The AnAesthetics

When’s the last time you played a CD and laughed out loud? With their satirical skits and punk-rock-comedy songs, Paul and Andrea DeLesDernier of The AnAesthetics will have you giggling like Howard Dean at President Bush’s State of the Union Address.

As their press kit states, they’re on a “mission from ‘Blog’ to find relief in this cluttered, often confusing, super-sized world…The humor on Cornography [their latest CD] is found in reality, in the everyday obstacles we all share. Nothing and no one is safe as Paul and Andrea mock and deconstruct all the overstuffed, overused clichés and imposters that are thrown in our faces every day as we encounter traffic, our jobs, family, friends, and every form of media.”

Last month, we interviewed The AnAesthetics about their marriage, their music, and their message.

How long have you two been married?

Andrea: Sixteen years.

Did either of you make music before you got together?

Paul: I started out on the fiddle and played professionally in Branson, Missouri, when I was a kid. After that I was always in a band playing guitar.

Andrea: I never wrote or recorded anything until Paul and I started playing together. I sang in musicals then converted to rock.

What musicals? Where?

Andrea: The last one I did, I played Hope in Cole Porter’s Anything Goes in Dallas. There are some great songs in that musical like “It’s Delovely” and “All Through the Night.”

Is The AnAesthetics your first musical enterprise or have the two of you collaborated on other projects?

Paul: This is our first musical enterprise together. However, we have worked together in films and plays. And we have produced and acted in a couple of films together.

What films? What plays? Where?

Paul: Our first film together was Slaughterville (a feature length horror film shot entirely on 8mm. It was one of the first 8mm films to go to the Cannes film festival). Then we did The Appointment (a black and white noir thriller). We acted and produced on this one. Both of these films were directed by our long time buddy and schoolmate Todd Wade. I also scored Slaughterville, and as The AnAethetics we wrote two songs for The Appointment which was just released on DVD.

We have done several plays together. But the play that had the most impact on what we are doing now was a version of Edward Albee’s American Dream that I directed my final year at Oklahoma State. Andrea played Mommy.

How long have you been The AnAesthetics?

Andrea: Ten years.

How did you come up with your act’s name?

Paul: It was a name my brother, Peter, and I used for one of our early bands. I always liked the name and knew I would use it again one day. Some people think it’s about drugs, but it’s simply about aesthetics, art for art’s sake.

Andrea: We are not completely about form over content. But we do like to stick with simplicity and honesty and let the content develop from that place. We don’t like to write songs that have an agenda.

So you had formal training in terms of music, acting, singing.

Andrea: Yes. We met while we were both studying theatre in college. We were also both in the voice program.

Paul: I didn't study music formally. I learned folk styles and then moved on to rock. I had been studying acting and voice in college for about a year when I met Andrea in an acting class. During a class discussion she made reference to voices in her head, and I knew I would marry her.

Andrea: The first time I saw Paul he was playing Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet. Oh, he was great in the role, made everybody cry. But what attracted me was his cod piece.

Paul: We also studied improv for four years with Bob Koherr.

Where’d you get the idea to add comic audio skits between the songs on your CD? Why did you decide to do that rather than put those ideas to music as well?

Andrea: A few years ago, we had a band, and we were in an improv troupe. We reacted to a club scene that had gotten pretty stagnant. We knew in order to stand out we had to be different. We wanted to do something original. So we decided to combine the two (music and comedy). When the acts integrated, it was just natural to have both songs and scenes.

That’s a great idea. I’ve never seen that before. Where do you perform?

Paul: Rock clubs, comedy clubs, coffee houses, theatres. Before we combined the music and comedy, we would be at the Comedy Store one night and the Whisky down the street the next. So we continued to play both types of venues.

Andrea: We love to show up in places where people least expect us. We recently played some Borders Books & Music in Arizona where we sold a lot of CDs, but were told we wouldn’t be back because we said things like “Jesus and Attention Whore.” We got a big kick out of that. We like to travel. In addition to playing Los Angeles, our home, we play in San Francisco, Berkeley, San Diego and Phoenix.

When you perform live, do you do rehearsed skits betw - Americana Magazine

Sound & Fury: "Nowadays, it seems the ultimate display of punkness is the cowboy hat. Put on a 10-galloner and your guitar automatically sounds like it was trampled under a bull`s muddy feet at a rodeo. Rock on, I say. On their debut five-song EP, Paul and Andrea DeLesDernier of The AnAesthetics play their raucous, rambunctious rock `n` roll like they`re rolling through fields of cacti. Pricklies in her stockings be damned, Andrea`s going to sing her guts out and front this outfit with sass. -Johanna Reed
- Santa Barbara Independent

"On their debut six-song EP, the AnAesthetics claim influences as broad as Zep and the Stones to the Pretenders and the Smiths, but there seems to be a helluva lot more than that going on here. Lead vocalist Andrea DeLesDernier may strike an attitude that suggests Chrissie Hynde, but her galloping yelp gives Gwen Stefani a run for her royalties, while guitarist Paul DeLesDernier conducts a six-string workshop on the teachings of Keith Richards and the Dictators. The band`s big rock songs (the tantrum anthem "Big Kids," the bursh-off shouter "Shut Up") are nicely balanced with the pop/punk horse opera "The Legend of Big Bob" and a full-bore, minute-and-a-half thrashing of the Airplane`s "White Rabbit." The AnAesthetics still have a few thin spots to fill in here and there, all of which might be cleared up in a meatier studio environment, but the band`s potential is undeniable." - Brian Baker
- Amplifier Magazine