The Thirsty Giants represent a few generations and a few cities – something for everyone who likes hard core punk music. I loved the music and the back story on the band. They have a bunch of shows coming up after the release of their new EP, Thirst AD.
Please tell me about The Thirsty Giants. An intergenerational punk band is intriguing.
The Thirsty Giants: Started in 2022, The Thirsty Giants grew out of basement jam sessions between a then-teenaged Holden Perron (guitar, vocals) and his father, David (drums). While that may conjure images of Partridge Family wholesomeness, the music we were/are attempting to play couldn’t be any further from that. It started as loud, knuckleheaded stabs at punk classics by the likes of Black Flag, The Stooges, Velvet Underground, Ramones, Butthole Surfers, Crass, and others before Holden quickly started to write original songs. A mixture of those covers and originals was performed publicly on a handful of occasions as a duo over the next five months before Hunter Thiesen (bass, vocal), a recent college graduate and fellow punk music fan who lived in the neighborhood, joined the group and added his better understanding of music, gear, and engineering. While the music has evolved somewhat over the past few years, it remains loud, aggressive, and fairly knuckleheaded at its core.
How did you decide to play and record together?
TTG: As mentioned above, The Thirsty Giants grew out of the music Holden and David played in their basement; however, the first Thirsty Giants show was just Holden performing solo on electric guitar and vocals. He was invited to play another show a few months later and wanted to have a backing band this time. After striking out with finding like-minded and reliable musicians amongst his peers, he reluctantly asked David to join him as the drummer, to which David also reluctantly agreed, quickly realizing that an upgrade would be needed to his snare and Rubbermaid tub percussion set-up. After getting a minimal drum kit on loan from the generous and supportive drummer, Jason Knudson, from the local bands Loadie and DesertX, we played our first show as a duo. Over the next five months, The Thirsty Giants played out more and recorded an album’s worth of songs in a crude, in-the-red, straight-to-Garageband fashion.
Also happening concurrently with this duo activity, Holden and Hunter were playing music and writing songs together in a short-lived band that dissolved after one performance when one of the other band members moved away. At this point, having Hunter join The Thirsty Giants on bass seemed like a very logical and natural thing to do to expand the band’s sound, and it was a way for Holden and Hunter to carry on with what they had started too. Not only did Hunter play bass, but he also had a practice space with a basic recording set-up in his garage that allowed us to record a couple of releases.
We are now spread out between Mankato, Minneapolis, and Duluth and are all involved in other bands and projects, so our playing and recording are done during these compressed bursts of activity together, mainly in the summer when we have more time.
The Shape of Thirst to Come really caught my attention. It’s the vocals. I love the more classic punk vocal sound on the other songs but going low on Shape struck me. Jello Biafra used to slow down to speed up like that. What made you take that direction?
TTG: While the Dead Kennedys was one of those punk bands whose songs we would attempt to play early on, “The Shape of Thirst To Come” is us dabbling with that loud-quiet-loud dynamic that countless bands were doing in the 90s in the wake of the Pixies. We are well aware that it is not boundary-pushing in the way that Ornette Coleman and the Refused were, but for us as a band, it was fun to mess around with a song structure and style like that and make it into something we enjoy playing, particular in a live setting where it serves as a nice launching off point into other heaviness.
Which comes first for you guys – lyrics or music?
TTG: The songs have been written and developed in a variety of ways over the years. Early on, it was mainly Holden who wrote the lyrics and chord progressions, and the other parts were essentially just us playing along with that. Holden still brings in many of the initial sketches for songs, but over time it has become a bit more of a collaborative process. Holden and Hunter will bring in different riffs for song ideas. David and Holden will work on basic song structures and lyrics together. Hunter will figure out new guitar phrasings that can be used. Half-formed or gibberish lyrics are often sung as songs are being developed. In some cases, song ideas have come out of little sections of open-ended jams that typically happen during practice sessions. When something catches our attention and seems worthwhile, we’ll often do a basic cell phone recording of that section to revisit and work out later.
Where can folks see you play?
TTG: We have a run of shows we are doing in mid-March when our new EP comes out, and then a few others lined up for later in May. We hope to fill in more dates during the summer months. Here’s what we have for now:
March 13th (North Mankato) with Virginia’s Basement and Hot Bagels at The NaKato
March 14th (Minneapolis) with Yuasa-Exide and Pleasure Cube at Cloudland Theater
March 15th (Mankato) with Ray Gun Youth, Pinmissile, and OAF at Tune Town
May 30th (Rochester) with Mary Jam and Holyrose at Treedome
May 31st (Mankato) with Prairie Clamor and others for the Wheelworks Benefit at Key City Bike
Mostly Minnesota 