Destroy This Place: Symphony of mayhem

The members of Destroy This Place — guitarist and vocalist Ryan Allen, bassist Monday Busque, guitarist and vocalist John Nelson, and drummer Sean Sommer — are pissed at me. They're valiantly attempting to disguise it as humor, but they're irked. 

The reason? 

When we reviewed their debut album Resurrect the Mammoth, released on Bellyache Records in June last year, we referred to the band as "Ryan Allen's Destroy This Place." The band, Allen included, took exception. We were using Allen as a point of reference because he had some local (and a bit of national) success with Thunderbirds Are Now! and the Friendly Foes. 

So let it be said DTP is very much a sum of its four equal parts. This band's a collaboration, a collection of skilled musicians and it includes two songwriters in Allen and Nelson.

Got it? 

One thing the band can't be upset about is the praise we heaped upon the record. In fact, it's an album that, to these ears, has gotten better in the seven months since its release. Destroy This Place obviously digs Fugazi, and says as much, but the overt melodies combined with the attitude and aggression actually bring to mind Irish rockers Therapy? The band says that the agro-pop-rock that they produce is simply the sound that they make when they're all in a room together, au natural.

Some backstory: Allen and Sommer were playing together in the Friendly Foes while Nelson and Busque were indie rockers in New Grenada when the quartet met and immediately dug each other's tunes. It took a few years but, when those two bands began to wind down, and with friendships solid, a new project bloomed.

"When New Grenada and Cloud Car [the indie band Nelson formed when he was 19] were happening, and Thunderbirds too, the whole Detroit garage scene was happening," Nelson says. "We didn't fit in. Monday was in a band called the Trembling, and they didn't fit in. We were our own little scene." 

"Thunderbirds opened for Von Bondies," adds Allen. "I just feel that, friendship-wise, that's where the divisions started. Nothing against those dudes, but they just weren't the type of people I wanted to be friends with. They wouldn't care about me anyway." 

Allen says, though, that a connection with Nelson was instantaneous. "When I met John, I felt that here was a dude I wanted to pay attention to," he says. "When I met Monday, it was the same thing. This guy is super fun to watch play live, and the Trembling was a super fun band. Then I met Sean and it was the same. This motherfucker is an amazing drummer. I think the fact that we all like each other as people so much really helped the cause. I can't think of anything about these dudes that I don't like." 

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