SSM

Monster Garage
Retro-rockers SSM go to Venus, via Detroit
by Andrew Clayman
Published in The Metro Pulse, February 2007



Though the Roger Dean-style cover art casts them as naked space-women with cockatiel heads, the three guys of SSM are, in reality, John Szymanski, Dave Shettler, and Marty Morris--the Motor City's latest and greatest neo-garagists.

A supergroup in the original sense of the word, this trio has its roots in three reputable Detroit rock outfits. Szymanski (vocals/keyboards) was a member of the Hentchmen; Shettler (drums) kept time for The Sights; and Morris (vocals/guitar) played with the Cyril Lords. The mildly unholy alliance formed by these gentlemen in 2005 didn't attract quite the same publicity as that of fellow Detroiters Jack White and Brendan Benson the same year, but unlike the Raconteurs, SSM has convincingly created a new dish superior to its ingredients.

"With this band, the idea was to have three completely different influences at work," explains Szymanski, who originally invited Shettler and Morris to join him for a demo being produced by his friend Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys. "That's what got the ball rolling. All we wanted to do was make a demo first, and if we liked the demo, then we'd become, you know, a real band. So, that's what we did, and as it turned out, we definitely liked the demo."

To add to the trio's good fortunes, Auerbach offered his new pals an opening slot on the West Coast swing of The Black Keys' 2005 fall tour. Solidifying their sound and signing to Alive Records, SSM soon reconvened in the studio, combining elements from the Auerbach sessions with some high energy, new tunes about Venusian vixens, dinosaurs and Vikings. By the spring of 2006, their self-titled, full-length debut had been unleashed, complete with the aforementioned bird-ladies on the cover.

The reviews were almost universally positive, but Szymanski and company couldn't help but be amused at the random, wide-ranging ways in which critics were attempting to describe their, um, psychedelic garage punk retro revivalist future sex love sound.

"People definitely have a hard time categorizing us," says Szymanski, speaking above the road noise outside a tour stop in New York City. "A paper here today said we sound like Sparks meets Sonic Youth [laughs]. That's fine with me. Our influences are all over the map, so anything kind of falls into place."

Not surprisingly, SSM's Detroit origins also draw them unavoidable comparisons to the rest of that city's rock lineage, from the organ-inflected rock of Mitch Ryder to the punk energy of The Stooges.

"It doesn't really bother me," says Szymanski. "The Detroit sound--they usually want to call it garage--but I don't think we're a garage band, per se. People will say psychedelic, or garage, or punk. We're even getting electro a lot, which I think is kind of funny."

If anything, Szymanski's previous band, The Hentchmen, could have fit the bill as straight-up '60s garage-rock revivalists--led by Szymanski's own "96 Tears"-style organ playing. With SSM, however, the influx of new influences has built a pretty considerable extension onto that particular garage.

"Yeah, I think it (SSM) has become its own entity now," Szymanski agrees. "The traces of the other bands are kind of lost. Personally, I'm still in love with the '60s garage band sound. But lately I've been more inspired by the later '60s and the more psychedelic sound, as far as song structures go. And you know, you add a disco beat on top of that, and it turns out completely different."

Szymanski still plays the same antique pop organ he purchased back in his teenage, ska band days. It captures the charm of a mid-'60's Nuggets compilation, because it's a genuine relic of the era, but Szymanski has also adapted that distinct sound to suit SSM's enthusiastic forays into '70's glam and Devo-esque New Wave.

"I tend to play up more of a low end, fuzzy sort of sound with this band. So I really use the organ more as a bass instrument in a lot of ways, which gives Marty more freedom to do what he does."

Last November, SSM unveiled a new EP, entitled simply EP-1, on which they pound out six more ferocious tunes, transitioning quite seamlessly from thunder punk to synth pop to dub. The disc is a stopgap of sorts, as the group will be joining forces with Dan Auerbach again this spring to set to work on what will supposedly be a more polished, if not slicker, studio album.

Regardless of how refined their sound may become, however, the men of SSM have no intention of abandoning the feral aesthetic of their '60's garage-rock ancestry-- right down to the strobe lights and oil projections.

"They had it all figured out back then," Szymanski says. "They had the visual, they had the fashion, they had the music. It's definitely my favorite era."