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The Unstoppable Earwig

By Mollie Wells

Earwig is unstoppable. Born of the Columbus underground over a decade ago, these power-pop mainstays have no reservations about their work, or the life of it; music is just what they do. And frontman Lizard McGee may make it seem simple, like all this songwriting and producing and promoting is just in a morning’s work, but make no mistake: There’s some serious skill here. “Center of the Earth,” the band’s third release on the self-operated LFM Records, is a glorious departure from the tried-and-true, a powerful creation bred both of hope and discontent, wistfulness and fear. And Lizard’s got something to say about all of it.

Earwig to perform Saturday Oct. 14 at Cafe Bourbon Street.

UW: Tell me about this new record.

LM: When I moved back [from California] and the band got rolling again, I had an overflow of new songs. We basically mapped the new songs out into two records. One record was full-on melancholy rock energy and more in the vein of what Earwig normally sounds like: bigger, straightforward and direct. The second record was a little more introspective, calmer with a certain Midwestern flavor. Not so in-your-face. For whatever reason, we decided to make the second record [“Center of the Earth”] first. We decided that we wanted to make this record now and explore these sounds a little bit, because it’s a little more eclectic and then follow it up with the more powerful rock record soon after. We’re working on that record this year.

UW: Earwig has been around for over 10 years now, far longer than most bands these days. What keeps you going?

LM: Earwig moves in fits and starts. Being very active in times when all of the band members have the momentum to work on it and then being a little more dormant when we are busy with other aspects of our lives. But we have not yet felt the need to call it quits. It always comes back and is just as fresh and exciting as when we got our start. As long as I’m writing new songs, and we are starting to write more as a band together now too, we will always need Earwig as an outlet for that. We’re not rich, by any means. But our songs get played all over the world and we’ve had songs used in television, movies and DVD releases. I’m constantly getting new e-mails from fans from the least likely of places – Alaska? Sweden?! – and new people keep getting turned on to the music. So we’re doing something right and I’m happy about that. It’s fun, and we also have some very loyal fans that have been with us since the beginning. But we still exist, for the most part, outside of the industry. Our successes don’t usually register within the holds of the music business moneymakers

UW: Speaking of the industry, you’ve consistently bucked industry convention. What prompts you to keep on with such a DIY ethic?

LM: DIY is what we know. We don’t have a lot of money to spend on publicists and booking agents and these people don’t seem to want to work for free. Plus it can be hard, being so accustomed to doing everything ourselves, to break from that mold. We like the underground, we like where we are. We’ve never had to make any compromises, so we never have to make excuses. It’s not that big of a deal for us, but who’s to say what will happen in the future?

Earwig will celebrate the release of “Center of the Earth” at Cafe Bourbon Street on Oct. 14 with friends the Rosehips and the Proper Nouns.

Originally Published: October 11, 2006

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