was a definite kind of excitement, like when we first started playing in Spain and people were getting bored with dance music at that point and we kind of came along at the right moment. Obviously dance is so much apart of their culture there, people who want to go out all-night and party, dance and take drugs. And they’re getting kind of bored with DJs and here we come which was like some exciting new thing for them. So I think if anything there hasn’t been any resentment or anything, they’ve actually been excited about it.”
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