Born out of the Los Angeles scene in 2024, from the ashes of bands who didn’t survive the crash, Petrov, the Hero is a live spark dancing among the wreckage. With high energy jolts of garage grit and American post-punk jitters, what separates them from their fellows is their ability to thread precise vocal harmonies through the feedback. They joyfully deliver a sound big enough to rattle the walls, yet tuneful enough to haunt ringing ears once the tumult is over.

Any band with a bit of punctuation in its title always catches my eye, and Petrov, the Hero certainly fits the bill! What is the name a reference to, and what how does it reflect your music? 

The name comes from our obsession with a Soviet soldier named Stanislav Petrov during the Cold War. He was in charge of watching the American nukes and preparing for a counterattack. One day, a bunch of blips on his radar showed the Americans had fired on Russia. It was his job to retaliate with his own nukes immediately. But he didn’t. Something felt off. In a minute, the blips disappeared and the attack was proven to be a false alarm, a malfunctioning of some cheap hardware. Petrov singlehandedly averted World War 3. Because he waited, trusted his instincts, the world continued spinning on its merry axis. We thought he deserved to have a band named after him. The music we make packs a punch but is also hopeful. The bleakness of a moment in time can be inspiring and force something beautiful into existence. We play loud and blow up a song with some ripping guitars, but on the other side of that are delicate harmonies. There is room for both. 

Ah, yes, I’ve read about the incident but didn’t know the soldier’s name! Petrov, the Hero rose from the ashes of other bands that didn’t survive. What were some of those bands, and how are their elements coming together to make something new?

Everyone in Petrov cut their teeth in a very particular LA local scene that existed in Silver Lake and Echo Park between 2005 and 2015. Bands like Death to Anders, Radars to the Sky, George Glass, Bright Beast…those bands laid the early foundation. We were all swapping in and out of projects, familiarizing ourselves with each other. Tyler and I have been playing  together forever, as best friends since high school. But it was mostly stripped down singer-songwriter stuff. During lockdown he and I were recording a ton but the delicate nature of the music didn’t really translate well inside the noisy LA bars, so we weren’t playing any live shows. Kenny and Peter had just finished working with a band called Easydreams, which was also a bit on the softer side. We wanted this new iteration to be pretty, but everyone wanted to make some noise. The things we started writing with the full band in mind became much more groove-oriented. It had to feel good to play. It had to have some guts to it. The sound grew organically out of those grooves. And the songs went in a direction that pushed us all out of our comfort zones, which, to me, was the first sign that we were onto something. 

You’ve mentioned that your new single, “Cannibal,” sits on the fence of art-punk and indie garage rock. Can you say a little more about what that intersection means to you? What are you taking from each of those approaches to making music?

A lot of what we are writing now is very immediate. Intuitive. Stuff sparks to life out of a jam and then the lyrics sort of jump out. The art-punk aesthetic, at its best, is very honest and stripped down. “Cannibal” fits in that world because its construction is simple, but its groove is catchy. There’s a jangly asymmetrical verse and then a chorus soaked in stacked harmonies. Combining genre elements within a song and not smoothing out the edges is one of our favorite things to do. That’s where the intersection of art-punk and indie garage rock lives. Neither genre apologizes for itself sonically. The one plays with structure in unconventional ways, and the other embraces its low-fi energy-driven roots. 

Who are some of your influences? 

Between the four of us, the scope is wide. The project started as a much mellower version of what it’s become. Elliott Smith and Bonnie Prince Billy shifted into Gang of Four and Idles.  As we’ve been playing live all over, writing and recording the whole time, the sound has exploded. Idles are incredible, for so many reasons. Musically, politically, for how they play their live shows and the way it makes you feel walking away. Fontaines DC. Viagra Boys. And “Cannibal” even has some James Brown at the end in there. Little bits of classic funk are always sneaking into rotation on our playlists.

I love the mix of funk and samples on “Cannibal.” The samples have a kind of old-school educational film vibe to them. Where did you find them?

They are from educational films from the 50’s and 60’s. You’re totally right. They’re free-use and available on the internet. We really wanted to steal the MF DOOM template and mimic the way he was able to use samples as part of the fabric and lore within his sonic landscape. We found a library with an endless supply, and they always crack us up. Mixing the buttoned-up mid-century feel into the song gave it a dichotomy we really liked. Bending and stripping different sonic elements from their natural home and forcing them together is a kind of alchemy that’s incredibly satisfying. 

Your music has been described as both joyful and haunting. How do you strike a balance between the two?

One can’t exist without the other. If it’s just despair, that gets old. Gets heavy. If it’s just pure blissful joy, that feels inauthentic. It’s ignoring the world and where we are at. It’s good to get fired up. It’s good to let that out. But there’s a light switch somewhere on the wall if you’re willing to look for it. Joy is in the act of creation, and we think that comes through and can be heard in our music. We really love that euphoric feeling of playing together in a room. Our live shows are a blast and people dance and jump around and shout along with us. Pulling that back and letting our natural melancholy slip in is also part of who we are. Blending the beauty of what it is to be alive with the sadness, with how hard it all is, is important. ‘Joyful and haunting’ is probably an accurate way to describe the human experience. 

You’re part of the LA music scene. What’s the audience like there? 

Folks in LA get a lot of great shows year round. Everyone comes through, so smaller bands have to really step it up. I love that the LA crowd has expectations. It’s fun to see them come to a show for the first time and get won over. We love this city. It’s full of other people who love to create. So if we do our job right we can inspire some folks, and get inspired by others. Finding small venues was really hard after the pandemic, but more cool spots are popping up again. I think there is about to be a renaissance in the LA music scene. It’s begging for it. And we want to be a part of it. 

Are there any other bands you’re friendly with? Are you supportive of each other? I guess I’m wondering what the scene is like. 

LA gets a bad rap because this is where all the big national acts come to play, so the local scenes get overlooked more than they should. But we have some great bands here. We love TRAPS PS. They are incredible. So creative and bold in every way. Their songwriting and live show. Just pure energy. We just played with BAND APARTE and they blew us away. Nicest guys and killer songs. ELI TARANTULA is a wild live act. Y-TRY has an amazing vibe. THE HAPPY CASUALTIES are great and have been friends of ours for years. Just played with ‘MARY CHICKEN SOUP AND RICE. Their show was so refreshing. It was like watching an amazing art project on its feet. We grew up with HAPPY HOLLOWS in the bay area so we are always going to love and support them, too. The scene can be pretty insular. It takes a while to find your people. We are still finding them. But we love playing with other like-minded bands who want to put on an incredible night of music from start to finish. It’s exciting when the whole night comes together. 

Do you do any touring?

Mainly California. Up and down the coast. We are putting together dates to branch out again and play a ton of shows, primarily sticking to the West coast for now and growing out from there.

What’s on the horizon for you?

The “Cannibal” single is the first in a stack of releases we have coming. Honing our sound while we recorded this last year has been incredibly satisfying. We’re playing together better than ever and can’t wait to keep showing this new stuff to crowds. It’s a really exciting time with lots of new music coming out.