The music of City Creeps is abrasive, not too complicated, not too serious, but ultimately determined to emit intimate energy to their audience. When asked what style of music they would call it, Dru Gid, guitarist, said it would best be described as “garage punk”.
Dru, along with Sierra Maag on drums, and John Farmer, bassist, all call Wichita Falls their hometown.
Dru and Sierra are cousins, but grew up more as brother and sister. When Sierra was a young teenager Dru moved away for about ten years and toured the southern states with bands in the do-it-yourself (DIY) circuit, which simply means leaving out the big record companies, booking agents, and managers, and putting the business in your own hands. When he moved back they reconnected as if he had never left.
According to sources, John is “secretly famous”. Although he is originally from Wichita Falls, he spent quite a stretch living in Austin recording with many other artists and playing with the band What Made Milwaukee Famous, who toured with the Smashing Pumpkins. He also is a big advocate of DIY services, such as printing his own vinyl records and silk screening shirts.
City Creeps officially formed when Dru had the 8th St. jam pad. He would hold DIY house party type concerts there with the help of other local artists, and Sierra would be hanging out with him at the shows. One day after a few drinks at the Iron Horse Pub, she suggested that they should jam together. Although she never had played drums before, he saw she had some real potential. So he gave her some rhythm and technique suggestions and she just took it and ran with it. Now, a year and a half later, she hammers out beats like a pro.
When John moved back to town he was looking for people to put together a group. He got a jam session going with Dru and Sierra, and they all knew right away that this was going to be something special. The jam session turned into a songwriting session. City Creeps were born.
Their favorite places to play are the small, intimate rooms like the jam pad in Fre-Mar Valley, where Dru and Michael Hayes hold DIY shows. They feel that if the room is too big it creates too much distance between the music and the listeners. When you see a concert here, everybody has a front row seat, and the energy coming from the stage is injected directly into the veins of the audience.
When I stopped by to conduct this interview, Michael was engineering a City Creeps recording session, laying down the tracks to the first song they wrote together. The garage punk sound is what they aim for- not too tight, not too loose, but heavy and dirty. With John ripping out riffs on his ‘79 Rickenbacker and belting out vocals, Sierra pounding out rolls, and Dru grinding out the guitar rhythms it was an experience to see, hear, and feel.
Tim Maloney
