What do you get when you name your latest musical project Anti-Vax? If you’re Milwaukee musician Anthony Weber (Heavy Hand, Moustache Bride, LLAARRSS, more), the answer is “a lot of weird emails.”
“We get really strange messages from people because the name of our band is Anti-Vax,” Weber says. “However, we have no interest in talking about pro- or anti-vax views with people. It’s just a band name.”
Fair enough, though Anti-Vax isn’t your typical band. For one thing, Weber and former Chicagoan Brian Pennington are the only members of the sometimes synth-y, somethings noisy outfit. For another, their collaboration is strictly online.
“I predominately provide synth for the songs and Brian usually does the other instrumentation,” Weber explains. “We both write the lyrics. We usually chat out the song as it forms by sending files of our progress while the song is in development. Interesting thing is we never write the songs in the same room. We communicate about the songs through email and work on the songs separately.”
Then there’s Anti-Vax’s delivery method, which (for now) eschews Bandcamp, Soundcloud, and other streaming services. Instead, Weber and Pennington upload their music directly to YouTube—complete with trippy, collage-style videos created by Weber.
“The straight to YouTube approach is similar to what I was doing with the Moustache Bride stuff,” Weber says. “We eventually intend to put out an ‘album’ of material but our main concentration is on the song writing. Putting the songs out as they are completed on YouTube provides a nice way to cap the completion of the song. It also provides a method for delivery of the music to an audience that is a different and interesting approach rather than the traditional route Brian and I have both done in the past.”
Listen to/watch the entire Anti-Vax YouTube playlist below, and stay tuned for future songs/videos.