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Versus Keeps Rocking in a Radio-Free World

Versus: (left to right) Drummer Patrick Ramos, guitarist/vocalist Richard Bayalut, guitarist James Bayalut, bassist Fontaine Toups. Photo courtesy of Merge Records.

If there were any justice in the world of rock, Versus would rule the charts. That’s how I felt when I caught the New York indie-rock band at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco last month on election night. I was feeling cranky, watching this sea of white faces, seemingly all frat boys and football players, cheering outside the governor’s mansion in Austin, TX, after CNN declared Bush the winner of the presidential election.

But Versus came close to wiping my cares away. Live, they are that good.

Before launching into an older noise-rock number from the early part of the bands 9-year existence, guitarist/vocalist Richard Baluyut had to acknowledge the election insanity. “Thanks for coming out on such a depressing day,” he mumbled in his characteristically stream-of-consciousness way. “Oh, well. We have other years and years and years to look forward to.”

Then the bespectacled Baluyut proceeded to obliterate the day’s frustrations, jerking his guitar up and ripping into power chords and jagged shards of no-wave rock that belied Versus’ new, fifth, more-polished album, Hurrah. The new recording runs the gamut, at times sounding as jangly and pretty as the Smiths, at other moments as wry and punky as Sonic Youth, to which the band is often compared.

Standing beside Baluyut was his brother James shaking his long, curly bob and lurching back and forth, playing guitar and the co-founding member Fontaine Toups’ sleek, cool and contained on bass and vocals. Drummer Patrick Ramos kept it all grounded.

Why aren’t these guys more popular? They’ve opened for Sleater-Kinney and put out records on their friends’ respected indie labels: Teen Beat, Caroline and now Merge. Is it because they just don1t fit into any one glossy pop mold? You won’t catch Baluyut glistening shirtless on the cover of Spin or lobbing innocuous answers back at softball questions on Total Request Live. Maybe it’s because two-thirds of Versus looks like the normal, unpretentious Filipino American guys they are rather than a beefcake Backstreet Boys.

“Maybe if we were like this super-good-looking band, we’d be maybe really popular or something,” agrees Richard Bayulut on the phone in New York. “But I can’t judge what people think is good-looking or has an attractive image or whether they would buy something.”

Instead, Versus gets the ultimate indie-rock sign of approval: They’ve inspired others to form bands in the way that other historically unsung yet influential groups have, such as the Velvet Underground and Big Star. “A lot of people do come up to me, actually out there in California, maybe because there’s a lot of Asian Americans there or something, but they say they’re inspired to do it partly because of me,” he mumbles, hesitating a little. “I think its cool that people look up to us in their own pursuits.” It’s the morning after Thanksgiving, and the guitarist sounds sleepy, as if still reeling from a massive meal. His parents flew to NYC from Detroit to cook for Richard, James and another brother, Ed, who was also in Versus at one time.

Richard is just doing what he’s loved since he was a teenager thrashing through Who and Kiss songs in his parent’s basement in Detroit. After playing in a band called Flower, he formed Versus with Toups and original drummer Robert Hale. “When we started out it was kind of my thing. It was very aggressive and melodic at the same time,” ruminates Bayulut. “But I think as it’s come along the other members have added what they do naturally. Like Fontaine is naturally country-ish. She likes a lot of that acoustic music, and so she brings that in, and James is kind of into more modern things like electronic music.”

Bayulut got to explore some rather way-out ideas on the album during the past year. The opening, almost pretty pop, track, “My Adidas,” is less a ballad devoted to a pair of sneakers than “a love story, ahem, about two people who have to separate because of circumstance,” says Bayulut, tongue planted firmly in cheek. “He’s a member of the Heaven’s Gate cult, and she doesn’t believe in it. So he’s going off to a better world, and she’s forced to stay on earth.”

Bayulut’s lyrical tastes obviously run toward the whimsical and bizarre. But more odd things have happened as we spoke. The presidential election was still in progress, I throw in. “I know, I know, and that was a long time ago, wasn’t it,” says Bayulut with a little laugh. “ Now it’s more irritating because it brings up a lot of ugly characteristics of American society. It’s become like a college football game or something. Each team has their cheerleaders.”