“Does the phrase ‘power imbalance’ mean anything to you?” —Kathleen Hanna
The phrase “power imbalance” means nothing to Street Eaters. The Berkeley, CA-based power duo of John No and Megan March organize their creative work as a complete collaboration. No’s chainsaw bass guitar and March’s sparkplug drumming find time to shine while making equal space for one another. And there is not a single song on their most recent full-length, Rusty Eyes and Hydrocarbons, that doesn’t include both musicians hollering, harmonizing and generally making a tightly knit lattice of their voices. After forming four years ago and releasing a slew of 7-inches, the pair have figured out how to work their partnership as two lockstep elements forming one solid unit.
Flagpole reached Street Eaters at the outset of a short tour; they’re used to being out on the road for five or six weeks at a time. When asked how the four years of steady touring have improved the nature of their collaboration, March immediately offers: “I think we’re a lot less shy.” Her bandmate, No (speaking to Flagpole alongside March on speakerphone), agrees. “I don’t think there’s any self-consciousness about it anymore; this is kind of what we do. We put a lot of time and energy into it. With the whole picture—the music, the lyrics, the art, we do all the video work ourselves—it’s very strongly in-house. It’s all more and more along those lines.”
While two musicians working together on their music isn’t rare, the complete collaboration on lyrics is far less common. (And as anyone who witnessed the brainstorming sessions featured in the Metallica documentary Some Kind of Monster would agree, this method rarely garners much in the way of quality results.) As the duo met 10 years ago as volunteers at 924 Gilman St. in Berkeley, the DIY space that fostered countless punk bands, Street Eaters work hard to keep their lyrics socially relevant as well as personally resonant. And as anyone who’s spent innumerable hours arguing over coffee (or 40s) will attest, finding common ground can be hard even when it isn’t being set to music.
“It’s actually really personal, in the sense that one of us will come up with an idea for a song and we may have different takes on what that means,” says March. “It’s interesting to put the two different ideas together and hash it out. It’s really liberating, actually, to write with someone else.”
“Part of it… is that we also spend most of our waking hours together and we have lots of conversations and a lot of emotional discussions—discussions of all kinds,” says No. “The discussions can produce thoughts or ideas that we’ll end up translating later into lyrics. For the most part, we end up dovetailing on a concept. We do find a place where we come together usually.”
While this all might sound heavy-handed, a quick survey of the work Street Eaters do in the real world proves the opposite is true. Addressing the issue of the oil spill in the Gulf, the video for “Livid Lizard†finds No hollering at oil pump jacks and windmilling his arms like a madman, while March is seen in what appears to be a lizard costume. It’s obvious that the collaboration isn’t a forced leveling of any sort of playing field, but rather the natural outcome of the kind of kinetic fun that is generated when the right two people come together.
“We like to make space for each other in each other’s lives normally, and it makes sense to have that process be transparent through the writing as well,†says No. “It seems really natural. We don’t really think about it that much; it just kind of happens because, I guess, that’s just the way that we communicate.â€
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