Who's got the Moops?

This week, a couple of Columbus bars do

By John Benson

Special to Metromix

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There are a few things you should know about local rock act The Moops. This includes the fact the quartet—T.J. Hecker (vocals, guitar), Jim Hutter (bass), Sparky (guitar) and Rex Siebold (drums)—doesn’t include itself as part of the Columbus scene, but does take itself seriously and has a few new songs in the mix targeted for its next studio album, due to be recorded in early 2009.

In advance of shows Jan. 2 art Hot Spot Tavern on Sinclar Road and Jan. 8 at Bernie's on High Street, Metromix talked to The Moops’ visionary Hecker about his AC/DC-meets-The Ramones group.
 
Let’s start by talking about the new album, which will act as the follow-up to this year’s EP release “Smells Like The Moops."
Yeah, we already have a few basic tracks in the can, and we’re just working on putting it all together. We’re now playing new songs “Let Me Be Your Rock Star” and “Loxahatchee.” This will be a full-length album, and it’ll take us all over the map. We’ll just try a bunch of different things. I even have preliminary plans of doing a hip-hop number on it. I think somebody once said if you’re not falling flat on your face every once in a while, you’re playing it safe.
 
Falling on your face in a slapstick fashion is what I’m hearing.
Yeah, mostly it’s pretty tongue in cheek, but there’s a lot of serious intent behind some of the humor I suppose. But I’d be more like the Wile E. Coyote of rock ’n’ roll if you looked at my career track. Some days you’re the Road Runner, some days you’re the Coyote. And often I’m the dust cloud at the bottom of the canyon. It’s been a long hard road is what I’m saying.
 
Is that why your Web site boasts “Gleefully obnoxious rock ’n’ roll?” 
Yeah, that’s us because we’re loud, abrasive and kind of in your face. We just have a lot of fun with it. We have that sort of Bon Scott mentality, where he just enjoys annoying people.
 
Does your set include any covers?
We do a lot of covers. Like we do The Ramones’ “Blitzkrieg Pop,” which I realize isn’t the most original choice of what you can do from them, but people like it. And then we do “Monkey Man” by The (Rolling) Stones and “Rock and Roll” by Led Zeppelin, which again isn’t necessarily the most original choice, but what the hell—it’s a great tune if you can pull it off. We also do Lou Reed’s “Hangin’ Round” off “Transformer.”
 
At the very least, The Moops appear to be quite different from most other acts in the Columbus music scene.
I don’t know if we’re necessarily in the scene, per se. That’s the thing, we’re kind of just trying to appeal to whoever wants to listen to us. We don’t really have that kind of scenester mentality. But I have no idea. That’s really for other people to judge. We’re just kind of like old vaudevillians, we love that old, simple 1-4-5 rock ’n’ roll style. We just don’t want to see it die, so we’re doing the best we can to keep it alive.