Meatbodies

Meatbodies are a Los Angeles-based US garage rock and psychedelic rock group led by Chad Ubovich. Their music combines heavy guitar work with punk energy and melodic hooks, drawing on garage punk, neo-psychedelia and stoner rock influences. Ubovich is also known as a longtime figure in the California garage punk and new psychedelic scenes, and he moves from a role as a Ty Segall sideman and protege to fronting the band.

Formation and early line-up

The group forms in mid-2012, when Ubovich is playing guitar in Mikal Cronin’s touring band. While Cronin is between tours, Ubovich starts playing shows with friends including Cory Hanson of Wand, Erik Jimenez and Riley Youngdahl under the name Chad & the Meatbodies. Ty Segall takes an interest in the material and releases a cassette-only set of home recordings on his label, God? Records. The tape sells out quickly.

In 2013, Segall recruits Ubovich to play bass in Fuzz, and Meatbodies’ early recordings also attract In the Red, which issues two songs from the out-of-print tape on 7-inch in early 2014. Later that year, the self-titled Meatbodies album arrives. Hanson, Jimenez and Youngdahl participate in the album sessions, but Ubovich then assembles a touring line-up with Patrick Nolan on guitar, Killian LeDuke on bass and Ryan Moutinho on drums.

Albums and later work

After the first album and tour, Ubovich returns to sideman work, including bass duties on Fuzz’s 2015 album II and touring with Mikal Cronin. Meatbodies later add Kevin Boog on bass and release the single “Hibernation” in 2016 before recording their second full-length album, Alice. Released by In the Red Records in 2017, Alice is a concept album dealing with themes such as war, sex, politics and religion.

Following touring for Alice, Ubovich steps away from the cycle that had led him to exhaustion and adopts a more sober lifestyle. He then writes and records a large amount of new material with drummer Dylan Fujioka. That work is initially intended for a different album, but after the pandemic interrupts the project, Ubovich returns to a lo-fi demo from 2018 and uses it as the basis for the band’s third album, 333. The record, issued in 2021, moves through shoegaze, Stereolab-like spacey textures and hard rock while keeping the band’s punk impact intact.

Sound and membership

Meatbodies’ sound is guitar-heavy, hard-hitting and strongly melodic, with punk force and psychedelic range. The group’s members include Erik Jimenez, Chad Ubovich, Cory Hanson and Ryan Moutinho.