https://tunetrax.com/wmcband Sat, 18 Apr 2026 15:41:33 -0700 https://tunetrax.com/wmcband/blogs/95/trans-mission https://tunetrax.com/wmcband/blogs/95 Tue, 04 Dec 2018 18:34:47 -0800 https://tunetrax.com/wmcband/blogs/73/for-the-record https://tunetrax.com/wmcband/blogs/73
For the record

Weapons of Mass Creation




By Jeri Chadwell-Singley

Weapons of Mass Creation has an experimental sound—a layering of hip-hop beats over rock compositions and lyrics, heavy on social justice messages, delivered in alternating streams of slam poetry and singing.

Since the release of its debut album in 2012, the band has been pushing the concept of art rock beyond the musical medium of sound and silence.
“We’re Weapons of Mass Creation,” said bassist and vocalist Aric Shapiro. “We paint. We make sculptures. We make videos. We direct plays. We’ll fucking make a mural, write a song, do a poem, do performance art. We make films. … It’s just what we do.”
The four-piece band includes members of Reno Art Works, the Potentialist Workshop and Good Luck Macbeth Theatre Company. In the last several years, Shapiro estimates they’ve collectively taken part in the creation of somewhere around 15 large sculptures, 20 murals, 50 plays and six movies, among other things.
It’s little wonder that putting together their new album, Generation WE , has been a challenge for the time-strapped band mates. But their busy schedules were only part of the equation.
“It was a labor of love getting this album done,” said guitarist and vocalist Joe Atack. “It’s like somebody cursed the album to not be ready until it was time.”
Work on Generation WE began about four years ago. A series of setbacks started shortly thereafter when the band’s former drummer quit out of the blue. After that, the recording studio handling the record had a meltdown. Atack was in a car accident. And a close friend of the group died.
“Crazy stuff, constantly—divorces, deaths,” said Atack.
“And births, too,” said drummer Steven Sperber. “I had a child. [Vocalist Pan Pantoja] had a child during the recording of it—so not all bad.”
And the delays, it seems, have not diminished the scope of the project.
“Whereas our first album was a very social justice-oriented album—this album has that in it, too—but to a lesser extent,” Atack said. “It has a lot more personal storytelling.”
“We talk about mortality a lot, and we talk about an afterlife, and we talk about, you know, what it is to be a decent human, I guess,” said Pantoja. “And it’s done through different stories and fables.”
It’s also done through different media. In the lead-up to their April 15 album release at the Saint, the guys have called upon the help of around 20 artists.
“It’s trying to, where we can, blend some art forms—so painting, video, dance,” said Atack.
“There’s an animatronic head involved,” Pantoja added.
“And various audiovisual components, costuming,” Shapiro said.
The goal, Atack explained, is to “bring all of those things cohesively together in some way. And sometimes not cohesively, like jarringly together. And we want … the audience to be able to participate in some of that too—to make some of that interactive.”
They want to keep the show’s interdisciplinary details a secret, but they did say that Generation WE is a lengthy album with 20 tracks. And the band is only releasing the second half.
“I know that sounds weird,” Atack said. “The plan is that, down the road, when we release the first half, we will then play the entire Generation WE —from beginning to end, all 20 songs.” That should be about six months down the road.




]]> Fri, 14 Apr 2017 17:12:35 -0700 https://tunetrax.com/wmcband/blogs/71/love-is-the-solution-generation-we https://tunetrax.com/wmcband/blogs/71
Check out Weapons of Mass Creation's latest single track release
"Love is the Solution"
Generation We Album Release
April 15th, 2017
LOVE IS THE SOLUTION VIDEO
]]> Fri, 20 Jan 2017 18:22:17 -0800 https://tunetrax.com/wmcband/blogs/68/upcoming-album-generationwe https://tunetrax.com/wmcband/blogs/68
The Weapon Of Mass Creation crew had a great week. Started off with putting the final touches to our upcoming album, GenerationWE, a visit with the Reverend Rory Dowd , Chewie and Dog Water Dick on the Worst Little Podcast . Check out the link below to hear us talk about the new album, hear us jam a few tracks from it and close out with one of the actual tracks. Then we closed out the week with a killer show at Marianarchy!
Little Podcast in the World S6 E32 featuring Weapons of Mass creation .

]]> Sun, 11 Dec 2016 16:02:49 -0800 https://tunetrax.com/wmcband/blogs/32/hot-rocks-weapons-of-mass-creation https://tunetrax.com/wmcband/blogs/32



Credit:
 
 
http://www.newsreview.com  
 
Hot rocks
Weapons of Mass Creation
By  Marvin Gonzalez  
This article was published on  10.27.11 .


Weapons of Mass Creation is, clockwise, Aric Shapiro, Pan Pantoja, Abel Preciado and Joe Atack.
PHOTO BY BRAD BYNUM



 
 

This iframe is not allowed


“We’re a band of fucking rocks!” says Abel Preciado. Mind you, not a band that rocks, but a band of  rocks. This exclamation represents Weapons of Mass Creation. Pan Pantoja (vocals), Joe Atack (guitar), Aric Shapiro (bass) and Preciado (drums) look like four random guys that have been selected for a police lineup. If this were a movie, they would be an unlikely coterie of misfits brought together by chance and Hollywood alchemy to combat some evil drug lord. And, the way they all get along and interact, they look like four dudes at the end of a buddy comedy gleaming over each other. In fact, because of their diverse backgrounds and interests, it seems unlikely that they would have formed a band in the first place. “I never even wanted to be in a band,” says Pantoja. Then, after a little reflection, he adds, “I’m a terrible vocalist.” The band had an accidental origin. Pantoja, who is a performance poet, asked Atack to help him out with a performance, and the band sprang organically from that. Because they didn’t consciously set out to form a band, they aren’t interested in the normal selfish motivations to which some musicians fall victim. They’re not interested in image, or picking up chicks. Three of the four members are married. They’re all in their late 20s, and this gives them the maturity and freedom to pursue their art for art’s sake. “I don’t expect to gain anything from this; it’s not about gaining anything, man, it’s about giving,” says Shapiro. Though their lyrics touch on current issues and American policy, like immigration and income inequality, they insist they’re not a political band. “I’m just sticking up for people that get picked on,” says Pantoja. “The idea behind the band was to try to inspire people to stand up for things they believe in,” says Atack. “It’s more like social commentary than political commentary. We’re more a weapon against apathy, I think, than anything else.” They all have deep convictions, but the group insists they welcome dissent, and the way their shows function, they’re more like high octane town hall meetings than rock shows. “I guess when I speak, I am inviting other people to speak as well, and I’ve often seen that happen,” says Pantoja. Because of the band members’ reputation of bringing their message to the public with energy, they’re aligned with the Occupy Reno events, but they’re not simply following some fad. They’ve been saying these same sorts of things for years. However, they are excited to see that such a large group of people are frustrated over the same issues. Their message does seem to bear a lot of similarities to the worldwide protests going on, as does their ultimate goal. When discussing their upcoming November tour of Montana, they talk about the excitement of being able to spread their message to a different audience, and just simply to get people thinking and talking about the issues. But, deep down they are just common folks, trying to give voice to those who lack one, which brings us back to this band of rocks. If we can envision each word of Pantoja’s poetry, each note from Atack and Shapiro and each thunder-strike from Preciado as a rock, then they are amassing an arsenal, and it’s spreading. But their intention is not one of turbulence. In other words, they are not in the business of casting stones, but of building foundations, of creation rather than destruction.


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