The Peak

Join the herd

By Stacey McLachlan

For more information about the Goatface Killaz, please visit MySpace.com/GoatfaceKillaz.

I am with the soon-to-be-legendary musical comedy dream team Goatface Killaz, and together, we are waiting in line. Or maybe it’s not so much waiting in line as it is having a standoff; we’ve been at Blenz staring at the menu for so long that it’s become too long, and a moment of awkwardness paralyzes us all from ordering. The bored girl at the till taps her nails on the counter impatiently, as she waits for us to get our act together and just pick a drink already.

Keith “The Hawk” Miller and Jeph “Battle-axe” Caines, the Killaz themselves, are giggling, delighted at this strange social affront they’re involved in. It is ridiculous to take so long to pick a drink, and even more ridiculous to be spending so much time analyzing the ridiculousness of it, but that’s what tickles them so about the whole insignificant mess. They are in their element as they dissect the situation and plan their strategy in whispers: Who will step forward and break the tension!? Just how jerky are we, exactly?

When Keith finally approaches the counter, it’s the barista’s turn to make him wait; she’s now deep in conversation with her co-worker, a piece of justice that puts Keith and Jeff over the moon.

They may be silly, but the Goatface Killaz are pretty serious about making their special blend of snarky humour, mellow rhythm guitars, and, uh, AutoTune a success. The Goatface brand is just a month old, but through sheer willpower and/or inflated egos, the two seasoned musicians have already accomplished more together than many of their former bands did in their entire careers. With five songs recorded and up on MySpace already, two shows under their belts, a top-secret video project in the works, and a signature dance move, Goatface is looking to become the most unstoppable goat-themed musical comedy duo around. 

The Peak: So you’re in a band? Is that what’s happening here?

Keith Miller: [To Jeph] Why don’t you field this one?

Jeph Caines: Yes.

KM: The boring folklore is that Jeph and I work together at a music store. We always used to jam and make up songs on the spot, and we decided one day that maybe we should start writing things down.

JC: We’ve actually been doing everything backwards. We had a band name, MySpace page . . .

KM: The first thing we did, actu----ally, was have a photo shoot.

*P:* And this name?

KM: I got it from Homestar Runner. There’s also the obvious reference to Wutang Clan’s Ghostface Killah, and since we’re a freestyle-rap-indie-funk-showtunes-crunk group, we thought that that was a fitting throwback. Cartoon and hardcore rap usually end up going hand in hand, or hoof in hoof as is our case.

*P:* How’s your reception been?

KM: Is there a word above “astronomical”?

JC: You might be able to add a word to it. Super? In one word, no.

KM: I think what everyone likes about our songs is that they all have morals. One of our songs is called, and this is a Simpsons quote, “Please Put Your Milk in a Cool Wet Sack or Back in the Fridge, I Can’t Stress This Enough, People.” I think that’s something everybody can relate to. I mean, if you don’t put your milk back, it’s going to go bad.

JC: Even if you wrote it on the milk cartons, people aren’t going to read it. We figured if we were going to sing it, or freestyle rap it . . .

KM: Is it goat’s milk? That’s implied, the message works laterally.

JC: Really, [that] any lactose product should be back in a refrigeration process is really what is important in the end . . .

KM: It’s key! But to get back to your question, reception has been great.

*P:* So you’ve played your office Christmas party to great critical reception, but you’ve also played a Harry Potter themed “Yule Ball”?

JC: That pretty much changed our lives.

KM: I’ll let you field that one . . . field metaphor.

JC: We’re high-fiving right now. It was an interesting experience playing at a Harry Potter convention.

KM: It was a formal ball.

JC: We were not formal, but everyone else was wearing full gowns and wizardly accessories.

KM: Neither of us has read a single page of Harry Potter.

JC: Or watched a minute of the movies.

*P:* Do you even know who he is?

JC: We’ve seen him on t-shirts and lunch pails.

KM: The reception was overwhelmingly nice. We’ve both been playing in bands for a long time, but we’ve never really done anything fun like this. And we had moments where people were singing along or clapping their hands or chanting.

JC: Or doing our dance.

KM: We have a dance called “the Battle Hawk.”

JC: Based on our nicknames.

KM: When you’re at a Goatface Killaz show, do you mosh? Do you headbang? How do you dance when someone’s singing about how inanimate objects — fences, for example — don’t make for good conversationalists? You do the Battle Hawk. You put both hands in the air like you’re riding a bicycle with really high, wide handles, and do a little wrist twist, and you get your one leg up, probably your left one, and you give it a little kick and go “ka-CAW,” and that’s the Battle Hawk. We had like 200 screaming girls wearing cocktail dresses doing that at the Yule ball.

JC: At some points it was a little distracting but we figured in the end it was worth it. The Battle Hawk . . . it’s sweeping the nation. Like DDR.

*P:* I notice you use a lot of AutoTune in your songs.

JC: We started the Autotune process and other bands kind of adopted it.

KM: I don’t know if you’ve heard of T-Paine?

JC: We tried it as a joke and fell in love with it.

KM: Have you ever heard a sneeze on AutoTune? It takes us to a whole other level. And there’s that urban flavour. We want to keep to our roots. Jeph and I were actually born black.

*P:* So what comes next?

KM: We’re looking into shooting our first music video.

JC: We have a song that has a very inspirational moment that we figured would be best if we were on a farm surrounded by goats, in some sort of glamour drag-esque outfits.

KM: Bon Jovi meets Richard Simmons meets the Paramount strip club on Seymour. All the songs have morals, and I don’t think there’s a better way to represent that than with glam rock attire.

We’re also going to put out t-shirts, before the CDs, before playing more shows. Most bands play shows and then put out CDs; that’s obviously not worked for any band ever. We’ll play a show if you give us one, but are we going to go looking for one? I don’t know. Goats like to stay in a confined area, fenced off. We can be like the goats but also like the shepherd, because our fans are the herd. Duality.

*P:* You’ve only been together a month, but where do you see yourselves in 50 years?

KM: I can see myself living. I think it will take death itself to pry instruments from our cold hands. Don’t you think it would be even funnier if your 80-year-old grandpa was singing songs about tipping your waitress?

JC: Except it’d be more like: “don’t forget to plug in your flying car.”

KM: Every song has been off the cuff so far. Lyrics are all freestyle. We’ve actually written three songs doing this interview with you. It’s an ABCDEFH rhyming structure.