By Chloe Schildhause
The Morning Benders, a collection of groovy kids from Berkeley, have been working hard to make a name for themselves in the music world. After the release of their first record, Talking Through Tin Cans (+1), they’ve been busying touring, but for their last show of the year, the Cal alums are returning to the Bay Area for a performance at the Rickshaw Stop tonight, Dec. 5. Their poppy love grooves are yummy, and their image is as enchanting as their music. Seriously, they dress well, and I am digging lead vocalist Chris Chu’s pastel pink Ray-Bans. I spoke with Chris Chu on a sunny East Bay day to discuss the band and life.
Srsly bent. Photo by Timothy Norris
SFBG: I saw you guys at Treasure Island this summer. There was a lot of blood involved in that show. Do you guys bleed at every show – what’s with that?
Chris Chu: Joe bleeds a lot, yeah. I don’t know why – it’s just his style. He just hits the strings hard, and he kind of keeps going after the first time, and so he just keeps bursting it open.
SFBG: Does this happen at every show?
CC: It happens a lot, yes. We’re trying to figure out how to get it to work better. At that show I burst my finger, too, so I was bleeding. But that doesn’t usually happen. I’m pretty healthy.
SFBG: You have Britney Spears stickers on your guitars. Why?
CC: Joe’s actually distant relatives with Britney Spears.
SFBG: What’s the connection?
CC: I don’t know what it is – second cousins or something. But the stickers were just sort of a fluke, we just got them. Someone was handing them out on the street – some crazy person. That was on tour in the East Coast, and since there was a little connection there, that’s why we put them on.
Morning Benders, “Dammit Anna”
SFBG: Was it intentional to have your last concert of the year be in your neck of the woods?
CC: Definitely yeah. It’s actually weird – we’ve been touring, and we ended up playing a lot of places more often than we get to play here. It’s been a fluke that when the record came out we didn’t have stops in San Francisco.
SFBG: When you first came to Berkeley, what was your intention in life? Was it to become a member in a band?