THE ENTERTAINER! MAGAZINE AUGUST 2020
MUSIC
33
LISTEN » JAM » INNOVATE » EVOLVE » ROCK » SING
The Anti-Hero Playboy Manbaby’s ‘Debbie from Zumba’ explores the Karens of the world By Alex Gallagher
R
obbie Pfeffer of Playboy Manbaby doesn’t like heroes. He prefers the shady, troubled characters who are always more interesting than the onedimensional Ken dolls of the world. That sentiment resonates on the band’s latest collection, “Debbie from Zumba.” “None of my songs ever have heroes; it’s always villains,” Pfeffer says. “I find them significantly more interesting. I’m always the person who watches a TV show and is way more interested in the bad guys than the hero. “I like writing about people who have various delusions. And it’s a way to explore my own, because everyone has their own different types of oddities.” “Debbie from Zumba” could be classified as a concept album about the Karens of the world—the women who will complain at the slightest misstep.
“The whole thing is a narrative of a lady who’s leaving a bad Yelp review about being in hell,” says Pfeffer, who attended Horizon High School. “There’s a song on the EP where the line says, ‘My friend Debbie from Zumba told me,’ and I just thought it worked.” Pfeffer—who is joined in the band by drummer Chad Dennis and trumpeter/ percussionist David Cosme, both of Phoenix; guitarist TJ Friga of Tempe and bassist Chris Hudson of Mesa— uses the name as a symbol for gossip culture and to satirize people he grew up around. He wanted to portray the image of an entitled woman who is ready to complain at the drop of a hat. “Debbie from Zumba” fits nicely in Playboy Manbaby’s catalog, although the band’s first album in two years doesn’t feature its trademark musical introductions. “These songs, in particular, have no fat on them,” Pfeffer says. “They go straight to the core. They’re all quick songs. They have the least extra instrumentation of
any of our songs that we’ve done.” Playboy Manbaby wrote the EP’s five songs in one day in a cabin Up North—a town so bland, Pfeffer can’t remember the name of it. “It was really terrible,” Pfeffer says. “But that was good because it, being this ugly town, made it so that we didn’t have anywhere to go. We just stayed in the cabin and wrote stuff.” One thing that shines on “Debbie from Zumba” is Playboy Manbaby’s personality. Pfeffer says sometimes it can be hard to grasp. “It’s very take it or leave it,” he adds. “It’s a thing that people really relate to or find it very jarring. But it’s something that’s very us.” Personalities are inherently important, and by ignoring the naysayers, Playboy Manbaby has become Arizona’s premier anti-rock rock bands. “I think there’s something dynamic about who we are as people,” Pfeffer says. “We’re interested in being the multidimensional people we are.” Because Playboy Manbaby is on COVID-19 lockdown, the band released four videos for the songs “Mulligan,” “High End Condos,” “Car on Fire” and
“I Wish My Brain was a Computer,” most of which were produced by filmmaker Carl Jensen. The latest video chapter, “I Wish My Brain was a Computer,” features animation and shots of Pfeffer inline skating, a task he admits was harder than he remembers. “I don’t remember myself as a child being good at rollerblading, and I thought that would be a super easy task to relearn, but it was not,” Pfeffer says. “I injured myself repeatedly in the making of that part. The pandemic has really shifted the dynamic of the band. This has been weird because we’ve been operating in our own little pods. We still haven’t met up as a band.” The whole pandemic is odd—but productive—for Playboy Manbaby. Dennis covered “Wizard” by King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, while Friga offers a guitar tutorial for Playboy Manbaby’s music on its Instagram. “We’re all getting a chance to put our own individual voices out there, though,” Pfeffer says.
Playboy Manbaby playboymanbaby.com ENTERTAINERMAG.COM
