New Jersey’s Garcia Peoples Keep on Chooglin’

Ever have one of those songs that sits quietly in the back of your head, waiting patiently, only to become a personal anthem that props up your mental health and well-being during a desperate moment? “Tough Freaks” by Garcia Peoples, who perform Friday at Third Man’s Blue Room, is that song this week. And last week. And probably next week too, as long as the militant squares of Tennessee — especially those in the state legislature — keep on their fascist bullshit. 

The track, a prime cut from the New Jersey outfit’s stellar 2022 LP Dodging Dues, will probably stay in rotation until the gnawing dread that comes with dropping my kid off at school wears off. But for now it’s a friendly reminder of the power of freakdom and an assurance that there’s strength to be found in community. It’s the sort of song you want hanging around your skull, a lithe little melody for helping you stand up and fight when slipping into darkness seems the easiest path.

“I’m excited to play in Nashville,” Garcia Peoples bassist Andy Cush tells the Scene. “We have only ever played there once before, and we had a really great time. But it was a very particular kind of show because, uh, the power went out at the club right before we were supposed to go on.  Most of the show ended up being this lights-out, passing-the-acoustic-guitar-around, playing-songs-as-if-around-a-campfire kind of thing, which was really beautiful. It’ll be nice to get back to Nashville and hopefully play a proper rock show.”

Garcia Peoples seems to truck in perseverance. Founded in 2017, they’re a band of road warriors who have made their way through the long, dark lockdown era, emerging stronger despite it all. As a band that excels on wax but explodes in person, as a band that was really just building steam as COVID let the air out of everything, Garcia Peoples’ continued existence feels like a win that listeners get to revel in.

“There were a few tours in the earlier days of things opening up again where we maybe didn’t always have the greatest turnout,” Cush explains. “And there was a sense of, like, ‘Do people still want to come to shows and stuff?’ Then we went out, maybe a month or two ago — we did just a week in New England, and it felt, like, ‘OK, now it’s back.’ People came out, and we played to some pretty raucous crowds, and it seemed like people were feeling comfortable being out at shows again. … That was really nice.” 

The freaks, it seems, are powering through, making a push for a return to abnormalcy in the face of everything. Garcia Peoples’ place in the music world — beyond the fold of jam-band culture, hovering around the edges of indie rock — feels like it is expanding. Their songs are tighter than ever before: Dodging Dues is like a bait shop full of earworms and, according to Cush, their improvisational instincts are pushing beyond the “Garcia Peoples thing” into the panoramic scope of pioneering improvisational minds like Can and Miles Davis.

“[You have to be] active about challenging yourself to do something different, rather than just sort of playing the first thing that comes to mind,” says Cush. “It’s like a push and pull between doing what you do and making some kind of active decision to try to do something else … when somebody plays something where you’re like, ‘Where the fuck did that come from? That was awesome.’” 

That determination and the cathartic results it delivers run through “Tough Freaks,” and that need to push forward makes each new GP record a different adventure from the last. It’s the kind of vibe that will make school drop-offs a little bit easier for the foreseeable future, and that is awesome.

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